The Blog Of Oussama Messaoud - Ways to make money online -

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed by email or in a reader. Thanks for visiting!

As you all know, I ran a RSS contest in September, which ended by awarding the big winner the sum of $10 sent by PayPal.  Generally speaking and from what appears to everyone, a contest is synonym to giveaways and prizes given by the contest organizer. It looks like the owner of the contest is spending money in return of immaterial benefit. Well, let me say that this is far from a WYSIWYG situation. In fact, contests are a great way to make money online. I will try to explain this here.

First off, let me put this forward. From what I’ve experienced, people prefer cash when it comes to prizes. That’s a general stake. Off course, exceptions can still happen, but in general, you have bigger chances of intersting people to join the contest when you are offering green cash. $5 in cash are better than $10 in advertizing or anything else, especially when your blog is small to medium. I’ve seen very successful contests offering a review on John Chow Dot Com. But then it’s John Chow, so the value here is even bigger than the price of the review itself. I hope I make sense here.

Second thing is : Make sure your contest is easy to join. I love easy and free cash. Everybody does. When I can enter a contest that has cash to win (or a valuable prize in that matter), in a minute or two, I don’t hesitate. Whereas, if I need to subscribe, then send an email, write 2 posts and a poem and comment on 10 blogs, I am not sure I’ll be part of the whole thing. You get the point.

Third thing is : Don’t make it neither too long in time, nor too short. I personnally love 2-weeks-long contests. I think it’s the perfect duration. People have enough time to join, and in the same time won’t be discouraged for waiting to long before the results come out.

After you make sure you take care of these three points, you have to communicate and advertize your contest. For my last contest, I used projectwonderful, entrecard and contest blogs (there are plenty of them, they gather all contests and post about them : What I did here is I gave extra entries for people who blog about the contest. A lot of contest blogs took the extra entries because they blog about contests anyway. So they didn’t  hesitate here and I got some great links). Communicating is key here. You can have the greatest contest ever, but if no one knows about it, you will fail. The good thing about contests is that they get viral very quickly.

This said, I can get back to what the title of this post is all about : How contests make money online. In fact, from what was said previously, contests bring you :

- More traffic : That’s because people will link to you (contest blogs, remember?), especially if you give them incentive for doing so (extra entries for example). Also, your campaigns will bring more people if you make it clear in your banners, text links, etc. that there is cash to win. People will tend to click and come to your blog more frequently that usual. It is proven (from my experience and what I hear from other bloggers) that contest campaigns have higher CTR (Click-Through Rate).
It is also a common knowledge that traffic = earning (more clicks on affiliate links, on your Adsense, more exposure and more sales). So if you increase traffic, you’ll make more money online.
- More RSS subscribers : 99% of contests involve subscribing to RSS feed. And they are indeed a great way to increase the RSS count. This means more loyal readers to your blog, which is the best thing you can have for a sustainable traffic and growth of your blog. Again more traffic and more money. On the long run, RSS count can be crucial if you intend to sell your blog at some point in time. it will increase the blog’s value, and will allow you to make more money out of it.
- Contests if done properly, increase the authority of your blog and draw the attention of people to your blog. That’s what you always needed, right? Now it’s up to you to deliver good content that will keep your readership and attract new readers. This is very important. Otherwise, the effect of the contest will be very short term. You don’t want this. More long term readers = more long term money.

These were some thoughts about contests and how they can help you, especially when starting, in growing your blog. My last contest caused an increase in AdSense revenue, in  RSS readership, in Traffic and in Technorati authority. I think it was worth the money spent on it. Think of a contest as a project that can have a great ROI if done properly : Plan, decide all the details and use what I just talked about here. You should be able to see some nice and quick results.

What about your contest experiences? Are you planning to hold a contest? 

Hey everyone.

Just a quick reminder to let you guys know that 2 days are left for those who didn’t join my RSS contest yet, for a chance to win $10 in cash via paypal, or free advertizing. This is also for those who already joined, but want to add more entries and increase their chances. If you didn’t blog about the contest, didn’t refer someone, go do it and earn extra entries that can be decisive when the draw will be done. Deadline for joining is September 30th.

On another note, I added a FREEBIES section to my blog. This section will contain a list of freebies (e-books, applications, tools, etc.) that can help you market your blogs, get more traffic and learn techniques to maximize your profit online. I have a collection of free tools that I will use to populate that list. I started with 2 free e-books already and other freebies will follow. I am positive that this new section will become one of the most visited places of this blog in no time.

Please feel free to let me know what you would like to see in that section. What type of tools? Anything in particular?

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

In a previous post, I told you about this great program that is Freebies4webmasters. It earns you a fair enough amount of cash (£10 to signup and £5 monthly for each domain you have with them). That post generated 3 referrals for me hours after it was published and then nothing. That intrigued me until my attention was drawn by one of the comments, to the fact that they are not able to accept new memebers for now. This is what you read on their sign up page :

We are unable to accept new applicants for Freebies4Webmasters due to technical problems we are currently workign to resolve this issue.

I emailed them to ask for more details but all I had was this answer :

Hi there

Unfortunately we don’t have an answer for that yet.  We are still working on resolving the problem.

Kind regards 

I hope they sort out this “technical” issue as soon as possible, since their program is really great and helps a lot of new bloggers earn some decent money that can cover some of their blogging expenses.

In the meantime, and apart of this little issue, the program continues as usual for existing members, and I am very happy with it so far (except for the fact that I cannot earn new referrals for the moment).

Stay tuned and I will post updates on this matter as soon as new elements arise.

PS : Exclusively for my RSS subscribers, a link to a great program that earns you some extra cash is with this post in your reader or in your inbox. If you are not subscribed yet, you are missing out. But you can still enter the RSS contest for a chance to win $10 and free advertsing. You will also receive a blogging tip with every new post when subscribed.

Free money! That’s what most new bloggers are looking for when starting. Well I have a great program for you to get that first amount of money to get you going.

I just received the payment for a work that took me 3 minutes. All I had to do with this program is to place a banner on 3 of my blog pages and they paid me £10 (that’s $17.23) as a bonus just for signing up to their program. I just received the payment through paypal now. Plus, they will pay me £5 for every month I keep the banners on my blog. That’s free recurring lazy money.

It took me no more than 3 minutes to implement their code on my 3 pages and now I can sit back and watch that passive income come in monthly. Add to that the fact that they pay £10 extra for every referral that signs up and implements the code on their site, this can become a main income stream.It took around 3 weeks to get my sign up bonus and I am now waiting to receive my first monthly £5.

I know you are waiting for a link or something. Well, you want, you get it : this program is Freebies4Webmasters.Just click the “Sign Up Now” button (It’s big you can’t miss it), and follow the easy step to get your free subscription. After that just wait for their email with the codes to add, place them in the right pages and you’re set. You are good for some free cash that comes directly into your paypal account.

I hope this helps!

First of all, I want to apologize for a week with no posting. It’s been a very busy week and I had a little to no time that I could spend blogging. Anyway, things are back to normal right now and expect me to be more active. Few hints about what’s comming in the next coming posts :

- The last post of the series “Best WP plugins“.
- What I did during August and the results of that
- The entrecard experiment
- September : The RSS subscribers month

And a lot more about what I’m up to, my failures, my successes and my learning experiences. So stay tuned. You can subscribe to my RSS in the box below, so that you miss nothing. (Plus, September will be the RSS Subscribers Month, so don’t miss the chance to subscribe now and be part of it - More in the coming posts)

Now to the EC call for offers I made in my previous post, I am extending the deadline to August 31st, in order to give the chance to more offers to arrive. A small number of offers was received.

A quick reminder based on the offers already received : Entrecard charges $9.75 for 1000 ECs, so please try to make your offers at least beat that. As I mentionned in the original post, I won’t be buying the ECs for more than that. I think it’s just common sense. Please refer to the original post for more details.

Lately, I’ve been going through a thinking process, that lead me to decide to keep some programs I was using and take away the others. Well, some new changes are occuring. But first, let me present a little Income Report for the month of July with the programs I kept :
- Google Adsense : $11.32 - A new record in the History of my MMO endeavor. I am happy with this result and aim to double it for the month of August which had a pretty good start.
- My Home Page Friends (MYHPF) : £0.54 = $1.05 - This paid per search program is awesome. I talked about it here and it is bringing in some revenue from something that I used to do without getting any penny : Internet searching. I am keeping it since it’s pure extra, and not intrusive at all.
- Project Wonderful : $0.42 - 4th month in 2008. Project Wondeful brings slow but continuous revenue. This program will get better and better with the traffic on this blog getting bigger and bigger.
- Kontera : $0.00 - Zero dollars - I am taking this program out. I’ve been using it for almost a year now and it is not taking off. I don’t know if it doesn’t suit my blog or if I am doing something wrong, but it is certainly not working for me. I’d rather eliminate it and gain 2 microseconds in my pages loading time.

With this said, I added 2 other programs this month :
- PerformancingAds : This is one of the newest and fastest growing Ads Network among bloggers. It serves 125×125 banners and pays a lifetime referral commissions. I an having a great offer for you to join this program during the month of August. Don’t miss it.
- MarketLeverage : One of the newest and best Affiliate Network. I am trying it with a Leaderboard that you can see in the header of this blog, promoting FREE Business and Technology Magazine Subscriptions. Iwill give it a try and see how it gets.

With focus, I didn’t make more money. I just made the same with less effort. Now, off course $12.79 is not money, but I want to show exactly how much I earn and not fake it, so that when I finally start making enough money, I will have a great story to tell So guys, stay tuned and be part of history. And don’t forget to Sign Up for PerformancingAds and have me buy your first ad. More details abou this offer in this post.

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

Yes? OK great! So here’s the deal. During the whole month of August, I will be the first advertizer on any blog that signs up to PerformancingAds through my link (here : Sign Up for PerformancingAds). The only condition is that it is under $5 /week. I was tempted to limit the number of those who can benefit of that, but then I thought I would just limit it in time. It’s great for me, since it gets me more referrals, and it’s great for everyone since it opens the opportunity for more bloggers.
PerformancingAds is heading to become the next big thing in the blogosphere. Within only few days of its launch, this 125×125 ads network now gathers thousands of blogs. So it’s the place to be if you’re  looking for monetizing your blog, especially that those 125×125 are becoming the leading form of advertizing on blogs.

On the other hand, what often relucts bloggers (especially the new ones) from signing up to this kind of networks is the difficulty to get that first sale. I am offering that! Not only is the subscription to PeformancingAds free, you also are sure to have at least one sale, which makes all of this story a 100% benefit deal.

Plus, they have a Lifetime referral program, which can earn you 5% of each sale your referrals make. Awesome huh? So, with no more delay, go ahead and  Sign Up for PerformancingAds. After you subscribe, make sure to leave a comment here to make it easier for me to browse for your blog and buy my ad.

After a few days of thinking (diversity or focus), the decision is made : FOCUS! I started working on my monetization programs messaoud.info and decided to keep the following :

Google AdSense
TTZ Media
Project Wonderful
Widget Bucks
Kontera
Banstex
AdToll
Scratch Back

Focusing on these programs will allow a better control of the blog, lighter page loads, and a nittier design on which I am still working, removing the big skyline header, and opting for a simpler use of colors.

To compensate and exceed what was generated by the removed program, I am adding 3 other direct sources of revenue :
- Direct Ad Sales : 125×125 buttons costing $7/month. These come with a FREE 7 Day Trial offer.
- Stripe Ad Sales : Text Links on the Stripe visible on the top of the screen for $5/month. These come with a FREE 2 Day Trial offer.
- Paid Reviews : These are sold directly too.  $15/review.
More details on the Advertize Page.
I think it is the right time to start selling Direct Ads, since the blog is now PR2 and Alexa ranking is starting to go down again (it reached 300,000 at some point, and then I had the hosting issue, and it started to go up). As Jay, from DatMoney says : “I am one of the biggest procrastinators”. Now it’s time to get things going and get this blog to generate some more money after the time spent on getting traffic. I won’t go the porn way, Jay, but I will put some more efforts on generating more and more interest around the blog : more quality posts with more frequency, more socializing, and many sleepless nights.

More to come in the next days. And hey, I forgot to tell you that I set up a new Contact Form, so don’t hesitate to share or ask questions.

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

These last days, this is the main dilemma I am having : Should I continue diversifying my monetization sources on the blog, or should I choose 1, 2 or 3 programs and take all the others off?

Honestly, I can’t decide !!

Pros and Cons : A comparative work 

To help me decide, I put this list of (+) and (-) for each option. I am doing this work live while writing the post, so I will discover how it looks like at the same time you do. Here’s how it comes out :

 Diversity :
(-) Confusion from the visitor’s side
(+) Not putting all my eggs in the same basket
(-) Less paying programs could overlap higher paying programs and thus the revenue potential decreases
(-) A lot more time to manage all the programs
(-) The blog looks messy with a lot of little banners flashing here and there

Focus :
(-) Less alternative solutions in case one or more programs are not performing well
(+) Clearer and nittier look for the blog
(+) Less time to manage all the programs
(+) Higher chances to catch the visitor’s attention towards one of the programs
(+) Gaining bigger expertise in the programs that I focused on.

Analysis and decision making : 

Hmm… look at that.  Apparently the choice is easy. Well. I don’t know! Does anyone think of any other points to put under each of the lists? I may have missed something here, for it looks too easy.
Do yo guys have an opinion? Can you advise?

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

With this new service : My Homepages Friends (MYHPF), which allows you to earn around £0.015 per click. All I did was subscribe, login and set the searchbox in my Firefox toolbar. It is very discrete, and didn’t cause any change in my search habits since I always use my toolbar search box. The only difference is that my previous search box was linked to Google, while MYHPF is linked to Yahoo. Although I prefer Google search results, I am willing to use Yahoo which is not that bad, and earn some money.

And even if the amount earned doesn’t seem that interesting, if you do the math it’s actually not bad at all. In average let’s  say that I do between 10 and 15 searches daily, which represents between  £0.15 and £0.225 / day = between £4.5 and £6.75 / month. Which is a good deal Vs. what I am getting today for my searches : ZERO, especially if you know that £1 is almost equal to $2.

So, I started yesterday, and I invite all of you to do the same. Nothing to lose here. It’s 100% free money.