How to Make Money Blogging

All right. Let's get down to brass tacks. The real question is: how do you make real money at blogging?

Well, not easily. The only real way to earn money through blogging is by selling advertising.  Do you see the adwords links on the right hand side of the screen? Well, try clicking on one of those. Come on- try it. Every click generates a tiny, tiny bit of revenue. It's called Google Adwords, and it's revolutionized the online marketing industry. 

Want to make a go of it? Well, there are three rules to producing a good quality weblog that people might be interested in reading:

• You need dedication. Go two weeks without posting and you've lost your audience completely.
• You need talent. Write with wit and humor. Dense prose? Dry words? Fageddaboutit.
• You need to pick a theme or a niche that is useful to your audience and that they'll keep coming back for.
  

One good way to do all of the above is to start blogging about something you enjoy.  Do you like going to farmer's market?  Start rating your area's farmers markets and interviewing organic farmers.  Biking?  Review trails and post your miles on a specialized Google map.  Frisbee golf? An updated listing of events and games would do.

It's important to try and find a niche that others aren't exploiting.  You can do video game reviews, but so do a million other people and they've got an awful big head start.

One good sign that you've found a empty niche is not being able to find what you're looking for on the internet.  In other words, if you can't find something then other folks have the same problem.

That being said, blogging is easy to get into. Visit www.blogger.com and you can get rolling in a few minutes. Also, for a few other practical tips, check this out... Good luck, blogger!

Ways to Make Money Online: If MTurk is the Paymaster, Does that Make Me a Janissary?

Once upon a time, a web browser stumbled on mturk.com. It promised a slightly different way to make money. Run by those nice folks at Amazon, mturk is a sophisticated way to loosely organize a large number of people to do many different kinds of tasks and get paid for it.

It's simple:  businesses post rewards for the completion of tasks.  Perform the task to the bidder's satisfaction and you get paid.  Amazon handles the details.

Does it work? More important for our purposes: is there money in it?

The answer is, maybe. There are opportunities to earn real money. For example, amazon has partnered with cellular companies (somehow). A subscriber will type into his or her phone a question; say, 'good pizza in raleigh NC'. That request will go out to the mturk website where folks have a chance to accept the challange and find an answer. While those types of questions are worth, literally, pennies, by answering enough questions correctly, turkers can earn anywhere between a $5 and $50 payout each week.

Other business work through mturk also. For example, www.castingwords.com is a podcast transcription company that posts transcription tasks. Successfully complete the transcription and you'll earn a payout. Jobs work out to be about $10 - $12 per hour.

Oh, if you're wondering about quality assurance, mturk uses a simple feedback tool - post a good answer, transcript, etc and your score goes up. Higher-level tasks require higher ratings; conversely, provide too much junk and soon you won't be able to bid on projects anymore.

Finding A Job At Employmentcrossing.com

Ok, what is EmploymentCrossing? Well, it’s not a sales company; it’s a job-opening research company. What does it mean? Well, most job boards are more interested in earning commissions by posting jobs than they are in matching people to the job that’s right for them.

EmploymentCross is different. They have a research staff (more than 500 strong) that monitor employer websites, job boards – whatever it takes. They have helped thousands of professionals find jobs. Not only that, but hundreds of thousands of professionals turn to EmploymentCrossing every day for new jobs, new options and even new careers! Check out their mission here.

How does it work? Join EmploymentCrossing. Search their job listings and find one that’s right for you. Submit your resume!

That’s all there is to it. Learn more here.

Read. Think. Get Paid!

Paididea isn't really in the 'money saver' class, but is more in the 'money earner' category.

Play video games, read email, drive a car, go shopping ... and get paid for it! That's the idea behind paididea. It's a paid survey website company that allows people to receive checks for the things they'd be doing anyway. It's a great way for many of us who would like extra income, but whose schedule won't allow for something with set hours!