A little while ago I decided to start a contest blog with a friend of mine and it’s been going okay, nothing too special. Our agreement was that if we won a prize then we would split it. And if we couldn’t split it, we would try to sell the prize and split the money. But this post isn’t about that, it’s more about why you should comment on every contest post you run across.

Since I partnered up and started this contest blog, we weren’t aiming to make money from it or get tons of traffic. Honestly, we just wanted to test it out to see how many prizes from contests we could actually win. So far we won about 4 different prizes or prize packs but nothing to brag about.

We are hoping to see if we can win a big prize like a Playstation 3, TV, lots of money, etc. But also, we’re not really holding our breath especially since we’re not even taking the site too serious. We’re basing the entire site on luck so it’s like playing the lottery… but you do have to play to win!

The only promotion we have done is simply commenting on people’s contest posts and somewhere within the comment we simply post the URL of where we blogged about their contest.

Simple enough, right? I mean, we’re entering their contest because most of them ask for their contestants to blog about it with backlinks to their site and post, so that’s exactly what we did. Plus, we get to post a free URL link in the comments without it being deleted or marked as spam.

Since then, our blog is now a PR3, we’ve got some more subscribers and our traffic has been steady especially from search engines. Nothing really special especially since the site has only been up for about 3 months and it has less than 50 total posts to it.

Though, I know some of you guys live and die by Google Pagerank, in addition, a lot of you guys need to build links to your sites, I’ll explain how this will benefit you all.

Since contests are very popular, a lot of people will do anything to enter them which include posting and linking to that contest post. Since there are so many one-way backlinks to that contest post, it also means the URL is given LOTS of backlink juices.

I understand most people have “no-follow” attributes to their commenting section but in reality, even if they do, you would still get some backlink juice to your site.

Have you ever noticed how so many individual contest pages or posts have their own Pagerank? For instance, their homepage may be a PR5 but their contest post is a PR4. You may not get as much backlink juice simply because it is “no-follow” but you do still get some.

I had this discussion with someone a while ago and they gave me a post URL that was ranked as a PR7. I went to the page and it was “no-follow” and I told him that there was no point. He told me that I would still get some backlink juices for commenting on that PR7 “no-follow” post and I would probably get more juice than a regular “do-follow” blog that has no rank.

Of course, I think his theory is actually right. I mean, how else is my blog is PR3 out of nowhere? And how is my blog getting so much search engine traffic without a lot of linking or any promotion besides commenting?

Exactly!

So, whenever you see a contest you should at the very least comment on it even if you don’t feel like entering to win their prize. It might help you more than you know in the long run!

You’ve heard right, a business partner and I are starting a membership site. But don’t worry, it’s not in the make money online niche or anything like that, we’re working in a niche that is relatively low in competition.

So, why start a membership site? Benefits?

I heard these are probably the best types of sites to have simply because you have recurring monthly payments going right into your pockets. I mean, having advertisers buy ad spots monthly is nice but it’s never really guaranteed each and every month.

Say we get 100 members and we charge $20/month, that’s automatically $2,000/month in revenue we’ll be getting. And the best part of it all is the fact that it’s $2,000/month recurring.

In addition to getting members to sign up for a recurring cost, there are plenty more ways to earn money. You can simply sell them a product like a simple eBook or something because they are already interested in the niche you’re in.

And honestly, if they are willing to sign up as a member for a low cost, more than likely they are willing to spend a little bit more on a simple product that would benefit them.

What is the niche of this membership site?

I know a lot of you guys are going to ask but as of right now I’m not going to be revealing the URL or the niche. I know some of you guys won’t like it but quite frankly, this niche has such low competition and it’s not worth revealing.

But don’t worry; we’re starting this membership site to flip it. The only thing is we probably won’t flip it for at least a few months. And if they site continues to grow and we continue to increase our revenue, then we might delay the sale.

How do you start a membership site?

Honestly, it all depends on what niche you’re looking for it to be in but most of them are all the same setup. I don’t have too much time to go into full detail on setting up an entire membership site step-by-step right now so I will have to say that post for a later date.

I just wanted to let you guys know another one of my projects that I have been working on. Matter of fact, if this one goes according to plan, my business partner and I have like five or six more membership sites lined up right behind it.

And again, they are relatively low in competition.

Stay tuned!

I just checked and I haven’t been giving out as much link love as I should be. No real excuses except for the fact that I’ve been extremely busy so I haven’t been able to actually sit down and read as many articles as I’d like to. I mean, the last weekly roundup was posted back in November!

I decided that this week I will be posting some of the best articles I’ve read recently whether it’s informative, helpful or just plain interesting. I mean, there is a reason why it stands out to me so I’d like to show some love to thank them for the great reads.

How to Make Money with Automated Niche Blogs – Jason continues to impress with his partnership site and these type of posts definitely attracts a lot of attention. I mean, ProBlogger even commented on the post… unfortunately, this tactic is a bit unethical and could possibly get you in trouble but if you’re willing to take the risk, this is definitely a great read.

The Benefits of Risk and Reward – Tricking the YoungestBlogger System for Traffic – Jim actually made me laugh out loud on this post but it was definitely interesting reading yet another unethical tactic. Basically he took advantage of an opportunity and he benefited from it.

Lesson learned: Take advantage of the opportunity but more importantly, take action!

Article Marketing for Money – Ryan has been posting in Jason’s absence and he’s been doing a pretty damn good job. If you don’t have money to spend on affiliate marketing then article marketing is another good way of doing it. This article is pretty straightforward but definitely worth a read if you’re trying to get into some bum marketing.

What are the Best Keywords to Target for Google Adsense – If you’re looking for the most popular keywords for a niche to make money from Google Adsense, you might want to read this article. Though, the keywords listed is very competitive but if you know your SEO, you should have no problem with this.

Day 11 – Are You Still On Track – The other Jay has a great post on keeping track with things so you don’t lose focus of your goals. Of course, he probably wrote this specifically for me because I can’t seem to focus completely, I’m lazy and I procrastinate. But if you need some advice on staying focused, this article is for you!

Cross Promote Your Blog Posts – Wesley writes a great post that tends to get overlooked but if you have multiple blogs, why not use that to your advantage? If you need some examples, feel free to check out his article.

I don’t want to overwhelm you guys with tons of great articles so here are just a few that was definitely worth reading before, now or later.

If you feel there’s a great article that is worth mentioning, feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll check it out and possibly list it next time.

Quick note: I’m sorry for the delay with the site flipping team, I know some are eagerly waiting but I’ve had priorities within the past few weeks so I had to take that into consideration. But I think around or after February 8th I’ll have more time to dedicate into it. I’ve sent some of you guys e-mails already.

If you still want to join, feel free to send me an e-mail. I want to work with everyone that is willing to work with me.

I’ve been trying to come up with various ways of exploiting sites for traffic (or anything else that it brings) and I found Wikipedia is a great source if you work it right.

As we all know, Wikipedia is the free online encyclopedia that is basically controlled by the users. So, essentially we can all go into the site and add information as we please.

Well, almost.

Personally, once I setup a specific niche site, I try to look for something very similar in Wikipedia. They are extremely popular and search engines LOVE them so if you can’t rank on the first page of a popular keyword term, more than likely Wikipedia would do the job for you.

Search engine visitors —-> Wikipedia —-> Your Site —-> Potential Revenue

Now it doesn’t matter how these search engine visitors get to your site, just as long as they get there. And by now you guys should know that I preach search engine visitors equal money in your pockets.

Okay, so how do you use Wikipedia exactly to get traffic?

I’d like to start off by saying that you should not spam the site at all. If you do, more than likely you’ll be banned and that will hurt you as well as others in the long run. In addition, because it’s a user environment, that means people have the right to delete your links especially if they are not related to the topic. So, keep that in mind!

Since it’s a user encyclopedia, you are forced to create an account, which should be fine for all of us. Once you have done so, go to the specific niche you were aiming for and at the bottom there is a section “External Links” in which you can add your links to your site with the anchor text of your choice.

But those links contain the “no-follow” attribute, just FYI.

Now if you are smart, you’d go with topics and niches that contain very few links so that means more focus towards your site. Of course, it’s up to you to figure that part out.

Example:

If you have a poker site (yes, I’m talking about poker once again!) which teaches people how to play or has some sort of useful information on it, try looking up “poker” or something equivalent.

As you can see there is tons of information on the page but there are only two “External Links” which you could simply plugin if you really wanted to.

Some topics have a “semi-protection” lock on it which means they do not allow edits from anonymous IP addresses or the administrators constantly see people violating their policies so they were forced to put the lock on.

Now don’t ruin it for all of us and spam and go against their policies!

You’ll know if it has the “semi-protection” lock on if you look at the top right corner (or see the screenshot below):

I tried this method with a couple of small niche sites that I created and within the first couple of days I saw my traffic increase by a couple hundred visitors. It was nothing drastic but the traffic was definitely steady. Plus, those small niche sites are not heavily searched for so I didn’t expect thousands of visitors each day or anything.

I figured this would help some of you guys that are testing out different methods of traffic. Plus, this type of traffic is steady and you only have to set it up once.

Let me know if you have any questions!

For most of you guys, I think I already know the answer to this – you guys work online to try to make money. But honestly, shouldn’t there be more than just that?

I think the main thing that we all have in common is the fact that we want to make money online but more importantly, work for ourselves, have our own hours when we work and the fact that we’d be able to work straight from home. Those are the main reasons why we work online, right? Honestly, it’s a lot more than that for me.

The other day when I was working on a couple of projects I was thinking to myself, “damn, I really don’t want to do this right now.” And to be quite honest, I probably didn’t want to do it tomorrow or the next day either.

Now, this was only one project that I’m not a big fan of but it makes a decent amount of money for me. But if I don’t enjoy it at all then doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose a little bit? I mean, if I’m working just for a paycheck then I might as well just stay at my day job complaining everyday on how I want to quit. And if I’m working on projects that I don’t like then flashbacks of working a day job comes to mind.

So if we’re doing it just for the money then in the long run it’s going to catch up to you. You’re just going to be a little miserable working for the money.

Why do I work online? Well, I actually like helping people out when I can. The first website that I started was aimed to help college students but that project fell through the cracks because what my business partner and I were trying to do simply couldn’t have been done with just the two of us. We just didn’t have the manpower to take on that specific project.

My second site was aimed to help the younger demographic as an online sex education class with some fun to it. So people can check out everything on their own. Of course, I had stopped working on that but I’m in the works of putting it back up and getting everything squared away.

Besides helping people out, I simply aim for projects that keep me interested. For instance, the other day I was talking to a friend and explaining to him that I usually never take on big projects that I won’t be interested in. If you look at my track record I have built sites about money, hot women, sex (but not porn), sports, movies, etc. And with all of those websites, I enjoy it because it’s something that will always keep me interested as well as make me some decent cash.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if you don’t like what you do when you work online then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. Yes, the money might be nice but in the long run you’re just going to miserable. Plus, if you’re only in it for the money then you might as well get a day job and at least socialize with others while not being cramped up in your home.

It’s not healthy, go take a walk!

Just added:

Also, if you don’t enjoy what you do, it will just go to waste in the long run. For instance, all those Make Money Online blogs that people start for all the wrong reasons and then they are all left for dead.