Get Paid to Post - Part 1

Smorty is a blog advertising service that connects advertisers and bloggers. Advertisers create their campaign and set how much bid per post. In return, bloggers write reviews for the advertiser (either for a product or service) to include in their blog, submit their post for the advertiser’s approval, and get paid when their post gets approved.

You have to register first to be able to submit your blog. It’s free to sign-up and create an account. You can submit a maximum of 10 blogs under 1 account.

Some basic requirements (out of 25 criteria) for your blog before it gets approved and included by Smorty:

- It should be indexed by Google and Yahoo

- It should be more than 1-month old

- It should have no obscene, offensive content (violent, adult, racism contents etc.)

- It should contain a minimum of 2 new post each week.

- It should not have any duplicate post

Smorty considers the blogger’s ranking on Google. Its 5-star rating system is based on the number of (high and low) paid campaign offers the blogger will get. The higher your ranking, the more campaign offers you are likely to receive, including higher priced campaigns. Bloggers are offered paid campaigns starting from $6 up, with some offering $60 and even $100 per article.

Offered campaigns are sent via email along with additional instructions such as task and deadlines. Usually you have to submit your post/review within 24 hours upon receiving the assignment and you’ll be notified within 72 hours whether your post is approved or not.

Some guidelines regarding writing the review:

1. Your review must be unique/original and relevant for that specific campaign.

2. You have to include anchor text in your review that directs to the advertiser’s page.

3. You also need to include only 1 outbound link URL provided by the campaign owners.

4. Post length must between 150 - 400 words.

How do you get paid?

Bloggers get paid weekly through PayPal for their approved post. Commissions from pay-per-click & pay-per-view ads are paid monthly.

Another way to get paid by Smorty is by referring other bloggers to them. You can either put affiliate banners in your blog or “get this widget” link, and you get credit when bloggers click through your links and signup. You can place the Smorty affiliate banners in your blog’s side columns, included in your post, at the end of your post, and header and footer.

You get 5% commission from the total income earned by your referred blogger from Smorty. You only get paid when the post of your referred blogger gets approved. So while he’s being paid for his post, you also get your cut from that. Your commissions are added to your approved post payment weekly (monthly if you’re using Digxa mini store widget).

Earn From Your Blog Through Google Adsense

This blog is barely two weeks old. I would be a hypocrite if I told you that my only intention was to share good information and insights about earning from home. Of course, I also wanted to earn from it --- through Google Adsense.

I'm no guru on Google Adsense. As a matter of fact I just learned about it two weeks ago. Before I decided to put Google Ads on my blog, I had to research day in and day out on how I could make it work for me. There were forums that were helpful enough to set my expectations that making it big with Google Adsense does not happen overnight. All of them have even said that when you are just starting, there will really be days when you would just earn 1 cent or even nothing at all.  So, here goes...

I decided to place ads on this blog as early as Day One of Work from Home: A Pinay's Project. I figured it was worth giving a try since Google Adsense is still a form of passive income that a lot of people has looked up to. 

So there...One ad unit on top, another one on the left side and another one at the bottom of the page (Google does not allow more than three ad blocks per page), clicked the Save button then waited...

24 hours has passed and I only earned 0.01 on my first day - something that I already expected. I figured if I just waited again after uploading my second post, I might just end up with another cent or  nothing at all. 

After simultaneously working with both my creativity (for my content) and logic (for my adsense strategy), I was finally able to come up with a list of action items on what to do next to up my adsense game. I carried it out as early as Day 2, then to Day 3... Day 4...Day 5. It was after a week that I realized I was already averaging 50 cents a day - not bad. At the end of the first week, I have already earned $5 - not too much but at least it's better than 7 cents.

Now that I have tested it, I have decided to list down my top 5 and share it with you:

1. It pays to have a lot of traffic to your site. The reason why I wasn't surprised to only get 1 cent on my first day was I still didn't know how to generate traffic to my blog. One good way to increase traffic is by submitting your site to directories.

2. Ad placement plays an important role in increasing the chances for your ads to be clicked. The ads below my blog title are so far my best players. It wouldn't hurt if you try the same thing with your ad placements. If it doesn't work for you, change it. 

3. Blend your ads with your page. It's already obvious - they're ads. You wouldn't want them to be "shouting out loud" that they're ads. Try to blend and match it with th color scheme of your page (it worked for me).

4. Use channels. Channels are a means for Google to generate reports that are drilled down per page or per ad block or per date. They help a lot in improving your adsense game. It's good to know how you can still make your strategy better through the use of channels. 

5. Most important of all, build GOOD CONTENT. Although there are keywords that need to be considered in order for your site to be optimized, always remember that you are writing for your audience, not for Google's crawlers.

There are still a lot of tips out there which might just also work for you.  Check out this video to find out:

Earning from Home

I know I haven’t been able to go into the details of how I’ve been earning from home during my previous posts. Not that I intended to do it. I’m saying this because some have actually emailed me saying, “When are you gonna give us the juicy part of earning from home?” Sorry if I have kept you in suspense.  I have really allotted a lot of time to gather all the good stuff so I could give it to you blow by blow.  Besides, it would defeat the purpose of getting you guys geared up first if you’d eventually be at a loss when you decide to immediately start earning. Believe me, it’s more financially rewarding if you’re able to have the right mindset first.

Let me give you a glimpse now of the so-called “juicy part” of earning from home:

Freelance Job Sites. There are hundreds out there, but the most that really give me one gig after another is a site called oDesk.  Payout is every week thru either Paypal or Payoneer (although there are other methods of payments, these two are the best ones for me)

oDesk was also the same site who sent me one reject email after another when I was just starting… It really pays to be patient (literally). 

By Earning from Blogs.  Just exactly what I’m doing right now with this site.  Those ads can work wonders in giving you another means for earning from home. With just a little SEO and proper ad placement plus some strategy to drive traffic, you’re on your way to making a second source of (passive) income.  

Below are my money makers as of to date:

Google Adsense

Chitika

Bidvertiser

I’ll leave it up to you to choose which of the above earning from home options work for you. If you ask me, it wouldn’t hurt to have one active and one passive income ;-).

Related posts:

Tips on How to Get that First oDesk Assignment

How to Become An oDesk Freelance Provider