If you don’t want the hassle of setting up your own WordPress blog, you can also use a new service provided by BlogExplosion call BlogCharm where you can get paid to blog. It’s free to sign up for an account. Right now it’s still in the beta phase and is set to launch officially on March 1st. That’s when you start to get paid.

There will be revenue splitting (50%) of sponsor ads and you will also get paid everytime your blog is shown. (I’m not sure how they are going to keep track of repeated views from the same users - maybe limit to unique daily views?) On top of that, you can still add your own AdSense code to your blog and keep all the revenue for yourself.

Check it out here.

Popularity: 9% [?]

First of all, Happy New Year! May 2006 bring you good health and prosperity!

Okay… here’s a great product that you can use to start off the new year.

Blogs need readers and readers want something interesting to read about, i.e. good content. If you’ve got different blogs, getting all this content written can be a full-time job. That’s why I’ve always been a proponent of private label content - content that is ghostwritten and you can change and modify according to your own needs.

Of course, contextual advertising i.e. Google AdSense or Yahoo Publishers Network, is a great way to generate income with your blog. But to do that you’ll need a network of blogs, not just one. The network of blogs should be on different niche topics. For example, one maybe related to travel, another to cuisine, and a third to luxury goods. Overall, the entire network has a common theme. In this case, the blogs are geared towards those who have disposable income to enjoy the finer things in life.

Okay, so where does one find unique content?

You can write it yourself but it’s much more efficient to have someone else do it for you. Hence, private label content.

I’m a member of several private label sites. But today, I found one that is a gem.

Here’s what’s included in the membership:

- 3 Private Label Products Each MONTH
- 3 Salesletters To Each Of These Products
- 150 Private Label Articles Each Month
- 3 Brand New Adsense Websites
- 3 Five Part Email Series Per Niche!
- Thousands Of Tightly Focused Keywords
- 60 Pre Written Ads For Google & Overture
- 5 Brand New Master Resell Right Products Each Month
- Discounted Internet Marketing Products
- Members Only Forum To Network

Use your imagination and you can do a lot with these private label products.

Here’s where you can go to find out more about this recommendation.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Good news for those of you who want to blog but don’t want the hassle of setting one up with your own hosting account. Now you can host your blog on WordPress.com. You can customize the templates and posting is as easy as typing into a form and clicking on a button. Just head over there and grab a subdomain.

Your blog will be named [something].wordpress.com. “Something” is whatever name you choose.

The thing I like about WordPress vs. Blogger is that with WordPress you can set up categories to sort your posts and that makes your blog more organized. It also helps your readers find stuff on your blog.

At this time, you can’t manually tweak the template yet but I expect that will be a feature added in the future. If you would like to earn affiliate income, here’s one suggestion.

Get an account at Commission Junction or LinkShare if you don’t already have one. You can then set up a product blog and post product items to your blog. Make it more interesting. Write your own reviews. If you own the product yourself, tell people how you’re using it. Then encourage them to buy.

There is a tradeoff between promoting high-priced and low-priced item. The tradeoff is between volume and the amount of commission that you’ll make. Let’s say you’re promoting a book off Amazon. You may make a few more sales than promoting a massage chair. But one sale of the massage chair makes you a much bigger commission. You’ll have to test out what works best for you.

Popularity: 19% [?]

If you’re looking for a good web host and have a small budget, one company I highly recommend is Host Gator. You can get shared hosting for as little as $6.95 a month, reseller hosting from $24.95 a month. If you have a bigger budget, dedicated hosting starts from $174.95 a month.

They use cPanel which is the most widely used for site administration. This includes real-time Awstats so that you can track all your website visitors.

Reliability is another key issue when you’re looking for a webhosting company. In the past year that I’ve used Host Gator, I have been very pleased with the uptime. Support is also fantastic. There is an online chat option that connects you to a live tech support staff 24 x 7.

So if you’re in the market for a good hosting company, be sure to take a look at Host Gator.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you’re looking for ways to further monetize your blog, take a look at Kontera. It’s a unique contextual advertising system that scans your website for keywords that match their ad inventory. The keywords on your page will appear as active links but these links look slightly different from regular links (they have a dotted line below the regular underline). When the mouse cursor is hovering over the Kontera links, the ad will show up on the page. It’s sorta like the Yahoo! Search box that pops up on the page when you view Yahoo News.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Check out Push Button Health where you can get private label content on health topics. If you’ve got a health related blog or you’re planning to start one, this is the best place to get some great content.

What’s private label? It means that you have the full rights to modify the content to suit your needs. The content provided by PBH is in the form of an ebook, but you can easily break it down into short articles for your blog since you’ll get the Word file.

It’s the best thing since sliced bread!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Once every week, you’ll want to check the progress of your blog getting indexed in the search engines. If the number of pages indexed are growing, then your traffic from the search engines will start to increase as well.

One free tool you can use to check your site with is UpTimeBot. Just type in your domain name and you will get a summary of results from Google, Yahoo, MSN (the big 3) and other smaller search engines like AlltheWeb, AltaVista, HotBot, Teoma, Lycos, AOL as well as Alexa rankings.

For example, when I type in ‘moneymakingblogs.com’ I see the following results for indexed pages:

Google: 110
Yahoo: 4
MSN: 8

One thing I’m not sure about is the accuracy of the results for MSN. I did a manual check at MSN using ’site:moneymakingblogs.com’ and it actually shows 44 indexed pages. I did the same thing for Google and Yahoo and the results matched. So only MSN is showing more pages indexed than what UpTimeBot tells me.

By the way, the tool also shows you the number of backlinks that you have.

Popularity: 6% [?]

If you’re looking to register more than a few domains, I suggest taking a look at NameCheap. Dot info domains are only $2.88 each with complimentary Whois protection.

The other domain registrar that I use often is GoDaddy. I’m happy with both of these registrars. I’ve used them for both .com and .info domains.

Popularity: 6% [?]

If you’re brainstorming for ideas on what kind of blogs to start, you can use a free tool online called NicheBot. Just type in a keyword or phrase and the tool will show you the “count”, “pages”, “competition” and “ratio”. The columns you want to pay attention to are the “count” and “ratio” columns.

A high search count is essential to gauge how much potential traffic you can get to your site. The more people are searching for a keyword, the more likely you can create a website that will generate lots of traffic.

The ratio NicheBot shows you is the ratio of “competing pages” to “search count”. The difference between the “competition” and the “pages” column is that the “competition” column shows the number of search results with the key phrase in quotes.

Lower ratios are better because that means there are more people searching for the keyword or phrase relative to the available number of pages indexed in the search engine.

Use this as a guide only because it’s not an absolute measure since the search counts are from Overture but the search results are from Google.

Basically, in economic terms, it’s demand vs. supply. You want to create a product or website to fill the void if the demand is high but the supply is low.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Here’s a great resource for getting “private label” articles you can use and modify for posting to your blog. Read this excerpt from the publisher:

“Bryan Winters has just put together one of the most
valuable “bonus offers” you’ve ever laid eyes on!
This is something that he’ll be paying hundreds
or even thousands of extra dollars each *month* for,
and passing on to just 722 lucky people for no charge!

Are you ready?!…

If you’re one of the next 722 people to join
InfoGoRound (Bryan’s new private label content
service that *exploded* onto the scene just 5 short
DAYS ago), you’ll NOT ONLY receive the thousands
of dollars worth of freshly written, private label
article-content that IGR provides to its members
on a monthly basis…

(Here it comes!…)

You will ALSO receive at least one exclusive,
private label *PRODUCT* each and every month!!
Each product will be based on a hot NICHE topic,
such as:

-52 Tips to Lowering Your Golf Score
-How to Find a Steal-of-a-Deal on a Used Car
-How to SLAM DUNK a Basketball
-How to Pay Off Your Mortgage in Just 5 Years!
-(Etc.)

…Those are just a few sample titles to give
you an idea on what type of product-content you’ll
be receiving =) The first product is *already written*
and ready for download, but the title/topic is a surprise
(you’ll find out after you join!) Though, I can tell
you it’s an in-demand niche topic that millions of
people are interested in.

Each private label product release comes with
resale rights. You can do just about anything
you want with these products. Modify them.
Sign YOUR name as author. Insert your own
affiliate links. Use them to set up content-
based web-sites and Google Adsense “portals”.
Turn them into “polished” PDF or EXE format
and offer them for up to $25-50 or more a copy.
The possibilities are endless! Each product
comes in rich text format and is 40-75 pages
long - ready for you to get creative with!

WAIT! I’ve saved the BEST PART for LAST!….

Thanks to IGR’s patent pending Cash for Content
program, you can obtain all IGR membership benefits
AND this special bonus offer for NO COST! (Visit
IGR and click on the “Cash for Content” program
link for full details.)

IMPORTANT: While there is no cap on the regular IGR
membership itself, this special private label bonus
offer CLOSES after the remaining 722 open slots have
filled! (IGR will post an obvious notice on their site
when the bonus offer has been filled/closed.)

Click the following link to join IGR *immediately*
so that you can secure your special bonus! Each month
you’ll receive at least one NEW private label product
(worth hundreds of dollars in price paid), in *addition*
to IGR’s already amazing membership benefits!”

Find out more about IGR

Popularity: 7% [?]