Before I start this post I would like to appologise to our readers for my long absence from payment blogger. I am in the army for the last 3 months (and I will be there for 9 more months) so time is very limited.

Anyway, enough with me, let’s talk about making money with forums. In this post I wont tell you how to monetize a forum web site, but how you can earn money by selling services and products on other forums. Personally I use these techniques frequently with webmaster forums to sell sites or ads. It doesn’t matter if you are looking to sell a site, an advertising package or some ebook you wrote there are a few things you should take care of.

Reputation

Everything in the business world is reputation. In forums this is even more important as reputation is “trackable”. Most forums have the reputation badge, while others (like DP) have a specific user rating for transactions with other members called itrader. So let’s say you start right now with a forum, you have registered an account with the forum and you are ready to sell your product/service. At that point I would suggest you to stop what are you doing and pay attention to your reputation. Without a strong reputation in the forum it doesn’t matter if you give gold for free because none is going to buy from you.

Building a “name” in the community

Ok that part is time consuming, but it is very important as long as you wish to earn some money in the forum you have just got in. Bellow are a few things that you have to do before posting any offer:

Post in the forums

A member with no posts is not a member. You need to make as much posts as you can. Don’t post stuff like “Thanks, I like this” but try to be informative and helpful to the other members. By showing them that you know about what you are talking will create trust from the community.

Give something for free

People is going crazy when you offer them something for free. It doesn’t matter if this is a 2 page ebook or a descriptive article on a technique you are using. If you give them something for free your reputation will increase so give it a try.

Buy stuff from the marketplace

If there is a marketplace with itrader, then you should buy a few things before try to sell something. This is because this way you will be able to have a positive feedback itrader that you make you look more trustful to your future buyers.

Time to make some money

Ok now you are a well known member in the community with reputation and itrader, so you can post an offer. At this part the most important factor is of course the product you are selling, but still there are a few things that you can do to maximize your chances:

• Try to be as descriptive as possible
• Rate your own thread (yeah people like to see 5 stars in the top of the thread)
• Make people bump your thread. How? Just leave a bit of information for pms so everyone will post “Please pm me details”

That’s it, I hope this article was helpful enough

We would like to welcome our newest sponsor TNX.net one of the fastest growing text link brokers on the net at the moment.

Many of you will already be familiar with TNX from their Digital point thread offering free text link ads. But for those who are not their service they are a traditional text link broker offering advertisers a way to affordable get their links on multiple web sites indeed they go so far as to claim for as low as $11 a month you may get up to 10,000 static links to your website!

Like many link brokers TNX are concerned with Google recent and highly talked about Paid Link war, though they believe they have a series of tools that will help even the most paranoid person out there. Sadly for publishers they still use Google PageRank for their many metrics something that I suspect they will be changing very soon.

Finally for all those of you interested in cashing in a different way TNX have an affiliate program, this system is based around their TNX Points but can be cashed in, in a variety of ways and are worth checking out if you are looking to diversify particularly if you also want to use their advertising services.

Why don’t you think about becoming a community friend its a great way to reach out just like tnx.net have done. So everyone please welcome TNX Payment Blogger latest community friend.

Well I got a little laugh when I ran a few of my sites through Talklinkcentre Paid Link detector thanks to fantomaster for pointing it out. Scarily the detector managed to completely miss any paid links and instead decided that links to Feedburner and Google were clearly paid for.
To make things worse they use scary statements such as

Paid Or Not
These Links Are Useless To SEO

Which is complete tosh, from what I can tell they simply decide any link with anchor text and is not a nofollow is a “paid link and or useless” but they did get me thinking how would I create a paid link detector?

Elements of a paid link

Lets start cooking to identify a paid link we need some tell tell signs such as;

• A dofollow full juice link
• Off Topic
• Associated keywords - sponsor, advertisment
• Neighbourhood checking
• Link viability

Walk with me,
So the first check is to see if a link is a full link i.e no use of the nofollow and that the link is external, this would be followed by some sort of relevancy check, and magic keyword check, this would leave us with 2 piles of links one lot we know or suspect are evil, the other we just suspect, so we then check each link against a list of known offenders looking for a match.

Getting into the logic

This is all pretty simple now isn’t it?

The two sticky areas are Link relevancy and the Evil keyword matching list, you see what is a relevant link? if I am writing a computing blog is an Apple an irrelevant term? We could perform some amazing Latent semantic Analysis (or swallow a really big thesaurus) to determine relevancy but could we get it anywhere near close enough? Without some sort of relevancy engine how would we know which links are paid for or not. Google and the other search engines must have this cracked (note that was a sarcastic comment) so let us ignore this small problem and go to the second one our Evil keywords. This is far more straight forward we simply look at anchor text, heading or div container that has terms such as Advertiser, sponsor,click here etc. Once we have amassed our list we pass our links and the surrounding code through them, just to be sure we better also have a flag system for terms such as Page Ranks as people who discuss such things must be selling links.

Ultimately when it comes to developing our paid link detector script we have hit a large problem without some sort of relevancy checker, and a huge database of known offenders we will be unable to catch those evil paid linkers damn. We could harness list where we do know their are offenders such as the Pay per post market place or Text Link Ads but certainly with the Pay per post we could get ourselves into a bit of hot water did the buyer pay for a link or a blog post or we could ignore this small problem.

How would you go about creating a paid link checker, the above is one idea its up there with writing “all those who have paid links please step forward” line but perhaps you could do better? maybe you think the guys at talklinkcenter got it right and if its an external link it should be nofollowed just in case?

Please note their was a certain level of sarcasm in this post, you may also note using the above diagram to try to create a paid links detector will not work nor will it help you take over the world.

Blogs are the hardest sites to monetize, but yet when it comes to wordpress there is always an automated solution for you In today’s post we will write about the top wordpress plugins that you may use in order to earn money from your wordpress blog.

Using adsense with your blog

Adsense never worked well for my blogs - as they are all tech related and people know how to avoid those ads - but for many bloggers adsense is the best earner. One of the best plugins for this task is the Adsense Deluxe plugin which gives you the ability to have different ad placements/colors on each post and decide what ads to run, etc.

Besides adsense deluxe there are other plugins for adsense too. Here are a few:

• AskApache Firefox Adsense will display Firefox adsense ads only to users that don’t have firefox
• Shylock Adsense Plugin gives you the ability to display more ads to the old posts and less to the new ones. This way you will not bother your regular readers
• If you are a refresh geek, then Adsense Earnings is the best plugin for you, as it will display your adsense earnings in your dashboard
• In case you want to share adsense revenue with your co-bloggers, then Author Adsense Plugin is exactly what you need.
• You can also use the Adsense Manager Plugin, which actually generates code automatically and allows positioning of ads with Widgets
• Who Sees Ads, will help you create some rules regarding who is viewing ads and who is not. This way you can display ads only to search engine visitors, or only to non registered users, etc.

More adsense earnings

If you want to earn even more, there is a great plugin from web 2.0 announcer which uses a unique revenue sharing system to help you make more from adsense. The web 2.0 announcer monetizer plugin will display links to the top stories from the web that are related to your blog, and in addition you’ll get half of the adsense pageviews in their site. This way you can earn money for giving cool content to your readers.

Amazon affiliate program plugins

Another cool income source for your blog could be Amazon. But if you are lazy like me you would like to have a plugin that will add those ads automatically, right? Well there are a few plugins that help you monetize your wordpress blog with Amazon. Here are a few I know :

1. Amazon links pro is a plugin that according to its author is a contextual solution for Amazon as it is displaying ads relevant to your content.
2. The Amazon Wishlist plugin will display your wish list at amazon to your blog. I know this is not actually a monetization method but a free book or cd is always cool, right?
3. TicTap Contextual Ads is probably the best plugin that I saw for Amazon (haven’t tested it yet) This plugin will display contextual ads to your blogs with Amazon products, and what I really like about them is their unique style (check the site to see what I mean)

Selling links: Do it yourself

If you followed the tips we gave you for selling links without the help of middle man companies, then it is probably the time to install the WP Text Ads plugin. I have never used this one, so if you want to read a review check this post from proBlogger.

Sponsored posts: Do it yourself

As you know there are plenty of services that act like a middleman for sponsored posts in your blog. Services like ReviewMe have marketplaces where advertisers search and order sponsored posts to your blog and they get a big cut of the sales.

If your blog has traffic maybe this is not required, so if you think you can do this yourself, you can use a plugin like WP BankRoll. The plugin is integrated with the Paypal IPN system, so it is a great solution, and the best is that there is a free version too.

CPM/CPC ads: Do it yourself

Now if you think you can sell CPM or CPC ads yourself, the first thing you need is a great piece of software to automate the process and have your clients confident that everything is working well. To have this result I would definitely suggest you to install OpenAds (formerly known as phpAdsNew) and then use WP OpenAds Plugin

PayPal Donations

Another way to make some extra money with your blog is offer paypal donations. If you think this monetization method can work for you, you can try the above plugins:

1. EasyPayPal Wordpress Plugin
2. Buy Me a Beer - PayPal Donation WordPress Plugin
3. Paypal Donate

Monetizing your feeds

Personally I am not a fan of this monetization technique - as feeds are supposed to used in order to get visitors back to our site - but if you are, here are two plugins you can use:

1. Feedvertising by text link ads has a plugin for feed ads for wordpress
2. The PostPost plugin helps you display CJ ads to your feeds

More monetization options

Do you want more ways to make money? Bellow are the rest plugins that you can use to make money from your wordpress site:

1. The DealDotCom plugin will help you earn more from this new - and promising affiliate program.
2. If you are registered with Chitika’s affiliate program - which by the way is great for sites that have product reviews - you can use [CA] Chitika, a plugin that will automate the whole process
3. On the other hand if you prefer to display BidVertiser ads, you can use the Bidvertiser wordpress plugin. Bidvertiser for me was the one of the worst cpc programs I ever used, but that doesn’t mean that it wont work for you too.
4. If you want are affiliated with CafePress then you definitely have to install the CafePress WP plugin

Lies, damn lies and Google

I think now is appropriate time to wade in on the are paid links spam debate the big boys have been fighting it out to the point that blows were very nearly struck, to be honest both side have well thought out and constructive arguments. I won’t go to heavily into the debate but will include some great web links where you can get a good idea of what is going on. Instead I was to draw you to 2 issues I feel need to be raised that seemed to have been forgotten.

Google is a company

Google is not a state, country or a charity Google is a money making company being listed in Google is not your right and you have no legal control over making them list your site. Therefore we can debate till we are blue in the face but the Google Search engine is controlled by a company that ultimately has to make money to survive, one of its main revenue streams sits on the right hand side of your screen every time you do a Google search. Google bosses must have by now realised the problem, if people can pay SEO companies to buy good links and optimise sites to get to the number 1 spot in the search engines then it will provide a far better return on investment then short term Adword campaigns it is therefore in their interest to see this becoming harder and more expensive to do.
Google has a problem it cannot alienate customers or competitors to much and therefore has made or rather left concessions in its policies.

What is editorial control

Why is it ok to buy links from Yahoo directory but not my site? Because according to Google, Yahoo directory shows editorial control, they filter out inappropriate sites that don’t fit a criteria and therefore are not motivated by money. Lets look at that again…
Yahoo directory is:

• A human edited directory
• Who takes only paid submissions
• Pays its editors

Now I’m sure the Yahoo editors do a great job but what makes them have any less or more editorial control then myself. Lets take this blog for example, their is no way I’m going to allow a Viagra company advertise here or any company except those relevant to the site. I have full editorial control and are perfectly capable of saying no I also know what I think is the sort of sites our readers would be interested in. In our community friends slot at the minute is Wordtracker they are a great company and yes the link is an affiliate one but that doesn’t make them any less of a great company. If Google wants to delist a site they have every right to do so but to delist it because of paid links is like they are saying the site owner was incapable of making editorial control, now I’m not a lawyer but thats got to be close to slander?

I am not a terrorist

In the UK we have anti movie copying ads on all DVD’s they go something like this….

DVD Piracy is wrong, its a crime, by making, selling or buying a pirated DVD you are helping terrorism

That was a bit of a leap, I copy a DVD for a friend I’m helping terrorism? Google uses the same techniques as that ad it has managed to blur the lines between what it doesn’t want you to do and the Law. Interestingly I hear a lot of people referring to Blackhat techniques as illegal and while many probably are being a black hat SEO doesn’t mean you break the law merely that you break Google webmaster guidelines.

Is it safe to buy links

2 things have become obvious through out this, one Google can’t detect paid links easily and with many Webmasters wising up to simple things like using the word sponsors it will become harder, hence they are trying to get people to rat out such links, two Google is a huge PR machine and ultimately it plans to eliminate paid links not algorithmically but through propaganda. Ultimately my advice remains the same, never buy for PR always buy for targeted traffic in your subject area with good anchor text alternatively look for button ads like the one to the right of this post, great links carry weight almost impossible to detect as paid for these might not be as useful as anchored text links but they have the potential to get your brand to 1000s of visitors.

Light reading

• SEOMoz - Matt Cutt on paid links
• WPW Video with Rand and Graywolf over paid links
• Graywolf presentation at SES
• SEOMoz coverage of Paid links session at SES
• Two quick ones from Andy Beard Slippery slope for Google | Paid Links vital for relevancy
• Last but not least Mr Cutts own words on how to report a paid link

One last thing

We still looking for community friends if your site, company or product would be of interest to our readers let us know we would love to welcome new friends to the site, though Pharmaceutical companies need not apply