Healthy skepticism

I know, I break my own record and post twice on the same day, but I can’t help it.
From the cycle ” Idiots among us” I am bringing you two examples:

First example : From the projects in Brooklyn to a mansion in Atlanta, introducing the Harper family

By the Associated Press LAKE CITY, Ga. - More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” team demolish a family’s decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
After the Harper family used the two-storey home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it’s set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.
The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.
The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighbourhood. The home’s door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.

Materials and labour were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes’ employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple’s three children and a home maintenance fund.

Now the house is in foreclosure and the idiots should go and work as volunteers on other Extreme Makeover projects. To gain experience construction related if nothing else.

Second example: Winner of $3.6 million jackpot kept the secret for almost a year
We have to be proud with our local celebrities, so, drum roll please: introducing the young realtor who won $3.6 million on 6/49 and kept it secret for 49 weeks…. Ladies and gentlemen… here is Peter Dushop.

Seriously, what was in his freaking mind? He signed the winning ticket and left it in safe deposit box at the bank because he could not make up his mind about what to do with the money. Duh!!!!! This guy does not seem to be very bright if it took him almost a year to figure out something. And the supreme ‘duh moment’: he decided to leave the money in the bank!!!

That mucho intelligent idea needed almost a year to navigate through the emptiness of his skull. In the mean time he lost about $100,000 in interest.

I found as well some pretty disturbing comments congratulating the guys for not making his mind for almost a year.
Seriously? Congratulating him for being an idiot? Definitely the idiots outnumber us.

I am getting dizzy already rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

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It’s not that I have expected to be approved because I guessed I was persona non grata for Google.
I decided to give it another try just to have a closure to the whole unpleasant AdSense experience.

Months ago when I thought that there was an easy way to monetize your rumblings without putting too much effort other than writing and adding links and pictures, I came across information on how easy it is to make money with AdSense.

One of the tips offered by pros, was to have a blog on Blogspot. Allegedly that would be sufficient to put you on the fast track.
And indeed it worked.
I created a blog on Blogspot and left Wordpress just because of the pragmatic point of view.
After blogging for about two weeks, I filled out the request to get my blog evaluated for AdSense.
I got the answer pretty fast: in 2 days I got approved and I was given the precious code.
But from there it went down the hill and finally I got my account suspended.

From my short experience (almost three months) using AdSense I can tell you that you CAN’T make money with it.
Maybe you could in the past, not anymore.
Never mind the money making issue, having the account suspended made me try again because defeat was not in my books.
At that moment I became aware that it’s not an easy way to make money with AdSense, that more people fail than succeed, that you can get sucked into buying AdWords to make things work and end up losing money rather than making.
On the other hand, I wanted to prove myself that Google is not an insensitive machine run by algorithms and that there is not such a thing like blacklist.

The reality is that Google is run by algorithms and if somebody makes money it’s mostly Google and maybe a small group of gurus specialized in Internet Marketing.
And if you make a mistake and you have your account suspended, you are going to be blacklisted. No second chances. No warnings prior to suspension.

Why did I say that your home address is blacklisted?
Because I created a blog on my husband’s name, with topics that could have use advertising- please note that I mentioned topics, not categories, because Blogspot’s platform does not offer categories to organize your posts- using his name and our home address.
The common denominator was the home address.
If your guess is that it was rejected, you guessed right.

Second step: I used by self-hosted blog and applied for AdSense.
This time it took over a month to get rejected. That verifies the tip regarding having a blog with Blogspot.

Now I am at peace with myself. I have tried everything and you know what? I don’t have regrets.
It was an experience that cost me basically only the time spent writing interesting posts.
I can make more money right now working with different affiliates than I have ever made with Google.
From my perspective AdSense can be dead, vanished without a trace, burning in Hell, I could not care less anymore.

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Yes I did it! And I am thrilled and happy for having my blog accepted by PayPerPost.

Sometimes in September 2007 I started thinking about writing my thoughts. This is how the whole saga started.
I like to write, I am pretty opinionated and being a baby boomer, I would say that I have life experience as well.
I have reached a point in my life when I would like to share my experience, my trials and tribulations dealing with infertility, with keeping weight under control, with dealing with corporate politics and finally, to share my dreams about traveling to sacred places.
Browsing the net I realized that some people are making money from writing, not only from marketing affiliate sites. That was the turning point of the whole blogging adventure.
I did not know anything about internet marketing, so that venue was a moot point. Being paid to write, that sounded really appealing.

When I came across blog advertising it looked like it could become reality.

Naïve as I have been, I did not realize that you do have to meet some criteria to qualify. I have just thought that having a blog would be sufficient. Well, after about half a year of blogging it started making sense why you have to meet requirements.
In terms of getting you accepted, PayPerPost is generous and levels the field to everybody.

The criteria are:
- Have a blog at least three months old
- Write original, good quality posts; people would come and read if they could find something interesting, something that maybe helps them make decisions
- Your postings should be evenly spread over the time

Will I be successful? Only time will tell. I will do my best not to compromise my moral integrity as well.
Making money is good, but in the end it’s even better to feel that you served the good cause of helping other people.

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One of my New Year Resolutions is to launch at least one website that would generate money.
I took advantage of some extra vacation days to start reading more about affiliate marketing. Having a bad experience with one I was pretty reluctant and stubborn to think outside the box.

This is what I did so far:
-I have enrolled into Commission Junction affiliate program
- Being a little bit more educated I started understanding the information about various affiliate programs. I checked a few affiliates I may be interesting promoting.
- At that point I realized that I have to have a website more specific; mine it’s too general. It’s started as a blog to share my findings and dreams and now it’s time to move on to the next level. I will keep the categories but concentrate my writings to only two of three
- I can foresee a problem: getting accepted by the affiliates; if your website is not very popular (and mine it’s not so far) and does not have any marketing tools, like using adwords for example, the chances are that the good affiliates would turn down my application. But I am going to give it a try anyway.

My action plan includes:
- Fine tuning my website in order to put emphasis on something I know and I am interested about: health, diet and nutrition
- If my Google Analytics would start showing more activity to the site I would consider bidding for some adwords in order to get more traffic to the site, and consequently more money from affiliates
- I know that I am getting into a highly competitive territory, with savvy and veteran probloggers in direct competition with, therefore I will have to use my brain to find a still profitable niche. Good Luck to me!

That being said, I feel a little bit more confident about reaching my goal.
I had the pleasant surprise to realize that you are getting approved by Commission Junction as easy as getting into Amazon affiliate program.
I certainly hope that money will be better. So far I did not make anything with Amazon.
Even if I had visitors clicking on products, they did not buy. At least not from Amazon or not at that time.
I guess if they would have gone later on to Amazon to make the purchase, it would not have been credited to my website.

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Sooner or later you have to get to know what’s available in order to track the activity on your self-hosted blog.
Yesterday I spent about two hours reading info on this subject and finally I decided to bite the bullet and give a try to Google Analytics.

The process of setting up the account was easy.
You have to have a Google email address first.The you go to www.google.com/analytics/ and fill out the rest of the steps.
Once finished you are given a code to insert into your website, at the end of each post.
At this point I thought that I am going to screw it up big time, but it went as easy as a breeze.
All I had to do was to add the code while in ‘code’ not ‘visual’ tab.
Now I have to wait 24 hours for my first report.
I am already nervous thinking that probably I would be disappointed, but hey, I don’t fancy the ‘ignorance is bliss’ truism.

If at some distant point in time I would decide to get serious about monetizing this blog, I need to know as much as I can about what’s happening.

When you are on a Wordpress platform (your blog is hosted by wordpress.com), it’s ridiculously easy to get the needed information. Wordpress offers blogstats by default.
Splendid feature.
But on your self-hosted one you have to use different sources. Google Analytics or some plugins made available by the other branch of wordpress: wordpress.org.

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I like to write. Sometimes it’s therapeutic, or so they say.
Instead of dwelling into your rambling thoughts, it’s best to vent them, so yes, it can be therapeutic.

It has always puzzled me how some people can write 5 times a day without saying anything basically.
I mean, no real value information. Useless thoughts thrown in the cyberspace.
Yeah, yeah, my thoughts are yadda-yadda as well, but hey, I don’t make money writing stupid things. I write them for free, right?

So, this is my dilemma: I understood that in order to get accepted by programs that pay you to blog, you have to show originality.
But it’s not quite clear what ‘originality’ means.
So, to shed some light I started browsing blogs that are making money.
After skimming through two of them I lost my hope that I would be able to prostitute myself like that.
I mean, to say that I found them ridiculous it’s an understatement.
Some gal had an entry almost every other hour and I could not find absolutely anything interesting or remotely useful.
To have an audience you have to have some exposure, meaning that you have to use the appropriate wording to be found by the spiders.
What are these magic words?
‘Car insurance’ could be some? Like am I going to start yapping about how wonderful it is to have car insurance, or how necessary is it, or something along this line, just making sure I use the magic words as often as necessary to be found.
Or maybe ‘plastic surgery’, because I guess a plastic surgeon would have the money to pay for advertising.
But wait! I forgot that I don’t have AdSense and I am not yet accepted by PayPerPost, I don’t even have ContentLink. I don’t even think I could be accepted by Kontera (ContentLink) having like 100 visitors per month. I have seen numbers like 500,000 as the minimum requirement. 500,000???!!!! Not in this lifetime.

Maybe I should start an experiment… well, duh, I work in research, this is something I know.
So the project might be ‘how many things I am not interested in could be the subject of posting just because they are well paid’
Because let’s face it, nobody can convince me that the gal who writes about ski equipment while living in San Antonio is really interested in this stuff.

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Today, as in 2 minutes ago, I decided that I need a special category for this controversial issue.
Why controversial? Because I could not make up my mind if I should have added it to the ‘myths debunked’ category or to ‘uncategorized’ one or plain and simple to the ‘rambling thoughts’.

Now I have my category and I will try to do my best to come up with objective opinions.

Let’s start: the urban legend says that you can make money on the net without investing money. Interesting and appealing concept, isn’t it?
It goes even better: you can still have your full time job and be able to add another couple of hundred dollars (at least!) a month just by monetizing your rambling about everything.

It’s just an urban legend. I work full time as a research engineer, I am a full time mother and wife and the reality is that making money on the net it’s not an easy task. Everybody can do it, right? Why not me? If you want to get a reality check, take a look at the following questions:

1. Are you really, really good at finding the right niche?
2. Do you have any Internet marketing knowledge?
3. Are you a stay-at-home mother/father?
4. Do you have any idea about programming, web design, viral marketing, multi level marketing?
5. Can you spend at least 4 hours daily trying to write good posts?

If you answer with a ‘No’ to the above questions, then don’t hold your breath until you start making money from your ramblings.
There is a new trend among Internet marketers: baby boomers targeting. I guess it’s because the generation Y eats already Internet marketing for breakfast.
I am a baby boomer and beside not having time to write as much as a teenager or a stay-at-home mom, I am not computer savvy either.
Meaning that I am badly deficient at the most important things you have to have in order to make a living out of Internet.
And like me are lots of others, moving targets - so to speak- for unscrupulous Internet marketers.

Probably I am not going to be able to provide solutions, I am not a snake-oil vendor, but at least I will make piece with my conscience and try to spread the warning.

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For the past two months I’ve been trying pretty hard to find a way to monetize my writing. Don’t get me wrong. I like having a blog to share my thoughts with my readers. But hey, if I can add some $$ value to it, why not?
I remember the day when I spent $47 buying info about getting rich through affiliates sites. Big, big scam.
You can’t make money with them, unless on top of this amount you pay a monthly fee to get your already designed website (by the affiliates hosting it) and at that point you can add other stuff to your website. Still depending entirely on the affiliate network.
I am not going to say the name, but it’s a very popular one.
There are a few important things to remember and take into account:
1. Most of the affiliate programs are based on pyramidal marketing, meaning that the people on top of the pyramid are the ones making good money; you on the other hand, are the new entry into the system, you are not going to make almost anything. I made a lame $10 in three or four months
2. If you are told that all you have to do is to get for a certain amount of money for a website hosted by the affiliate program, and after that sit on your butt and collect the moolah, run as fast as you can.
3. Logically speaking, could it be any normal marketing millionaire sharing secrets about getting rich on the net, for $47 or $97? why would they do that? It pisses me off to no extent even this amount : why 47 or 97? why not 98? It must be some psychological tool.
4. Beware of the ‘getting rich without investing any money’ trap. If there is indeed something like that, I have very serious doubts that somebody would share the info with the blogoshpere.
5. I tried to get into affiliate programs not by selling dreams and ebooks, but by promoting sales of products, namely herbs, vitamins and teas. Another warning point: most of them are Multi Level Marketing, and you are asked for money to get accepted as a seller. OK… does it make any sense? I have my own domain, my own website, my potential customers and I have to pay money to X or Y retailers to sell their products? You have to read about 20 pages of legal disclaimers, sign that you agree with all the terms, pay the money and then, good luck. On top of that the whole e-business may go tits up suddenly.

Statistically speaking, most of the successful internet marketers are in their late 20s- early 30s. These guys were born with a hand on a remote control or a game console.
They have started internet marketing campaigns in late 90s. We are now in 2007, almost 2008 and logically speaking we have lost about 10 years of trying to make money on the net.
We don’t have the time or the energy to learn everything we need to be successful.
And this is where the ‘beauty’ (not!) is: they now as much as we do, that we need this precious info. Whatever freebee we get, it’s probably not very useful or it’s been already used and it’s living the final moments. And here I am talking about the sort of honest guys.
Other type of e-marketers are going to sell the useless info, because guess what? Their motto is ‘a sucker is born every minute’

Conclusion: it’s a rant, yes it is, I am a bad sport, sour looser, whatever. But I lost the money I earned working hard, not scamming people.
And the reality is that it is foolish to believe that multimillionaires gurus are going to tell me how to make money.

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