Wasted Money on Article Writing

Ever felt like you have wasted money on article writing services? Ever got that sick feeling after you receive the articles that you have paid for and realised that some how they are just not up to mark?

 I have had quite a few experiences of hiring article writers to write articles for me, often paying them a range of US$2.50 to US$5.00 for a 500 word article.  When the article comes back, it is just not up to mark and by looking through the article, it is quite obvious that the person has both a poor command of the language as well as the topic that he or she is writing about.

So the file sits in my mailbox and as hard as I want to touch up the article and re-write portions of it (so that it is suitable for publication on any of my sites), I just can't bring myself to do it.  This is because the article is so badly written that I might as well start writing a fresh piece right from scratch!

I figured that I have wasted at least US$10 to US$15 dollars on lousy article writers.  At the same time, I have also had good articles written for me so I shall not go so far to conclude that all article writers are bad.  It is just so sad to know that there are these articles that I have paid money for and which I can't use at all.

Anyone has similar experiences to share?

Freelance Article Writers

From time to time, I have employed some freelance article writers to take the load off writing.  Sometimes, I have a general idea of what I want to write so I just drop the idea to a freelance article writer who will write the article for a small sum for me.  Of course, I will read through the article to see that it is what I have in mind and only publish it if it is of a certain standard.

Below is a sample of a 500 word article that I got a freelance article writer to write for me for a fee of US$2.50.  Is it money well spent?  You decide.


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1.  Saving for Retirement [List a few practical steps people can start saving for retirement]

Save to Secure Your Retirement Now!
Growing old gives you the idea that nothing is permanent so you always want to do your best now that you are still capable of doing many things and your strength is still at its peak. It is always better to invest and save early so that you will have your fruitful years more secure and happy. Before you retire, it is better to make a good saving. It is possible through doing few practical things. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or just doing a blue collar job. If you have a daily income, you can save each day few cents or a portion of your income in a safe place or better open a bank account in your place to make it secure or free from theft. It may be too little but always remember that big things from small things. Later on your money will grow with interest in a bank so it is more practical to save it in a bank. You can also save more when you avoid buying the things that is not your needs and are not in your grocery list each time you shop for your home supplies. Minimize a little your luxurious lifestyle and try to discipline yourself not to be tempted with spending more money just for leisure. The money that you saved from it will be used to be added for your savings. No matter how little it is, you can always value it for it will be a great help in the near future. Another, do not overspend yourself and family for expensive and special foods yet these foods are not nutritious and full of carcinogenic ingredients. Be pro-vegetables and fruits as well as other organic healthy foods. These are cheaper and money savvy foods.

You will see how it gives you a great saving for your food budget. It also gives you more savings in buying just few medicines because you are healthy as well as your family because of your healthy eating habit and well-balanced life. This is maybe too simple yet often neglected by others. If you are drinking alcohol, just drink moderately, instead of excessive drinking then you will use the remaining money to be kept for future use. You will enjoy life without sacrificing the things you are doing. Of course it is hard o deprive yourself of everything, this time you will just do things in moderation and the money you are about to spend recklessly better deposit it in the bank instead of just keeping it in your pocket, for you might think of spending it each time you saw it there. Be practical to save your money whenever it is possible because you don’t know what kind of future awaits you after you retire in your service. Even if you have too little money left each time you get your salary, always make it a habit to secure something as a saving for your retirement. Retirement is a stage in your life that you will face many physiological changes in your body including your health and strength. You need Medicare, health support, food supplements, and multi-vitamins to sustain your body. It will be the beginning of declining memory and strength, which you used to have during your youthful days. Thus, it’s time to use the retirement resources that you invest before your old age and of course your savings are included when that time will come. Save each time you can! Start it now!

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Ways To Increase Adsense Earnings

Adsense contributes quite a sizeable source of  advertising income for most people who use them on their sites or blogs. Many people also try to target high paying keywords in order to increase the advertising income that they get since Adsense pays different amounts for different ads.  You might even have tried to employ one of those methods of finding high paying keywords and writing content about that hoping that somehow that will increase your adsense earnings.  But very often, it is not simple as that.

So what might be wrong?

Having pages or content with these supposed high paying keywords is one thing. But driving visitors to those pages is another matter and often the factor that is lacking.  If the number of clicks on your ads is a function of the number of page impressions.  The number of page impressions is dependent on the number of visitors that you get.  To get more clicks, you need to increase your page impressions.

Assuming that you get a fixed number of visitors every day to your site, is there a way to improve the page impression?  Yes, there is.    It is really about making your site more user friendly.  And that includes having some form of site navigation that will get readers to the page that you want them to go to.

Try to picture your site and even navigate your own site.  How will you use your site if you were a visitor?  Which links would you click on?  Having links around your site helps.  This helps to link the various pages together such that traffic flows from one site to another or from one post to another.  LinkWithin is something that I have used on various of my sites.  My page impressions literally doubled just by using it.  This has also helped to increase my adsense earnings.

Another method that I have used to great effect is ad placement and also the colours for the ads.  Basically, I try to put ads at the top and right hand side of the site.  This works best for me.  The colours are also "merged" with the rest of the site so that it is colour coordinated and does not stand out too much.

You can also read my previous article on "How to Boost Adsense Earnings" to see some of the other strategies.

The Future of Google Adsense - A Blogger's Perspective

Many people have speculated and proposed various ideas on what Google's Adsense programme will look like in the near future and how the existing system might change or improve over time.  Today, we will take a look at some of these ideas and what it means for the blogging community.


Protection Against Click Fraud for Both Advertisers and Adsense Publishers


Click fraud is a problem.  Google needs to protect its AdWords advertisers from this.  This will probably have to also take into account possible sabotage that sometimes occurs. So Google will probably have to play the game wisely and ensure that while it protects advertisers, it does not unnecessarily penalise people who have been on the adsense programme and who might also be a victim of click fraud.



Better Targeted Algorithms and Ads


It is not difficult to imagine that targeting ads based on computer algorithms will become even more powerful and precise than they are today.  Increasingly, I have noticed that most of the ads targeted at my site are generally relevant to the topic or post.  This is not surprising given Google's dominance in the search engine market and how search engine results have changed over the past few years too. So the change that is happening in Adsense is perhaps not surprising.  One can only expect more and more targeted ads.  This is good for both advertisers and content writers.  Advertisements will appear in more appropriate search results and it will also become increasingly difficult for webmasters to "manipulate" how they want advertisements to be shown.  

Google has also always been keen on improving its products and this has been seen before in AdSense. The search engine company has introduced site-targeted AdSense CPM, "smart pricing" and domain blocking. Increasingly, many newspapers are also going online and rolling out apps for tablets or iPad.  So it might not be too far-fetched for better use of Adsense on all these platforms. Who knows, it might even be possible for Adsense to appear on games or even TV.  Of course it might sound far-fetched now but with Google, we never know...

Differentiated Payments - Paying Premium for High PageRank Sites


Who knows?  Maybe a possible option will be to also make AdWords advertisers pay a higher premium for sites that have a higher pagerank (PR).  Of course, this will mean added cost to advertisers but I am certain a differentiated payment makes more sense.  It just does not seem right for a single click to cost the same on a PR 9 site and a PR0 site.


Conclusion - The Future of Google Adsense


All the above is just speculation and I am not surprised if something radical comes out from Google in the distant future.  What do you think?  What is the brightest future for Google's Adsense and what needs to be improved or fix?

200,000 PageViews Achieved for Blog

I achieved 200,000 pageviews for one of my blogs recently.  You can view it here at sgfinancialfreedom.blogspot.com . It has been an achievement just to cross that mark considering that I started out really just blogging for fun and to document my thoughts down as a web record.

$$$ from Ads
Over the years, I have managed to earn money from Adsense as well as selling adspace on my sites even though I must admit that I have not been very active in doing the latter.  Usually, I am approached by people who are advertisers.

No Time to Write Content
Content generation is really an issue.  A big issue.  Even for the blog that I mentioned above, I have not had much time to write.  The number of new posts for the year 2011 was dismal at less than 100 posts.  Other newer blogs have managed a far greater number of quality posts in 1 year compared to the few years that my site has been in existence.I also have to stop allowing guest posts of various content because I find that certain articles written by people hoping to put up a guest post on my site are just not suited for my readers.  So I have had to rely quite a fair bit on my own content which is difficult considering that I do not have much time to write each day.

Still, I must say that I have managed well.  And the adsense earnings are still coming in daily despite my apparent lack of action or activity.

Earned USD$200 for Selling Ad Space

Managed to earn USD$200 today when an existing client decided to renew the ads on my blogs that were due for expiry.  While it was a drop from the last year's USD$250, it is still significant enough to make me happy to know that it is actually possible to monetize my blogs when I am using a completely free blogging tool and domain.

Have also been wondering whether I should start to put more focus on selling ad space which I have not been bothered to at all in the past.

If interested to put ads on my site, please contact me at sgfinancialfreedom@gmail.com
Pagerank 1-3 sites available with little outbound links.  Price and package is negotiable.

How to Get PageRank 1

In a little experiment that I am carrying out in showmethecrazy.blogspot.com, I have showed users that is possible to get pagerank 1 in one single month. I started the blog completely new in just mid Oct 2011 and without doing much literally, have managed to propel it to a pagerank of 1.

This little experiment just shows that it is possible to get a pagerank of 1 in just a single month.  In fact, if you type in "Show Me The Crazy" in Google, the blog is already listed in the 1st page of search results.  Not bad for a starter blog.

New Project Started - PageRank 0 to PageRank 3 in 3 Months

I have started a brand new project. What I am attempting to do is to start a new site and attempt to bring it from pagerank 0 to pagerank 3 in like 3 months. It is a totally new and crazy idea that I just had. And that is why I had named it Show Me The Crazy.

Now just a small favor to all my fellow bloggers or site owners out there. If you could just do me a kind favour, do link your site/blog/postings to the site that I have just listed above. When you have done so, kindly drop a comment either in this site or the Show Me The Crazy site so that I can thank you personally.

This is just an experiment and I really hope it works. So show me the crazy!!

Adsense Earnings and Targeted Traffic

After being on the adsense programme for many years, I have made one simple conclusion: Targeted traffic is the key to driving up your adsense earnings.

The difference between traffic and targeted traffic

When I talk about targeted traffic, I am not just talking about mere traffic or number of visitors to your site alone. I really mean targeted traffic. Normal traffic is akin to your usual or loyal readers who visit your site and are just about willing to read whatever trash or gems you post on any particular day. They land on your site because they are probably bored at work, or are just surfing the internet. There is nothing that they are looking for in particular.

Targeted traffic on the other hand refers to the visitors to your site who are LOOKING for something. They might have stumbled upon your site through certain search engines or a friend might have shared your site with them because they found certain information that was really useful and just wanted to pass it on.

Based on my analysis of my ad performance, I was surprised that some of the rather random posts that I have written were actually the ones where the ads did particularly well. And I realised that it also happened to rank highly in the search engines for particular keywords. This means one thing: the people were looking for something and that drove them to my site. That is targeted traffic. And if one needs to write content, make sure that you write it for a particular group of people. Who is your targeted audience? How old are they? What are they looking for?

Another Adsense Cheque

Have received yet another adsense cheque payment. The amount is around US$120 which is quite reasonable considering the amount of work that I have put in. Or should I say that I have hardly put in any effort.

The earnings have still be unpredictable and though there are days when my adsense earnings can reach as high as $7, there are days it also falters for no apparent reason. New blog posts and stuff just don't seem to work. Sometimes, it almost makes more sense for me to just stop posting new articles and stuff and the adsense earnings actually still come in!

Amazing if you think about it. It is really the Parato principle where 20% of the work drives 80% of the results. Problem is I have yet to identified what I am doing right or wrong. And that will probably take me a longer time to figure out.

PageRank 2 to 3

I just checked out the PageRank of my various blogs and was sadly disappointed to realise that one of my blogs has dropped from a PR2 to PR1. The blog is one of the ones that I have blogged quite a fair bit on regarding Singapore Stocks and is called Singapore Stock Screener.

On the happier side, my financial freedom blog has increase from PageRank 2 to PageRank 3. That is probably the highest it has ever gone.

All the other blogs are perhaps very much still at the same pagerank.

Sometimes, just when I thought I got everything figured out, it seems like there are still surprises. I never knew Pagerank could actually drop. Looks like I must get back to work and start blogging hard again.

Bought a domain name and hosting at USD$50.70

I registered a domain name http://sgstockscreener.com some days back after deciding that I was perhaps ready to try building a site using my very own domain name. I just wanted to try it out for the heck of it and just to learn the intricate details of buying a domain name and using Wordpress to set it up.

What I learnt was that it was relatively easy to set up a site using godaddy. I registered the domain name and bought a one year hosting plan which added up to the 50 bucks spent. Next I installed wordpress, chose the theme and the site was up and running in less than a day. I was quite amazed at the ease of doing it. Of course, it was't as easy as using a blogger platform but it was still relatively simple even for a computer idiot like me!

So far, the site has managed 10 to 50 hits per day. Not too bad considering that I just started out. I will most probably still need sometime before I recoup my investment but I can say that I am pretty pleased with the results thus far. The versatility of wordpress is also quite impressive and I especially like the fact that I can add pages as well as drop down menus based on the categories that I want. Installing link within widget was also much simpler than I thought.

Now that the site is up and running, all that is left for me to do is populate it with unique and quality content and hopefully the traffic will start to roll in.

Earned Almost USD1000 from Blogging

I have earned almost 1000USD from blogging thus far. It has been a 2-3 year journey and I must say a love-hate affair with blogging. I don't have much free time so blogging is actually an on and off thing for me. Do I write well? Maybe...

The truth about blogging

There are days when I run dry. And then there are days I have like a thousand articles I would like to write about.

To me, blogging is just a fun way to express my thoughts (or sometimes even rant at life itself).

But the truth about blogging is that it is fun for me. And that is the most important aspect. If I were doing it for the money, it is seriously not worth my time as I could easily earn much more money by investing my time and energies on other things that will pay me a better per hour rate compared to blogging.

What Do I Do with My Earnings?

There was once I gave away $50 to my readers by just holding a silly contest to see who post the 50th comment on a certain post. Most times, I just bank in the money. I don't really buy anything special. It is not a lot of money in the first place.

The Future of Blogging

Will Google go bankrupt? Will blogging still be around 50 years from now? Will blogger still be operating then? Will all my efforts go down the drain? What differentiates me from other bloggers? How do I reach out to China since blogger is blocked by their censorship board? What about India? How do I reach out to a global audience?

These are the questions that fill my head.

Our world is shrinking, but our blogs shouldn't be.

6th Cheque from Google Adsense

I got my 6th cheque from Google's Adsense program. Slightly over $100USD

Some days, it just seems that I am going nowhere in life. And these cheques will then pop up in my mail box to my surprise. Then suddenly I realise that I have a virtual "life" online where I shed my office clothes and turn into a serial blogger/writer/journalist (except without the high pay and expertise)

It almost feels like this office parkour clip. Watch it for a good laugh

USD250 from Online Ads

I managed to sell some ad space at two of my sites for a whopping total of $250 per year. This is my first sales ever of online ad space. I did not find the advertiser but rather the advertiser found me.

After some haggling over the price ( I asked for $240 for the first site. This was bargained down to $150. I offered the 2nd site at $150 and this was bargained down to $100) So that is how the $250 sum came about.

The ad space was just a small one as it was mainly a text ad of less than 20 words.

Perhaps this is a start to me diversifying away from Adsense.

As a tip to bloggers out there, make sure you have a price list ready just in case advertisers start knocking on your door and you have no idea what is the "correct" price to ask for.

Does a Donate Button From Paypal Work

Many blogs place donate buttons and suggest that readers buy them a cup of coffee if they enjoy reading the blog.

Lately, I have placed donate buttons on a few of my blogs. The readership for those blogs have been pretty steady and it might be good if I get a donation or two. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine with me and I might just use it as a thought experiment.

The question is this: Does a donate button work? How much can one collect in terms of donations?

Profitable Blogshops

Lately I have been toying with the idea of turning some of my blogs into .......blogshops!

Ha..how innovative can I get?

But really, I have heard countless stories of how some school going kids are using their blogs for profitable purposes. And I was just wondering whether it was time for me to move away from my normal adsense revenue and explore other more innovative way of making money online.

After all, if the kids can do it, why not me?

I guess all I need is something to sell now.

Quantity or Quality or Blog Posts

Am I writing right?

In pushing my boundaries, I have tried to push for both quality articles as well as quantity. When I write a lot, I realise that the quality of my posts tends to drop. But which is more important: Quantity or Quality?

I guess we can debate till the cows come home and never really be certain.

What is perhaps most important is ranking high up in Google's search ranking.

I remember doing searches on some obscure topics before and realise that blogs can make it to the top of the rankings even though the postings had no quality in them at all. Sometimes, it almost seems that it was a "cut and paste" job done.

So quantity or quality? You decide

Earn $10 A Day Online

I managed to break another new record and earned more than $10 online from a single day! This really shows that hard work does pay off and as long as you put your heart to something, it can come true.

After over 2 years of trial and error, I have finally broken the $10 per day barrier in terms of online earnings from adsense. There were some days that almost looked like they would break the $10 per day barrier but it did not.

I don't know what to expect next. I haven't really been working on any new projects lately and I have not been doing anything that will be considered active.

I have been thinking of doing a blogging blitz again to just chalk up some points and play catch up in my blogging scene. However, work has been piling up and I have found little time to write.

For those of you who are interested in knowing how I managed to break the $10 per day record, just read my previous few posts. You will get the rough background of the story.

New Record - 3483 Pageviews

I had a new record again yesterday. A total of 3483 page impressions for one of my sites in a single day. Needless to say, adsense earnings soared for another continuous day.

Of course this information might be totally useless to you. But if you think that some of your older blog postings will no longer be read, you will be surprised. There are certain events or news that might make your previous postings of interest to a much larger audience then you possibly know.

Let's imagine that you blogged about a little known person or topic 5 years ago. And if you keep doing it consistently, you might have clocked up a lot of interesting info about that person. One day, if the person becomes famous, guess what? Your postings are going to be read by thousands if not by millions or people all over the world!

So don't get discouraged by your current earnings. Keep on working at it and hopefully, the results will show one day.