No Job For Mom

I came across a paid blogging site called PayU2Blog. Since I’m always looking for new ways to make money I thought I’d check them out.

I submitted my Green Living (BLULOW) blog to them sometime in mid May and my blog was declined. They sent me an e-mail listing the requirements that must be met in order for my blog to be accepted by PayU2Blog. They did not specify which particular requirement my blog failed to satisfy.

Here’s the e-mail I received:

“Thank you for submitting your blog at PayU2Blog.com. Unfortunately, at this time your blog does not qualify. Below are the standard requirements that your blog must meet for consideration into the PayU2Blog network. Simply meeting this criteria will not guarantee acceptance into the network. However, if you make the necessary improvements over the next 4-6 weeks please resubmit at that time for further review.

_Standard Requirements: _
*Minimum 90 days of Consistent Postings*
Quick Load Speed
*Own Domain Name (Not .wordpress, .blogspot., .blogsome, .bravejournal, .livejournal, .Blogger, etc.)*
Minimum Grammatical Errors
*All Posts Must Be In English*
Design/Template Creativeness
Some Ads OK - But Not Too Many
Easy Navigation of Categories
*Must Be 18 Or Older*

Please continue to improve these areas of your blog: quality of the content, categories for archiving content, posting consistently, quick load speed, hosted on own domain, get rid of unnecessary ad’s, professional design/template/etc.

Thanks again for taking the time to submit your blog URL - we look forward to reviewing it again in the near future!”

Looking back on it, it might have been my blogging frequency. Who knows? The rejection came at a busy time in my freelance writing time so I let it go, promising to address the e-mail at a later date.

Just the other day, the PayU2Blog rejection letter came to mind. However, rather than re-submitting my Blulow blog, I decided to submit the No Job For Mom blog. After all, I had just converted it from the web site format to a blogging format and my blog was chock full of posts. I figured, why not give it a try.

Lo and behold, they accepted this blog. Not feeling totally excited nor victorious, after all they did reject my Blulow Blog, I read through their terms of acceptance. Apparently, I don’t get to pick and choose assignments. They assign topics to you and you must write about them. The pay is $5 per post, some higher.

Here’s a snippet of their terms and conditions:

“Requirements:

1) Each Assignment (unless otherwise noted) contains a minimum of 60 words, 1 link per post (1 additional link can be included but not from other assigned keywords or similar words), and NO Negative Posting (Positive or Neutral only)
2) Each Assignment that you receive will contain an assigned Keyword and a Keyword URL. For each assignment that you receive means that you complete a new post URL for that assignment.
3) Each Assignment completed equals $5, unless otherwise indicated in the assignment details (PayPal transfers only, Bi-Weekly Payments deposited)

4) NO TAGGING, LABELING, TITLING OR MENTIONING PAYU2BLOG IN POSTS THAT YOU ARE COMPLETING AS ASSIGNMENTS FROM US!!!!!!!!!!

*As a PayU2Blog Blogger you agree to the following!

1) To be a RELIABLE and DEPENDABLE blogger that will COMPLETE assignments on time!
2) You agree to complete ALL assignments (There is NO picking and choosing Assignments)….What you are Assigned….you COMPLETE!!
3) Each Assignmnet # that you receive in your profile means that you create a Brand New minimum 60 word post in your Blog!
4) You CANNOT post multiple assignments together in a single post. Each Assignment will have its Unique URL that you submit for Approval!

5) Failing to abide by the 4 Most Important Rules above will result in removal from PayU2Blog network!”

(I don’t know about you but I take offense when I receive an e-mail with ALL CAPS AND MANY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!)

Thinking that I misunderstood their confirmation e-mail I did a quick internet search and found that I was not mistaken. They assign your topics and you must write about them. If you don’t you will be removed from the PayU2Blog network.

In view of the above information, I decided not to add them to my arsenal of revenue generating streams. I take my blogs seriously and I don’t feel it’s worth selling out for $5 posts.

In my book paid blogging is fine as long as you endorse and agree with the products you’re blogging about.

As some of you may know I’m somewhat new to this blogging arena. Yes I had started up a blogspot blog quite some time ago but was never serious about it. I was old-fashioned and believed that the way to make money on the Internet was to have a static website. Don’t get me wrong; static websites are fine if it suits your venue. For instance, if you have a large database and are selling products you probably do better with a website than a blog. The blog should be supplemental in driving traffic to your main website.

I my case, however, I realized that my subject matter would do much better as a blog rather than a static website. Most of my sites basically contain information and articles. Except for a few affiliate links and a few ads, I don’t sell a particular product. I don’t have a need for an inventory database or back end shopping cart or anything complicated.

The more I thought about it, the more I got the sinking feeling that I should convert my websites to a blogging format. It not only allows for more interactivity with my readers, it is also much easier to add and maintain new content.

After making the decision, I decided to convert my entire No Job for Mom (NJFM) website into a WordPress blog. Originally I had the NJFM blog in a subdirectory of the main domain. I needed to transfer the blog from the subdirectory into the root directory and convert all of the .html pages to blog entries.

It may sound complicated, but it’s not. Here’s what I did:

Transferred the NJFM blog to the root directory of my website:

1. Downloaded all of my existing WordPress files to my local hard drive
2. Signed into my WordPress account and modified the Blog location and URL (you do this by accessing the Settings page of the Design tab). After changing the blog location URL and the blog’s URL, WordPress automatically booted me out of the admin section.
3. Uploaded the WordPress files from my local hard drive into the root directory.
4. Signed into the admin section of my newly located blog and poked around to make sure everything transferred over properly.
5. Did quit a bit of cleanup. I had to make sure that the links were all valid. (See my earlier post for how to validate links).

Word of Caution: Be sure to change the blog’s URL location before you begin transferring WordPress files. I don’t know what happens if you do it the other way around, but according to WordPress.org, you should change the URL first, so I did and it went smoothly.

Transferred the Web Pages to Blog Entries

Next I had to take each of my web pages and make them blog posts. It wasn’t hard to do, just tedious and time consuming. The biggest concern I had was maintaining the proper post entry date.

Being somewhat anal retentive about my website, I kept track of when I added new content by date. Therefore maintaining the correct date for posts was rather simple. All I had to do was copy and paste the pages into the blog. I had to be careful, however to double check each of my links to ensure they pointed to the right page. I used a relative linking structure rather than an absolute linking structure on my website. In transferring the website into a blog, I decided to use absolute links to ensure that the links worked properly.

Redirecting the Traffic

Once I was satisfied that all of the posts were properly transferred and that the links and images all displayed properly, I created a rather extensive 301 redirect in my .htaccess file.

Again, being somewhat anal retentive with my sites/blogs, I listed each of the original .html pages and redirected them to their blogging counterpart. I also redirected the traffic from my original blog location (which was a subdirectory of the domain), to the root directory.

New Site Map

I then created a new sitemap and uploaded it to my Google Webmaster account. I checked back every so often to see if there are any warnings or 404 File Not Found errors.

Every so often it’s good to do a blog checkup.  Every blogger knows that it’s very important to add new, original and worthwhile content, but do you make sure that your blog’s code is healthy.

Maintain a Healthy Blog

When I say healthy, I mean from the technical aspect of validating the code and checking links. Validating the code may be tricky. On several occasions I’ve used widgets and code from third party sites. Their code might not be the most orthodox of html coding, but it does work. If the code is too offensive (meaning that it causes major display and functional problems with the rest of the site) I remove it. If my blogs display properly in the various web browsers, then I tend to leave the offending code alone.

More important that checking the code is validating the links. I found that I had gotten complacent because I no longer hand-code my sites and now have switched (and am switching) to blogs using WordPress templates. I assume that the template coded correctly so I don’t stop to check it. If the code is incorrect, there’s nothing that I can do about it but change the template.

Is your Blog Sloppy?

Recently I noticed that I had gotten a little sloppy when I discovered that a few of my links didn’t work. The broken links were links that I coded into my blog entries to refer to other websites or blog pages. I was so concerned with adding content on a fairly regular basis that I had forgotten to periodically check the links to make sure the older links were still valid.

To top it off, I had recently changed this domain (www.nojobformom.com) from a static website to a to blog format (I’m in the process of doing the same for my tidbitsandstuff.com website). As a result of this change I had to do quite a few 301 redirects and change some of the linking structure.

New Sitemap Revelation

Once the transformation was completed, I realized I had to add a new sitemap to my Google Webmaster account. Upon creating the site map I found that there were six broken links. I was surprised since this site isn’t very old. How could I have six broken links?

I’m glad that this happened because now, as part of my blog maintenance, I will periodically perform link checks. I found the link checker at www.w3c.org to be very thorough. It not only pointed out the broken links, it offered suggestions on how to handle a few of my redirects and also pointed out that my old RSS feed was outdated.

Keep Your Readers Happy

I know that most bloggers are very much interested in building a steady readership, adding new and good content, making a few dollars and having an attractive blog. To that list, I must remind my fellow bloggers to periodically perform link health checks to validate existing links. Your readers will appreciate it.

I always thought I was fickle, but that’s not the case. In browsing through a forum the other day I found the proper diagnosis for my condition. I am Mentally Unemployable!

For those of you who just can’t seem to find the right job to keep you challenged and happy, maybe you’re suffering from the same condition. Here are a few clues to help you self diagnose:

1. You might be mentally unemployable if you don’t want to go to work at a job. The mentally unemployable don’t mind working, but it’s just the need to get up, get showered, dressed, make the lunches, get the kids off to school. They partake in the usual the usual morning madness of rushing just to hurry up and wait in traffic or on the train or in the elevator to get to a job where you spend hours in strategy meetings reviewing the same thing over and over again.
2. The mentally unemployable understand the merit rating system. If I work real hard, I should get really paid. If I sit at the water cooler all day, I shouldn’t get paid.
3. A mentally unemployable person’s middle name is efficiency. Mentally unemployable folks tend to find a faster more accurate way to accomplish a task. They get work done and get it done well.
4. The mentally unemployable just cannot stand the thought of wasting several prime hours in the morning commuting when they could actually be accomplishing a task that brings them closer to their goals.
5. The mentally unemployable are constantly flooded with ideas and new ways to accomplish tasks. Their minds are constantly flooded with brilliant ideas only to be shot down by upper management (who really doesn’t understand).
6. The mentally unemployable are bored at work. They lack a worthwhile mentally stimulating challenge.
7. The mentally unemployable constantly think of ways to earn money doing something they enjoy. It’s more than just a passing thought; it’s more like an obsession.

The irony of it is that the mentally unemployable are usually well-respected good employees because of their driven nature. They know how to view and analyze a situation, come up with a plan of action and implement it. They know what it takes to get things done.

If you suffer with at least half of the above symptoms, my friend, you are in the same boat as I am. Welcome to the mentally unemployable club (do not confuse mentally unemployable with work-aversion-itis).

Now that you have your diagnosis, what are you going to do about it?

Kontera is an in line text form of advertising (Konter calls it in-text advertising). If you notice the brown double underlined text on this blog, those are Kontera ads.

What I like about Kontera is that pretty much any site qualifies and it’s extremely easy to install. Once you install it you can forget about it and collect income based on clicks.

Pros and Cons

There are a few pros and cons about inline text advertising that I’ve come across with Kontera.

1. Earning potential - Compared to Google AdSense, the earning level is low, but it does help pay the mortgage. Their minimum payout, like Google is $100.
2. Annoyance factor - I find the pop ups pretty annoying so I tend to leave my mouse to the side so as to not inadvertently invoke one of the pop ups. However, many of my readers on my other sites appear to utilize Kontera ads.
3. Page load time - Some complain that in line text ads slows page load time. Generally, I don’t find that it slows down the page load time. I find the Google Analytics code slows the page load more than Kontera does. I guess it depends on the server and the coding on the web page.
4. Nice to have when Google sandbags your site. Since Google gives and takes away, it’s always nice to have other sources of income.

Depends on the niche

I’ve found that Kontera does moderately well on my Blulow blog and on Tidbits and Stuff website, but not so well everywhere else. Using Kontera or any other source of advertising is a watch, tweak and watch again game. You’ve got to keep making changes. You’ll know you’ve got things right when the income increases as a result of a few modifications. Only you will know what works best for your sites.

Kontera isn’t the only in line text game in town. Many of them operate similar to Kontera, but have different qualification requirements. Here are a few in line text ad providers that I’ve come across but haven’t tried as yet:

AdBrite
Clicksor Requires 5,000 page views per day
Miva
Nixxie UK Based
Vibrant Media Minimum Requirement 500,000 page views per month

What Next

I’ve discussed monetizing with Chitika and Kontera, next I’ll share my experience with Sharesale affiliates.