I started out on a journey to make it to the first page of Google for the term “make money online” when I first started this blog.

My strategy was very simple; write articles and submit to article submission sites to gain valuable backlinks (anchored with the term “make money online”, of course).

My plan was going extremely well. I managed to, with only 20 articles written, get on the 6th page of Google for the term — I fluctuate between page 6 and page 4 all the time.

Not bad for only 20 articles don’t ya’ think?

20 articles? How’s that possible? That’s only 20 backlinks!

Well, it’s possible because I don’t just have the 20 backlinks for the article on the article submission site, I also have backlinks from everyone who used my articles — and a lot of people used my articles.

I took time to write decent articles for that very reason; so a lot of people would use them, and they did.

So over time the number of backlinks grew, and still does to this day, and will continue to for as long as those articles are on those sites and the “make money online” niche keeps producing more Websites.

At some point, I got tired — pretty quick actually. Between writing posts for this blog, and ghost writing for others, writing articles to simply give away to an article submission site became a hassle for me.

And I had an incredibly difficult time deciding which ones to keep for myself and which ones to submit. So, at about 20 articles, I stopped.

Yet, I still managed to get to the 6th page, and the farthest out was the bottom of the 3rd page for the term “make money online” — an extremely competitive keyword, by the way.

So how is Google playing tricks on you?

I always type in the phrase “make money online” in Google’s search bar to check my position for the term. Lately, something strange has been happening. Several times I saw myself as number one on Google for “make money online”. At first I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it.

It was joy and doubt all in one sip of the cup.

So, of course I had to take screenshots, in case I was going nuts. I wanted proof so I wouldn’t be sent to Google’s loony bin.

But that wasn’t enough for me

I thought I was nuts, my browser too. So I closed my window, opened a new one, cleared the cache, closed it and opened a new window again.

I typed, “make money online” into Google’s search bar once again.

Here’s the second screenshot.

By this time I was sure this was something permanent. But of course, I didn’t stop there. I needed to be absolutely, positively, 100% sure this was what everyone else in the world was seeing when they typed in “make money online” into Google’s search bar.

So for the second time I closed my browser, opened a new one, cleared the cache and closed it, then opened a new one again.

Sadly, the third time, I was no where on the first page. I was back on the 6th page like I usually am — this crushed my little heart.

It was good while it lasted

It sure was. And it has inspired me to continue my article marketing in hopes of still achieving that first page ranking. If I haven’t mentioned it, I set a 6 month goal to get to the first page — yes I failed, but only because I got lazy.

Who knows what page I would be on, if I didn’t stop at 20 articles. Where would I be if I continued on to 200 articles? Who knows. Should have, would have, could have’s are out the door now.

But it was fun seeing myself rank number one for my preferred term.

What are your thoughts on all of this?

Some people say it was Google simply going through an update, others, like myself are clueless. Has this ever happened to you with a competitive keyword?

Please, enlighten us in the comment section.

I mentioned a few people, relatively new to the blogosphere, who seem to have mastered doing this — and I promised interviews.

Being that I like to keep my promises, we had an interview last week with Joe, from ImWithJoe.com.

This week I’d like to introduce someone who has been doing an amazing job getting comments on their posts and creating some major buzz in the blogosphere — Writer Dad.

Writer Dad is unique in many different ways; fundamentally, his niche is having no niche, and what and how he writes will simply wow you, if anything else.

So without further ado, here’s my interview with Writer Dad, from WriterDad.com

1. Who is Writer Dad?

My name is Sean, and I’ve been writing for a year. I’m married to my best friend, and the father of two amazing kids.

2. In your own words, explain your niche

My niche is people who love words, and would rather read than scan. The Internet is filled with scannable content, and though I make sure mine’s pleasant to look at, I’d prefer it read to scanned. I’ve never cared too much about what others were doing, and though I did my homework before starting Writer Dad, I abandoned much of what they said. I don’t write for SEO or keywords, I just write.

3. Your blog is a little over a month old, yet you’re quite the man in the comment section. What do you do to get so many comments?

My blog is ten weeks. We have over seventeen-hundred comments. This isn’t an accident. I never publish just to publish. I place my passion behind everything I write. That kind of writing’s infectious. I believe it drives people to participate. I answer every comment as well. I think it helps promote dialogue.

4. Why do you think you became so popular, so fast?

I don’t believe I’m particularly popular. My traffic is far more slight than most imagine. What I do have, is a high rate of participation, and an excellent ratio of visitors to subscribers. This is a testament to the writing. I put my energy into words, not traffic. I’m not waving people in, but I’m waving once you get there.

5. Where do you see WriterDad.com a year from now?

Writer Dad dot com will be a portal to all my future online projects. Daisy and I have several in various stages of brain storm.

6. From reading your posts, I can tell you’re quite the family man. Do you mind telling us a little bit about them?

My wife is amazing. She’s a master teacher of twenty years, and multiple recipient of teacher of the year. She’s developed curriculum working with Johns Hopkins University. Writer Dad does what it does because she cradles her hands and nudges me over the wall. My children are four and six; both articulate, funny, and bouncing with personality.

7. Being that WriterDad.com is your first blog, how do you like blogging so far? Is it everything you expected?

Blogging is nothing like I expected. It takes a lot of work and consideration, but the rewards are there, even if I have yet to turn them into dollars. I’ve met amazing people, and the feedback I’ve received has fueled my writing toward the next level.

8. Most people feel they need a niche to start blogging, due to experts saying it’s a must. You’ve broken that mantra. What advice would you give those who want to blog, but are going nuts trying to find the right niche for them?

I know this spars with conventional wisdom, but I say just write. Write the best you can about whatever it is you feel passionate about. Exhibit Patience. Repeat.

9. What can we expect to see from Writer Dad in the coming months?

Next week I’ll be discussing my intentions for Writer Dad in more depth. Soon, I’ll announce my first offline project as well as the first Writer Dad affiliated blog.

10. Writer Dad, it’s been a pleasure interviewing you, is there anything else you would like to add? Any final statements?

Being the best means more than following SEO. Be yourself, and drop by Writer Dad to see how I’m mine.

Head on over to Writer Dad’s blog!

There you have it! Writer Dad is truly and awesome blogger and person. He’s sincere and one of the nicest people I’ve met online. I highly recommend reading some of his posts, as I’m sure they’ll put a smile on your face.

With that said, check out Writer Dad at WriterDad.com and watch you feel the urge to comment!

I’ve mentioned how I get a steady flow of traffic from SU that ranges from 200-500 daily visits and that you can too. In the post mentioned above I wrote how you can achieve the same thing.

Some people explained how they weren’t able to do this, but were after they read my post. Now they haven’t reached steady consistent traffic, but they’ve had some nice traffic spikes here and there using the strategies described in my post.

Some of you still haven’t gotten around to do it yet. Maybe it sounds too good to be true. Maybe it seems like a lot of work.

Really, it’s not.

But here’s some encouragement as to why you should. Now, I must mention I’m not bragging — everyone’s a critic nowadays so I have to make that clear from the beginning.

Recently, I received 2,208 visits from StumbleUpon ALONE in just one single day. You can check out the proof below.

In the picture above you can see straight lines with about three spikes popping up. The straight lines represent traffic at around 150 to 250 daily visits from SU alone — traffic coming from SU has actually been slow the past several days. It’s not what we average.

You can see Google Analytics showing that on October 8, 2008, StumbleUpon sent 2,208 visits.

No Big deal

Now that’s not that big of a deal compared to other sites, but it’s just to encourage my readers to take advantage of, what I consider to be the best social bookmarking site, StumbleUpon.

So you might be wondering if there is anything specific that happened that sent me that much traffic on that particular day. Well something did. My post, StumbleUpon Do’s and Dont’s, received its 30th review that day.

So, 30 reviews, and next thing I know I get 2,208 visits from SU. Some other factors could have been the cause of this, but I’m pretty sure that’s what did it. The review was made before the traffic showed up.

I know because I had already checked my stats for the day and it was normal.

I check my reviews on the post (by chance), then I go to my dashboard in my WP to check on comments, and come to see my WP Stats graph up to like 4,000 something pageviews.

That’s when I went back to Google Anylitics and came to find my 2,208 reasons why StumbleUpon is your friend.

Now are you ready to use StumbleUpon?

What are your thoughts on this? Was this enough to get you using StumbleUpon? Or do you still, if you did, think it’s not worth your time and effort? Please, enlighten us in the comment section.

Today I want to talk about a similar topic that has to do with negative comments on your blog and how you deal with them.

I mentioned how I feel blogs are a 2 way platform for communication between bloggers and their readers, and how this feature kicks a Website’s butt.

But, who’s to say the comments are going to be positive?

So today I want to have a blog debate, and I would like for you all to share your opinions on the subject.

Personally, I’m yet to receive a negative comment on this blog, but according to others, at some point, sooner or later — it’s bound to happen.

Since I’m not experienced in this matter at all, I can give you what I feel is morally the right thing to do, but what I really want is my reader’s advice.

It seems whether your post is accurate and informative, there will always be a person to “bash” you for something — even though everyone else enjoyed the post. I guess these sort of people are just “blog bullies”. They just want to be negative — I guess.

Haven’t these people ever heard of the saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?

I guessing they have, but they just don’t care and do it anyway.

Watching the Presidential and Vice Presidential debate, as well as seeing the negative ads both camps are running, I figured we could have our own debate as to what to do when people are wrongfully being negative towards you.

When I say wrongfully, I’m referring to being a target of negativity when you’ve done nothing negative at all. In other words, the negative comment, or ad in the Presidential campaigns, is wrong about what they’re being negative of.

In a nutshell, they’re lying to make you look bad.

The point of this post is to have a debate on this subject, and if you would be so kind as to participate and leave your thoughts in the comment section, it would be greatly appreciated.

So what do you do if someone leaves a negative comment?

I’ll start off the debate by saying what I would do.

• No matter how negative, unless they’re using extremely explicit words, I will always publish a comment — negative or not.
• I will respond to the negative comment and point out that it’s false and provide proof (link) to prove it.
• If the comment is negative, but correct, I will admit my mistakes no matter how bad I messed up.
• I will let this person know that they are a citizen of Earth, and they’re free to believe whatever they like.

As you can see, my advice is limited on the subject, so I would love to hear what you all have to say.

I’ve seen plenty of “wars” go on in blog’s comment sections and was pretty surprised as to what was being said on both parts — blogger and commenter.

It doesn’t stop there

I’ve seen long, back and forth attacks between both parties, where the blogger responds back, but then the commenter comes back for more — and brings even more negativity along with them.

I’ve seen this happen on several blogs, and I would link to them, but I’m not sure either parties would be too fond of that — besides, I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen our fair share of wars in the comment section.

In other cases, I’ve seen the blogger become just as negative as the commenter, and they’ll add 10 comments of their own to the post just arguing back and forth. I don’t think it’s very wise and it’s not something I would do, but I’m figuring the blogger simply wants to defend themselves.

Sometimes it’s so interesting, I’ll go and research whatever it is they’re arguing about to see who really is right or wrong, but I never go and point it out — I don’t want to become a target and it isn’t any of my business anyway.

So what do you do when there’s a war in your comment section?

Do you publish the comment? Do you respond back? Do you get just as negative if you know you’re right? How do you handle the situation? What steps would you give to people like myself who aren’t too sure what to do since it hasn’t happened to them yet?

Let the debate begin!

But there’s still hope. That’s right . . . Hope!

My good friend Joe, from ImWithJoe.com has changed all of that.

He has brought something new to the blogoshere. Something refreshing, and added a little vlogging twist to it. I must say I enjoy reading this blog and Joe’s personality truly shines through his videos — you will be drawn like a magnet.

If you don’t already know who Normal Joe is, he’s all over the place, and you’ve probably been living under a rock —

So it’s not surprise I had to interview this up and coming entrepreneur.

So without further ado, my interview with Normal Joe.

1. Who is Normal Joe?

I’m just a regular dude man. Trying to document my journey to employment freedom….working for myself. I just want to show people you can be successful as a regular dude, nothing special you know?

2. Why are you so popular?

I didn’t think I was that popular! I think people like me cuz they can relate. I’m like the dude you’d hang out with, somebody you could see yourself chilling with.

3 .What would you say separates you and your blog from other Internet marketing blogs in the blogosphere?

I don’t care! Seriously, I don’t follow the codes, I don’t do what everyone else does, I just be myself. People can tell when you’re being real man, my videos allow people to connect with me.

4. Why’d you start I’mWithJoe.com?

It was just a place to document all my trials and success, as well as
what I learn on my journey through various online business projects.

5. You get tons of comments. How did you build your community so fast?

I make people feel welcome man! I respond to every single comment, no matter how big or small. I show people that I really value their input.

6. Everyone loves your videos. Would you say vlogging is part of what made you such a hit on the Web?

Yes, it shows people me, and that is something that only video can do. Without video, I don’t think people would connect with me as much, because my personality is just something you have to experience.

7. Where do you find those sponsors for your videos?

hahahaha, man, that’s some trade secrets man. Sometimes I tell yall in the video, others man you know….hushy hushy.

8. Can you make me a sammich?

yeah man! What kind of sammich you want yo? We’ll hook it up.

9. Where do you see I’mWithJoe.com a year from now?

All up in ya area! I see it with a new pro level theme, more readers, and a larger community. I see me making more income from referrals and stuff that I use or promote. I see more people wanting to advertise or paying to get involved with the movement. I see me making more friends like you!

10. When you started your blog, did you anticipate it would be this popular?

Never! I just wanted to document a journey you know? But, once I saw what was out there, I knew people wanted something unique and different, because that’s what I wanted. So, I gave them myself, it seems to be
going well.

11. Joe, it’s been a pleasure interviewing you, is there anything you would like to add? Any final statements?

Thanks man! I know you don’t get down with everyone so it’s a true honor yo! I’m always looking to meet new folks and see them get involved in my community so, everyone come on over to the blog if you want a change of pace and something different from all the other “make money online while blogging like everyone else because I am afraid to be myself” type of thing lol.

Holla at Normal Joe!

I hope everyone liked the interview with Normal Joe, and now is the time when I tell you guys to check out his blog ImWithJoe.com — so go check it out!

Joe, thanks again for having the interviews and sharing a little bit about yourself with our readers; it truly is appreciated — and make that a ham and swiss with mayonnaise and tomatoes — hold the lettuce.

Comments and the number of legit subscribers, can tell a lot about the blog you’re on. It gives you a sense of the popularity of the blog — traffic, PageRank, and Alexa and Compete ranks have nothing to do with it.

Not that Alexa is very important, but if you have an Alexa rank of 50,000 and under, then you have some mean traffic coming your way.

But does it mean anything? I’ve seen blogs with such ranks and when I take a look at the comment section I see tumbleweeds, tumbling along like there’s no tomorrow.

So much traffic, yet no interaction in the comment section — what’s going on?

There’s no community

Recently, I wrote about how to build a community on your blog. In that post I highlighted a few bloggers that have smaller amounts of traffic than that of an Alexa rank of under 50,000, yet they have tons of interaction in their comment section.

The problem with the blogs that I mentioned have tumbleweeds tumbling along, is that they are receiving temporary traffic — meaning the traffic shows up and never comes back. I really don’t know the why of this, because so much traffic should get at least a decent amount of comments — but that’s not the case.

What are they doing wrong?

I don’t think it has to with what they’re doing but what they’re not doing. And what they’re not doing is building a community. No community means little returning visitors. If you’re receiving 60,000 uniques a month, that might attract advertisers, but that does not make the comment section look very pretty in most cases. I’d prefer, on the other hand, 15,000 return visits.

If that were the case, I’d care less how much traffic the other blogs receive — my blog would kick their ass due to all the interaction I’d be getting. I’d get more comments and subscribers, and in turn a better community feel.

Advertisers would soon realize that advertising on my blog would benefit them more, because of my loyal following. My readers (return visitors), being they’re always commenting and interacting, are more likely to spend, join, or click through to a site I recommend more than a unique visitor.

So let’s cut to the chase. Here’s how you can get more comments and RSS subscribers for your blog

1. Guest blogging - I wrote about guest blogging a while back and how it can benefit you. When you guest blog you get to include a link back to your site, and in most cases they let you include 2 links. I highly recommend making one of those links your feed — the other, obviously . . . your blog. As long as these blogs are of high traffic and relevant to yours, you WILL see a huge improvement in your comment section and RSS subscriptions.
2. Return the love - the best way to get loyal readers that will comment and subscribe is to return the favor to those that already do comment on your blog. Whoever is nice enough to leave a comment on your blog, be just as nice and leave a comment on theirs. Be consistent, and the majority of the time you’ll become each others loyal readers.
3. Let them know you subscribed - this might sound weird or funny even, but it works. Those same people you return the love to, let them know you subscribed. And most likely, they will too — it’s worked for me several times.
4. Leverage social bookmarking sites - another way you can get more comments and RSS subscribers is by leveraging social bookmarking sites. You do this by, again, returning favors. Only this time you trade diggs, stumbles, or whatever the name is for voting up a post on your bookmarking site for comments.
5. Throw a bribe their way - this is a great way to gain RSS subscribers. You can offer a free ebook, membership, or newsletter. The options are endless — be creative. Besides who doesn’t like freebies?
6. Run contests - contests are the best way to get traffic, comments, and subscribers. Why? Because it’s your contest so you make the rules. Simply tell people they have to comment on whatever posts you want them to over a certain period of time, vote certain posts up on social bookmarking sites, and subscribe to your blog in order to qualify for the contest or be in the contest. This works like a charm.

You can also have them write about the contest and link to it with your preferred anchor text — great way to build links. When it comes to contests the options are endless — I even saw someone ask, along with a number of things, to be sent an email wishing them a happy birthday.

Why you WANT to do this

Using these tips consistently will increase the amount of comments and RSS subscribers your blog receives. In effect, increasing your blog’s popularity.

Getting comments and RSS subscribers is really what you want to focus on to grow your blog. These are the things that make a blog seem alive and make them seem like there’s a community. This in turn makes it easier to get comments and subscribers. For one, if a person sees a lot of comments on a post, they are usually impressed.

Once you get a lot of subscribers you can start displaying your reader count and be a showboat. Advertising that you have lots of readers will in turn bring more readers.

In a nutshell, these 6 tips set off a chain reaction in the long run that continues to grow and grow. Eventually, you won’t have a need to do the less important ones.

Of course, you need quality content, but that alone doesn’t always do the trick.

What do you have to say about all this?

What other tactics do you use to increase the level of commenting and the amount of subscribers your blog receives? Please, enlighten us in the comment section.

However, according to some people, if your content is up to par loyal readers will magically make their way to subscribe to your FeedBurner, check their reader or email, and click through to drop a comment.

But is it really all that simple?

Can quality content be it? Will this bring people flocking to your blog again and again to read and comment on the latest post?

Unless you’re receiving over 100,000 visits a month, I don’t think quality content alone will do the trick .

There’s more to it.

Now, when I say “community” I’m referring to a group of people that constantly comment on your blog. They always come back to read your latest post and participate in the comment section.

This is a rarity.

But blogs like ImWithJoe.com and WriterDad.com manage to get over 20 comments on every single one of their posts and peak at about 50 comments — I mention these blogs because they’re relatively new, yet they grew their blog’s communities at an alarming rate.

So, how did they do it?

Well, that’s an art within itself. One thing I’ve noticed is every blog I go to I always see 3 people in the comment section: Normal Joe, Writer Dad, and Ryan McLean.

I’m pretty sure blog commenting has a lot to do with their success, if not, then you’ll be seeing interviews from them on this blog soon, and I’ll drag it out of them.

Here are some tips that I know for sure will help you build your community.

Extreme blog commenting

There’s definitely an art behind this, which we will touch up on more and give the topic its own post sometime in the near future.

When it comes to blog commenting, in my opinion, you can go one of 2 ways or go both ways.

The 2 ways I’m referring to are which blogs to comment on: popular blogs or beginner blogs from people just like yourself.

If you choose to comment on popular blogs, say, Problogger, it’s important that you “camp” the post.

That’s right; get your tent, marshmallows, and a lighter because I’m sure you can’t light a fire from 2 rocks like me —-

What I mean by camping is to watch for when the post is published, then be the first to comment on it. But you’re not done; being first is just the beginning.

If you have quick wits and are a good with words, then you should try and make your comment as interesting as possible, and make it as far out as you can without seeming like you want attention.

How can you find out when a post was just published? Do I have to keep going back and forth to the site?

No. Of course not. Gees, you’re my readers. I wouldn’t do that to you guys.

Instead, get a MyBlogLog account. Many of you probably already have one, so most of you are already ahead of the game.

Then join the given blog’s community. Almost every blogger has a MyBlogLog. Find them and join their community.

Why? Because MyBlogLog tends to show when a post is published almost immediately after it was published. From my experience it’s faster than Google’s reader and my NetVibes reader, which are pretty fast themselves — but not faster than MyBlogLog’s.

Anyway, once you get the first comment and it’s an interesting one, you’ll get reasonable traffic back to your site from it. The more you do it and the more popular the blog you’re doing it on is, the steadier the traffic will be just from doing this —  and it’s decent traffic at that.

Commenting on less popular blogs and blogs that are at your level

I consider this to be more effective for building a community, than trying to build one from commenting on popular blogs.

Why? Well, if you do the first example you’ll be getting visitors that are used to content that are of Darren Rowse’s caliber. If you’re not producing that kind of content, I don’t think you’ll get much feedback from those visitors — let alone build a loyal community.

On the other hand, if you go scouring for blogs that are around the same level of popularity as yours and comment on those blogs, then it is more likely the person of such blog will return the favor.

In fact, that seems to be the case every time I do so.

When I first started this blog I used to do the first example every day. That was my way to leverage traffic, and it did. Problem is that traffic barely converted into comments or RSS subscribers.

But, it’s the total opposite when you comment on blogs on your level — the love usually gets returned.

Social Bookmarking Networks

This is another great way to build a community on your blog. Recently, I wrote a post on StumbleUpon’s do’s and dont’s. If you’re on StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, or any other site like it, you can easily trade comments for diggs, reviews, and reddits.

The trick behind this, like all social bookmarking tactics, is having a lot of friends. And believe it or not, I’ve made friends with many bloggers via social bookmarking sites more than any other method.

But remember, when you search for friends make sure their interests are on the topic of your blog.

This is pretty much a no brainer, but when I search for people to make friends with I usually type into the search box “blogging” or “make money blogs”, and make friends with people who are like-minded.

This increases the chances of the friendship lasting.

• Make friends
• Return favors

That’s the key to social bookmarking success.

Using these tips effectively and under daily basis will grow the level of commenting on your blog. The same people will continue to return to your blog just like you return to theirs.

And slowly but surely, your blog will have a community of loyal readers that you can count on to always comment on your latest posts.

Whoa! What do you have to say about all this?

Have you grown your blog’s community yet? How long did it take you? And what other tips would you add to this post that will help people grow their blog’s community?

Second and third Image by: Striatic, and -Bast-.

What if I told you, you can get paid to give away stuff people want.

That’s right; you can give away magazine subscriptions and tech resources to your readers for free and earn money from it.

RevResponse is changing the way people monetize their blogs and websites. Traditional monetization methods such as AdSense and other similar services are burnt out, if you will. Not only are the majority of people in this niche aware that they’re ads, but they’re also sick of seeing them.

And in all reality, those ads weren’t giving away free stuff. They just took you to a page where you would most likely have to make a purchase.

That is the core of a business, to make the sale go through, right?

But for this to happen, the consumer must be convinced the product is well worth the money they will spend. But what if you could get paid for giving someone the very thing they are looking to pay for.

Excited aren’t ya?

Well, this is why RevResponse is the best monetization method in the blogosphere at the moment from my perspective.

So, how does it work?

Like magic.

RevResponse allows you to give away free business and tech resources to your readers like: free magazine subscriptions, software trials, podcasts, and white papers just to name a few.

Once you sign up for free, you can start browsing through the offers they have and select the ones you think your audience will be interested in.

After that, you can use the user-friendly ad wizard to make your widget or ad.

The offers you selected will display in your widget/ad and whenever someone clicks on them, it will take them to where they can download or subscribe to the offer for free — and you get paid for that action.

So everyone’s happy; your reader gets the info they’re looking for and you get paid for it all at the same time. Payouts range from $2.00 to $20.00 per action depending on the content.

So you can be making up to $20 for giving something away to your readers.

Why RevResponse is different

Unlike other methods of monetization, RevResponse allows you to give readers top-notch, quality content you select and earn an income from it.

Unlike AdSense, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and others where you place an ad and based on keywords on the page relevant ads begin to display, you’re giving away something of value to your readers and earning from it — not getting low payments on a pay-per-click basis.

So your readers are happy they got quality info for free and not only will you get paid, but they will come back to your site for more freebies — and each time you make an income from it.

The benefits of RevResponse

• High payouts - payouts range from $2.00 to upwards of $20.00 depending on the given offer.
• Payment- quick and easy payments via check or PayPal Mass Pay.
• Referral program - 20% of the earnings your referrals make in the first 6 months of joining RevResponse is yours.
• White labeling - top-tier publishers receive free white-labeling provided by RevResponse. And all others can easily do it on their own with their Site Setup Wizard.
• Account manager - All publishers are assigned an account manager, if they want more of a 1 on 1 experience
• International - As long as the Websites are relevant to the offers, they accept publishers from any country.
• Forum and blog - RevResponse has an extremely helpful community and constantly keeps contact with their publishers via their support forum and blog. Unlike other services, RevResponse opted not to keep everything behind closed doors and chose to talk about every aspect of their service with their publishers.

Why you should join RevReponse

RevResponse is truly in a class of its own. Not only do they bring diversity to the way people monetize their blogs, but they also ensure both parties are pleased; you earn an income and your readers get quality content they were already looking for. And they don’t have to click on an ad, read a sales copy, or make a purchase to do so.

With RevResponse there’s no purchase or sales copy.

Just free content that you get paid to give out for . . . free! Also, if you don’t want to place any widgets or ads on your homepage, RevResponse allows you to create your own page with all the free, quality offers you selected. And if that’s not enough, you can customize it to match your Website too!

So if you want to get paid to give away freebies and have a better way to monetize your Website, I highly recommend signing up to RevResponse.

- Zig Ziglar

He’s right.

Unfortunately, most people will never know the true feeling of success.

They will never feel it.

And most likely, fingers will be pointed — at everyone and everything but the one responsible.

Do you know the type?

You know, the type to sit back and do nothing, and when nothing happens they blame the entire world?

Seriously.

They digg every cup of snow they can out of the North Pole, in order to find an excuse as to why they couldn’t do what they planned on doing.

Their own laziness prohibits their success, yet they fail to notice.

It’s more likely they do notice, but won’t admit to reality. But then what’s the point of continuing your pursuit of success, if you’re lying to yourself and know you’re not really trying.

Who are you trying to impress?

It’s not bad if you try, fail, and move on. But those who don’t try at all or try very little, then fail due to their lack of effort and go blaming everything around them for their incompetence are just insane.

In a nutshell, you can describe insanity as doing the same exact thing over and over and expecting different results.

Anyone feel like they owe a trip to the loony-bin?

Success is a treat within itself. Once you are successful at whatever it is you do, you get to enjoy its spoils and enjoy the bragging rights to your success.

So not only do you get the car, the house, and the girl, but you also get to say: “I’m successful”

That comes with a load off your back.

But with all the treats and goodies that comes with being successful, you would think a lot more people would be . . . I don’t know — successful.

That doesn’t seem to be the case.

Instead, we have a bunch of slackers and people who just want to “get by”.

But that’s not the issue.

If you want to simply “get by”, then by all means, do so. But it’s those who complain and start saying things like “this stuff doesn’t work” when it does, are just ridiculous.

Actually, you don’t work. Not the “stuff”.

I’m sure you have friend or two.

Take Action!

If you set out to do something, have a plan.

A good plan. A great plan.

Then execute.

Some people take a Web business less serious than a brick and mortar business.

Maybe because it’s so easy and you’re at home.

Since you’re at home, you take it easy, take your time, take as many breaks as you want, leave unfinished work or even worse only do what you feel like doing.

No boss, no supervisor watching over you. No one’s monitoring your computer in your cubicle.

Ahhhh . . . life’s good.

Working at home is great!

But, where’s your income? How much did you get done today? How many link exchanges? Did you do any article marketing? How many articles did you write today? Any guest posts written?

Can’t forget to network. How many people did you meet today? Did you go on your blog-commenting spree?

Did you contact any advertisers to pitch your site to them as prime real estate for their product or service? Did you respond to your blog’s comments yet?

What about your emails?

Conclusion to this madness

As you can see things can really pile up and people just start to slack off.

If a person wants to slack off or doesn’t but it happens anyway, don’t complain when the sales aren’t coming in. Don’t complain when no growth has shown, and please don’t point fingers and say it wasn’t your fault — if it was.

Many people can say things like “Oh, I had to do something” or “something came up”.

Ever heard of time management?

Assuming you sleep 8 hours, the recommended average, that means you’re awake for 16 hours of the day.

16 hours.

That’s a lot of hours.

First you have to want to do it. Afterwards, write out what needs to get done and assign a time limit for it. You’d be surprised what you can get done.

What do you think about all this?

Do you have friends like the characters described in this post? Are you trying to help but are tired of their excuses? Maybe you’re the person described in this post, do you feel the picture I painted to be accurate or am I way out on Pluto?

It provides a way to let the user (member of social bookmarking site) vote up or down on a certain post submitted by someone, if they like it.

The more up votes a submission receives, the more it will be displayed throughout the site — or in some cases, be moved to the front page of the site.

Today, I want to focus on mine and everyone else’s favorite social bookmarking site, StumbleUpon. I don’t know about you, but I like SU. Not only can you find cool and friendly people, but you can leverage steady traffic from it as well.

We all know how StumbleUpon works; you write a post, someone likes it and clicks on the thumbs up button in their SU toolbar or the SU button in the post — if they really liked your post, people will usually give it a review as well.

The more thumbs up and reviews you get, the more traffic comes your way — or so we thought?

As of late, I’ve been hearing that the same way someone can thumb up your beloved post to bring nothing but juicy goodness to it, they can also bring nothing but sour pain as well. And no, it’s not by thumbing you down . . . something else affects it as well.

There seems to be a correct way to submit posts to SU — but nothing is 100%. From what I know, it’s all speculation, but seems to hold up as truth, since more than one person is talking about it — and I’ve experienced something like it as well.

So I’m going to cover some of the things you should and shouldn’t be doing when submitting a post you like to StumbleUpon.

If you discover, don’t back out

One of the main things being stressed is, if you’re the first to discover a page and you back out, because you’re either a.) lazy or b.) real lazy, you bring a burden to the post you liked enough to attempt to submit, but not enough to go through with the review.

What burden?

In a nutshell, somehow, someway it doesn’t send the traffic it would have, if the review was written without backing out.

I don’t know exactly why this happens, but it seems to happen to a lot of people — including myself.

So, the next time you are about to thumb a page up and come to find you’re the one who discovered it (first person to thumb it up), make sure you go through with it.

Submit into right category and use proper tags

Something else that I know for a fact affects the traffic you receive, or to be more accurate the interest the traffic you receive will have on your post, is what category your post is submitted to and the tags you add.

This is pretty much obvious, but I’ve noticed that as obvious as it is, people still overlook or don’t bother to submit to a proper category or add proper tags. These people go a bit further than our fellow SU members mentioned above, who back out when finding out they discovered the page. These people submit, but don’t bother to look through the categories in order to submit a post into its proper category.

Instead, the post is simply submitted into a random category and no tags are added either. If this post were to receive a lot of traffic, it wouldn’t be very targeted traffic. In fact, it wouldn’t be targeted at all. The traffic you receive will be from people whose interest are related to the category in which your post was submitted to at random.

Keywords: at random

Meaning since it was random, the category most likely has nothing to do with your post. In result, you receive meaningless and uninterested traffic. Even after someone reports that it is in the wrong category, the damage has been done, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Using the “Send to” feature in your toolbar

If you have some nice friends on SU that are nice enough to thumb up your pages when you ask, then this as well can affect the traffic you receive.

In what I believe is a way to keep the integrity of SU’s toolbar and the effectiveness around it, the review you receive from someone on your “send to” list won’t send as much traffic as a review from a complete stranger — someone not on your “send to” list.

I’ve experienced this first hand. This blog receives 200 to 500 visits daily from SU alone, but several times throughout the month I’ll receive +1,000 visits from SU in one day.

When I go to check the reviews, I come to find a complete stranger discovered my page, wrote a review, added some tags, and submitted it into its proper category.

My friends on SU do the same, but the difference in traffic is stupendous when you compare it to a stranger discovering it and doing the same thing your friends do. So, I believe it is SU’s way to prevent friends on SU from exchanging reviews. Otherwise, anyone would be able to leverage +1,000 visits to their site under daily basis.

One could try to email their friends personally instead of using the “sent to” feature, but I would think just the act of them being on your friends list affects it as well. There is probably a way around this, if you sit down and think about it — like erasing everyone and keeping contact via email only, but really, are we that desperate for traffic?

Didn’t think so.

Something you can do is whenever you have a new friend, or better yet before you add them, ask them to discover the given post, add tags, and submit it in its proper category, then let all your friends go at it.

Constant reviews from the same person

Although it’s never bad to have someone that always thumbs up your page and gives a review, eventually it can desensitize, if you will, the weight of their reviews on SU’s algorithm.

The first time someone ever reviews anything of yours, it’s the most effective in bringing traffic, or so we believe. If someone constantly is submitting a lot of your posts, they will eventually bring little to no traffic.

SU’s algorithm will begin to think you’re either doing favors or that you’re an owner or in someway part of the blog and are trying to leverage traffic to it. Which is why I say it eventually desensitizes the weight the person’s reviews have once they over do it.

I can definitely back this up, as it has happened to me before with one of my friends on SU, though it was not intentional.

Reviews from ghoulish friends

This is something I can also back up. My sister, who on SU is a ghoul, meaning she doesn’t have a picture so she has the ghost-like default picture, one day read a blog post of mine and thumbed it up and reviewed it.

Keep in mind she doesn’t have enough pages liked or reviews of any pages.

Afterwards, she came and told me and showed me on her computer what she had done — I said, “cool”. Then later on in the day, I went back to the same post to see how many reviews it had received and I noticed my sister’s review wasn’t there.

I doubled checked with her and everything was fine, it was in her pages liked and favorites as well. But on my screen, it was no where to be found; review nor the ghost-like picture. And to top it off, that post received little traffic, even though it received a lot of reviews.

I believe it’s the fact my sister hasn’t reached the amount of pages liked or reviews that SU wants you to achieve, that her reviews and thumbs up don’t appear on mine and anyone else who has surpassed the amount and do not bring any traffic whatsoever.

This also seems like insurance, courtesy of SU, to insure people don’t just make a ton of accounts and thumb themselves up a bunch of time.

Ask for reviews not just thumbs up

You may have noticed two things: in this entire post I mention “reviews” more than “thumbs up” and in the subtitle above it says, “Ask for reviews . . . ”

To start off, I say to ask because it’s OK to ask friends to review your posts and thumb them up — that’s the point of the toolbar, “send to” feature, and having friends on SU.

And most importantly, reviews send more traffic than a thumbs up. I don’t know how many times over has this proven itself to me on its own. Plain and simple, reviews get more traffic than thumbs up alone.

But of course you have to remember about what’s discussed in this post about discovering a page; add tags, write a review, and submit it in its proper category — these things should be done as well when you don’t discover a post but are writing a review for it.

If so, reviews bring more traffic than thumbs up alone. And you don’t need to ask for both a review and thumbs up, almost everyone who reviews will also thumb up — or so I would like to think so.

Are these things you’ve experienced using StumbleUpon? What have you learned from using StumbleUpon?

These are all the things that I’ve picked up from using StumbleUpon and from other people who use it as well. Have these things happened to you? Is what I and others experienced similar to your own? If so, how do you go about it?