Every so often I will continue the tradition here are Goldrush by posting a review of a particular money making site or activity on the internet. Usually, they will be sites or sources which I have personally tried and/or am planning to use in the future.
Today's review is of a relatively new start-up called Ghostbloggers.net. Similar to sites such as Constant Content, Ghostbloggers is geared specifically towards the blog segment of the market. While still technically in "Beta" stage, the site is fully functional and has steady core of repeat buyers. The site has been featured by KillerStartups, Trends, and other sites the track promising new online ventures.
The first thing to do after registering at the site is to check out the list of requested topics to write on. It is publically displayed for all to read. Frequently, repeat buyers will use the same writer over and over again. Although the site attempts to limit "poaching" (buyers dealing independently with the writer after discovering them on the site), it is not impossible to turn a gig at Ghostbloggers into a permanent relationship outside of the confines of the site (usernames tend to be the same across the web, after all). The descriptions of article requests are specific enough to give the writer some direction without being overly constraining. If your article is not immediately chosen by the intended buyer, you can always leave it on the market for others to purchase.
The revenue sharing part of the site is perhaps the alluring aspect for aspiring writers. At $3.50 per every 100 words, Ghostbloggers represents a far more "decent" payout ratio for writers than other sites such as Textbroker. Because of the better compensation, the articles tend to be of much better quality than most other sites.
My Experience
I am aware of a number of professional bloggers who are very successful and use Ghostbloggers for a good portion of their freelance. Personally, I have uploaded two articles as of today, both of which are still under review (having uploaded them within the last 24hrs). I will certainly keep readers updated when/if they are purchases. The best part about Ghostbloggers is that it is a site I would personally use both to sell blog posts and to buy blog posts. That is the type of site which inspires confidence! Yes, the articles tend to be a bit more pricey, but if you are running a professional blog (or want to be treated seriously), poor content - if cheaper - will not build long term viewership.
Overall I give Ghostbloggers an A- rating. My one complaint is that they could put more effort into driving buyers to the site, as well as overall users.
Check out the site: Ghostbloggers.net.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Goals for September 2011
A number of other bloggers I follow create a monthly set of goals to follow. When I first started trying to earn money online I used goals to pace myself, but ended up getting frustrated because I piled on far too many tasks and made my goals far too specific. The key - I think - to a great goal list is actually making a realistic one that can be achieved while still allowing the creative juices to flow and be able to take advantage of new opportunities. Hopefully, goal setting will become a monthly post for me and it will help me accomplish my tasks.
Goals for September 2011
- Comment on 2-3 blogs per day (at least 1 being investing related).
- Join another marketing online forum for backlinks.
- Post at least 3 times a week on Digital Point forums.
- Write 3 articles for content revenue sharing sites.
- Write a test blog article for the new Ghost Writer site.
- Write a product review for my niche site #2.
- Finish designing my niche site #3.
- Do another round of article marketing for niche site #2.
- Find 3 more quality wholesale goods suppliers.
- Go to one used book sale.
- Buy a quality site on Flippa.com.
- Write 2 blog posts a week for Value Digger Investor.
- Invest in one more stock for my Value Digger Investor portfolio.
- Research and discover new money making opportunities!
This shouldn't be terribly difficult. The trick will be staying consistent with the daily and weekly tasks. Hopefully I will begin to see some returns on my investments by the end of this month.
P.S. Almost forgot. I also will post at least once a week right here on Goldrush.
Goals for September 2011
- Comment on 2-3 blogs per day (at least 1 being investing related).
- Join another marketing online forum for backlinks.
- Post at least 3 times a week on Digital Point forums.
- Write 3 articles for content revenue sharing sites.
- Write a test blog article for the new Ghost Writer site.
- Write a product review for my niche site #2.
- Finish designing my niche site #3.
- Do another round of article marketing for niche site #2.
- Find 3 more quality wholesale goods suppliers.
- Go to one used book sale.
- Buy a quality site on Flippa.com.
- Write 2 blog posts a week for Value Digger Investor.
- Invest in one more stock for my Value Digger Investor portfolio.
- Research and discover new money making opportunities!
This shouldn't be terribly difficult. The trick will be staying consistent with the daily and weekly tasks. Hopefully I will begin to see some returns on my investments by the end of this month.
P.S. Almost forgot. I also will post at least once a week right here on Goldrush.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Multipe Streams of Online Income
My apologies to any readers who were dilligently following this blog. I have been a bit side-tracked (in a good way!) over the summer. It is simply amazing how time becomes such a premium when trying to make money online. I have an entrepreneurial mindset which often means I end up starting more projects then I can adequately handle. The trick is to put enough concentrated effort into enough of my projects to start seeing some results. That has been the battle this summer, between summer vacations and errands that need to get done. I am sure many of us struggle with this. It is clear to me that time management and focusing my energy is fast becoming a top priority going into this Fall. In any case, that is my round about way of saying "sorry" for not keeping up to date posting here on Goldrush.
Content Writing Online
Initially, I was attracted to the concept of earning money online by way of content writing for sites such as Infobarrel.com, bukisa.com, and wizzley.com, but so far these efforts have taken somewhat of a back seat. My initial project of tracking earnings on a monthly basis is temporarily on hiatus while I struggle to get my monthly income from any one of these sites above the $5 dollar range. From now on, I will only be tracking monthly income that is over that limit, although I will continue to update readers on where I am focusing most of my efforts. I will continue to write for Hubpages.com and Squidoo.com as a means to build backlinks for my other projects and/or if I find a dominating niche to write on.
Niche Website Building
After becoming more engaged in the online money making experience, I was drawn to the concept of niche website building through a handy tool called Market Samurai which helps take the guess-work out of keyword research. I currently have one site up and running on autopilot that is averaging over $1 a month in Adsense earnings. Not great, I know, but that is with minimal link-building and marketing of the site. Another site is up and running, but not yet fully loaded with content. Still another is set up on Wordpress and hostgator, but without any content what so ever. It is difficult to handle building more than one site at a time, but hopefully now that my first project is up and running, I can turn my attention to building up the other sites. I like to do this in phases by batches of three. One site fully set up in traffic generation phase, one site set up in content generation phase, and one in the early process of appearance optimizing and layout editing. I try to keep a few "ideas", i.e. domain names and keywords, in the "pipeline" ready to go as soon as I get the first site up and running to a point I am comfortable leaving it on auto-pilot.
Old Fashioned Blogging
And, of course, we can't forget about blogging. I have many creative ideas for blogs. Oftentimes these ideas are even a forerunner to a niche site or a larger project of some kind. What is great about using Blogger is that I can test out ideas and start blogs with no financial investment! Later, when I have the time, resources, and have done the market research, I can simply import the Blogger content to a paid Wordpress blog. Alternatively, I can use my Blogger blogs to link to niche websites I am working on or other relevant blogs. The challenge - as always - is to find time in the week to keep the cylinders rolling on all of my blogs and projects.
Ecommerce
I have always used sites like ebay.com and amazon.com to sell old items around the house or great finds at local tagsales. During my college years, I also was able to pull in $100 a month from a small used online bookselling business. My inventory was mainly sourced from selling my friends textbooks online and the occassional church booksale, but beyond that I never really grew the business. Time permitting, I would absolutely love to expand this business and increase my inventory, but it is important to keep in mind that physical books are on their way out and digital media is the way of the future. More importantly, I have been researching various wholesale business opportunities that I can use to supply my amazon.com and ebay.com seller accounts. I have even gone so far as to register with the IRS for my business Tax I.D. So far I am struggling with the costs and benefits of dropshipping versus buying wholesale in bulk and storing at a physical location. This is something I would like to report on this site as I progress. Hopefully, I can help other aspiring e-entrepreneurs realize their potential by seeing my trials, errors, and successes.
Miscellaneous Money Making
One thing to always keep in mind - and something I try and remember daily - is that while the internet is a wonderful means to creating a great income, it should be incorporated into other ways of earning money. With that in mind, I have stepped up my game recently doing stock market investing for passive income and long term wealth creation. I recently transferred a blog from Blogger to Wordpress that deals with my stock market analysis, stock picks, and portfolio building. It is call The Value Digger Investor and is exactly the kind of idea that can bridge the gap between the online world and real world economics. Thus, I think I will be tracking any important updates on these types of developments here on this blog, even if it might seem beyond the scope.
Anyway, that's it for now. Stay tuned for further updates!
Content Writing Online
Initially, I was attracted to the concept of earning money online by way of content writing for sites such as Infobarrel.com, bukisa.com, and wizzley.com, but so far these efforts have taken somewhat of a back seat. My initial project of tracking earnings on a monthly basis is temporarily on hiatus while I struggle to get my monthly income from any one of these sites above the $5 dollar range. From now on, I will only be tracking monthly income that is over that limit, although I will continue to update readers on where I am focusing most of my efforts. I will continue to write for Hubpages.com and Squidoo.com as a means to build backlinks for my other projects and/or if I find a dominating niche to write on.
Niche Website Building
After becoming more engaged in the online money making experience, I was drawn to the concept of niche website building through a handy tool called Market Samurai which helps take the guess-work out of keyword research. I currently have one site up and running on autopilot that is averaging over $1 a month in Adsense earnings. Not great, I know, but that is with minimal link-building and marketing of the site. Another site is up and running, but not yet fully loaded with content. Still another is set up on Wordpress and hostgator, but without any content what so ever. It is difficult to handle building more than one site at a time, but hopefully now that my first project is up and running, I can turn my attention to building up the other sites. I like to do this in phases by batches of three. One site fully set up in traffic generation phase, one site set up in content generation phase, and one in the early process of appearance optimizing and layout editing. I try to keep a few "ideas", i.e. domain names and keywords, in the "pipeline" ready to go as soon as I get the first site up and running to a point I am comfortable leaving it on auto-pilot.
Old Fashioned Blogging
And, of course, we can't forget about blogging. I have many creative ideas for blogs. Oftentimes these ideas are even a forerunner to a niche site or a larger project of some kind. What is great about using Blogger is that I can test out ideas and start blogs with no financial investment! Later, when I have the time, resources, and have done the market research, I can simply import the Blogger content to a paid Wordpress blog. Alternatively, I can use my Blogger blogs to link to niche websites I am working on or other relevant blogs. The challenge - as always - is to find time in the week to keep the cylinders rolling on all of my blogs and projects.
Ecommerce
I have always used sites like ebay.com and amazon.com to sell old items around the house or great finds at local tagsales. During my college years, I also was able to pull in $100 a month from a small used online bookselling business. My inventory was mainly sourced from selling my friends textbooks online and the occassional church booksale, but beyond that I never really grew the business. Time permitting, I would absolutely love to expand this business and increase my inventory, but it is important to keep in mind that physical books are on their way out and digital media is the way of the future. More importantly, I have been researching various wholesale business opportunities that I can use to supply my amazon.com and ebay.com seller accounts. I have even gone so far as to register with the IRS for my business Tax I.D. So far I am struggling with the costs and benefits of dropshipping versus buying wholesale in bulk and storing at a physical location. This is something I would like to report on this site as I progress. Hopefully, I can help other aspiring e-entrepreneurs realize their potential by seeing my trials, errors, and successes.
Miscellaneous Money Making
One thing to always keep in mind - and something I try and remember daily - is that while the internet is a wonderful means to creating a great income, it should be incorporated into other ways of earning money. With that in mind, I have stepped up my game recently doing stock market investing for passive income and long term wealth creation. I recently transferred a blog from Blogger to Wordpress that deals with my stock market analysis, stock picks, and portfolio building. It is call The Value Digger Investor and is exactly the kind of idea that can bridge the gap between the online world and real world economics. Thus, I think I will be tracking any important updates on these types of developments here on this blog, even if it might seem beyond the scope.
Anyway, that's it for now. Stay tuned for further updates!
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