Social media traffic is a nice boost for any website or blog. However, sometimes it’s hard to come by. This will lead for people to even pay for it. If you can ‘buy’ 50 votes on digg, you are bound to get some front page action, depending on your topic.

‘Sell Your Votes’

Subvert and Profit has come up with a system where you can buy and sell social votes. They currently have stumbles and diggs on the market.

You can buy votes for $2 each, or sell votes for $1 each. It’s usually a bundle of URLS, maybe 5. So it looks like they are making quite a profit. Maybe subvert and we profit?

Each time votes are available you receive and email with the URL’s to either be stumbled or dugg. Since this method violates the rules on digg (I think stumble too) they give you ways to make it look like you aren’t cheating.

To be paid you must earn $10. They just removed paypal as their method of payment and have gone with google checkout. I’ve never used it, but if I wanted to use and get paid by this website, that would be another account I would need to get. In my opinion, a paypal option is vital in this case.

Referrals

You can refer people to their website and make 10% of their earnings. This wouldn’t be that much of a boost, but if you registered several people it could make payout a lot easier. I threw my referral link in this post to see if there was any money to be made with referrals.

I know there are websites where you can trade votes, which I never liked much. Selling them puts even more value on the worth of these precious votes.

At risk of getting your account banned would you participate in selling your votes? A few stumbles for a quick buck is easy, but worth it?

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.

Dear BAYB readers, this week you have the chance to win cash: more than $100 dollars, with almost no effort. Use your blog and enter these easy blog competitions:

$100 from Contest Blogger

This is the simplest one. Put a permanent link back to Contest Blogger homepage (in your blogroll or in a post), send him a note and you will enter in his monthly drawing. The prize: $100 for one lucky blogger, every month, forever. No closing date.

$50 from Blogfeld

Blogfeld is running his first blog contest: you could win $50 plus all his Entrecard credits, free blog review and blog roll link for life. He’s also offering 1 month of banner advertising on any blog you want ($30 maximum spend). To gain your entries: write a post about this contest with link to Blogfeld homepage, join his MyBlogLog Community, write a recommendation for him on Entrecard. If you subscribe to his RSS, collect the daily secret letters and find the secret word, you will have 20 bonus points!
Ends on February 27th.

$25 from Andrew Messer

February Contest at AndrewMesser.com. Here the prize: not only $25 cash, but also 500 Entrecard Credits and 25% of the potential income from his blog. Essential requirement to enter: subscribe to his RSS feeds by mail. Then you have various options: write a post about the contest, add the site to your blogroll/Technorati Favourites, leave one or more comments on the blog. Check out the contest page for full details.
Ends on February 29th.

And don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests, your daily source for the latest, simplest and greatest blog contests around the net!

I’m really late with Comment Friday, so I thought I’d do something a little different. I wanted to write about Comment Friday and the benefits of it.

For those who don’t know what it is, it’s pretty simple. On fridays I post a random question or thought about something. I ask the visitors of our blog to give their opinion on that, or really anything they want to. For that, I will reward a random person who comments a prize. At first it was a blogroll spot for a week. I’ve since increased that prize to a link and 100 entrecard credits.

Why Comment Friday?

Meme’s and blogger surveys are popular for some bloggers. By participating in these things you can get more links, comments, etc. I thought, why not make my own? So I did.

Some blogs have a schedule where they post ‘link love’ or different things on a weekly basis. We also do that with our Sunday Contest Roundups. I chose friday for comment day.

The comment friday concept is a year old now, with our first comment friday on Jan 28th, 2007. This has since increased comments and feedback throughout the blog.

Being Unique

There are several things similar to a Comment Friday, but this is something that I thought up myself. I didn’t take the idea from anyone, however since starting this I have seen several blogs do similar things.

Comment Friday Results

Almost every friday for the past year we’ve had comment friday. It started slow, but got fire. One friday had 45 comments. It’s not a lot for some bloggers, but keep in mind that I don’t respond to every comment each one to inflate the count.

I mentioned it has increased comments throughout the blog. Our current stats are:

There are currently 689 posts and 4,738 comments.

That works out to be almost 7 comments per post. If you don’t include the posts that we lost our comments on (blogspot move didn’t include comments) that number is even higher.

Have you implemented any unique method on your blog?

For this post the comment friday is still in effect. One person will receive a blogroll link for a week and 100 credits!

I’ve read some recent ‘success’ stories of bloggers gaining RSS subscribers by asking friends and family to subscribe and read their blog. They proved that 100 readers is achievable in a month or less with this method.

The same thing method can work for affiliate marketing.

The Setup

The first thing you must do is apply to several affiliate programs and companies like NeverblueAds, LinkShare.com, and Pepperjam. If you want people to buy from your affiliates you must have a variety.

You never know what websites someone may buy online from so you want to be prepared when they want to buy from a certain online shop. Everyone prefers their own brands.

Then Simply Ask

Ask your friends or family if they shop online and if they do, would they mind shopping through your link. This has several benefits.

It helps you. This one is obvious. By sending them through your affiliate link it helps you earn money.

Affiliate offers give discounts. By promoting certain affiliates you can offer your friends and family the promotions and discounts they offer. Whether it’s free shipping or a certain % off.

This not only starts you on your way for affiliate marketing, it gives you experience as well as extra income.

My Experience

I’ve started using these methods for ‘immediate’ family and so far it’s been good.

My mother does the spending for a small company. This includes buying CPU’s, office supplies etc. Every 1-2 months I set up my affiliate links for Office Depot while she spends 200-500$. At 4% it’s not a lot, but it’s something. I generally save them money with my affiliate offers. The last one was a $45 savings.

I’ve also asked my sister who shops online because she lives in a small town. She seemed interested to help me by buying through my affiliates. However, after I mentioned to her I had coupon codes for her favorite stores, I had her sold.

Earning money + saving money for friends and family? Sounds like the best idea ever! Okay, maybe not, but it’s a start to your affiliate marketing.

People seem to be very interested when I tell them I blog and make money online. When I explained blogging I mention the Technorati system. The more blogs link to you, the better you are ranked. We are currently ranked in the top 5,000, but why not higher? Here are 8 reasons you should link to our blog.

1. We have great open and cheap advertising rates. Not buying any links for yourself, let your readers know where they can get some great promotion.

2. Our top posts offer some great ideas and concepts that you could easily include into a post of your own. We put together a best of 2007 list that would be a great start.

3. The Top 20 Contest Blogs list was just updated and is a great resource to any blogger who is looking to run or participate in contests.

4. A great thing you can do for your own blog rankings is link to established quality domains (in your own niche too). Our domain is over a year old and it could help you helping us!

5. Getting writers block for todays post? Write up a quick review about us! What post could be better?

6. If those 5 reasons aren’t enough for you, how about some incentive? Link to us and make sure we know and I’ll even pay you 50 entrecard credits, that’s as good as money right?

7. Entrecard isn’t your thing? I love social media and would be happy to shoot you a few votes on any article of yours.

8. Not into social media or entrecard? How about more rss subscribers? I’d be happy to add you to my reader.

Maybe I got a little carried away at the end, but you get the idea. We have the quality, the readers, and the support to take it to the next level.

So why haven’t you blogged about us?