tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78463403818663880962023-09-12T14:16:31.872-07:00A little extra money UKThis is a simple blog outlining how I have earned a little bit of money online, and hopefully you will be able to replicate me.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-68862979379713756622015-04-12T01:16:00.002-07:002015-04-12T01:16:25.282-07:00Is it possible to earn true passive income writing online?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<b><u>Introduction</u></b></div>
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As you may have noticed, until yesterday I had not posted on this blog for several years. What you may not have known - this apathy was not just unique to this blog and was in fact across all of my online money making activities.</div>
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I thought it would be interesting to see how my income has held up during this period of inactivity (about 3 years) as this would indicate whether the aim of passive income online is a realistic. </div>
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Whilst I have used many forms of online income, the only one I track in Google Analytics was Hubpages, plus my personal blogs so these are what I will be reviewing. </div>
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<b><u>Hubpages</u></b></div>
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<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G3lQAqcKAoE/VSohP8Yd5AI/AAAAAAAAIYE/m1YXOAYsfew/s1600/Hubpages.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G3lQAqcKAoE/VSohP8Yd5AI/AAAAAAAAIYE/m1YXOAYsfew/s1600/Hubpages.png" height="96" width="640" /></a></div>
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As can be seen from the graph above, over 3 years the amount of traffic to my Hubpages have fallen by about two thirds. Other than "accepting" comments about a year ago I have not done anything at all on Hubpages. During this time there have been several changes on Hubpages including rolling out "Featured hubs". If a hub is not featured it will not appear in search engines - in total less than half of my published hubs are now featured. Furthermore, using the hubpages system I can see that many of my hubs have broken links and the like, so this will impact further on both the internal Hubpages ranking and that in the search engines. I must admit I am pleasantly surprised with the amount of traffic I continue to get to my hubs (many of which are 5 or 6 years old) and will certainly update my existing hubs to see if that results in a boost to traffic. Overall, I have probably benefited from the majority of m hubs being on "everygreen" topics eg those which don't go out of fashion. </div>
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<b><u>A little extra money UK</u></b></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s-o6vMUBzio/VSohP9ELsTI/AAAAAAAAIYU/1JuDTA6kdFw/s1600/alittleextramoneyuk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s-o6vMUBzio/VSohP9ELsTI/AAAAAAAAIYU/1JuDTA6kdFw/s1600/alittleextramoneyuk.png" height="43" width="640" /></a></div>
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A little extra money UK is this blog, as can be seen, over the last 2 years I have continued to get reasonable traffic to it despite not having made any changes. This is surprising since many of my most popular posts are monthly earnings updates from years ago, although I have also had some traffic to my review pages. If I get the chance I will increase my postings on this blog (time permitting) and I will hopefully see the traffic increase once again. <br />
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<b><u>Renewable UK</u></b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kVtKxKK15gA/VSohP2JK3CI/AAAAAAAAIYI/oF7_QpOhMv0/s1600/Renewableuk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kVtKxKK15gA/VSohP2JK3CI/AAAAAAAAIYI/oF7_QpOhMv0/s1600/Renewableuk.png" height="86" width="640" /></a></div>
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When I was at university I also posted a few articles on a blog called <a href="http://renewableuk.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Renewable UK</a>. As can be seen from the above chart, this has seen the largest decrease in traffic over the last 3 years. However, this is to be expected as the majority of my postings were comment/opinion articles on the latest news in UK renewable energy so if I am honest I am amazed I continue to get any traffic. Renewable UK would also probably have the fewest number of backlinks from other sites as when I used to comment on blogs etc I would use A Little Extra Money UK or my Hubpages profile. <br />
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<b><u>Other sites</u></b><br />
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It appears I continued to get traffic and therefore earnings from Webanswers, Infobarrel and the other third party writing sites I use as shown in the sidebar to the right. However, I do not track these in Analytics so I am unable to provide graphs for these. <br />
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<b><u>Conclusions</u></b><br />
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From the above it is clear that it is possible to earn true passive income from both Hubpages and blogging, however, as would be expected over time the earnings will diminish. I would guess with some small input the rates of decline would be much less than that shown above so that is what I will do! Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-82842441421723420802015-04-11T11:01:00.002-07:002015-04-11T12:15:55.837-07:00Dooyoo Review - Is it really possible to make money just for writing reviews?Dooyoo is a website where it is possible to earn just for posting reviews on a large range of products. In this blog post, I will review the reviewers to hopefully advise you on whether you should also be looking at using Dooyoo.<br />
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Firstly what is Dooyoo?<br />
As said already, it is a site where you can write reviews on almost any product and be rewarded for this. Products to be reviewed are put into varioustop level categories, and then subdivided down further. For example, Media > Books & Magazines > Travel Books. <br />
The reviews can be seen by people who go directly to the site, but Dooyoo probably hope they will also get lots of views originating with the search engines. Dooyoo make their money from adverts on site, and they also have links to companies like Amazon who are selling the reviewed products for which they earn a commission. <br />
It is important products are in the correct category as each category is allocated a Level - in total there are 3 levels with Level 1 being those which are most attractive to advertisers and Level 3 being the least. <br />
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How do you earn?<br />
As with many ways of making money online, Dooyoo has it's own particular "currency" namely Dooyoomiles. The amount of Dooyoomiles earned for each review depends on which category it sits in - Level 1 reviews earn 600 Dooyoomiles, Level 2 pays 300 Dooyoomiles per review and Level 3 rewards 100 Dooyoomiles. Furthermore, it is also possible to earn additional Dooyoomiles each time another member reads your review, these are at the rate of 20, 15 or 10 Dooyoumiles dependent on which "Level" the review is in. Extra special reviews can also qualify for a "Crown", for these an extra 1500 Dooyoomiles are awarded. <br />
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How much is each Douyoumile worth?<br />
For the UK site each Dooyoomile is in effect worth 0.1p as 1000 Doyoumiles are worth £1, there are other Dooyoo sites elsewhere worldwide and so these rates will vary. <br />
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How do you claim these earnings?<br />
Payment is made through one of two methods, either a bank transfer direct into your bank account or through Amazon vouchers. Occassionally I believe Dooyoo also runs bonus events whereby each Dooyoomile is worth slightly more in Amazon vouchers than it's normal cash value. There is also the option of donating your Dooyoomiles to charity. <br />
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My review<br />
Dooyoo is a good site to earn a small amount of money if you have spare time and an internet connection. However, you are somewhat limited by the amounts that can be earned since you need to have actually used the item reviewed. Whilst it may be possible to do a lot of reviews in the Level 3 categories (books, films, groceries etc), the highest earning reviews in Level 1 are for items which are rarely purchased. Therefore, you will not become rich using Dooyoo, but I definitely recommend it if you have a few hours spare. <br />
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If you like my review of Dooyoo, why not check out my Dooyoo profile <a href="http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/my/new/?ref=6131691681064788" target="_blank">here</a>. Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-88749776194295873132011-12-13T16:05:00.000-08:002011-12-13T16:05:48.575-08:00Top Cash Back launches in the USA - The best cashback site jumps across the pondAs you may all know I am a firm believer of cash back sites and have previously written about two from the UK - <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/02/good-cashback-site.html">Mutual Points</a> and <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/top-cash-back-review-best-cashback-site.html">Top Cash Back</a>. Top cash back has since become my favourite cashback site based on the fact it promises to return 100% of cashback earnings plus sometimes bonuses on top, with no fees. This is in stark contrast to many other cashback sites which charge a fee, either monthly/yearly or as a percentage of cashback. <br />
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Up until recently topcashback has only been open for people shopping on UK sites. However, they have recently opened a site called <a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/bristolboy">topcashback.com</a> which caters to US audiences. If it is anything like the Uk version of the site (which it appears to be) I would strongly recommend signing up to it. <br />
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For those who have no idea how cashback sites work it is simple. Online retailers pay 'commission' to other website owners who refer individuals to their store (think of it as an advertising payment). What cashback sites do is return a portion of this money to the consumer. Top cash back is unusual in that it returns 100% of this cashback to the consumers and doesn't charge any fees. In the UK they actually offer more than 100% cashback (meaning that they pass on more commission to the consumer than they get from the retailer). Many people will wonder how this is possible - <a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/bristolboy">Top Cash Back</a> say they are able to earn enough money from advertisements on site to cover their costs. They also make money from bonus payments from retailers when certain targets are met, as well as probably making interest on unclaimed money. <br />
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There are several other advantages to Top Cash Back. It is the largest cashback site in the UK and has been running for many years and so there is a degree of confidence that it is unlikely to go bust with all the money. There are also generous refer a friend bonuses available - at the time of writing on the <a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/bristolboy">USA site</a> this is currently $5 but on the UK topcashback it is £10 ($15). There are also often no purchase cashback offers which are always welcome. <br />
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Overall I would recommend topcashback in the UK and now it has launched in the USA I would also recommend this site. As can be seen from my earnings update to the right I have made a lot of money using topcashback in the UK (approximately $1000); so if you are in the US why not sign up for <a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/bristolboy">topcashback</a> and if you already have why not post a review/share your opinion in the comments section below!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-74762701059450232772011-09-24T14:00:00.000-07:002011-09-24T14:25:28.583-07:00How much money can be made using Youtube?<span id="goog_536248348">You may have heard of the stories on massive incomes being made from Youtube. Some of these stories include people who have made large amounts out of money from multiple views having built up a large following, but others are due to one off videos making it big. I noticed that Kidgas had written a piece a while back on <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/2010/05/making-money-on-you-tube.html">making money from Youtube</a>, so I wanted to see if I could do similar and possibly get some residual earnings, but up until recently I had no decent videos. </span><br />
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<span id="goog_536248348">However, I recently got the chance to see a Sea King helicopter at very close range whilst out walking near the coast and so I uploaded the videos to Youtube to see if I could make any money.</span><br />
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<span id="goog_536248348">See the videos here:</span><br />
<ul><li><span id="goog_536248348"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9pOVIK_5E">Sea King Helicopter Rescue - Part 1</a></span></li>
<li><span id="goog_536248348"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AQkHTCrswk">Sea King Helicopter Rescue - Part 2</a></span></li>
<li><span id="goog_536248348"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlI31VD_ZTM">Sea King Helicopter Rescue - Part 3</a> </span></li>
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<span id="goog_536248348">Despite the name of the videos, I feel I should point out that I believe the 'rescue' taking place was purely an exercise.</span><br />
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<span id="goog_536248348">Well as can be seen from the videos, they have been up for over 2 months now and they have had very low traffic. In fact, combined the traffic is only about 60 views and considering that many of these views came right at the beginning it would indicate I will be waiting a very long time to make my first million from Youtube. There could be several reasons for this. Firstly, each Sea King video on Youtube seems to have only a small number of views (aside from a couple of videos of these helicopters crashing!). Secondly, I have done little by the way of backlinking etc to drive traffic to these videos over the alternative Sea King videos. Thirdly, I appreciate that these videos are of a rather poor quality. Therefore my experiment so far to see whether it is possible to make any money from Youtube has so far indicated that without traffic it isn't possible to get any earnings (rather like the web in general). However, I am not completely deterred and so I have uploaded a couple more videos, one of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSA_gVARs3s">Bristol Balloon Fiesta nightglow</a> and one of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_c3VEZrM-Q">panoramic video of Falmouth</a>, Cornwall. </span><span id="goog_536248348"> </span>Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-6242953531741452742011-06-18T09:23:00.000-07:002011-06-18T09:23:39.986-07:00Monthly Update - April 2011As this post is a bit late I shall keep it brief! <br />
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Aside from a few posts on this blog, I did very little online work during April and as a result the majority of my earnings are residual, so I suppose I am in no position to complain whatever the result! You may remember that for the <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/monthly-update-march-2011.html">last few months</a> I have seen decreases in my earnings linked to the Google Panda update - I wonder if this will continue?<br />
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Webanswers: £14.79 (11% increase from March 2011)<br />
Infobarrel: £0.48 (67% decrease)<br />
She Told Me: £0.07 (600% increase)<br />
Xomba: £0.07 (99% decrease)<br />
Hubpages: £50.56 (29% decrease)<br />
Total: £65.97 (28% decrease)<br />
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This was the first full month for which the Panda update had been in effect and so I expected to see some decrease in earnings. Whilst I am disappointed about the earnings decrease it is not as bad as it could have been and so I am not too disappointed. Whilst there was once again a large decrease in my Hubpages earnings, it is encouraging to see the Webanswers earnings having a slight rebound. Hopefully the decreases in earnings for Hubpages and total will stop now that Panda has fully taken effect and my Webanswers earnings will continue their rebound.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-1699616764143992822011-04-27T14:56:00.000-07:002011-04-27T14:56:02.756-07:00First Hubpages ad program paymentI have recently received an email from PayPal to inform me of a payment by Hubpages and when checking my account sure enough my earnings for March 2011 have now gone into my account. These are my first earnings under the Hubpages ad program scheme, which in theory should be better than purely Adsense, but with the Google Panda update it is hard to tell whether it really is. <br />
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This is good news and a timely boost as I was starting to become demotivated (did I just invent a new word?) by the decrease in traffic to various articles etc I have written, in particular Hubpages but also other sites like Infobarrel and She Told Me. My various blogger blogs are continuing to see good traffic though, so I will continue to expand on these - I am considering putting advertising on those which don't already etc. I also mean to follow <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/">Kidgas</a> in <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/2010/05/making-money-on-you-tube.html">making money from videos on Youtube</a> as soon as I have got a decent one as I feel this would be an interesting new source of revenue. <br />
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Further good news is I have already reached the payout amount for April 2011 and so hopefully, unless there is another update to Google, I should be able to make payout on Hubpages ad program every month which is good news. <br />
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Annoyingly though, <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/monthly-update-march-2011.html">March 2011</a> was the first month in a very long time in which my Google Adsense account didn't reach payout (this is partly as a result of the <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-google-giveth-panda-can-taketh.html">Google Panda update</a> but also likely due to the Hubpages ad program ads instead. Once again it looks like I won't earn enough solely in April to reach payout, with monthly earnings likely to be around 70%-80% of the payout requirement. In addition, Amazon earnings have dropped massively.<br />
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I have recently, as in the last couple of days, also noticed something of a resurgence in Hubpages traffic. As it is so recent I am yet to discover whether this will be sustained, but there do appear to be some improvement in my search engine rankings and so I hope it will be sustained. If the traffic does start to increase it will be good news as Hubpages is a massive percentage of my earnings, but I won't make the mistake I previously made of becoming too over-reliant on it regardless of regular Hubpages ad program payments! Now I must really get on and produce some more articles so until next time...Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-91887067657717635562011-04-14T15:53:00.000-07:002011-04-14T15:53:52.530-07:00What Google giveth panda can taketh away...You may have seen in my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/monthly-update-march-2011.html">March 2011 earnings update</a> I mentioned the effect that the Google algorithm update, known as the 'panda update' had on traffic to my online income streams in particular my Hubpages traffic. At the time I mentioned that it appeared that this was only affecting the US at this time, but that Hubpages traffic to the US had decreased by 50%. <br />
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This decrease in traffic from US users to my hubs actually accelerated slightly at the beginning of April, resulting in traffic from the UK exceeding traffic from the US, with Canada and India only being slightly behind. Well a few days ago the panda update was rolled out internationally. Whilst this is only a short space of time, I am already seeing decreases in traffic from most countries in the world of between 20% and 60%. The one exception to this is in America where I have actually seen a slight increase. This has obviously had a knock on effect on my earnings, both from Google Adsense and the <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/hubpages-ad-program-my-initial-thoughts.html">Hubpages ad program</a>. However, at this stage I am unable to quantify it. <br />
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Since Hubpages is an external site there is not much that I can do as an individual to improve the Google rank of my pages, other than backlinking. I believe Hubpages have recognised that there is a major problem and to a degree the company has been backlisted by Google and other sites, such as Infobarrel, have fared better because of their stricter controls on content (a reason I mention in <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/monthly-update-march-2011.html">March 2011</a> that I would concentrate on Infobarrel and Excerptz for posting articles at least in the medium term). Therefore Google are starting to crack down on overly promotional hubs and those which have excessive Amazon/eBay affiliate links. Whilst this is admirable, the checking process is not as thorough as those on other sites where all articles are approved before going live, at least to newbies and therefore I can see Hubpages struggling to bounce back as quickly as the alternatives have. <br />
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In addition to posting on Infobarrel and Excertz more, I will attempt to post more on Blogger blogs, eventually leading to starting my own hosted site. I mention Blogger blogs because <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/">this blog</a> and another one which I haven't posted on in a long time, on <a href="http://renewableuk.blogspot.com/">Renewable Energy in the UK</a>, both seem to have done well out of the Panda update and this will fit in with the research done <a href="http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-google-quality-update-demotes-uk-tech-sites-and-microsofts-ciao/">here</a> on how different websites are affected by the Google UK update. I may also post more on <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Webanswers-Review">Webanswers</a> although the degree I do depends on how traffic there is affected by the Panda update. <br />
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A side effect I have also noticed is that accompanying the fall in Google traffic there has been a corresponding fall in the amount of traffic which comes from Google. Previously 85% of my traffic to Hubpages was from Google, now it is nearer 70%. It might be time to figure out SEO techniques for Bing!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-19180088259723929872011-04-08T00:41:00.000-07:002011-04-08T00:41:12.933-07:00Redgage and She Told Me comparison - which site is best for making money on the internet?As regular readers of this blog will know, it is primarily about making money on the internet. To make the money on the internet I use a wide variety of sites. Primarily my income has come from Hubpages and Webanswers, but I am trying to diversify my income. Two sites I have been using to diversify my income for a while are shetoldme.com (<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">She Told Me</a>) and Redgage.com (<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a>) and every month I provide monthly earnings updates which include earnings from these sites. These sites also have another benefit - it is possible to backlink to my other sites using both Redgage and She Told Me, meaning improved search engine rankings (good SEO) and direct traffic. <br />
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I initially started using these two websites for the purpose of providing do-follow (dofollow) backlinks, since these are best for <a href="http://www.suite101.com/content/what-is-seo-a248233">SEO</a> purposes, with the added advantage of earnings potential. They both work in slightly different ways and so I feel it is worth explaining this for new readers before going into detail on which one I think is best, so if you are already familiar with both sites I recommend you skip the next couple of paragraphs. <br />
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Redgage is webpage where an individual signs up. Once they have signed up is possible to upload a blog, photo, video, document or link. Whichever option is chosen, there is the possibility that Redgage will earn money from adverts shown alongside the content. Redgage then recycle a proportion of this money to an individual. In addition, they may give bonuses when they consider a piece of work to be particularly good. Earnings from Redgage are earned within the site, and are paid through a Visa debit card once the amount in the account reaches around $25. <br />
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She Told Me is primarily about creating links to other sites and other content, primarily for SEO purposes. Links have to be accompanied by a minimum volume of text. Money is earned on She Told Me through Google Adsense revenue sharing and so there is a need to have a Google Adsense account before it is possible to make money from She Told Me. On each She Told Me page there are a number of Google Adsense blocks, on all links submitted the submitter gets 100% revenue sharing on one particular block of ads. She Told Me keeps the earnings from the other two blocks, unless an individual signs up through an affiliate link, in which case the referrer gets one of these blocks (meaning the content writer has one block, the person who introduced to them gets one block and Shetoldme.com gets the final block). She Told Me also makes money from private adverts and Chitika adverts. <br />
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As can be seen, if initially starting out, Redgage may be the best site for making money as there is less need to sign up for external companies such as Google Adsense. However, assuming you already have a Google Adsense account and are looking to use Redgage or She Told Me to increase income from additional sites which site is better?<br />
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I have signed up for both sites well over a year ago and have approximately the same number of links on each site. Therefore I feel I can provide a reasonable overview of the quality of the sites. Put simply, I have earned slightly more directly on She Told Me than I have on Redgage (about 30%). Obviously this is in the form of Google Adsense revenue though and since I already earn money using Google Adsense elsewhere it is also much more likely I will get my She Told Me money before Redgage money (at the present rate it will take me about 2 years to reach each payout using Redgage). <br />
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There is another source of income which can be directly measured and that is the traffic from each of these sources to my other sites. My Redgage.com links have provided about three times more traffic to my Hubpages articles as have my Shetoldme.com links. Also assuming a typical earnings rate for each Hubpages impression, this will result in Redgage earning me more money. <br />
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Another source of traffic is much harder to quantify. I mentioned that I used each of these sites for backlinking and SEO purposes. It is very hard to measure how well each of these sites affects the search engine rankings of the linked to page and so I won't even attempt to. The only thing I will say, is that for short, important keywords Redgage seems to rank higher than She Told Me for a given phrase (I assume this amongst other things is an indication of relative pageranks). However, since links on She Told Me are accompanied by much more text, it is worth remembering that She Told Me generally ranks for longer tail keywords and a lot more. <br />
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So which one would I recommend using for making money on the internet, in particular in gaining backlinks. Direct earnings are very similar between the two, but Redgage links are much quicker to create and so it is possible to create many more Redgage links in a given time. However, there are definitely advantages to using She Told Me - earnings are paid using Google Adsense and so if you are already at/near monthly payouts with this system you will see the rewards much quicker than likely with Redgage where you will need to build up to $25. All in all, I would recommend <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a> should be the first site to use (mainly due to it being much quicker to create links), with <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">She Told Me </a>being a good second.<br />
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If you want to get ongoing monthly updates on how much I earn from each of these sites (as well as a large number of other online money making sites) keep heading back here, or why not subscribe using the links on the right. <br />
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Have you used Redgage, She Told Me, or both? If so what sort of experiences have you had? Which one do you think leads to the highest earnings. Use the comment box below.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-81703727389732695392011-04-04T12:45:00.000-07:002011-04-04T12:48:15.841-07:00Hubpages versus Infobarrel - Comparison number 2Those people who have been following my blog for a long time may recall that about a year ago I decided to carry out an experiment to <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/03/hubpages-versus-infobarrel-comparison.html">compare Infobarrel and Hubpages</a> to see which one would get the best results financially. I wrote articles for Hubpages on a number of subjects and then wrote articles on the same subjects and submitted them to Infobarrel. At the time it was clear that the articles in Hubpages had much higher Google rankings for all keywords (although Infobarrel seemed to rank higher in Yahoo!) and so my conclusion was that it was better to concentrate my efforts on Hubpages. I have every so often revisited this, but at all times Hubpages has come out on top, although Infobarrel seemed to be closing the gap. <br />
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I recently decided that with the recent Google algorithm changes it would be wise to review these conclusions to see whether they still held, particularly since Alexa seemed to show a decrease in Hubpages traffic, but if anything an increase in Infobarrel traffic. <br />
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Once again to assist with the comparison I used the Firefox add-in Rank Checker, which can be used to see how highly a particular website ranks in search engines for a particular keyword. The results were quite surprising and showed that a complete reversal has happened over the last year - now Infobarrel seems to rank much higher in Google and Hubpages ranks higher in Yahoo! I am not sure why the Yahoo! ranks have changed around but I have at least a theory as to why the Google results have changed. Since writers on Infobarrel are pre-approved, this results in much higher quality content and the site having articles of a higher quality whereas on Hubpages substandard content is removed as and when it is discovered by Hubpages saff which probably results in a lot of dodgy pages slipping through the net. As I say, this is only a theory, but it appears to tie in with the theory <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/">Kidgas</a> came up with for why <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/hub/Googles-Farmer-Update-3-Reasons-eHow-Could-Prosper">eHow may prosper</a>.<br />
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Whilst I am impressed with the potential of the Hubpages ad program, it can only be successful if there is the traffic and at the moment I am thinking there is the potential to get more traffic on Infobarrel and so I shall start to concentrate a little bit more on Infobarrel and a little less on Hubpages and I suppose it is always good practice to have a diversified income stream. <br />
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If you are on Infobarrel and Hubpages have you noticed any changes in the earnings between the two? Is it similar to my findings? As always do let me and other readers of this blog know by commenting below.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-25262502485340069432011-04-02T01:31:00.000-07:002011-04-02T01:31:02.526-07:00Monthly Update - March 2011In March 2011 I have been relatively busy, however I have still managed to create a few articles. I wrote several articles on this webpage (a <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/ticklescouk-review-is-it-scam.html">Tickles review</a> and a <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/hubpages-ad-program-my-initial-thoughts.html">Hubpages ad program review review</a>) as well a <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Webanswers-Review">Webanswers review</a> on Hubpages. I also carried out a bit of backlinking. One site where I did considerable backlinking is on the new website <a href="http://excerptz.com/">Excerptz</a>. It runs in a similar way to Infobarrel - articles can be written and these are checked before being posted to the site, which should hopefully result in less spam and substandard content resulting in higher Google rankings etc. Money is made through Adsense revenue share and the percentage is 80% for the writer. At present the site is just starting but it is growing. It was set up by the Hubber Ryankett and I would recommend that you go and check it out.<br />
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Now on to the bit I am sure you want to hear, my monthly online earnings for March 2011. Remember most of these earnings are once again residual. <br />
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<a href="http://www.webanswers.com/_newaccount/how-this-works.cfm">Webanswers</a>: £13.37 (46% decrease from February 2011)<br />
<a href="http://www.infobarrel.com/signup.php?ref_id=1427">Infobarrel</a>: £1.44 (12.5% increase)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">She Told Me</a>: £0.01 (the same)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/referral/777ea9a7">Xomba</a>: £6.02 (147% increase)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/work_beach_google_adsense_amazon_ebay_and_hubpages">Hubpages</a>: £71.29 (5% decrease)<br />
Total: £92.13 (11% decrease)<br />
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As can be seen, I once again had a decrease in total earnings, primarily driven by a large drop in Webanswers earnings and a slightly less extreme drop in Hubpages earnings. I was expecting a drop from Webanswers and Hubpages, since traffic to these is down both individually and site wide (according to Alexa) linked to the Google algorithm changes. <br />
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As Hubpages is my major revenue source I thought I would review this, especially in light of the Google algorithm changes and the launch of the Hubpages ad program. I was actually worried that the decrease in earnings would be much greater than this and so I am in a way quite happy with a 5% decrease in earnings. At the moment (as far as I am aware) the Google changes have happened only on Google.com from the US and obviously US traffic is the major earner for Hubpages. Despite March having more days than February, overall I saw a 11% decrease in views to Hubpages. This was entirely driven by views from the US decreasing by approximately 50%. At the same time, views from all the other major countries actually increased by between 5% and 20%. This saw the share of traffic from the US dropping from over 35% to less than 15%. As I have already suggested American traffic is some of the highest earning traffic, so considering I had a 50% drop in this traffic, resulting in a total drop in traffic of 11% and yet only saw a 5% decrease in earnings I am very happy. I believe that the main reason for earnings holding up is the Hubpages ad program, which I believe at the moment is north America only. In fact, despite American traffic dropping to account for less than 15%, the Hubpages ad program accounted for a similar percentage of earnings as Google Adsense, which is obviously still shown in America as well as the rest of the world.<br />
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As can be seen, I have had a drop in total earnings this month. However, thanks to the Hubpages ad program it is a lot less worse than I was expecting and in fact I consider that the worst of the drop is over and in fact over the last week or so I am starting to see a recovery in traffic with a corresponding increase in earnings. Hopefully this will continue over the next month and so I hope to see my earnings for April 2011 to at least equal the earnings in March 2011.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-14699866589629841292011-03-15T14:46:00.000-07:002011-03-15T14:46:02.747-07:00Tickles.co.uk review - Is it a scam?In the UK there is now a website called tickles.co.uk. It is like many other sites such as Groupon, in that it is a group buying/coupon site. However, unlike <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/groupon-uk-save-serious-amounts-of-dosh.html">Groupon</a> and other companies it is based in the UK, in the East of England. At the time of writing it is only in Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge and since I don't live in any of these areas I am unable to give a first hand review - however I will collate information from elsewhere to explain the concept of the site and welcome you to add your own personal thoughts below. <br />
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First a bit of history - Tickles.co.uk was set up in 2010 in the city of Norwich and has since expanded to Ipswich and Cambridge, with plans to launch in London. In January 2011 half of the company was sold to a regional newspaper publisher and so it is expected that there will be a degree of advertising for tickles on local newspaper websites, particularly those in the east of England. <br />
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Tickles is like many other similar websites - it is a group buying service. Basically Tickles establishes links with companies in the cities/towns in which they operate. The company agrees to give discounted services to Tickles (which Tickles pass on to the customers) as long as enough people purchase the service. These discounts are often well over 50% and potentially up to 90% and on a range of items as diverse as spa treatments to discounted smoothies to driving lessons. The company works by offering each deal for a specific length of time - normally this is a day but it can be a weekend or even a week. <br />
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Tickles is currently advertising that it will be launching in London, where there are already many different such websites including Groupon, Keynoir, Living Social and KGB Deals. Once this happens I should be able to give a first hand review. Until then though all I can say is I think the company is reputable. It has been going for almost a year and is part owned by a large regional newspaper company. Furthermore, many people think that such website must be scams, but Groupon etc have proven that this isn't the case.<br />
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Have you used Tickles.co.uk? How would you rate it? Would you consider it to be a scam? I welcome your comments as I am sure other visitors to this site will.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-67433359042521268032011-03-09T15:05:00.000-08:002011-03-09T15:05:29.051-08:00Hubpages Ad Program - My initial thoughts and earningsAs I mentioned in my <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">February 2011 earnings update</a>, Hubpages have recently launched their <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/help/hubpages_ad_program_details">own personal ad program</a>. For a long time Hubpages have been showing their own banner adverts on their share of page impressions, now they have given the option to Hubbers to take part in this scheme on their 60% of impressions. Hubpages will deal with the advertising networks and will just pass on the revenue to individuals through PayPal (presumably after taking their cut). The scheme was recently trialled with a very small number of individuals (I believe it was 7 who get very high traffic to their hubs) who on average saw a 60% uplift in earnings. Now a further 500 people have been invited and it is planned to invite the remainder of hubbers by mid 2011 (so if you haven't heard anything yet don't despair!). I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky people to be included in this initial 500 so here is my views on the scheme.<br />
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If you are yet to <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/user/new/">sign up to Hubpages</a> why not do so now? I continue to earn in excess of £100 (over $150) most months from Hubpages from about 40 articles I wrote a year ago, so it is true passive income. <br />
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I am unable to comment on the <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/help/hubpages_ad_program_details">Hubpages ad program</a> and it's effect on the page layout, since I think I am yet to see any such ads either on my own page or anyone else's when browsing Hubpages. I am not sure why this is, unless it is the Hubpages ad program only currently distributes ads to those viewing Hubpages from specific regions, such as USA or North America. <br />
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Whilst the Hubpages as program isn't in response to the 'Google farmer update' it definitely will help with keeping up the earnings if the traffic does continue to remain at the levels which are lower than previously. So far I have been a member of the scheme for almost a week and whilst not long enough to provide a definitive answer for the exact effect on earnings, it should provide enough of an indication of earnings rates.<br />
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Initial indications for myself are that it has resulted in about a 20% increase in earnings per thousand impressions (CPM). I have come to this figure by adding the CPM for the Hubpages ad program to my Hubpages Adsense CPM, which has dropped (as one would expect since there are now less Adsense ads per hub and more competition). In total I would estimate I have since a drop in Adsense revenue of about 10%-20% since starting the Hubpages ad program. <br />
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I would attach a couple of caveats to my figure of 20%. Firstly, there is only a very small amount of data I am basing this on (my own personal rather limited Hubpages traffic over just 5 days). Secondly, it is hard to tell exactly what this uplift should be is since it has happened at a similar time to the Google Farmer Update which as far as I can tell has affected traffic from Google.com more than from the rest of the world (and obviously USA traffic on average has a higher CPM). Therefore, I reckon that this estimate of 20% increase in earnings may actually be an underestimate and the Hubpages ad program is returning better returns than the numbers themselves would indicate. <br />
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Have you used the Hubpages ad program yet? Have you seen any increase in earnings? As always feel free to comment using the box below!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-14875231892554262532011-03-05T04:39:00.000-08:002011-03-05T04:39:16.557-08:00Monthly Update - February 2011During February, as per <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/monthly-update-january-2010.html">many recent months</a>, I did little in the way of online work and building a residual income. Furthermore, like <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/2011/02/circling-wagons-after-latest-google.html">many other people</a>, I have been hit by the changes to the Google algorithm. Whilst it only affected the very end of February, I have already noticed a 10%-20% fall in traffic to my Hubpages, which pretty much chimes with the <a href="http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hubpages.com">Alexa chart</a> for traffic to Hubpages. I would expect that I will see a similar decrease in earnings and whilst this may seem like a high amount I have only dropped (in traffic at least) to where I was in the latter half of 2010, and considering I hadn't spent much time on hubs in the time between it wasn't too bad. <br />
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Well now on to earnings:<br />
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<a href="http://www.webanswers.com/_newaccount/how-this-works.cfm">Webanswers</a>: £24.71 (30% decrease from January 2011)<br />
<a href="http://www.infobarrel.com/signup.php?ref_id=1427">Infobarrel</a>: £1.28 (1729% increase)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">She Told Me</a>: £0.01 (97% decrease)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/referral/777ea9a7">Xomba</a>: £2.44 (1062% increase)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/work_beach_google_adsense_amazon_ebay_and_hubpages">Hubpages</a>: £75.44 (18% decrease)<br />
Total: £103.88 (19% decrease)<br />
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As can be seen I had a decrease in earnings. Initially this would seem like a bad result. However, as I have already mentioned, I did little online work and so this is pretty much true residual income. Furthermore, February has approximately 10% fewer days than January and so I would expect to see a corresponding drop in income. Furthermore, there have been the Google algorithm changes which probably knocked a bit more off of my earnings. There are reason to be positive though. <br />
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Firstly, whilst Google traffic to Hubpages and Webanswers may have fallen particularly due to the changes outlined above, I have noticed massive increases in traffic to Hubpages at least from Bing. <br />
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Secondly, and possibly more considerable to my short term earnings is the fact that Hubpages have opened their own <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/help/hubpages_ad_program_details">ad system</a>. At present there is a limit of 5 Google Adsense ads per page, but for some larger hubs there could easily be more adverts and so Hubpages will display adverts from other sources and will pay hubbers through PayPal for these adverts. A number of hubbers carried out a trial and they saw an average increase in earnings of 60%. It has recently been rolled out to a further 500, of which I was lucky enough to be one, and so I am hoping to see the benefits of this soon. If I see a 60% uplift in earnings this will more than make up for the earnings lost from the Google changes (and more!). I have signed up, but believe I am yet to have these adverts shown as my details haven't been process, but when they are you can see them on my hubs such as <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/hub/Great-Dance-Party-Songs">Great Dance Party Songs</a>, <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/hub/Top-10-Most-Expensive-Cities-In-The-World">Top 10 Most Expensive Cities in the World</a>, <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Motorola-Xoom-Screen-Protectors">Motorola Xoom Screen Protectors</a> and <a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/hub/How-do-I-find-my-WEP-key">How Do I Find my WEP key?</a>. Furthermore, I will provide an update on how I find the Hubpages ad program, either in the next update or if the news is considerable in it's own blog post before then.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-24549240600579044912011-03-04T11:56:00.000-08:002011-03-04T11:56:11.511-08:00Monthly Update - January 2010So, a bit late, but you know what they say - better late than never! You may recollect that in the <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/02/monthly-update-december-2010.html">final month of 2010</a> I moved across to GBP earnings, and so my earnings are once again in GBP. You may remember that I had a good month in December 2010 and although I was close to earning £200 and wanted to hit this in January, realistically I knew this was highly unlikely. So here are my earnings:<br />
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Webanswers: £35.42 (11.5% decrease over December 2010)<br />
Infobarrel: £0.07 (93% decrease)<br />
She Told Me: £0.31 (61% decrease)<br />
Xomba: £0.21 (not in Dec 2010)<br />
Hubpages: £92.20 (31% decrease)<br />
Total: £128.21<br />
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As can be seen my earnings definitely took a hit in January 2011 compared with December 2010. However, it is worth noting this was after Christmas when many advertises cut down on budgets and a couple of my high performing Christmas articles dropped out. It is still disappointing, but this is what you get if you don't work at it for months!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-86040887947562174992011-02-17T11:11:00.000-08:002011-02-17T11:11:52.789-08:00Monthly Update - December 2010Following on from my November 2010 earnings, once again I haven't done any work to expand my online income, other than writing this aforementioned blog entry and responding to comments on my Hubpages/Infobarrel/blog articles and so my income is once again practically passive. It will be interesting to see whether my earnings will continue to improve. There is a change this month though, regular readers of my blog will know I normally put increase from previous months. However, I have switched over to getting my Adsense earnings in GBP and since Adsense is my main revenue stream I will switch to making these reports in GBP, with conversions from other currencies to GB where necessary, using <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Wolfram-Alpha">Wolfram Alpha</a>. <br />
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Hubpages: £133.29<br />
Infobarrel: £1.07<br />
Shetoldme: £0.79<br />
Webanswers: £40.05<br />
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I am happy with this, especially considering once again I did no work, and will be keen to see whether these increase continue into January 2010.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-87561001369080692842010-12-01T14:54:00.000-08:002010-12-01T14:54:14.698-08:00Monthly Update - November 2010As you may have remembered, my last update was less than a month ago and was for the months of <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/11/monthly-updates-august-september-and.html">August, September and October 2010</a>. Once again I haven't done any work to expand my online income, other than writing this aforementioned blog entry and responding to comments on my Hubpages/Infobarrel/blog articles and so my income is once again practically passive. It will be interesting to see whether my earnings will continue to improve.<br />
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Hubpages: $182.74 (6% increase over October 2010)<br />
Infobarrel: $0.17 (94% decrease)<br />
Shetoldme: $0.21 (80% decrease)<br />
Xomba: $0.34 (57% decrease)<br />
Webanswers: $76.65 (10% increase)<br />
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As can be seen, in November, whilst more individual streams fell than increased, overall my online income grew due to great growth from Webanswers and Hubpages which are my two highest earning sources. Considering I haven't spent any time trying to increase my online income since August, for my month on month online income to still be increasing is very good news for me. Hopefully I will be able to carry this forward, although I imagine that my increase is partly due to the season and so come the new year my income will drop because of this - but we shall see......Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-83491758902856977602010-11-22T14:20:00.000-08:002010-11-22T14:20:50.090-08:00Monthly Updates - August, September and October 2010You may have noticed that I haven't updated this blog in a long time (3 months in fact!). This is because I haven't had any time to dedicate to online money making activities. In fact, I did absolutely no work on these activities since August (at the time of writing it is almost the end of November) and so I feel this will give a good overview of the possibilities for true a true passive income. I deliberated whether to bunch my earnings reports for August, September and October together, but have decided that whilst I will have just one blog post, it will have the earnings reports for the three months separate. The only exception to this will be Redgage, where I have been unable to break down my earnings by month. <br />
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So firstly, my earnings for August:<br />
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Hubpages: $97.16 (21% decrease over July 2010)<br />
Infobarrel: $0.36 (100% increase)<br />
Shetoldme: $0.01 (98% decrease)<br />
Xomba: $1.17 (No earnings last month)<br />
Webanswers: $72.84 (No earnings last month)<br />
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As can be seen there was a decrease in Hubpages earnings during this month, but this was more than made up for with Webanswers earnings. In my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/08/monthly-update-july-2010.html">July 2010 earnings update</a> I aimed to get earnings of over $150, which thanks to Webanswers I managed. <br />
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Now on to my earnings for September:<br />
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Hubpages: $154.34 (59% increase over August 2010)<br />
Infobarrel: $1.17 (225% increase)<br />
Shetoldme: $0.32 (3100% increase)<br />
Xomba: $0.06 (95% decrease)<br />
Webanswers: $74.64 (2% increase)<br />
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As can be seen, in September my earnings increased yet again. My Webanswers earnings stayed broadly similar to the previous month, which shows that this wasn't a one off (but is it a two off?). Also I was pleased to see my Hubpages earnings rebound to where they were a few months previously. Remember, that I did no work during September and so this is purely residual income. <br />
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Now my October 2010 online earnings:<br />
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Hubpages: $172.80 (12% increase over September 2010)<br />
Infobarrel: $3.01 (157% increase)<br />
Shetoldme: $1.06 (231.25% increase)<br />
Xomba: $0.79 (1217% increase)<br />
Webanswers: $69.5 (7% decrease)<br />
Yousaytoo: $0.99 (No earnings last month)<br />
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As can be seen my earnings continued to rise in September 2010. Whilst my webanswers earnings fell, this was more than made up through earnings increases from Hubpages and other sources. Again it is worth noting that I did absolutely no work cultivating my online income in most of August and all of September and October and so this is purely passive income - which still increased! For this reason I am very happy and hopefully I can continue these earnings in November and December 2010 to make 2010 a massive year and beat my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-earnings-update-2009.html">2009 earnings</a>.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-48541266021553401242010-08-01T08:49:00.000-07:002010-08-01T16:23:57.115-07:00Monthly update - July 2010Time for my latest update on what I have earned in July 2010. I can't believe it is that soon already, but it is.<br />
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This month was another month in which I created very little new material, and also I did very little in the way of backlinking and so my earnings this month can once again be pretty much classed as residual. I did a very small amount of backlinking but that was it. So here are my earnings and as usual only those sites which earned me something are included.<br />
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<a href="http://www.xomba.com/work_beach_google_adsense_amazon_ebay_and_hubpages">Hubpages</a>: $122.61 (8% decrease over June 2010)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/infobarrel.html">Infobarrel</a>: $0.18 (69% decrease)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a>: $0.11 (57% increase)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">Shetoldme</a>: $0.53 (No earnings last month)<br />
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As can be seen from the above, I had a decrease in earnings, with some sources of income such as Webanswers and Xomba having exactly no earnings during July. This was disappointing, but hopefully the numbers will increase over the coming months. I am hoping that due to the small amount of traffic that I get this is just a statistical swing. I also have a long standing aim now that my earnings are increasing to have a month where every day my Adsense earnings exceed $1 - this month was the closest I have come yet with the only day when I earned less than $1 from Adsense was 31st July where I only earned $0.97! <br />
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You may remember my targets from my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/monthly-update-june-2010.html">June 2010 earnings update</a> - well as you can see I didn't reach $150 combined and neither did I reach $5 from Xomba - in fact I was as far aware as I could possibly be. This is disappointing, but considering I did no work in July 2010 to still manage to keep my decrease in earnings to under 10% is uplifting and I feel this shows the true potential of residual income. I hope to be able to do more work during August and so I hope to reach earnings of $150 and also keep daily Adsense earnings above $1 every day! I am also getting very close to having lifetime Hubpages earnings of $1000 and so I hope to hit this amount during August 2010. <br />
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Were your July 2010 earnings more successful than mine? Have any tips on how I am going wrong? As always use the comment box below!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-61031440537628309712010-07-27T15:15:00.000-07:002010-07-28T10:34:17.174-07:00Groupon UK - save serious amounts of doshThis post is about a website which helps you save money, not earn money and so it is a bit different from many articles I have on the site but I hope it still proves to be useful (however there is the potential to earn money as a <a href="http://www.groupon.co.uk/in/.p8yOic">Groupon affiliate</a> - see more information below). <br />
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Groupon, also known as Group On is a company which specialises in bulk buying to bring cheaper deals for consumers. This is a brief overview of how the website works, a quick review and information on whether Groupon is actually a big scam. These deals can be anything from spa treatment sessions through to meals through to bowling; but they have one thing in common - they offer massive percentages off (over 90% in many cases) but what is unique is each deal lasts a maximum of a day.<br />
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For example, recently Groupon have offered tickets to the cinema for £1 instead of £12, £20 instead of £90 for an hour long massage and manicure and £12.50 instead of £66 for access to the Streetcar fleet (as an aside it is possible to get 10% cashback on all Groupon purchases by using <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/top-cash-back-review-best-cashback-site.html">TopCashBack</a>, further increasing earnings!). <br />
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How do they manage to get such good deals. The company line is they manage to get discounts through bulk buying - which must be true up to a point but I think there are other reasons as well. Many companies probably see it as a good way of getting advertising and new clients - think of it as them offering a discount now in the hope of getting repeat business at the normal price. Also I think that the Groupon business must also make money from no shows due the unusual way in which the scheme works.<br />
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There are a large number of websites which promise discount vouchers. However, Groupon is slightly different. Instead of giving you a voucher to print off it asks you to pay the price upfront and then book an appointment or whatever later. Often there can be limits on when vouchers can be used etc so I would imagine that many people forget and so don't take advantage of what they have purchased. <br />
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When <a href="http://www.groupon.co.uk/in/.p8yOic">signing up</a>, you are asked for details on where you live - this is for administration purposes and to make sure you are shown the correct deals as most deals are location specific. As such there are many Groupon sites available, including large cities like London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow but also smaller places like Falkirk, Oldham and Telford and one can only imagine that the scope of these will increase.<br />
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Having said all of this, I believe Groupon is a great idea. It has been around in the USA for a while and has recently launched in the UK to great acclaim. Already many people are using the site and I can only imagine this will increase further as people discover the excellent deals on offer. I can only provide my own personal experiences in my own review and I have found Groupon to be excellent. <br />
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There is also the potential to earn credit for use on purchasing items by using referral links to encourage other people to sign up for Groupon. At the time of writing, for every person who signs up to Groupon, the referrer gets £6 into their account and for this reason all of the links above on this website are affiliates (meaning i earn £6 for every sign up). However if you don't want to use this affiliate link click <a href="http://www.groupon.co.uk/">here</a> to go straight to the Groupon website. <br />
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If you are interested in Groupon sign up <a href="http://www.groupon.co.uk/in/.p8yOic">here</a>. <br />
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Have you used Groupon? What were your experiences of it? Use the section below to give a review - and don't be afraid to call it a scam if you think that is what it is (although I certainly don't think it is!).Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-6808792914682417862010-07-22T15:03:00.000-07:002010-07-22T15:04:15.804-07:00Increasing the Alexa rankingThis is an idea for a topic for an article I have had in my mind for quite a while (over a month in fact) and have just got around to writing it! The initial idea came from a <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/2010/06/thanks-to-my-blogging-friends.html">blog post by Kidgas</a>, in which he explained about his aim to get into the top 500,000 websites as listed by the company Alexa.<br />
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For those of you who are unaware of Alexa, they are a company which measure the usage of webpages to see what people are looking at and provide metrics for each webpage. Unlike other such services, such as Google Analytics, with Alexa it is possible to get an overview of any webpage worldwide, without the need to be an admin, albeit it in much less detail. As such it is very popular tool to be used when people compare webpages - for example it is possible to find out that visits to Facebook.com exceed visits to Yahoo.com and that Facebook.com is the second most popular webpage worldwide. One key thing is the Alexa ranking - put simply the lower the ranking the more traffic a website receives with Google being at position 1. <br />
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Many people with websites, Kidgas included, use this the Alexa ranking as a useful target to see how their webpage compares with other webpages. This can be a good thing, and in fact it is something I have done myself. <br />
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The reason I question the use of Alexa ranking when trying to measure achievements in making money online is it gives very little information and so it is important it is used wisely as a target setting tool. Some people check daily and becomes a sort of obsession - this can result in time being wasted. Many people become disheartened when they fail to rise quickly - it can take time to rise in the Alexa rankings!<br />
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Perhaps the biggest problem with Alexa rankings though for small sites is the statistical problems. Since it only samples a percentage of web traffic and then extrapolates there are many chances for errors to occur. For websites with large traffic sampling errors are mitigated by the massive number of samples taken, however with smaller webpages such as mine sampling errors can be major. Over the last month Alexa shows the traffic to <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/">A Little Extra Money UK</a> as being up 300%, yet using the true figures from Google Analytics the growth has only been about 50%. As such there is a discrepancy of 250% which is a massive amount (a swing of 250% the other way would have shown my traffic falling by 200% month on month!). <br />
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Along with inaccuracies, another problem with Alexa is it doesn't give information which is as broken down as that created by Google Analytics, for example. With Google Analytics it is possible to see daily/weekly/monthly/yearly traffic sources, bounce rates etc and it is even possible to find out where abouts on the website earnings occur.<br />
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These are some of the reasons why I think it can be foolish to closely examine Alexa rankings and getting too hung up on them. Still, if used, as I do and Kidgas does, to set longer term aims Alexa rankings can be a useful motivational tool for an online income seeker! <br />
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Do any of you use Alexa rankings to assist you in making money online? How? As always if you have comments use the box below!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-28146522087846445272010-07-05T15:35:00.000-07:002011-12-15T14:01:54.121-08:00Top Cash Back Review - The best cashback site?Top Cash Back (aka TopCashBack or Top Cashback) is an online paid cashback site which I have used very successfully and so this is my own personal review of UK Top Cash Back. The amount I have earned from Top Cash Back is shown to the right, along with my earnings from some other online money making/saving schemes which you may want to try out.<br />
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Feel free to add you own comments on Top Cash Back at the bottom of this review in the comments section and hopefully it will be similar to my opinions, including if you have experience of the US version of this site. <br />
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<a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">Top Cash Back</a> is a cashback site many others, such as Mutual Points which I have <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/02/good-cashback-site.html">reviewed previously</a>. I will eventually compare the pros and cons of each, but before then I shall give an overview of what cashback sites are and how they work.<br />
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Cashback sites, as the name suggest, are websites which allow you to earn cashback on purchases made online. Imagine there are two online companies: Company A which sells shoes online and Company B which is a fashion trends website. Company B may choose to place links to the website of Company A and in return Company A will pay Company B a percentage of the income earned from selling shoes to customers who came from the fashion trends website. Cashback sites take advantage of the commission which is paid by many online retailers, such as Tesco, Play.com, Phones4U, eBay etc and hand on a portion of it to the customer. Cashback sites can come in many shapes and sizes, but at their most basic they are just a site full of links to retailers. Now a description of Top Cash Back has been provided, let's get on with the review along with pros and cons of Top Cash Back.<br />
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Top Cash Back is a very easy website to use. Make sure you complete the <a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">registration process for Top Cash Back</a> when first starting out on Top Cash Back. Once registered, find the merchant which you want to purchase from either by browsing by category or by using the handy search box. On the page of the merchant there will be various information. One is the cash back amount. On Top Cash Back this can either be a fixed amount regardless of amount spent, or a percentage of the total cost of the product. Top Cash Back also add some information which explains how much certainty there is of getting the cash back and the time frame for this, along with reviews from others who have used this merchant through Top Cash Back. Many Cash Back offers require a purchase to be made, but some just require an action to be done for example visiting a certain website and signing up for a newsletter.<br />
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On Top Cash Back the payment is made by PayPal, cheque or BACS after a certain period of time has elapsed. This delay in payment is to ensure that you don't return the goods prior to payment etc which could potentially leave the retailer out of pocket. <br />
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Most of these actions mentioned above can be carried out on many cash back websites, so what sets Top Cash Back apart from the competition. Put simply, the rates on offer. Most cash back websites make their money by taking a fee out of the commission offered by the retailer - Top Cash Back does not. As a result the cash back is always at least 100%. I say at least because it is possible to get a multiplier effect on Top Cash Back, up to 110%, depending on the cash back received in the previous month. Top Cash Back makes money from advertisements, not cash back, and so this ensures that the company offers the best rates. What's more, if you do somehow manage to find better rates on another cash back website Top Cash Back promise to match these - which is more good news! <br />
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To make this review slightly easier to read here are some bullet points of the pros and cons.<br />
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Pros:<br />
<ul><li>Highest cash back available</li>
<li>Range of options for being paid</li>
<li>Top ups can increase cash back to 110%</li>
<li>Easy to set up and manage</li>
<li>Over 2000 retailers and counting </li>
</ul>Cons:<br />
<ul><li>Can take a while to get paid</li>
<li>Some companies do not take part in such schemes eg at the time of writing Amazon</li>
<li>Can be confusing to work out the best deal especially when there are different cashback amount across a range of merchants </li>
</ul>In summary I find Top Cash Back to be a very good website and definitely worth using if you live in the UK. If you do live in the UK, please use the comment box below to give your own review of Top Cash Back as well as providing feedback on this <a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">Top Cash Back review</a>.<br />
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Update: Since writing this review Top Cash Back <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2011/12/top-cash-back-launches-in-usa-best.html">has launched</a> in the US using the address <a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/Bristolboy">topcashback.com</a>. Obviously, being in the UK I am unable to use this American version of the site. However, it looks identical to the UK site and so I should imagine it works in the same way. I would welcome feedback if you are in America and have used this USA version of the site (<a href="http://www.topcashback.com/ref/Bristolboy">http://www.topcashback.com/ref/Bristolboy</a>) or if you are going to join this site from in the US based on this review.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-71181248821136190742010-07-01T10:38:00.000-07:002010-07-01T10:42:21.204-07:00Monthly Update - June 2010Is it really already that time of the month again? It only seems like a week ago that I did my last monthly update. Time really does fly when you are watching every game of the World Cup, even when your team plays absolutely awfully! No point in making excuses about dodgy linesmen etc - all of the performances were rubbish. Anyway enough of the footie - I am sure most of you only care about the figures (if you want to know about the World Cup find yourself a different blog!). <br />
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During the last month I have done very little in the way of trying to increase my online income beyond a quick little bit of backlinking using the sites mentioned in previous months (Redgage, Xomba, SheToldMe etc) but even this was in very small amounts. I did however receive money in my bank account from <a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">TopCashBack</a> - over £230 which is in excess of US$350 which is not too bad considering I was going to take out that exact mobile phone contract anyway! <br />
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You may remember that my target set in my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/06/monthly-update-may-2010.html">May 2010 Monthly Update</a> was to try and keep my earnings above $100, and if possible push on to $150 (although this was dependent on time and the World Cup took up the majority of my time during June 2010). So here are my earnings for June 2010, again with an indication of whether it was an increase or decrease.<br />
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<a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/user/new/">Hubpages</a>: $133.75 (6% increase over June 2010)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/infobarrel.html">Infobarrel</a>: $0.58 (16% decrease)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/referral/777ea9a7">Xomba</a>: $2.55 (50% increase)<br />
Webanswers: $0.33 (65% increase)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a>: $0.07 (63% decrease)<br />
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This month I actually managed to increase my total earnings slightly, with an increase in Webanswers, Xomba and most importantly Hubpages more than making up for a decrease in Redgage and Infobarrel income. This meant I exceeded my conservative target of earning $100 from residual income sources and actually was less than $15 within my target of $150 which is impressive considering I did little to nothing this month with my online activities so this can truly be called residual income. <br />
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My targets for July 2010 are to increase my earnings further - I would like to make a minimum of $150 from all sources combined and try and get Xomba over $5 if possible (although this will require a near doubling of income from this source). <br />
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I also hope to manage to make a few more posts on this site to see if it results in more traffic (I am driven by the excellent traffic to <a href="http://mymoneymakingexperiment.com/">My Money Making Experiment</a>, <a href="http://www.residualsandroyalties.com/">Residuals and Royalties</a> and <a href="http://myonlineincomebykidgas.blogspot.com/">My Online Income By Kidags</a> to name just a few blogs which also do monthly online money making updates and if I could achieve just a fraction of their traffic I would be very happy).Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-81562490350210851502010-06-08T16:18:00.000-07:002010-06-17T07:25:10.507-07:00Monthly Update - May 2010I wrote a few articles over the past month for Hubpages, Xomba etc and continued with my backlinking using sites such as Xomba, <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">SheToldMe</a> etc. I also set up a few more free blogger blogs to try out new ideas.<br />
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Another large income source for me this month was <a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">TopCashBack</a> (I earned in excess of £200!). I intend to write a full blog post on this in the next few days but basically it is the most generous cashback scheme in the UK. However, since this isn't strictly a source of residual income it isn't included below. In addition, if you sign up through the link provided <a href="http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/Bristolboy">here</a> before mid June then you will get a bonus of £2.50 when you reach £5 in your account. <br />
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If you remember from my <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/05/monthly-update-april-2010.html">April 2010 update</a> my aim was to hit $75 with Hubpages and $5 with all the other sources combined, with an ambitious target of $100 in total. Without further ado here are my online residual income earnings for May 2010:<br />
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<a href="http://hubpages.com/_redirect/user/new/">Hubpages</a>: $125.81 (62% increase over April 2010)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/infobarrel.html">Infobarrel</a>: $0.69 (78% decrease over)<br />
<a href="http://www.xomba.com/referral/777ea9a7">Xomba</a>: $1.70 (133% increase)<br />
Webanswers: $0.20 (25% increase)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a>: $0.19 (94% decrease)<br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">SheToldMe</a>: $3.33 (New this month)<br />
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As can be seen from this I easily exceeded all my targets. Hubpages, which makes up the bulk of my earnings, had a massive increase and by itself took me over the magical $100 level. The best news about this was that teh increase was due to increases in traffic to most of my Hubpages. <br />
Infobarrel unfortunately fell quite sharply and was passed by SheToldMe and Xomba which is probably a result of all the work I have spent on these sites with backlinking articles etc. <br />
<a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redage</a> had a sharp fall, but this just reflected the fact I didn't use the site as much in April and I didn't get a $3 bonus like I did in March.<br />
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My targets for June 2010 are quite modest, mainly due to me being pre-occupied with the World Cup in South Africa. As a minimum I would like to keep my online income above $100 although I will be aiming to push on to $150 if I get the time.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-61736915078860852072010-05-10T11:23:00.000-07:002010-05-10T11:23:23.017-07:00Adverts on Hubpages MobileHubpages is an online revenue sharing website which earns money partly through adverts at the time of writing does not show adverts on page views from cell phones.<br />
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I have recently purchased a brand new phone, the amazing HTC Desire and so I decided to read a hub my someone I follow. One thing I noticed straight away was there was no adverts shown. I did a bit more research and it turns out no hubs have adverts on them, although where there are eBay and Amazon referral links these DO show up. As a result, from mobile impressions eBay and Amazon are the only sources of income at the present stage. <br />
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This issue only occurs on sites such as Hubpages where there are mobile versions of pages. Other sites such as Infobarrel and Xomba do not appear to have mobile sites as such and so when viewing these sites through mobile devices the normal desktop version is displayed and so there is still the potential to earn through Adsense clicks. <br />
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I did a bit of research using Google Analytics and discovered impressions on my hubs from mobile sources amounted to about 1000. As a result, I could possibly earn more if adverts were shown on Hubpages when accessed through a mobile device such as the iPhone, Blackberry or Android device such as the Motorola Droid or HTC Droid Incredible. <br />
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Hopefully in the future adverts will be shown on hubs when displayed upon a mobile device. A main reason for me hoping this will happen is Google Adsense are hoping to take over the major mobile ad network, Admob and if this happens Admob would be incorporated into the Adsense system.Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846340381866388096.post-43381559007449602062010-05-01T02:35:00.000-07:002010-05-01T05:32:36.279-07:00Monthly Update - April 2010So it's that time again when I publish my earnings for the previous month. Over the last month I haven't written many articles. What I have done, however, is do a lot of work creating backlinks, especially using <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a> and <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/she-told-me-great-new-do-follow.html">She Told Me</a>. In total I wrote four new hubs. The first was a little experiment I intended to run and so was entitled <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Hubpages-Login">Hubpages Login</a>. I then decided that I had too many earnings from Adsense on Hubpages and so I wanted to diversify my portfolio to include more Amazon sales. I have recently purchased a new mobile phone and so I decided I would concentrate on pages specialising in cell phone accessories (as I had to do lots of the research myself). As such I chose to write an article on <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Buy-HTC-Droid-Incredible-Screen-Protectors-Online">HTC Droid Incredible Screen Protectors</a>, <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Buy-HTC-Droid-Incredible-Charger-Online">HTC Droid Incredible Chargers</a> and <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Buy-LG-Ally-Screen-Protectors-Online">LG Ally Screen Protectors</a>. I had previously written an article on <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Buy-Motorola-Droid-Screen-Protectors-Online">Motorola Droid Screen Protectors</a> which saw moderate success so hopefully these will follow in the footsteps. I do see one problem with this though - there is likely to be a big surge in traffic when the phone first comes out and will slowly decline until after a year or two there will be nothing (even if I manage to rank top in the SERPS). <br /><br />Aside from these four Hubpages I didn't write anything else on Xomba, Infobarrel or any other websites (but these continued to earn). Once again I managed to earn from Webanswers and also for the first time I have included my earnings from Redgage. You may recall that my aim from the <a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/monthly-update-march-2010.html">March 2010 earnings update</a> was to exceed $60 from Hubpages and earn $5 from all the other sites combined. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.xomba.com/work_beach_google_adsense_amazon_ebay_and_hubpages">Hubpages</a>: $77.40 (26% over March 2010)<br /><a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/infobarrel.html">Infobarrel</a>: $3.09 (124% increase over March 2010)<br /><a href="http://www.xomba.com/referral/777ea9a7">Xomba</a>: $0.73 (135% increase)<br />Webanswers: $0.16 (64% decrease over March 2010)<br /><a href="http://alittleextramoneyuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/backlinking-using-redgage.html">Redgage</a>: $3.20 (new for this month)<br /><br />As can be seen I got very good earnings this month. There was an increase on all of the article writing websites (Hubpages, Infobarrel and Xomba). What is important to note is that this increase was due to an increase in the number of people visiting existing sites, which I would put at least partly down to the backlinking which I had done over the month. In fact, I had written only four new articles for Hubpages which contributed little and no new articles for Xomba or Infobarrel so all in all it wasn't a bad return. Webanswers probably dropped to inactivity by myself on the website during April 2010. I also earned quite a lot from Redgage, however this was partly due to getting a bonus $3 for my one of my pictures being featured.<br /><br />These results mean I exceeded my target of $60 from Hubpages (in fact I earned over $75) and also exceeded my target for $5 from all other websites after earning $7.18 although $3 of this was a Redgage bonus for being featured and when this is removed I earned only $4.18 which is disappointing. <br /><br />For May 2010 I hope to be able to keep Hubpages above $75 and the other websites above $5 (without bonuses!) and who knows, if I am lucky I may even be able to break through the magic $100 barrier!Bristolboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040469015991222982noreply@blogger.com0