Broadening My Options

Image via Wikipedia

So, I haven't given up on this. :)  But, I have decided that just writing articles bores me after a bit.  I have found the same thing when I am doing work for other people.  I can't just write blog posts about exercise or just write about careers.  I have to mix up blog posts and articles and stories so that I don't go crazy doing just one thing.

I'm going to do the same thing with my residual earnings and I might as well tell you what I'm doing.

First, I have a couple of niche sites happening.  I have one about anxiety/panic disorder, one about time management, and one about how to be a freelance writer.  I'm trying to add one new blog post to each per week.They have Amazon ads on them and Adsense.

Second, I am doing some product focused Amazon blogs.  I purchased a course (which I am likely going to review in the fairly near future) from Chris Guthrie and it has cleared things up.  I have two Amazon blogs up now.  One just went up last night and I spent  about an hour finding just the right product and just the right keyword domain and put it up. I still have to write a couple of real blog posts for it but I think this second one is going to be the one that starts making money first.

In the past I've been very, "I know how to do this so why should I pay someone to do it for me?" whenever it comes to pretty much anything.  I think I was just being stubborn though.  So, I've started outsourcing my linkwheels.  I know how to do them but why the hell would I spend hours getting a proper linkwheel set up when I can pay someone $5 to  do it for me?  It's an investment, right?

I'm still hemming and hawwing about the article spinning issue.  I can write but would it be a better investment to get a good article spinner?  Would it save me time?  I've tried free ones - they all suck - so I'm wondering if the paid versions are going to be that much better?  I don't know.  I'll have to think about it.  At some point you have to stop "investing" and just  get your butt to work, right?

Oh - that picture?  It's a "freelancer jump gate" and I thought it was kind  of cool. :)

Reuse and Recycle!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  I mean, I know about reusing content from blog posts and re-purposing it but I didn't think of this.

I was on the InfoBarrel forum - really glad that thanks to Willow Sidhe that I've started exploring that forum! - and someone brought up ListMy5.  That is another residual earning site that some people got very excited about.  Well, I guess I was one of them because I have 20 articles up there.  I couldn't make money from it because I'm Canadian, but when it first started it did allow you to place dofollow links in the article and they were so easy to write that I thought it would be a good way to get traffic back to my blogs and articles in other places.  So, yes, I had 20 of them.

Anyway, this thread on the InfoBarrel forum, reminding me of this site and someone mentioned that they were going to move all their articles and put them somewhere else.

Doh!  Why didn't I think of that?

So, that's one of the things I want to get done over the next couple of days.  I want to get those articles fleshed out a bit more (they are pretty simple little lists) with an intro and a close and put them on either Bukisa or InfoBarrel.  I've done that with two of them already and it only took me about 5 minutes to increase the content of them and have them ready for another site.

There are lots of other ways that you can re-use content.

I have YouTube videos that are made on PowerPoint that could be turned into an article.  Of course, blog posts can be broken up into parts and re-written to form new articles.  Perhaps you made a great post on a forum to help someone out - turn it into an article, too!

Reuse and recycle your content to increase your article count!

My Backlinking Strategy

I know that one of the most annoying things about making money from residual income is that you need to get backlinks in order to get ranked and building those backlinks takes time and energy.  I've built up a nice way of giving my articles some instant backlinks though.

With this method I have 26 backlinks right away.  I can do them all in one day or I can spread them out over a period of time.  Now, 26 backlinks isn't a huge amount so I don't believe that is too many.  If you do a large amount, sometimes you'll get a little slap from Google but I believe that 26 is ok.

Anyway, I made this video to explain it.  Check it out and let me know what you think:

Progress! Yay!

Image via CrunchBase

Progress is a good thing!

I've been pounding away at the keyboard this morning while watching my nephew and I've actually gotten some work done.  I wrote three articles for InfoBarrel and they are waiting for approval.  I also did a load of bookmarking from the last articles that I was waiting for approval on and also a couple articles that had never been bookmarked before.

And I made a video, which I will share with you here when it has been uploaded to YouTube.  It's a lengthy one (10 mins!) about my social bookmarking strategy.  I think the reason a lot of people don't really like social bookmarking is that it can be a time consuming process if you do not have a real strategy going.  But I've worked out a process that lets me submit to 26 sites in about 2 minutes.  Nice huh?  And, one of the sites I am using even allows you to spread them out over a time period.  Very cool.  Anyway, I'll be putting the video up here shortly.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say.  If you're reading here I'm guessing that you do residual income as well?  If you do, please leave me a comment and a link to your site so I can check it out. :)

**10 PM - I just wanted to add that I did really good today!  I got 5 articles written - 3 at InfoBarrel and 2 at Bukisa!  I wish I had time to do this every day!

Having a Hard Time with Organization

Image by Earthworm via Flickr

The story of my life - organization - I suck at it.  Believe it or not, I used to be an administrative assistant and organization was critical for me.  Even more unbelievable is that I used to teach an administrative assistant course and one of the things I had to teach was organization skills. So I know this stuff, but do you think I have succeeded in being organized as a freelancer?  Not a chance!

I am not sure why but I just have not managed to get my organization skills working for me at home.  I get lost on Facebook or I get sidetracked reading an article about blogging or I find a really cool plug in that I have to install immediately.  And before you know it the morning is over and I haven't really accomplished a damn thing.

Right now I have articles for pay that need to be written and I have written any residual articles in days.  Mind you, I have had some really crazy things going on in my life this past week.  I'm amazed that I've managed to do anything.  I found out that before the year is out I'm going to be a grandma!  It's not the ideas situation because my daughter is only 16 but I can't help but be a bit excited.  She's pretty much decided to keep it and I'll be damned if I'm going to make this a miserable experience for anyone.  This child will come into the world loved and cherished and I'm going to be there to help my daughter become a good mom.

Anyway, I have gotten a few more articles up and I've done some work on my niche blogs.  I found a guy at Fiverr.com that does these awesome linkwheels and I plan on using him again for sure.

So, I just wanted to let you know I haven't given up on this project - I'm just a little side tracked. :)

2 More Residual Earnings Articles Up

Well, I missed the weekend (I tend to be pretty unorganized on weekends and with teenager chaos usually rules) but I did get my two articles up this morning - one on Bukisa and one on InfoBarrel.  I'm waiting for approval for both of them but that should be ready before the end of the day.

I've been watching my Google Adsense stats religiously for the past couple of days.  LOL.  It is kind of funny because it is just like when I first signed up with them.  But I have seen that I get more traffic at Bukisa than I do at InfoBarrel. That might be because I have more content there than at InfoBarrel.  I guess we'll see what happens as time progresses and I get more backlinking done.

It is too early to tell much yet, but I just thought I would throw a quick update in here so you know I'm not slacking.

Day 1 Articles Posted

Well, good start to day one.  I wrote and posted two articles - one for InfoBarrel and one for Bukisa.  They didn't take too long to write and I had already done the keyword research.

I also did some bookmarking on older articles but I won't be able to bookmark these until tomorrow or the next day when they are approved.

I'm kind of excited about all of this! :)

Sites for Residual Earnings

Image via CrunchBase

I've decided to start with two sites for residual earnings:

• InfoBarrel
• Bukisa

I've decided on these two primarily because I've already got articles there and because I've had some success with them in the past (on a small level - remember that I haven't put a huge amount of effort into either one of them).

I think for now I am going to make a goal of posting a new article each day on each site.  So, that's 14 articles a week.  I know that doesn't seem like a lot but I do have a lot of other things on my plate.  I have 3 private clients that bring in a good portion of my income and I have a part time teaching job as well.  And I have a couple of blogs.

I guess the blogs come into play with my residual earnings as well because I do have Adsense on them, too.  My main blog actually does quite well and has good traffic.  Hopefully, I can build this one up to that. :)

I'll be doing keyword research for each post and I'll be submitting it to social bookmarking sites.  I'm going to use IMAutomator plus a few other sites like Digg, Delicious, SheToldMe and StumbleUpon.

And of course, I think I'll do income reports.  I've never done that before but I think that in a blog like this it can be very useful.  I'm only going to include the income that has to do with residual earnings though.

So, I'll be back soon with some progress reports!

Day 1: I Need a Plan!

First, welcome to my blog about earning residual income.  I know there are many other blogs out there that are like this so if you choose to follow me on this journey I'll be really excited. :)

I'm a little different than the total newb that is trying to make residual income because I've actually been online for years.  I have a very successful blog about social media for freelance writers.  I've been earning money as a freelance writer for about 8 years.  I have already been using residual earning sites - just not effectively.  I even know how to do keyword research and writer keyword optimized articles.

But I've never actually tried to implement a plan with the intent of making real money from residual earning sites.  It has all been rather random.

But I know that it is possible to make decent money and I think that it would be very cool to be able to earn money consistently from Google Adsense.  And I want to put some actual effort into it and that means I need a plan.

One of the things I do is article marketing for a client.  They don't care where the articles are placed - as long as there are backlinks to their site in there.  So, why use article marketing sites that I get nothing back from when I can use sites that allow me to earn some residual income at the same time?  So, a lot of the articles that I write will be double earners.

But I want to take this opportunity to write articles that I'm actually interested in as well.  Some of the topics I plan on covering include:

• Working at home
• Writing
• Anxiety and panic disorder
• Depression
• Drugs/Teen drug abuse
• Social media

I have to do some research on those but I know at least a few of those will be profitable.

So, if you're interested in earning money online with me, follow my blog!