whydowork.com

The following is a paid review, that reflects my own opinion on the service, not influenced in any way.

Online Paid Surveys is a directory of sorts for sites that offer free paid surveys, allowing users to rate each one on quality, frequency of surveys, support and payment. According to them, these surveys pay anywhere from $2 to $50 or they give you gift certificates or enter you into sweepstakes.

If they got a member area then it’s pretty well hidden, as I couldn’t find it. While I can’t really say anything about whether online paid surveys really do pay, I can tell you that the site being reviewed seems to live off affiliate links, and it seems to be pretty well done. They list all the information that you need to decide, you click on the affiliate link and sign-up with each company, and they get their share of the surveys you do.

Seeing as it acts just like a central hub for different paid survey companies, you don’t get the option of a central payment. If you subscribe to 10 survey sites, you need to reach the minimum payment for each of them and you get 10 checks.

Taking as an example, the top rated GlobalTestMarket from the Online Paid Surveys site, the review talks about being able to earn $50 per month from paid reviews. It doesn’t really seem a good alternative to making money with your own sites. It might be a good way to earn a few extra bucks every month, but with 10-30 minutes for every survey, and not being paid for all the surveys that you do (just those that they decide you qualify for, after you’ve done them), it sure seems like a lot of work for peanuts. If you’re not from the US, the number of surveys that you qualify for doesn’t really allow you to make a living of it, and the price for them is probably smaller.

However, if making money online with your own sites doesn’t seem to work for you, and you don’t need to make large sums of money online, you can give http://www.online-paid-surveys.net a shot.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.!

Thoughts.com is a free blog community that allows anyone to open an online journal, upload photos, videos or do podcasting, add friends and be rated for the quality of their posts.

The intention behind the network seems to be the creation of a social network based around blogging, a place where people can discuss and meet others. They have a rating system in place, that allows other people to rate every post you make. The most active members are eligible to win a trip to Las Vegas this year, and a different city next year.

I like the idea behind it, and for people that are just looking for interaction and the pure joy of blogging, I think it can be a good place to start. If you write well, the size of the community which is still small, allows everyone to see your posts and give them a rating.

One thing bothering me is the limited number of templates. There are only 7 of them, and they seem to be the same theme, just with different colors.

Go to http://www.thoughts.com/ if you want to try it out. If you’re looking for the pure part of blogging, and a small audience from the beginning to read what you have to say, then Thoughts.com might be your thing.

This was a paid review, that reflects my honest opinion about the service.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.!

For those that haven’t heard yet, TNX is a new company that takes the Text Link Ads model to the next level, and allows you to buy links anonymously. With all the problems that Google has caused recently to webmasters that sold text link ads on their site, I feel like the TLA model needs a change. It’s way too easy to spot which sites use them to sell links, and a Google penalty might just be couple of months away. TNX.net on the other hand, uses a different model to intermediate the sale and buying of text links, and I think it may just work.

Right now they have almost 30,000 users and they sold more then 31 million links

I signed-up with them a few weeks ago, taking advantage of the free links offer they have on DigitalPoint, and created a campaign to test their service. My conclusion is that the service is very good, but there are a few tips that can help you get more bang from your buck.

How It Works

For both selling and buying of text links, the site uses points. You can either buy points from TNX or you can sell links on your site and use the points to buy links from others. All links have different values, depending on the PR of the page, number of backlinks of the site, the country and the category of the site (a link in a russian directory is cheaper then one from a real estate site). So a PR0 link can cost 1 TNX point, or it can cost 20, depending on these factors.

The best option in my opinion is to buy the points if you don’t have large sites to sell links on. For $20 you can buy ~20,000 points for example.

If I were to use the TNX code on this blog to get points, 4 text links/page and 100 pages, I would get 2400 points per month. The problem is the missing PR update, because all my pages show up as PR0, when I’m pretty convinced that I got at least a few PR4-5 pages.

This is the good part of the TNX system right now. While the PR might not be important when you try to rank for a certain keyword, you can use this service to get lots of PR0 links from your niche, at a cheap price.

Tips To Get The Most Out Of The System

From what I’ve seen, it’s best to choose links from sites that have at least 500 backlinks. Otherwise you might end up with links on automated blogs that steal content. Better yet, buy links from sites with at least 5000 backlinks to be sure.

You have the option to select the speed at which the links show up on the other sites and to delete links from sites that you don’t want in your campaign, so if you keep a close eye on this you should be getting quality links from the niche of your choice.

What You Can Get For 20,000 Points

Let’s say you’ve just invested $20 to buy $20,000 points from TNX, you have a travel blog and you want to rent some links from sites in your niche.

Click on the screenshot to see a larger version. Now, in this campaign I selected the website category Travel, because I want links from related sites. I checked boxes for sites with at least 5,000 backlinks, to get links from sites that aren’t new and to minimize the chances that I’ll get links from MFA blogs. Also selected english sites only and PR 0 links.

The end result in the bottom right corner is that with 10,000 points/month I can rent 789 links from travel sites and blogs. If you keep in mind that 10,000 points cost around $10-12, and that many of them are cheap only because the PR update is late, you’ll probably see the value of this service. With those $20 invested initially you pay those links for 2 months.

I think it’s a great way to boost the authority of a site in the niche where it’s operating. Just make sure you set up the campaign so you get quality PR 0 links. Also, review the sites where your links show up, and take them out of your campaign if you’re not satisfied.

They also have an affiliate program if you want to promote them. You get 13.3% of all the points earned by the referred webmasters.

Disclaimer: this was a paid review, that reflected my honest opinion on TNX, after testing the system.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.!

This is the second blog review given in the Shylock Contest.

Just as its title suggests, Gizmo’s and Gadgets is a gadget blog, aimed at technology lovers. It’s a relatively new blog, with just three months under its belt, but it can grow considerably if the owner knows how to capitalize on this huge market.

I’ve talked with the owner of the blog, and since my readers aren’t necessarily his audience, I’m going to combine the review with my opinions on what he could do to make a difference in the gadgets niche, a pretty saturated market.

First of all, the content

He’s got the right idea when it comes to what people are looking for, two good examples being Google Phone Rumors Not True and Microsoft’s “Falcon” Xbox 360 Rumors. He knows what people are looking for, and it shows that he can cater to that market.

Two of the blog’s categories got my attention more then others: Strange Gizmo’s and Gadgets and Gizmo’s and Gadgets for Fashion. With so many blogs talking about gadgets, I feel like the blog would have a better chance of success if he would pick a niche of their own. A focus on one of the two categories I’ve mentioned above, might give this blog that uniqueness that could make him big in the long run. Or, just as well, he could be focused on GSP Navigators, like the HTMS Provia A1 Review or a blog on LCD monitors like the post on Lenovo’s L220x 22-Inch Monitor.

In this saturated market I’d say you need a niche to succeed. Becoming an authority when you have giants like Engadget or Gizmodo around is tough. You can’t compete with them at the number of posts per day, and your best chance would be to be the first to break stories, simply writing linkbait or picking just a niche in the gadget and electronics market (like just LCD’s, sport gadgets, video cards, etc).

How you can break stories when it comes to gadgets

If you can be the first to blog about a new gadget from time to time, you have a better chance at getting to the front page of Digg. You can also mail other gadget bloggers and let them know about the story you just broke, and if it’s an interesting gadget you’ll probably be credited as the source.

If you want to be the first to write about a gadget, then you have to subscribe to the RSS feeds of the gadget stores and to their newsletters. Some of them don’t have feeds, so in this case you bookmark the New Products page of all these stores in a special folder and once or twice a day you do a right click and then Open all in tabs, to see if there are any new gadgets announced.

Here are a couple of gadget stores that you can follow for new products:

• ThinkGeek.com
• Edmund Scientific’s
• AudioCubes
• Smart Home
• Hammacher Schlemmer
• Gadgetshop
• GadgetsUK
• RedSave
• Gadgets.co.uk
• IWantOneOfThose

There are plenty of other stores you can follow, and you can also subscribe to press releases from Sony, Apple or other big electronic companies.

If there are new gadgets in the shops, do a quick check on Google or Digg to see if it’s indeed a new product on the market, or if others are already selling and it’s an old story.

If you just rewrite news from other blogs it’s a bit tough to get subscribers.

One other thing that I would recommend, is becoming an affiliate for the shops that you’re following. Whenever they have a new product, use your affiliate link when you talk about it.

If you can’t break the news first, then see what blogs do that, and subscribe to them. For that, just follow the blogs that are quoted as sources by the big guys. See what sources Engadget, Gizmodo or Coolest-Gadgets.com use. At least you’ll be one of the first to write about it.

Write linkbait

Don’t limit yourself just to reporting of new gadgets. Subscribe to CopyBlogger.com and learn how to write titles and copy that will make people click the link to your story.

Here are a few examples of linkbait that I can think off right now. I’m sure you can come up with something better if you spend some time brainstorming.

• 5 Gadgets That Paris Hilton Could’ve Used in Prison (security gadgets?)
• Want to be a better parent then Britney Spears? These gadgets can help!
• 7 Gadgets That Increase Your Chances Of Getting Mugged (gadgets that people dream of - IPhone?)
• 25 T-Shirts for Atheist Geeks
• One Simple Gadget That Could’ve Kept Paris Hilton Out Of Prison, If She Had One (presenting a gadget that doesn’t allow the car to be started if it detects alcohol from the driver. I think there is one)

Use Social Media

Digg.com, Reddit.com, StumbleUpon and any other social media site that has sections for electronics or gadgets, can be used to boost your subscribers. Some may bring tens of thousands of visitors, others just a few dozen if you hit the home page, but they’re potential subscribers, so work on getting them to the RSS feed.

However, if you want to have an acceptable chance of getting to the front page, you will need to network. Contact other bloggers, ask for their IM id, talk with them and when you have a good story let them know about it, either for a quick vote on a social media site, for a stumble or they might simply write about your article. Pick a niche social media site that has an audience of geeks and build a strong profile there. Don’t submit just your own stories, become a regular user of the sites you intend to focus on.

The domain

First of all, the domain is not great. Those two hyphens make it pretty hard for someone to remember it. If you really plan to work on this blog in the long term, and you don’t have extraordinary amounts of search engine traffic
right now, I’d recommend buying another domain without hyphens, and doing a 301 redirect from the old one, to transfer all the link juice. You might experience a drop in search engine traffic for a month or so, but from what others have said, it should pick up after that.

Conclusion

If you want to make it in the gadget niche, you really have to find a unique angle that will speed your growth and has a good potential in the long term. You have to sit down and rethink your strategy when it comes to that blog. New domain, new focus, new style of writing articles, linkbait, outside-the-box promotion, guest posts. You also need to be able to write content on a regular basis in the long term.

And this is for most of the bloggers trying to make money online in a saturated niche. Be unique or don’t waste your time. I’m not trying to make a living in the making money online business. The biggest blogger in this niche has 34k subscribers. The biggest blog in the gadgets/technology niche has over 1 million. Compare and see if it’s worth starting a blog in the making money online niche, if your goal is to live of that blog.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.!