The Cheap Bastid

FeaturedContentOnline – A new publishing site

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:50:41 +0000

I’ve been tracking the progress of a new article publishing site called FeaturedContentOnline (FCO). One thing that looks real good is their promised 80% adsense share. This is, as far as I know the best out there.

Looks like they’ll have their own flavor of the Xomblurb, a quick 50 word link article, as well as normal articles.

I like the policies they’ve posted so far, looks like a promising site to make money online in the future.

They aren’t live yet but I’ll be watching them very closely…

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A Quick Update – February 2010

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:24:13 +0000

I’ve decided that I will no longer place my monthly earnings totals on this blog. I don’t think most folks really enjoy reading about what other people are earning, I think they’d rather learn how to earn more money themselves.

Also, I know I’ve started to publish my grand article/money making guide but I’ve actually started working on a new project. Don’t worry, this guide is in fact part of this project.

I’ll be able to give more details about this in the coming weeks but rest assured It’s something that I hope will make more money online for everyone, without any of the BS that some sites seem to enjoy giving to their writers.

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What’s the deal with eHow?

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:14:27 +0000

What's up with eHow lately??

The latest news from eHow is that they’ll no longer allow the use of the resource section in any new published articles.

I have to say that the Amazon links I’ve placed in my articles have been a great source of income for the last year.

So the question has to be asked..

Does eHow really care if their writers make any money?

First the article sweep, then the UK ehow debacle and now the elimination of the resource section.

It seems that not only do they not care if we make any money, but they want to milk as much profit as they can from those people who actually do publish articles there.

Personally I don’t see the problem with affiliate links in the article as long as those links add value.

For example…

If I write an article about how to pick out a great toaster oven then I don’t see why placing an Amazon link pointing to a top rated toaster oven is bad. The link provides an actual real world example of a top rated toaster oven that can only help the reader pick out one that’s good. In fact, it can be argued that the visitor is reading that article because they DO want to buy a toaster oven.

To me, this is yet another nail in the coffin for eHow.

I love the site but seriously, the writers need to make some money for their efforts.

If you publish on eHow what do you think of this latest development?

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Adsense Earning Lower than Usual? – Try this

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:15:20 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

I’ve noticed my adsense earnings have been horrible low for the last few weeks. At first I attributed this to the ‘after holiday’ cool down that I assume many advertisers are going through.

But, after checking around I’ve noticed that this isn’t being reported consistently around the net. In fact, some people are saying their adsense earning are normal, or even up.

Well, I checked my profile and noticed that my settings have changed in my adsense account, I changed them back and my earnings are starting to climb up again.

It seems, from doing a bit of research that Google periodically sets some users to use ‘Interest Based Ads’ even though they may have opted out in the past.

I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, probably is, but you need to check this on your profile page and set it back if your earnings are unusually low.

Try this for a week or two, and, if no improvement, set it back.

Here’s how to do it..

First go to your adsense account settings.

Once there, scroll down to ‘Interest Based Ads Preference’ and click on Edit.

Now, just change the settings and save.

To be honest I don’t remember what I had this originally set to, but once I changed it my earnings and clicks improved that very same day.

I suggest you try this for a week, and if no improvement, change it back.

Hope that helps!

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December Earnings Updated

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:52:04 +0000

: Image by Newton Free Library via Flickr

I can’t believe I totally forgot to update my earnings for December!

Well, I bet most of us had an incredible month, I know I did.

eHow, Adsense and Amazon were all amazing, I finally broke $1000 for the month! And, I might ad, without adding any content at all for the last 5 months.

This is just more proof that writing articles online is a great way to make passive permanent income each and every month.

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Publish on InfoBarrel? – Use Chitika, It’s Easy Money!

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:08:43 +0000

Easy Money!

One of the first things I did when I returned from my ‘vacation’ recently was sign up with Chitika and update my InfoBarrel profile.

Withing days I started earning some extra money each day and I most certainly will get payout from them this month.

If you’re unfamiliar with Chitika it’s an ad site very similar to Adsense. They seem to use more photos in their ads and certainly pay less per click then adsense does. Nonetheless, it’s an easy way to increase your online earnings across the board with about 5 minutes of work. Oh, and I used www.infobarrel.com as the website URL when I registered.

If you haven’t done it already make sure you sign up with Chitika and update your IB profile. You’ll make more money and I can tell you it has NOT in any way reduced my adsense earnings at all.

Sign up for Chitika here, and yes, this is my referral link but as usual you lose nothing and in my humble opinion it’s an easy, free way for you to help support this site.

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Why do we still eHow?

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:07:26 +0000

Over the course of the past few months I, like many of you, received a few of the dreaded eHow ‘About your eHow Articles’ emails. You know what those are, the email that tells you that one (or more) of your articles aren’t up to snuff and will be deleted.

Truth be told every time I get one of those it sort of takes the wind from my sails so to speak. I just ask myself why I even bother publishing over there.

And then, as usual it hits me.

There isn’t a single site on the net that makes me more money for me than eHow.

So, if you get a bit discouraged just keep in mind that for every article you lose there are probably dozens that remain (or even more)

Keep writing, follow their guidelines and absolutely keep a copy of your articles on your local drive just in case.

Now over the course of the past few months I must say that my earnings over at eHow have indeed gone up by about 15%. In fact I make more now with less articles than I did before the dreaded article sweep began.

So all in all I think it’s a good thing, they didn’t implement it very well or keep us writers informed but in the end It seems to have benefited us.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to start publishing over there again. I think I have a handle on their standards well enough now to publish safely, with little chance of a deletion.

If anyone has any thoughts on this please chime in, we’d like to know what you’re thinking!

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The Online Article Writing Guide – A Step-by-Step Approach to Profit – Part 1

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:55:36 +0000

Welcome to the first instalment of my online article writing guide. Now, as many of you know I have just passed my one year anniversary of doing this online thing and now it’s time to share what I learned.

In this first installment we’re going to talk about why a person should do online article writing as opposed to other ways of making online income.

So first let’s identify some of the other ways a person can make money online.

Completing online surveys.
Doing actual work, such as for ChaCha or another company, not as an employee with benefits, but as a freelance person
eBay and online Auctions.

Now, this certainly isn’t all the ways to make money online, but they are, in my opinion, the most popular.

Let us look at the benefits, and pitfalls of each of these.

Online Surveys

By far, this is quite easy, takes very little thought and only takes a few minutes. Not bad at all for a few dollars a month.
Now for the negatives. Well, it’s only a few dollars a month. And, you generally have to wait until a new survey is available. If you take surveys on many sites you have to spread your income over all of them and meet the minimum payout on each before you even see a dime.
This can get real boring, real fast.
Income is NOT persistent, once you stop taking surveys you stop making money.

A Real Online Job

The benefits are simple, with a real online job you generally have a steady income can make some real money.
Competition can be fierce, and, you can be cut with little or no notice.
This requires you to put in some significant hours to make real money
Once you stop working, you stop making money

eBay

This is by far the toughest. There are many people out there who make a killing buying and reselling items all day.
The profits can be huge if you get a product cheap and resell for a profit.
Unfortunately there are many ‘professionals’ out there making a living at this, can be real tough to get into and succeed at.
You need to move large volumes of items to make real money
There is a potential for loss if you can’t resell what you purchases.

Now let’s look at the benefits and pitfalls of writing articles online.

The articles you write will exist on the Internet until the end of time, well, not really, at least until the hosting sites such as eHow or InfoBarrel go out of business. Now I can tell you for sure that this may never happen, they are both doing really well.
Even if you stop writing articles, you will still continue to make money since your content (what articles are known as) will still exist online.
You can write about whatever you want, more importantly, you can write about what interests you.
You can ‘cross publish’ your articles on many sites, thus maximizing your potential earnings.
You can monetize your articles to increase your earnings even more.
You can get referrals to increase you income.
You can take a break whenever you want with no loss of income.
The more you do it, the better you get, the more you earn.

Now for some pitfals, and believe me, there are some…

You need to do some research before you write any article, this can take some time. Sometimes up to an hour per article.
You need to publish a large number of articles to get any kind of sizeable income.
You need to wait after publishing an article (up to 3 months) before it realizes it’s full earning potential.
Some articles (especially seasonal ones) will only earn money at certain times of the year.
Your articles are at the mercy of the hosting website so anything can happen to them, even be deleted!

One of the things I truly love about writing articles online is you can proceed at your own pace. If you want to write one article a week that’s fine, 10 a week, even better. The key is they keep adding up so even with just one article a week you’ll have 50 or so by the end of the year. With 50 articles you should be making about $50 every month, even if you stop altogether.

Writing articles online is all about drops in the bucket, nickels and dimes. Each article will generally only make pennies a day, but after having 30, 40 or even 100 articles out there this will add up quickly. Take a look at the home page of this blog and you’ll see what I mean. My first month I only made $1, the second $30, and from there it just skyrocketed.

You have to approach this with that kind of attitude, there won’t be $50 dollars in your account the day after you write your first article, hell, you probably wont make a penny for the first week or two. There’s a few reasons for this that I’ll get into later. The point is stay focused and keep your goals realistic… One article a week, maybe two. Or just 4 on the weekends only.

Trust me, the money will start to snowball as your content library increases.

In the next installment I’ll cover exactly how an article makes money. I won’t get into it too deeply, just enough to explain the process.

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My One Year Anniversary!

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:21:10 +0000

A few of you may have noticed that I just hit my one year anniversary of publishing articles online to make extra money.

Well, what a year it’s been. I’ve learned so much about what works, and I think more importantly, what doesn’t work.

Most especially I learned that publishing articles online isn’t a race, it’s a slow, never ending process of building up passive, permanent income streams, always looking to improve your income with the least amount of work.

This past year income wise has been great, through my article income I managed to not only pay off all my credit card debts, but buy a new Harley! The cool thing is my online earnings are covering my payments, so it’s like getting a new hog for free!

I’ve learned a while back not to set lofty goals for myself when it comes to publishing new content, I think doing that just sets onself up for burnout, and, just as bad, publishing low quality content. I think my peers will agree that to succeed at this you must publish articles that are not only useful and informative, but high quality. Don’t allow yourself to put out rushed, 1/2 hearted articles designed for the sole purpose of making money. Go the extra yard and put some polish on them and you will be rewarded.

My goals are simple, I’ll just publish one, two or maybe three articles a week over the course of the next year. If I do that I’ll double my published articles by the end of the year, and certainly at least double my income.

Over the course of the next few weeks I plan on publishing a series of posts designed to teach a person new to the exciting (and profitable) world of online article publishing. I’ll start at the very basics and continue to more advanced concepts as the series progresses.

My goal with this is simple, if I can teach just one person how to make some extra cash online I will have succeeded. Lot’s of folks out there would love to make some extra money to help pay the bills but just don’t know how, or even where to start. I’m going to help them through the difficult process of starting out and ‘getting your bearings’

As you can see from my earnings last month that the extra money just keeps going up and up. Soon, even my car payments will be covered by my online income!

I must say this, just 4 days into December and I’m just amazed! I broke the $150 mark yesterday, at this rate I just might break the $1000 mark by the end of the month.

If you would like to learn just how to do this just make sure to come back here every few days over the course of the next month or so. I guarantee you will learn something. Now, I can’t guarantee you’ll make money, but I’ll give you the tools and skill you need to make it easier for you.

Happy holidays everyone!

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I’m Back!

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:01:28 +0000

Hi Everyone!

I’m sure most of you are wondering what happened to me and why I seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth for the last few months.

Well, there isn’t any amazing story about tragedy or some other life wrenching episode. Simply put, I burnt out.

You see, I put way too much ‘work’ on my plate. Near the end I was logging into eHow at 7am to rate some articles and make some forum posts, I would then go into work and during lunch research keywords. When I got home I would check my earnings and then write articles and blog posts until 10 or 11pm every day.

I put way too much on my plate, and, when I finished a project I just added more things onto my to do list.

I blame nobody for this, not infobarrel (for those contests) or One week marketing. I can only blame myself for not accepting the fact that I’m human and just need a break once in a while.

I’m back and I’m not going to set unreasonable goals for myself. If I do one article a week, that’s fine. If I do two or three even better. The important thing to remember that online article writing isn’t a race and, to be honest, there is no ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ it’s an ongoing, neverending process.

Now, even though I haven’t written an article in over three months it’s interesting to see that not only did my earnings not drop, but they actually went up.

This is the beauty of permanent passive income. It’s always out there, and always making money for you.

It’s good to be back. It’ll take me a while to get up to speed again but I definetly will.

There’s much I need to talk about, including a new project that I thought of a few months ago.

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