How to make a quick buck by web publishing.

See also: Our sister site, www.freemoneymakingadvice.com

As part of our How to make a quick buck series, I'd like to detail some legitimate and relatively easy ways to make money from the web.

I'm not going to confuse you with complex schemes. I'm just going to map out an easy process. The complexities are real.. We will deal with those in a later article.
One of the most common methods for making money on the web is to become a web publisher. What does that mean? Simple - you write stuff, and put it online.

Key points...

You need to buy a domain name. Use GODADDY.COM. They are cheap and very well respected.

You need to secure hosting. I suggest WestHost. You can mess around with discount hosts, but WestHost is the best webhosting company out there as far as I am concerned. Great customer service, great uptime. And very affordable.

You need to set up your site and be prepared to update it regularly... This means 60-80 times a year. I update my sites daily. Works out to about 600 entries a year.

Pick a topic and stick to it... This will be important if you plan to generate proper ad revenue.

If you aren't comfortable with html... use a service like blogger.com to maintain your site. If you are comfortable with html... you should still consider blogger.com. The time you save is worth money.

Content is King

Write real articles. Don't waste a user's time by writing useless articles. Make a contribution to the world wide web. Also - try to stick to a topic. Content that is focused on one topic will increase ad revenue (see below for more content tips).

Sign up for affiliate programs that make sense. Affiliate programs are basically a means through which companies pay you for sending business their way. Amazon.com has a popular program - but they don't pay very much for referrals. If you recommend any products or services on your website, check to see if the company that makes or
provides the product or service offers an affiliate program, register for it.

Put ads on your site/ Google's Adsense service (www.google.com/adsense) and Overture's (www.overture.com) offerings are good (you have to pick one of the other).

Content tips - write where the money is.
Most ad delivery services are designed to effectively auction off each ad placement. This is especially true of the context driven ad services such as Google and Overture. So a computer will decide which ads to display based on what keywords are in your content. So articles about expensive stuff - such as industrial capital equipment - are likely to yield ads that will generate a lot more revenue than an article about dog training or polishing silver.

MSN Search is better than Google

I am (was) a super loyal Google user. Yahoo had become too busy, too commercial (I used Yahoo when it was in its infancy...).

Since MSN search was unveiled I have given it a real opportunity to impress me - and it has. Is it less commercial? Yes, but only for a short time while Microsoft imagines ways to squeeze money out of it. Is it less busy than Google? No, it's about the same. Are the search results better? Absolutely. Remarkably so. I think the SEO experts have figured out all the Google fooling tricks and as a result, you often have to scrool way way way down on a page to find decent results.

MSN Search is new enough that the SEO people haven't managed to trick it yet, and the top result is often the best. Give MSN Search a try. search.msn.com

Eczema and my baby

My little boy - 5 months old now. Is growing well and is generally healthly. But he suffers from bad eczema and cradle cap. We've tried everything (we think). The doctors have perscribed 1% hydrocortisone (also spelled hydrcortizone) cream and have instructed us to bathe him nightly.. This seems to be helping, but he still scratches his scalp to bits anytime he is given tthe chance...

Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. Please post a comment.

What has worked for us:

• Unsented EVERYTHING. Use Tide Free and hot water in the laundry. No fabric softener.
• Vacuum the house daily and change the baby's sheets at least twice a week
• Glaxal Base skin cream (all over, immediately after baths)
• Baths - nightly.

[EDIT] Our little one contracted Chicken Pox! One of the worst cases our doctor has ever seen. We've heard that a case of Chicken Pox often serves to reset the skin and makes eczema go away. As his pox heals, his skin is looking very healthy compared to before... So we've got our fingers crossed!

Some interesting reading about eczema and babies...

http://www.eczema.org/ A horrible site in terms of look and feel... But filled with very good info.

Our baby was on the breast until he was 5 months old, and the eczema emerged before we started solids... Still, this study links early introduction of solids to chronic eczema.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/4/541

Common pediatric skin issues
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9211452&dopt=Citation

Meta-tags and Blogger?

As you may be able to tell, I use blogger.com to maintain this site.

I'd like to be able to define description and keyword meta tags for each article/post/entry.

If anyone out there knows how to do that, I'd appreciate your help. Please post a comment.

Adsense Revenue way way down

I've been using Google's Adsense service to deliver ads to my visitors for about a year now. Since January of 2005, my revenues have dropped dramatically. I was earning an average of $100usd a month until January... Now, I'm at $25 to $30 a month.

This is spite of adding two new sites to my lineup.. Purehope.com and Thirdsite.com. My original site, Plagiarized.com still generates the bulk of my revenues.

I'm mystified, and in no way loyal to Google. Maybe it's time to switch to Overture... I wonder what MSN-Search's ad delivery revenues will be like.

My ad-revenue plan is to create more and more very targeted websites. X-box video games, Canadian movie reviews, job search tips, parenting, etc. I think the more targeted your content, the higher your potential revenue from ads.