Earning Money

If you remember back to July, I talked about how I had gotten one RSS subscriber and I was ecstatic. It had made my day and it had given me a lot of motivation to really try and increase my productiveness because I wanted to so desperately get that to two and then four and then eight and then sixteen and…Well, do I really need to keep going? Unfortunately, that did not happen. It did go to two and then one, but nothing extravagant. Fortunately, that has changed and I am seeing wonderful progress. However, that is not what this is about today…What this is about is FeedBurner.

FeedBurner was purchased by Google a few months ago and what it provides is an exceptional way to determine JUST how many RSS subscribers you have. With a numerous number of different tools, you can put a number up there that shows how many you have, put a link, put a button (like the one I have) up there. The truth is, the options are endless. What you are trying to do is get more and more people to CLICK that so that they subscribe. And then the site keeps track of how many readers you had to your site via the RSS feed. It really can be somewhat exciting when you see that number grow so exceptionally large.

Now, there are other things, though, that they offer. Although I have yet to try it, there is a degree of monetization possible. It is based off of an invite only system which means that you need to be appealing to them before you’re invited. While I have not been invited, I know that others have and there is some money to be made. However, with the purchase by Google, we can all assume that Google Adsense will begin to appear in the RSS feed, thus making it even more profitable to have a nicely sized RSS feed. The more people you have, the better it looks and the more likely you’ll make money. That’s the key, huh?

FeedBurner tracks the number of subscribers for you, it provides you with buttons to try and provoke people to join, and it gives you the chance to monetize it, among so many other things. I like to work hard on getting my RSS feed up because I understand the importance of such feeds. With Google holding it, FeedBurner is only going to get bigger and stronger and I recommend you join and begin to build your RSS feed as well. It’s really quite easy to build it: just offer unique content and make sure that they know it exists. Them knowing it exists is the key point. Here’s an example how:

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my feed by click here or by pressing .

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

You know there are few things better out there than free advertising. Unfortunately free advertising isn’t easy to come by. However, there is an avenue you may have not yet explored. StumbleUpon is a free service for web surfers to “stumble” through websites that match their interests. When viewing the site they have an option to vote a thumbs up or down on the site. The more thumbs up a site receives, the more times StumbleUpon will direct stumblers to the site.

Let’s say you have a site about classic cars. If you were to advertise in a general chat room the likelihood of someone being interested in your site is slim. With StumbleUpon people who share your interests are directed to your site even when you’re not actively out promoting. Here’s how you do it:

1)Join StumbleUpon and download their toolbar.
2)Select your interested topics.
3)Go to your site and click the thumbs up icon.
4)StumbleUpon will bring up a window that says you have discovered a new site. This is your chance to give a small review and determine what topic best fits your site.

Congratulations, you have now just streamlined thousands of interested stumblers to your website. Over time you will see your traffic increase as you are ranked higher and higher in StumbleUpon. Remember not to only “stumble” your main page, but some of your more popular articles as well. Keep your pages updated and aesthetically pleasing so you will win over the stumblers who are just “channel-flipping” through websites. You need to be able to catch their attention for them to give you a thumbs up. Good luck with promoting your website and maybe I’ll run onto it while stumbling.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!