Procrastination anyone? :/
Do you procrastinate? Let us know and make me feel better!! 
I’d like to discuss something that I’ve been going through the last few days - procrastination. Due to it being the weekend, I’ve left my guard down and spent too much time doing a lot of nothings instead of a lot of somethings.
Due to the fact that I work at home (wheeee) I struggle sometimes to organize my day. It’s much easier when you have a boss giving you tasks to do in a specific time and having them delivered. Though I see working for yourself as easier, it’s really tough.
I need to motivate myself more. And because I’m not under pressure enough. So I’ve decided to use this routine to help me work better:
Every day I’ll make a list of things I have to do:
1. Fix editing on incomeadvice.co.za
2. Finish two articles for acthighbrow.com
3. Submit blah blah to 10 social bookmarking websites.
4. Study for Law exam coming up in two weeks.
And at the end of the day I’ll come back to the list and see how much I’ve done, if I haven’t done it, I’ll punish myself (somehow) by not reading the book I’m currently reading, or not getting myself any chocolate ( :O ).
Hopefully it’ll work - do any of you ‘at home’ workers have any fresh ideas for us? I’d be interested to hear them out!
Paid to Blog – Review Me (Part 1)
How many of you have budding blogs and substantial readerships? While it might be purely fun for you there is a easy way to make money without harming your integrity. Getting paid to blog about products is a highly lucrative income stream. When I did this as I full time job I was making between $300 & $500 month on my personal blog. And the higher your page rank or the higher your readership you have – the more you get paid! Just look at Johnchow.com – he charges $500 for ONE post. One day that could be you.
I’ll be doing a series detailing the various getting paid to blog sites that I’ve found and think are worthwhile. Sites that can offer South Africans a reachable income every month. I’d like to begin with Review Me.
I have never written for Review Me myself but I was so impressed by the numerous responses to this website that I had to go and check it out myself.
Is it available in South Africa?
It’s been mentioned above but I’m just making sure that everyone knows that South Africans (and their respective blogs) CAN apply! Payment procedures are followed down below.
Navigation
There website handle makes it easy to remember and the website is easily navigated. The sign up process is quick and simple – no hassles guaranteed. It’s a simple layout which means nothing blares on the eyes making it difficult to look at for long periods of time (which could happen if you become addicted to this program).
Payment Methods
Review Me offers payments in three very easy ways.
Check: It’s delivered to your preferred address.
Paypal: Only if you have an American verified account. South African accounts cannot receive money.
Payoneer: I think this is the best thing since chocolate ice-cream. It’s a prepaid mastercard that can be used ANYWHERE in the world. Yes even in South Africa. How does Payoneer work? Well you can go visit their website but this is just the short version, if you earn $200 at Review Me – you decide to cash out, so they send you a Payoneer Debit Card and you can swipe or withdraw that cash as much as you like. It’s simpler then check (image the fees you’ll pay on that).
Minimum Requirements for Blog
No where on the site do they state the minimum requirements for a blog to be accepted but the general rule of thumb is that your site or blog needs to be live for at least 30days and you should have AT least twenty posts in your blog.
So what are you waiting for?
Don’t have a website or money to spend? You can STILL make money with affiliate marketing.
If you don’t know by know what an affiliate link is, let me make it clear. An affiliate link is a link from a network or publisher, that is your official link to promoting that product. If someone clicks through that link for a specific product, the commission becomes yours. So lets say you sign up with Traffic Synergy and you decide to promote Outsurance – they’ll give you a link that will specifically target Outsurance.
Now, in order to promote this affiliate link there are the following avenues:
1.Website
2.PPC
3.Articles
4.Blogs
5.Ebooks
6.Forums
7.Ect.
Today I am going to discuss using forums to promote your affiliate link – this method as personally worked for me. I went onto forums and posted ’stories’ about a product. Giving them my personal experience with it, how much it costs, what it can do for you, etc. You need to be able to sell the idea before they click on the link (that’s very important). So all you do is if you’re promoting Outsurance go to certain forums and tell them what an amazing experience you’ve had with Outsurance and you recommend it to ANYONE. You slip in your affiliate links every time you wrote down a keyword. ‘Outsurance’, ‘Insurance’, ‘Low premiums’ etc.
If you are really dedicated you could find forums solely that focus on insurance/brokers/etc and answer questions promoting affiliate links. Of course your post needs to be worthwhile. Don’t spam. Or post rubbish. You’ll never get any clicks like that.
A few South African forums where you can go post is the following:
Craiglist (make sure to post in all three SA sections)
Gumtree (make sure to post in all three SA sections)
Mail & Guardian
Prophecy Forums (Technology & Games)
The Forum SA (Business forum)
And those are just a few, sure there are not a lot of SA forums but a lot of people visit Craiglist and Gumtree – just posting in the different city categories means thats six already. If you answer questions as well as post AD’s – it all accumulates!
You just need to be dedicated and try not to think negatively if you don’t start reaping the rewards! If you know of any other forums that could possibly help – please comment and let us know! 
Get paid to sign up – quick, easy cash
I wanted to blog about a quick, relatively easy way of making money. It’s basically getting paid to sign up for offers. Obviously the more sites you’re signed up to, the easier you’ll make some bucks. Now – I’m not talking about R1000’s of rands but you could make a nice R1000 a month if you go at it consistently and join more then 5+ sites.
Now the problem with this is, it’s extremely difficult to find these sort of sites for non-US users (why I recommend getting a proxy and using paypal >.< ) but after hectic searching, I managed to find three – that’s just at the moment, as I do more researching, I’ll find more and more – but I wanted to share these with you so you don’t think I’m neglecting those of you who are interested in this niche!
Anyway, good luck and enjoy.
Site Flipping Contest - South Africans, let’s do this!
I must admit, site flipping is something I’ve never done before – but I’ve thought about it. I have a few aged domains that are sitting around gathering dust that I just don’t have time to commit to. So this competition the Site Flipping University caught my eye. Bryan Clark is going to walk us through 30 days of getting your site ready for the ‘flip’.
What is site flipping first off if you’re not clued in? It’s basically working on a site with the sole intent of selling it a month or two down the line. Basically, pimping up the site and making it worthwhile to other buyers. Sounds difficult? I bet it is… I’d like to encourage any of my readers out there to take on this challenge, it’ll give us South Africans a chance to show ourselves off (and if we don’t win – at least we’ll learn from experience).
The prizes (so far) that are up for grab are:
1 Year of free hosting (Value $120)
1 Free banner advertisement on Siteflipu for 30 days (Value $45)
1 Free blog review that will be posted on Siteflipu, and completed by me (Value $65)
1 Free copy of my Site Flipping Blueprint, (when completed) (Value - Priceless)
1 Lifetime membership into my Site Flipping Club, which will be a personal mentor program taught by me, and valued at $47 a month
2 Hour free SEO Conultation with a PROFESSIONAL SEO! ($200)
1 Free software package including some great tools for Site Flippers ($300)
1 Free copy of the Wordpress Dream Theme, Designed by Ben Cope. Includes installation and customization. (Value $247)
2 Free 125×125 Banner Ad Creations (Value $60) - Thanks To Forest, from The Random Forest
1 Free banner ad on The Piss Biscuit
1 Free blog re-design (Vaule $900) from The Piss Biscuit
And lots more to come over the next few days. I have a few sponsors that have already agreed to donate some fantastic prizes, but we’re working out the details… stay tuned!
Yikes and all for 30 days work? I think it’s worth it.
So go read up on it at Site Flipping University and let’s give it a try. I’ll be posting some helpful hints to my readers as we go along as well.
Happy International Word Press Day!
Gee, am I glad WordPress came into existence. I started my blogging career (or blogging fetish almost four years ago… ) of course then, WordPress wasn’t as big as it is now. As a youngster I used Livejournal and then moved to Blogger but I wasn’t ever completely happy. I couldn’t customize my blog as easily as I would have liked to. There weren’t that many plug-ins that could make my blog even better. Plus I was code-illiterate.
And then one day when I wanted to move my blog to my personal domain, I struggled. A friend suggested Wordpress and I haven’t looked back since. After searching around I was taken back by the massive amounts of free templates for the blogs, the plug-in’s and other goodies for Word Press – I have to say, Once You go Word Press. You never go back.
Apart from it being stack with goodies (to then a poor student) it was easy to understand and work with. www.wordpress.org is a safe haven for those people who’d like to have blogs on their websites without any hassle. And best of all – it’s free!
I wouldn’t say Word Press has changed my life but it definitely has changed my way of doing things. Everyday I work with it I fall in love with the platform more and more. Fiddling with the settings, trying out new plug-in’s never fails to amuse me and maybe even one day I’ll be able to make my own Word Press Template!
And when I introduce my rather out-dated friends to the world of Blogging, there is only one platform I completely recommend, that’s Word Press…
So.. if you’re a blogging fanatic (using Word Press) keep on enjoying WordPress and let’s enjoy one of the best gifts ever given to us! Also if you’re reading this, use this day to express your gratitude (and spread the word) for Word Press and possibly win some prizes.
Adii chats about the competition.
And WordPress Candy is also holding a competition.
Lastly, I’d like to thank the good folks at Automatic for their dedication to wordpress and other coding platforms that make the lives of simple folks like me much easier. You’ve risen to the occasion time and time again and you guys deserve to be honoured in the best possible way! So enjoy this Wordpress day and enjoy all of the glory of your hard work. Plain and simple: you guys deserve it!
So go on: Express. Blog. Wordpress! (And if you’re lucky, win something that can make your WordPress experience even better!)
Membership Sites – are they viable in South Africa?
I am subscribed to Yaro Stark’s newsletter subscription. Sometimes he offers helpful information and sometimes I have to wonder: in the greater scheme of things, would that work? He talked about creating a membership site to create income…
But I don’t know of many South Africans who would pay R100-R200 to pay to be part of a website. Expect for http://www.businesswarriors.co.za/ run by Peter Carruthers (which, coincidently I am part of) I dunno if there is a really a market for that in SA.
But then again, maybe I’m being pessimistic. I have an abundance of resources at my door and a friend once asked me: why don’t you charge people? Because… honestly, I don’t want to. I want my information to be free and available to everyone but sometimes, it can’t be.
What I want to know is: who is paying (besides me) to be part of a membership site and is it worth it. Has anyone thought of doing it? How is your success record with it?
Comment, let us know what you think!
Survey Advice - Getting organised (Part 2)
Since I’m nearly finished with completing my first survey directory (I believe it will be one of the largest free paid survey directory sites in South Africa) I thought I’d give some more advice on survey taking.
Email Agent
I covered some helpful hints about survey taking on Survey Guide – Part 1 but now I’d like to expand on it. First off, I’d suggest you use Gmail, the reason for this is you can tag your emails and archive them without having them in your inbox or losing them. However, if you can use something like outlook, it would help to have each survey in a folder for it’s own company. Remember, if you join up with more then 10-20 survey sites, you will NEED to have an email just for surveys. I signed up with one and I get about ten a week.
Password Manager
Having more then one survey account can get … well, a little confusing. So, to optimize your survey taking experience, I suggest using a password manager. I’ve managed to find one that you can utilize for free (there is a Pro Option that you can buy if you wish) and will cover all of the following options to:
1. Manage your passwords and Log In automatically.
2. Fill long registration and checkout forms with one click.
3. Encrypt your passwords to achieve complete security.
4. Generate random passwords to maximize password strength.
5. Fight Phishing by entering passwords only on matching web sites.
6. Defeat Keyloggers by not using the keyboard to type passwords.
7. Back up your passwords and copy them between computers.
Due to the fact that this is a Roboform, a password manager, is free, I suggest downloading it immediately. It will help you taking free paid surveys which will in turn generate a greater income online. I’ve used the program and it is easy to understand. It also has a page just for tutorials which you can access in case you have any problems.
Be on time
If you’re serious about survey taking, you’ll check your email at least once to two times a day. The reason for this is most surveys have a certain number of participants they can have. If you try to take a survey two to three days after it was sent to you, chances are you wont be eligible for the survey anymore.
Don’t be greedy
Basically, the more surveys you do the greater chance you will have of getting higher paid surveys. With Roboform it will decrease your survey taking time by at least 70% so don’t be afraid to do those surveys that just include you in a sweepstakes.
Hopefully these tips have will help you in future survey taking, I hope you’ll all stay tuned because my survey directory will be out of this world! If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas to my readers for my tips and hints, please feel free to comment.
Tips when working with Adwords
Because working with Google adwords might be difficult for some people, I have gathered a few tips that might help you with future campaigns.
1.Target long tail keywords
Long tail keywords are specific keywords that are about 3 to 5 words long. Instead of bidding on a keyword, ‘making money ‘ you can bid on a keyword, ‘making money online south africa’. This way you’re certain you’ll be getting the right type of traffic that you
require.
If you’re interested in finding long tail keywords, why not put the site of the product in http://seodigger.com/ and it will give you a short list of a specific website you place in it. They have a free and premium account but the free one will suffice unless you want all of those advanced features.
2.Use power words to entice people to click on your google ad
Power words are words such as free, trial, etc. Most people don’t want to initially spend money – so you have to offer them something and then try and convince them to buy. However, don’t lie about this – if you can’t offer them something free, don’t.
Some power words include: special offer, free,sale, limited time offer, tricks, you, tips, discover, at last, free shipping, cheap, fact, learn. There are many more but you’ll have to find them.
3.Use Dynamic Keywords!
This feature, allows the heading of your google ad to be changed depending on the keywords that the person has searched for, it gives you a chance to increase your CTR (click-through rate).
4.Use call-to-action words in your heading and description
You need to use a call to action to convince the reader to click on your ad. So instead of having ‘50% off all clothing’ put in ‘YOU can get 50% off all clothing – BUY NOW!’ Make it snappy and make sure you can convince the reader to click through.
5.Don’t give up!
Becoming very good at using google adwords takes time, use small amounts of money to practice different headings or techniques for a similar product. It’ll take some time to master google adwords but once you do – you’ll reap all of the rewards.
As times goes on, I will be giving more and more tips – so keep your eyes open, if you have any tips of your own, I’d love to hear your comments or suggestions for improving on these tips.
SA Money Bloggers – where are they?
I did a rough search for about an hour and a half looking for South African bloggers that blog about making money online. I thought it would be a competitive market (or relatively competitive market) due to the potential of the market but I was sadly disappointed.
Most money bloggers have either stopped posting or have closed shop. So why doesn’t such a topic appeal to South Africans? If most South Africans knew the potential of making money online, I seriously doubt there would be a lack of interest.
The reason for me asking is that I’d like to start up a Blog Carnival about making money (obviously). I haven’t been able to find a lot of bloggers in South Africa writing about it. So now I’d like to make a general call to the public, if you’re interested comment or send me an email on info@incomeadvice.co.za or mammamoney@gmail.com …
I’d like to get some outstanding blog posts so we can inform South Africans on how to make money! Come on, we can do it together. Tomorrow I’ll post more in depth on what a blog carnival is and how we can go about it!
