Is Vlogging The Best Way To Blog?
Video Blogging (Vlogging) could be the future of blogging, some have predicted so. People want their information fast, easy and a lot of it. Several bloggers that I follow have either turned strictly to vlogging or make sure to do one weekly or monthly (even more).
Benefits of Vlogging
Vlogging allows you to connect with your readers on another level. Some bloggers like to add pictures to their blog to give a face to the name and blogger. Better yet, is vlogging. This allows you to interact with your readers to not only put a face to the blogger, but also show them even more personality.
Typing an article can be time consuming, sometimes you may not get to write everything you want to. With a vlog the topic is basically endless. You can say whatever you want for as long as you want. There is no word limit.
On a vlog you can incorporate different topics and questions all into one vlogging session. Instead of writing 3 small articles, you could combine them into one vlogging video. This is excellent for answering readers questions. You could basically do this with writing, but vlogs seem to flow better with different topics. The transition is much easier.
Overall it seems vloggers can really express themselves better. You can really be yourself instead of trying to write in a certain format.
Vlogging Is Nice… But…
I still don’t like it that much. I’d prefer sticking to regular blogs. Heres why:
Some vlogs seem like a waste of time. Get to the point, I really don’t have 10 minutes to spend just listening to ramblings. Some vloggers basically put together half hour shows regularly.
There is no text to get search engine referrals. Unless you already have the traffic or the video does well on social media, it may be a lost cause.
Watching videos online can be a hassle. Sometimes there is a missing file or plugin I need in order to watch the video. With slow loading times this can be another issue.
Is Video Blogging the Future?
It could be, but I could never imagine doing an entire blog with just video postings. I don’t think that blogs could generally, really excel with just a video blogging format.
Do you video blog?
ShoppingAds Still Making Money
Once AuctionAds moved to ShoppingAds I pretty much was done with their service. I had made enough to cash out so I wasn’t really trying to keep promoting it. These ads are good for some blogs and niches, but not seemingly for blogs like this.
Revisiting ShoppingAds
A few weeks/months went by. I figured I should check my account to see how everything was going. I knew I had some referrals, but not sure if they had kept using ShoppingAds.
Logging in I found out that I had about $100 in referral cash!
I figured to try to start running the ads on my other domains. If other people are obviously making money with them, I’m sure I could find a way too.
Shopping Ads Offering CPC
Before, AuctionAds/ShoppingAds would only offer Cost Per Action (CPA). You only got paid for someone clicking your ad, then bidding or winning the item. That has changed with the new Cost Per Click (CPC) program.
While running CPC it is basically like Google Adsense, just with products and pictures. So far I have found out that the CPC isn’t that bad. I don’t have enough data to give an estimated #, but I am working on it.
If you aren’t sure which ads to run in your niche you can never go wrong by selected the most popular. This is a handy feature that you can use to have the ads being the most popular phrases searched for.
Running ShoppingAds
I am looking for more ways to incorporate ShoppingAds into my websites. Here are a few reasons or tips on using ShoppingAds.
ShoppingAds referral program is decent enough to push and earn money on. You earn 5% of all revenue generated by your referral for 6 months.
ShoppingAds is great for niche sites. If you are blogging about products it’s a perfect match.
You can run ShoppingAds along with your Google Adsense. I will be experimenting again with running ShoppingAds with Google on this blog.
Run as many blocks as you want. There are no limits.
Try different things. ShoppingAds runs on the keywords you input. Constantly try different ones to find the best results.
Have you tried ShoppingAds for your blog?
BAYB News April 29th
Today is a lazy day for us, I got too much sun yesterday here in sunny San Diego. It’s been almost 100 degrees here! We are also waiting for some packages (birthday gifts!). I figured I would take it easy today and tell you about some upcoming BAYB things we have going on.
Upcoming Contest
In celebration of my girlfriend Emmas 21st birthday (and my 22, yeah im getting old! lol) I want to do a May contest. I hope I can give away some items everyday for a week. We only have so many prizes to give away here, we would love some sponsors.
Please contact us if you are interested. Each sponsor will get a nice mention on their day.
Affiliate Program
We just started playing with the OIOPublisher wordpress plugin. There are plenty of great features that can make monetizing your blog easy. Use the coupon code QWERTY-17 to save $17 on the plugin! You can buy it now for only $20.
The plugin comes fully equipped with what I’ve always wanted. An affiliate program.
For our affiliates we are offering 20% for referring advertisers to us. You can earn up to $10 if you refer someone to buy a $50 review!
There will be more information provided as I make it easier to purchase links directly. Go ahead and register as an affiliate!
Guest Posters
Blog about your Blog started off with several authors contributing on a regular basis. I think thats what made it unique and exciting. That participation has dropped off and we are always looking for more quality authors.
We are headed to Vegas from May 9-11 and we have prior birthday plans before that. I’d really like to get some more authors posting in here.
If you are interested please contact me so we can get you set-up.
Google PR Updating Again
Court let the blogosphere know this morning that Google seems to be updating PR. So far we are still sticking at PR3. However, some of my other domains seem to be upgrading to a higher PR.
The highest reported seems to be Daily Blog Tips with a strong PR 7.
My twitter seems to be going crazy with the talks of the PR update.
Have you seen changes on your PR?
Do You Remember the Mylot Fad?
Mylot was a huge blogging fad, it seemed everyone joined and promoted it. It was a great thing for bloggers, because commission was easy. I made about $30 with little effort before my earnings fell off. I still have 30 cents pending.
Mylot was a huge blogging topic about a year ago. Every make money blogger was heavily promoting it as the best new thing. The last time that I wrote an article about Mylot was Feb 2007!
What is Mylot?
For those who don’t know, Mylot is a huge community with 127,478 members. It is basically a souped up forum with a little bit of Yahoo Answers mixed in. You can start any topic, ask a question or just simply make a comment or observation.
For each thread started or reply, you earn money. The money is small and I’m not exactly sure the algorithm. However for popular topics and replies you are essentially paid more. Once you reach $10 you are eligible for payment.
The real money is made with getting a bunch of referrals.
Mylots Referral Program
When you refer someone to Mylot you basically will earn 25% of whatever the person you referred earns.
A great feature is that you get to see how much your referral earns you each month. My referrals are no longer making me any money, I referred them over a year ago!
Promoting your Blog on Mylot
I just had remembered I made a few posts in Mylot and of course left my my URL. Checking my statcounter I noticed a few referrals from Mylot.
The blogging section isn’t very popular at Mylot, but there is tons of opportunity to promote your blog whatever the niche is.
Mike of Mikes Money Making Mission did this in a great way. Mylot was one of his biggest traffic referrals. The best thing is you are basically paid to promote your own site (since you are paid per post).
It does take a bit of effort, but if you are on daily for a few minutes it can be well worth it.
Contest Roundup: April 27th
It’s contest time again. Check out these easy contests, and may the luck be with you…
Traffic Contest at Dat Money
Do you need more visitors for your blog? Don’t miss this new contest from Dat Money and increase your traffic! You have the chance to be reviewed by one of the most popular blogs (BAYB is one of the sponsor!). You can also win free advertising spots. See original post for details. To enter simply subscribe to his RSS feeds, write a post about it on your blog and comment on the blog.
Ends on May 9th.
Cash from Webdiggin
There is a simple contest from WebDiggin. The prize is $25 cash. As always, you have to gain your entries. To do so you can write a post about the contest (with link back to the contest post), subscribe to his RSS feed by mail and leave meaningful comments on the site.
Ends on April 30th.
Free Gift Card
Charity Lynn is giving away a $20 gift card from a various online store. You can also choose the money directly to your Paypal account. All you have to do is write a little post on your blog and leave a comment. Nothing more.
Ends on April 29th.
And don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests, your daily source for the latest, simplest and greatest blog contests around the net!
Blogging’s Best Buys
I’m always looking for a deal online. Yesterday I had to renew a domain with Godaddy, the first thing I did was search for Godaddy coupon codes. Here are some great deals around the internet for your blogging needs.
The Domain
I use Godaddy for all my domain name purchases. I currently have about 5-6 domains registered through there. Each domain I’ve used coupons for. Here are a few I’ve found on the internet that should work for you.
- $6.95 per .COM coupon code: cjc695dom (I personally used this yesterday)
- 10% off your order coupon code cjcsave10
- Take an additional 1$ off ANY purchase! coupon code cjcdeal104
- 20% off your order of $40 or more coupon code boi2 pete2
I’m not sure when any of these expire, but it’s worth a shot trying any of these codes!
The Hosting
I’ve only used Hostmonster for my hosting needs and I have very few complaints. Hostmonster runs for $5.95 per month. They offer
- Unlimited domains
- 5000 email accounts
- PHP + MYSQL + more
- Free domain name
Yeah thats right a free domain name. So basically, I never had to pay for blogaboutyourblog.com
The Plugin
Daily Planet Tech let us know about a coupon code for the OIOPublisher wordpress plugin. Use the coupon code QWERTY-17 and get the plugin for $20, a $17 discount. I personally used this coupon so it does work. However it expires May 5th, so you don’t have much time to use it.
The OIOPublisher plugin is a great thing to have when trying to sell ads directly and monetize your blog. Jim did a great review of OIOPublisher that you can read to give you all the information you need.
Comment Friday for April 25th
What a long week! We are getting ready to go to Las Vegas and hopefully do a contest here at BAYB. May is a huge month for me so I hope we can keep the flow going.
If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 200 entrecard credits.
This past week was earth day and I was really into it. I’ve been even more into recycling as well as more aware of the harm plastic does to the environment. I’ve really tried to “go green”. Have you made any effort? Have you blogged about anything in particular about being green?
Economtricks is about bettering yourself and a variety of topics. Improve your decision making and go green!