After entrecard adopted project wonderful many bloggers seemed to adopt the same system. We gave it a try and wrote a Project Wonderful review.

Project Wonderful in Re Review

I gave project wonderful a pretty positive review, stating that it was a great resource to use for monetizing your blog. However, don’t expect much money from it. I ended up running Project Wonderful for nearly 2 months and barely got to cash out twice ($20).

For the first week or two, our price was up to $2.20 per day. By the end we could barely get .30 to .40 cents per day. I would actually be losing money if I would take Project Wonderful over a private ad ($20 per month for a banner).

I don’t think Project Wonderful is very good for monetizing your blog. However, for advertising, it can be golden.

Advertising on Project Wonderful

If you are a bargain hunter for advertising, project wonderful may be just what you are looking for. Some websites and blogs cost as low as .01 per day (some are even free). Just by getting one click on your ad, that’s already a steal.

Two of my favorite blogs to advertise on have been Ninja Success and It’s Write Now. The cost per day is pretty low and my cost per click is only a few cents. It’s been a perfect way to use up the rest of my Project Wonderful leftover funds.

If you aren’t trying to squeeze out every dime, you can do a huge bulk order and advertise on 100’s of blogs if you want to. HomeBizBlogger has written his experience with Project Wonderful Advertising Campaigns, that could be of interested if you want to bulk advertise on Project Wonderful.

Do you reinvest the money you earn on Project Wonderful? If so which websites or blogs do you advertise on?

Some social media websites, like Digg, are becoming increasingly difficult for bloggers to have their articles go popular. I have been using alternatives which have worked fine for us. Now that you know the basic rules for social media sites you can be successful on any social media website. Here are three that you may not know about, that are perfect for bloggers.

Post On Fire

Post on Fire is a new one that I have started using. At first it’s always difficult to start using new sites like this, because essentially you need people to vote for you. The plus however is that you don’t need an account to vote, so you can have your visitors vote for you. It only takes 5 votes for your story to go popular.They have the basic categories, business, blogging, health and technology. There is something for everyone.

Blog Engage

Blog Engage is a social media website that I found on the bloggeries forum. However, this one needs a little work. The owner is pretty hands on with the website, but it needs some adjustments. The last post to go popular was 4 days ago. It takes 7 votes to go popular and obviously not many are getting that many votes.However this social media site is a little more complete. It has a blog as well as a forum. With some small adjustments this website can be a great place to promote your blog posts.

Blogging Zoom

Blogging Zoom is the most popular of the three. I’ve actually already written about Blogging Zoom: BloggingZoom Burning Bloggers. Yes, it was a bit negative. A while after this post, Vic actually apologized, unbanned us, reinstated my account, and asked me to come back. So everyone deserves a second chance, right? I’ve actually just installed the Blogging Zoom Wordpress Plugin that adds a Blogging Zoom button to your post (that you can get here).

Blogging Zoom is a little harder to have your post go popular. It looks like it takes 15 zooms to go popular. It’s a little confusing as there are posts from 30 days ago on the front page. However, it’s a plus that you don’t need an account to vote on the post.

Have you used any of these social media websites? If so, how was your experience?

Don’t forget to vote for this article at PostonFire, Blog Engage, and Blogging Zoom!

One thing you cannot ignore about your blog is backing up the data. You don’t want to wake up to find your hosting mess up the backups and you have lost all your data.

Relax. I know just the thought of that would make a hard working blogger like you shudder.

I had written a detailed post here on different ways of backing up your blog. See if you find it something you can use or at least get you thinking in the right direction.

One such way is using an online blog backup service such as BlogBackupOnline.com. At the time of writing that post, it was a beta service and they stayed in beta for almost a year and now they have come out of beta. BlogBackupOnline is a cool service that lets you backup your blogs for free (up to 5MB). The great thing about this service is that it takes no technical knowledge to set up your blog backup.

You sign up for a free account, provide them the url of your blog and they will take care of the rest.

Now, they are in a mode called Freemium which means they are still free for most starter blogs with less than 5MB of data. But, they are also ready to cater to bloggers who want to back more data as well who require technical support.

Professional account will include:

• 50 MB of storage
• Support for backing up content linked from your blog
• Support for restoring your blog
• Email support
• $4.17 per month ($49.95 per year)

Enterprise account will include:

• 1 GB of storage
• Support for backing up content linked from your blog
• Support for restoring your blog
• Phone support
• $8.30 per month ($99.95 per year)

You have nothing to lose by trying out this free service and can sleep tight knowing you won’t lose your blog content. Again, it is always wise to have multiple backup strategies but this will be a good start if you don’t have any at the moment.

For more technology tips, subscribe to ShanKri-la feed.

Are you looking to monetize your website like the pros? Get the great looking 125×125 and 468×60 banners, text link ads and sponsored postings delivered, paid and rotated automatically with the brand new OIOpublisher WordPress plugin.

To all of you Blog About Your Blog readers, this is Jim, author of TheNetFool.com (feed), a business blog focused on making money online through the stock market, affiliate marketing, get paid to (GPT) websites and more! But enough about me, lets explore this great opportunity.

Lots of bloggers face the problem of adding advertisements to their websites in a quick and efficient manner. The brand new OIOPublisher direct WordPress plugin allows you to do all of this automatically. Truth be told, this is the first (and only) WordPress plugin I have ever purchased. At $37, its not cheap… but it completely beats out WP Text Ads ($127) and WP Bankroll ($50).

Not only is OIOPublisher a cheaper alternative, but it is much more functional! Unlike any other WordPress monetization plugins before it, OIOPublisher offers an all-in-one solution for bloggers. You can place banner ads, image ads, text ads, sponsored postings and even sell digital downloads! I use it on The Net Fool to rotate all of the 125×125 banners in the sidebar. You can have multiple banners rotated per ad slot, and even randomize the appearance of the banners. OIOPublisher is your swiss army knife of monetization!

With all of the functions and a terrific price tag, you may be asking yourself how hard this thing is to actually install and use. I had this plugin up and running within 30 minutes of first downloading. It is extremely easy, and after you activate it.. there is an entire new tab (labeled “business”) that opens up in your admin panel. You can have emails sent every time an ad is purchased, clicked, etc. A full flux of options makes OIOPublisher the only option I will ever use for putting ads up, and best of all the one-time $37 buys you a license to use the software on multiple servers.

I know that the initial shock of shelling out almost $40 for a WordPress plugin, most of which are free, is a bit much. If you are a somewhat popular blog, all you need is a couple of purchases to get that all back. No longer do you have to sacrifice 50% of your revenue to a service that handles the work for you, now you can do it yourself. I’m always looking for ways to make money online, there is no better way in my book than by monetizing your own blog site. OIOPublisher makes it easier than ever!

-The Net Fool

Ever since I started using scratchback I have liked the results. It’s a simple widget that is a great idea. Sell no-follow links!

On January 15th, I received a payment of $35.62 and wrote a short post about Getting Tipped by Scratchback. A lot of people were interested in how scratchback was performing and continued to perform.

February 18th (1 month later) I received another payment, this time of $30.52. I am still pretty impressed with it. How did I do it?

Scratchback Tips

If you want to earn more money with scratchback, add it to more blogs. I have scratchback on two.

The thing I have suggested the most is to definitely register your site for the scratchback directory. I’ve managed to get my sites under the “popular listings” section. So everyone who goes to the directory can see them.

Get a plug on the scratchback blog. Jim Kukral is a pretty cool guy. I simply contacted him and mentioned I had been promoting Scratchback and that I was wondering if he’d do a post on us. The post has sent us several visitors, some of which have purchased spots. Even though he made an error and said we were charging $5 per tip and never corrected it, it helped regardless (It’s okay Jim!). Maybe you can get featured?

Another thing that has worked for people is offering incentive for people who ‘tips’. I haven’t used this tactic yet, but we may soon.

Fun fact our last post a month ago I stated that our scratchback widget has been viewed over 30,000 times. As of today its been viewed 62255 times. thats 30,000+ times in a month! Make sure to click on over and buy a spot on our widget.

I haven’t done many of these posts, but there are a few things around the blogosphere I wanted to mention.

I’m a T-Shirt Winner!

I won a SilentPillow.com t-shirt from Derek Semmler. He must like me, because this is the second t-shirt I’ve won on his blog. The contest was easy, I just had to comment. His money contest ends tomorrow, but I don’t think I can win that one too.

40+ Top Blogs That Will Teach You To Blog Like A Pro

At ProBloggersMatrix they put together a great list of 40+ top blogs. The list isn’t in order, but we are at #14 if it matters. There are some great big blogs, but also blogs I’ve never seen. Get your feed reader ready for this list.

Top 52 Online Money Making Blog - Ranked by Value

Putting any list in order is better than just randomly listing them in my opinion. The TalkGold blog put together a list of the Top 52 Making Money Blogs. We came in at #41, which isn’t bad, but I’d always like higher. There is some great blogs there, but CashQuests is definitely over valued and maybe a few others.

A List Of 40 Free Blog Directories

I was asked recently how much traffic you can expect from directories. My answer was little to none. However, directories are more for SEO purposes and I definitely recommend them. Mike has put together a list of 40 Free Blog Directories. Take a minute and get your blogs listed.

I first posted the Top 20 Contest Blogs list on November 19th. I felt that the contest blog niche was up and coming and very deserving of a list like this.

Since I published the list I have reformatted the formula of which I previously used. I noticed about 5 blogs on the list no longer posted or were not in service so it was in need of an update.

There has been a lot of movement on the list. Contest Beat has taken the #1 spot. It’s too bad that it has been sold, I’ve tried to reach out to the new owner, which no luck. It still deserves to be the top blog though.

Several blogs lost a few spots, but two other blogs have really emerged. The first is Laura Williams Musings which has jumped from 5 to 2. She has a great blog, with tons of contests, giveaways and freebies.

The second blog is About Blog Contests. I recently asked GLF, the owner of ABC, to be our contest blogger for our weekend contest round ups. I think he has one of the better contest blogs, so I’m happy to see his blog jump all the way from 17 to #7!

If you feel your contest blog belongs on the Top 20 Contest Blogs list, please contact me and I’ll add it. I strongly suggest using our list as a resource when you are running your own contest. These bloggers are great and generally post about any contest as long as you let them know about it.

Promotion and discussion on forums can definitely help your traffic as well as web presence. I’ve even tried to run my own forum however it proved to be too time consuming and difficult to fight the spam bots. The benefits of forums are great and I really wanted to tap into that area.

Instead I’ve tried to be active on several forums (as well as social media) because it’s important to branch out. Talking to other bloggers and conversing can really only help you expand.

Out with the Old

BloggerForum once was a great place for link exchanges, posts about new money making opportunities and a place to share your blog. They took some downtime figuring out a new way to fight the spammers. As they have re-emerged (I had no idea they were back until today) they are missing several key categories, as well as no easy way to search new posts. I was there several minutes without success.

PayPerPost Forum was a great place for me for a while. Lately their forum hasn’t become as blogger friendly, just postie friendly. My blog promotion and social media promotion wasn’t very well received the last few times. Stumble and digg requests go unanswered and blogging news needs constant bumping to keep it alive.

In with the New

Bloggeries forum has been very impressive so far. It’s one of the few “new” forums I’ve joined. Several seemed to pop up all at once. I’ve given Bloggeries forum a shot and it’s been pretty good. I’ve gotten to know the owner pretty well as well as converse with several members. The posts have already proved to be worth it, sending about 20+ unique visitors in just two or three days.

9Mb is a webmaster forum that is owned and run by Nomar. He is previously from KingNomar.com but that has been sold. The forum is a mini-digital point. They have a tight community of users who are frequent and active. It’s good for link sales, exchanges as well as blogging questions among other things.

Have you moved on to any of the new forums yet?