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With all the problogger sites making obscene amounts of money, it is only natural that other bloggers aspire to follow in their footsteps. Often these bloggers have achieved (at least in their own minds) Guru status. They are the leaders and everyone else, the followers … the wannabees. In a way, I’m a wannabee also. I wannabee rich. By the same token, I’d rather etch out my own path to fame and fortune than go the same route as many of the so called A-listers. I visit them often to see what they are up to and more often that not, they fail to capture my attention. Obviously, they are good at profiteering, but not very good at being interesting. As an example, I’ll use one of the most successful blogs on the Internet … John Chow’s blog. I don’t personally have any gripes against this guy, but to me, this blog is just plain boring. If I have to see one more post about what he eats, I will throw up. Latest topics and headlines from John’s blog:

1. I am featured in the February issue of Entrepreneur magazine. You should be able to find it at your local newsstands now. My article is on page 52. Here is an actual quote from that article: “His blog remains a somewhat banal combination of his money count and what he had for lunch–the blogging equivalent of Seinfeld, the show “about nothing.”

2. The second post is a guest post with some advice on writing:

#1 - Don’t Ever Talk About Being Dugg/Reddited/Stumbled
I don’t know … take a look at the discussions about what social media can do for traffic and you’ll see that maybe this is a good topic if presented correctly.

#2 - Don’t Disclose Failure Unless It’s To Make a Point
Sorry, I disagree. How do we learn if not from our mistakes? Why not share this info so that others can benefit?

#3 - Shout About Your Successes
Used incorrectly, this often just smacks of arrogance and is a real turn-off

4 - Write with Authority
Only write with authority if you are an authority. To do so without qualification will just bite you in the ass

#5 - You Don’t Need To Tell The Truth All The Time
Why?

3. The third post down is: First Production Corvette ZR1 Sells for $1 Million
All I have to say is wtf? I came here for the secret. Give me the damned secret.

5. Dine Out Vancouver 2008 - Raincity Grill
Oh my God Noooo … not another meal

The reason they have such a strong following is because they’ve achieved the level of financial success that many bloggers hope to achieve and people keep reading hoping to glean just one golden secret that will launch their site into A-list heaven. Usually, that secret never comes but people have got to believe in a dream so they keep going back to find it.

I ran across this post today by a blogger that just oozes interesting and it is so true … the one thing that many people fail to realize, is that you can’t teach interesting, and unless you’re interesting, your blog probably isn’t going to reach the level of fame and marketability that the A-listers have. Read the rest of this entry »

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Advertising online just got totally awesome cheap.

I did an earlier review about Project Wonderful. I’ve been using it to place an ad on Entrecard and it has been very cheap to advertise through them. I applied to have ads on my site too … I must say that the application acceptance was a bit long, but finally they accepted me and within minutes I had an Ad Box configured and up and running on the site sidebar. You can configure them any way you want to that best fits in with your site and your available ad space. Bids are wide open and start at 30 cents per day.

I’m serious …. 30 cents per day.

Check it out and grab one. The cheapest advertising you’ll find anywhere.

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I ran across OIOpublisher a short while ago and did a mini review. I had not purchased the plugin yet, so couldn’t go into a lot of detail, although it sounded like a great idea. If you are selling text ads, ad space or reviews on your blog, this great little plugin (for wordpress) cuts the middle man right out. I recently spoke of my disappointment in the services offered to bloggers to monetize their blogs through paid reviews and ad space.  You have to bend over backwards to get accepted to a marketplace that is either very sparse with offers or full of real crapola.  The prices that advertisers in their marketplace are willing to pay are insulting and when you take out the commission that the “service” charges … well, you are providing a paid review on your site to these cheapos for practically nothing.  When word really spreads about this plugin, you can kiss those services good-bye. Instead of taking commissions from your earnings, OIOpublisher charges a one-time fee of $37 for the plugin. I purchased it and have it installed now.

Zero Commission Taken: Keep 100% of the revenue for every sale made. Many other networks take up to 50% commission per sale made. That adds up to quite a nice chunk of change you’re missing out on!

More Sales Options: Most other services feature only one option so you have to have one account to sell Text Ads and another account to sell paid reviews. With OIOpublisher you can sell whatever combination you choose.

Instant Payments: When a purchase is made, the money is yours…. simple as that!


Installation is simple. There is a “Business” tab on your dashboard once installed. The PHP code for the non widget wordpress is listed on the main Business Tab. Simply paste it within my sidebar and it will do the rest or use the widget version! The screen shot here shows links after each purchase to purchase links in a specific post. You choose your price, the length of time an ad or link will run and the plugin does the rest.

Right now the marketplace does not have a lot of blogs listed … but surprisingly, John Chow and the Cow guy are both using it. I noticed that I have been seeing the Cow ad on a lot of smaller blogs … well, OIOpublisher is the reason. It appears that not only does he list his blog, but he purchases a bunch of ad spots.

You can of course, set the plugin to allow you to approve the ad before payment is made so that inappropriate ads won’t be purchased. Additionally, you can also set it to allow your own affiliate program for your links and ads, paying others a commission to sell your ad spots, reviews and links.

Conclusion: This plugin is very new and it appears that they have a lot of plans for marketing it and further development, based on customer feedback. With the lackluster offerings from the services that take a commission, I suspect that this plugin will be very popular once the word spreads around. Why give away money to a middle man if you don’t have to? Download OIOpublisher and cut out that middle man!

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I’m a bit disappointed in the services that are available to help bloggers sell their “real estate.” I’ll be honest .. I started this blog when I was a newbie at Internet Marketing and it’s early life was nothing more than a splog at best. Not really knowing what made a great blog or even the best way to push products, I went with the highly overused “review” blog. Throw a few banners up and talk about products and people would come in droves to buy them … right? Wrong. I’ve since deleted all of the original posts and started over some time ago. My goal now is to publish content that people actually want to read … and if they buy some products while they’re here or a paid review or ad space … so much the better.

So when I first began this blog, I ran across all those paid review sites and applied to them. I was promptly told that my blog did not meet their rigorous quality criteria. Well, now it does and I’ve been accepted into all of them. However, the problem I am now finding is that their advertisers don’t meet my rigorous quality criteria … with my main gripe being … they are cheapos. Read the rest of this entry »

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You probably know that I am testing out the benefits of Entrecard. I was at the Campaign screen a couple of nights ago and all of a sudden, on the right hand side, I noticed these blog ads being displayed. I wondered … now how do you get so lucky as to get a spot there? Underneath the ads is a little bidding link. I clicked it and it took me to Project Wonderful. It’s a great new service where you can not only place bids on ad spots, but you can also list your own ad spots to be bid on. I immediately bid on a spot for Entrecard. My next step is going to be to check out placing one of my own ad spots there to bid on. Highest bidder’s gets their ad displayed … simple as that. The bids you place are based on CPD (cost per day) rather than a PPC (pay per click) model. You can bid for as little as one day or as much as a year. Read the rest of this entry »

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Here’s a list of my favorite Wordpress plugins … a couple of these are worth mentioning, but I no longer use them. I noted the ones I’m not using and why. If you have any to add, just comment.

From Unwords … Definition of schizzle :.
(sh?t-z?l’)
1. (n.) A non-profane version of shit

Adsense-Deluxe 0.8
Place Google AdSense ads in your WordPress Posts. Requires WordPress 1.5 or higer by Acme Technologies. I love this plugin. I don’t use Adsense on this blog, but you can use this plugin for easy insertion of other scripts and codes into your posts. Instead of placing the Adsense code in the configuration blocks, place your other code (I have several Chitika Mini Mall scripts configured in mine) there and adding the script to a post is as simple as adding <!–adsense#ShopCloud–> or <!–adsense–> to your posts where you want the script to be placed. You can configure as many of these scripts as you want or need and change them in all of your posts at the same time just by editing the script in the plugin screen. Read the rest of this entry »

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I found these two shops for blogs … PrestoGifto and PopShops. PrestoGifto integrates CafePress products in your blog and PopShops integrates products from Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale, LinkConnector, Performics and Red Galoshes, so you will need to be a member of these networks to utilize these shops.

If you look at the links in my nav bar, you’ll see Blogger’s Shop. That is a PrestoGifto shop. The one that says Books and Stuff is the PopShop. So far, I’m getting a lot more clicks on the PrestoGifto (CafePress) products, but I just installed these yesterday so it’s too soon to tell how either of these will work out.

Both shops are easy to install and integrate. PopShops takes a bit longer to set up since you can choose up to 100 products. Both of these shops are still in Beta but seem to function beautifully. PopShops has a feature you can install that will put a little pop button in your “write post” bar and you can pop a product in the post. I’ll pop one in here to show you … lol. They do have a much larger selection of products to choose from so if you aren’t pushing “blogging thongs” not to worry. You can choose your products by keywords. Very simple to add an ad to your post with PopShops. Read the rest of this entry »

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You probably already know some good methods for getting a lot of traffic to your site(s), but in my opinion, buzz marketing ranks at the top, and the best part — it’s Free! If you aren’t using buzz marketing, you are missing out on an avalanche of links, swarms of traffic, and yes — even fame and fortune!

What is Buzz marketing?

Buzz marketing is the art of creating a “buzz” or generating excitement and making your audience hungry for more. With buzz marketing you can be featured on some of the major sites and go viral, without buying a paid review or link, resulting in a swarm of visitors to your site. How would being on the main page of Digg, Propeller or Reddit impact your business? Your traffic would skyrocket and people would link to you creating even more traffic (you might even get so much traffic that your server will go down) Read the rest of this entry »

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