Earners Club

DigitalPoint Forums (I preferrably called DP) is a popular and high-traffic search engine optimization and internet marketing forum - but it seems that this description is too little and may not actually fit compared to what actually DP is, because it goes far far beyond with it. At the time of writing, it is the 160th most popular site in the world according to Alexa, which has also a traffic rank of 156. In addition, if you go now to DP, you can see for yourself how popular it is by just looking the current active users. DP is 100% free to join and there’s no payment at all no matter where you would like to read or post, unlike other forums that offer subscriptions to access private forums. And the best part of DP which was not directly stated in any page of their site is that you can actually earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Listed below are some of the ways on how you can make money online with DigitalPoint Forums.

• Make Money With Your Services (Freelancing)
  DP has a dedicated forum category where everyone can offer or look for services - this acts like a freelance site. If you know how to read and write English then you may also be able to make money at the Services section. DP does not charge you any fees to offer your service, whether it is successful or not. Here are some of the services which you can offer to DP members:
  • Web Design
  • Programming
  • Scripts Installation
  • Article Writing
  • Article Submission
  • Posting (Forum Posting, Blog Posting, Blog Commenting, etc)
  • Submission (Directory Submission, Social Bookmarking Submission, Press Release Submission, etc)
  • Data Entry
  • Any job that you can think of

  

• Google Adsense Revenue Sharing
  As stated on Making Money In Google Adsense Without a Website, DP is listed as #1 for Adsense Revenue Sharing program. If you are a regular poster and create threads that can catch attention and replies, you will be able earn with this program. Your Adsense ads will be used 50% of the time when your thread is viewed. A detailed infomation can be found here.
• Maximize Adsense Earnings
  If you are new to Adsense or just simply want to improve your Adsense earnings, just read or ask a question in their Adsense forum and for sure you will get replies of useful information you need.
• SEO, Marketing, Link Building
  Real traffic is your source of income for your website(s), but how can you get traffic? Simply read a lot of stuff in their Marketing forum - believe me that you will find information not found on eBooks you bought.
• Drive Traffic To Your Sites
  Again, traffic, traffic and traffic is one factor to make money online. At DP, you can drive traffic into your website(s) by advertising it in your signature and participate regularly in the forum. DP has also a Link Exchange section if you are seeking link exchange. If you want instant traffic, you can exchange other members with Stumbles, Diggs, Netscape votes and other similar things - please take note though that this seems an unethical method of getting traffic and may not also allowed by the terms of each site such as Digg.
• Sell Your Websites
  If you have website(s) that you cannot manage anymore or you just simply want to sell it, then offer it here.
• Resell Domain Names
  If your into a domain names business, you can find some cheap domains at DP for sale, which of course you can resell. Or maybe you have some domains for sale, then offer it at their Buy/Sell Domain section. Please don’t get so addicted on buying domains like me
• Sell eBooks, Softwares & Other Digital Products
  Do you have eBooks with resell (or master resell) rights? Or do you have a software recently developed and want to make some money with it? Or do you have some images, photos, wallpapers, etc.? Make money from that stuffs by selling it in the main Buy/Sell/Trade section. Or if you’re so nice,
  you can give it away for free but with a hidden price. What I mean is to offer it as FREE but let potential users of those products register first (& let them opt-in to subscribe) before they can download. This way, you will be slowly building a list - and remember the phrase “THE MONEY IS IN THE LIST“.
• Sell Your Content
  If you have PLR articles, databases (preferred is in MySQL format) you can also sell it on DP. Hundreds of potential buyers are waiting for your contents.
• Sell WordPress Themes & Other Web Templates
  If you are good in web design and you can make WordPress Themes, phpLD templates, proxy templates, portfolio designs then you can earn hundreds of dollars or even thousands from it. From my own experience, it is very rare that designs cannot be successfully sold at DP.
• Get Sponsors With Your Free Themes
  If you put yourself in a worst situation where no one will buy your pre-made designs, then just give it away for free. You can still make money with your free themes by selling text links in your theme. Usually, the text link(s) will be embed in the footer of your themes. Even with the issue of WordPress sponsored themes (this and this), many are still eager to buy sponsored links on your free WordPress themes. However, we are not talking only WP themes here, you can create others such as free VB skin, free phpLD templates, etc. and sell text link(s) on it.
• Sell Advertisements & Links In Your Site Directly
  If you have website(s) and would not like to use text link borkers such as TLA, you can find customers at DP by posting your offer in the Link Sales forum. Most users preferred sites with high PageRank.
• Sell Signatures, Location and Avatar
  Yes, DP allow you to let others rent your signatures, location, avatar and even recent blog section. If you are a regular poster and make thousands of posts, you can really profit on that arena.
• eCurrency Exchange
  “I need $100 in YourProcessor and I’ll pay you $110 via MyProcessor” - this is an exchange in eCurrency. If you have a lot of funds in your payment processor which others don’t have (let’s say e-gold for example), you can also offer this at DP. Just be careful with scammers (though there’s an iTrader system) and most importantly, this may not allowed on the payment processor you used. For example, PayPal does not allow this type of exchange. Do this type of business at your own risk. THIS IS VERY RISKY, REMEMBER IT!
• Offer Your Affiliate Programs & Other Business
  Do you started your own affiliate program? Or do you have web hosting business? Or even a new web directory? Announce this at DP in an appropriate forum category and you can have partner/customers for sure.
• Join Contests
  Unfortunately, contests at DP are usually for designers. Logo, banner, header and template design contests are among those that are available and are always in demand. In a rare occassion, members post easy contest such as Slogan Contest. Usually you will get money if you are choosen as the winner, others just offer eBooks, text link, etc.
• Discounts on Vouchers & Coupons
• Sell MySpace Bulletins / hi5 Comments

All of the lists above, the most profitable for me until now is on Web Design. What’s yours?

Those ways does not sum up to 101 ways to make money online with DigitalPoint Forums as the title says. I intended it to be just a short list because I will let some DPers share some thoughts on how can they make money online with DP until it reaches a total of 101. To start with DPers interactions, I would like to add one to the list I created above: Make Money To Digg, Stumble, etc. There are still ways that I knew of that can add up the list but it will definitely fall under the Services (freelance) forum.

written by Ramil Alcibar

The most common method that bloggers used to make money online with their blog is by using Google Adsense. However, you must not rely only on one income source for your blog or website. You should add more revenue resources, which I break them into parts, in order to make more money that should be enough to pay your hosting, advertisements, your bills, your personal needs or for whatever purpose you like to achieve.

Contextual Advertising
For Part I, I will talk about making money with your blog through contextual advertising in which Adsense falls into this category. Contextual ads are advertisements dynamically displayed on your websites that are relevant to the contents in which the ads are served. For example, if the user is viewing a site about entertainment, your visitor might see ads for entertainment-related ads, such as Hollywood actors or movie previews and downloads. Almost all contextual advertising companies pays the website owner on a pay-per-click basis while others also offers CPM. Since the ads are more targeted and content-relevant, they are more likely to get clicked by your visitors, thus generating more revenue for you.

Contextual Ad Networks
Listed below contextual ad networks that offers you, bloggers and publishers, a chance to make money by delivering contextual ads to your blogs or websites.

• Google Adsense
• Kontera - Currently this is the only program that I used to monetize this blog.
• Kanoodle BrightAds
• Chitika
• Yahoo! Publisher Network
• Microsoft adCenter Content Ads
• Clicksor
• BidVertiser
• Adbrite
• IntelliTXT
• Amazon Context Links
• ContextWeb
• Adsonar
• Miva MC
• Clickbooth
• Targetpoint
• PremierAD

Ask.com has also called ASL Contextual Advertising but it seems that is not yet open to the general public. You may follow the discussion about this new program at this DigitalPoint Forums thread.

Please keep in mind that is is not possible to display all the ads from the different networks listed above. For example, you cannot served together Adsense and YPN on same page. Although, there are some that can be displayed at once such as Adsense and Chitika. Please read their policies and guidelines carefully or even ask their support representatives to make sure you will conform to thier terms of service. Additionally, please consider also your visitors’ experience with your blog/website - visiting a site with full of advertisements is a total pain in the eyes.

If you have found any other similar programs that are not listed here, please post it in your comments. Part II of monetizing your blog is all about Making Money by Selling Text Links and can be read here.

written by Ramil Alcibar

When you apply for a Google Adsense account, you also include your website as it is a one of the requirements for approval. Once approved, you can now put Adsense ads on your website and get paid for clicks or impressions on the ads. However, we cannot always predict the future. What if your site needs maintenance and must be closed down temporarily for a few days, weeks or even months? Or in worst case, you will have to shut it down permanently for your own reason? If you’ve got no site running, you will also have zero income in your Adsense account. However, it’s different this time.

You can now earn in Google Adsense even if you don’t have an active website. This idea (or whatever you may call it) is called Adsense Revenue Sharing. I don’t know who started this idea but I knew first this concept at DigitalPoint Forums - that’s how intelligent Shawn is :D.

Details & Process
Adsense Revenue Sharing is a way where you can have a chance to display your Adsense ads on another websites. These websites that allow you to display your Adsense ads are mostly community websites, thus, you contribute contents and get percentage for your ads to show. The process are pretty simple, let’s generalize it this way:

1. You must have already a Google Adsense account before you can participate.
2. Sign-up on websites (listed below) and put your Adsense ID (or even a custom Channel). Please see individual details on the sites you want to join on how to do this.
3. Contribute contents, i.e. create/participate a forum thread, submit articles, submit videos and among others.

Each time your submitted content viewed, you have a chance that your Adsense ads will show on that particular content and get paid if there’s someone that clicks on the ads.

Pros and Cons
With Adsense Revenue Sharing, you don’t need to have an active website to earn (take note that you need to have an active website when you apply for a Google Adsense account). Second advantage of this concept is you don’t have to promote the websites in which you put your Adsense ID to, the owners/administrators will responsible for this one. Last advantage of Adsense Revenue Sharing is that most of the websites that offer this opportunity have high traffic.

However, there are also a couple of disadvantages. First, you must contribute content to the website, no contribution - no earnings. Second, you will not earn 100% of the clicks since you only have a certain percentage to show your ads, therefore, expect a very low earnings. Also, there are some sites that has contribution restrictions, i.e. you need to have at least 100 post before you are eligible to participate the revenue sharing.

Adsense Revenue Sharing Sites
Listed below are some of the sites that offers Adsense Revenue Sharing. Out of the lists below, I only joined DigitalPoint (but not for this purpose), thus it is at your own risk and responsibility if you join them.

• DigitalPoint Forums
• NamePros
• Webmaster-Talk
• Domain Name Portal
• IDNForums
• NamesLot
• The Online Developer
• HTTPPoint
• HostNode
• Webmasters.org
• BlogUserhelp
• Work From Home Forums
• AuctionCut
• KernelTrap
• The Rant
• SoundChilds
• The Zizula Forums
• Article Wise
• Article Codex
• HotWebTools
• Article Trader
• Xomba
• Flixya
• MediaFlix.net
• Plug IM
• FreeRange
• Joomlaya
• ScratchProject
• Build Reciprocal Links

You Should Not
There are also a couple of sites that have Adsense Revenue Sharing but thier method makes the concept void. Let’s take for example a free blog hosting site, say call it an ABCDEF Free Blog Hosting. At ABCDEF, they stated that your Adsense will have a chance to display on the blogs that you created. Where’s the logic there? You created and write your own blog (but the thing is you are hosted from them) and then let them have their Adsense ads displayed on your blog, NO WAY!!! Avoid these things if ever you meet something like these. If you can’t afford to buy your own host, then just join Blogger where you have the total control on your Adsense ads.

written by Ramil Alcibar

We cannot argue the fact that Google Adsense is on the top list on publishers’ opportunities for contextual advertising. However, even if Adsense is the most excellent contextual ad program (I considered them the best of all), there are still a couple of things that I would like to have and probably you wanted it too. I listed below new features for Adsense that I would like to have even though I know some of these will not going to happened.

URL Tracking
Have you tried to differentiate the total impressions of you channels versus the overall total page impressions? It just happened to me that the overall total page impressions exceeded my total page impressions on all channels. And that happened everyday, and to make things bad, I also got 3-7 clicks on that untraceable impressions. Where do these impressions and clicks came from? What if someone envied on you, steal your Adsense ID and put it on not-allowed websites or just put it anywhere else and click and click on it until you get banned? These things cannot be trace in Channels. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what websites are using my Adsense ID? Yes, the only solution that I can think of is to track what URLs installed my Adsense ID.

Decline/Approved Onsite Advertisers
Not all onsite advertisers are high-quality advertisers. For example, if ever I have adsense in this blog (which talk about money-making), there maybe HYIPs that would like to avertise here, which I do not want to appear or even talk about it here. It would be great if we, publishers, have the ability to control what ads would appear on our site in addition to content-targetting.

Transfer Fund To Adwords
As it says, it could be like a cycle of our money. I earned in Adsense, transfer it to Adwords and advertise there, many visitors will come to my site and again I’ll be earning on Adsense and the cycle goes on. Not only I earn on Adsense, but it would also help build my loyal visitors. This is impossible to happened I think
Ad Filter By Keywords
Maybe not a good idea but I would like to filter ads by keywords. For example, I can filter some money-making keywords such as hyip, autosurf, investment, forex and among others not to show on my site.

Geographic Earnings Tracking
What country has most clicks? What country has less clicks but more money or vice versa? This would also be nice for us publishers so that we can target our audience properly when our aim is to have more Adsense income.

Payment Options
I suggest Adwords (stated above) and PayPal. I would like to have it in PayPal because I have something to buy, maybe a web hosting plan.

Custom Fonts / Transparent Background
It can be used to blend our ads to the fullest.

NO URLs on Rectangles (300×250 & 336×280)
It’s not that others (esp. Adsense publishers also) just type the URL and don’t click on interesting ads but it is just my likeness, no other reason for that. It’s cool when I see no URLs on it
So far, those are the features I wanted to have. What’s yours?

written by Ramil Alcibar

Forum is such a nice community to hang out. You can get lots of useful information on whatever interested topics you want. You can find valuable info FREELY that others charge you a fee in the form of eBooks. But are you only up to getting information? Be kind, share also to others what you have learned, this way you are not only helping others but you are also helping yourself to earn money. Below are simple ideas how you can turn your habitual forum posting into money.

Selling Your Own Products and Services
Most large forums has a marketplace for buying and selling your products and services. Owners usually offer this added service in their forum for free and even they didn’t get any commissions if ever you make a sale or earn money on your services offered. I highly recommend http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ marketplace in which you can buy/sell/trade almost all of your stuff.

Free Advertising - Earn Money With Your Affiliate Programs
If you have no products/services of your own and are just selling other’s products (you are an affiliate), it’s impossible to sell it on the marketplace section because referral links will not be allowed (an owner might be st***d if he allow such) in that area. In this case, the Advertising section of the forum might be the proper place to sell your merchant’s stuff. Not only you can sell, but you might also recruit new affiliates.

Free Promotion - Earn Money With Your Affiliate Programs
When you advertise your affiliate programs in the advertising section of a forum, it will be buried down to pages in the next couple of days or a week. No once can see and read now your ad. What you have to do is participate and participate in the forum, posting and creating threads in categories where you have the knowledge. So where’s the promotion? Simple. Just append the products/services you want to promote in your signature. You will then have more visibility dpending on your participation of a certain forum.

Revenue Sharing
Maybe an idea pioneered by DigitalPoint, forum members will have a (%) chance of having their Adsense Ads displayed on the threads they created or participated. And if your ad show and visitors click on it, then you will earn in Adsense.

Get Paid To Post
Yes, you can get paid by just posting in forums. This may applicable to new forums where owners hire posters to post on their forums and pay for each posts made. This method is used by owners to boost growth on their forum both members and content, because the more the content the forum has, the more people will likely to join.

Sell/Lease Your Links & Places
Signatures, location and avatar can earn you a little money. If you have good participation in the forum and you have a quite number of posts, you can sell or let others rent your signature, location or even your avatar. The price will depend on the number of posts you have. Will there be a buyer? Of course. If you actively participate in the forum, many buyers will buy for the promotion of their links.

Recommended Forums List
Here are some of the few great forums I would recommend that is worth for your visit. Forums in bold-italic has a revenue sharing.

• http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
• http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/
• http://www.v7n.com/forums/
• http://www.dnforum.com/
• http://www.namepros.com/
• http://warriorforum.com/forum/
• http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/
• http://www.wickedfire.com/
• http://www.webmaster-talk.com/
• http://www.idnforums.com/

written by Jane Alcibar