Making Money Online - The Most Efficient Ways to Waste Your Time Online
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Have you ever felt that you are spending your time online and yet the rate of growth of your business is minimal? Here are some of the most common ways that webmasters and bloggers waste their time online unproductively.
Building a Digg profile in hopes to become the next top user. Almost a year ago there was this huge buzz around how hitting the top page of Digg could easily send thousands of visitors in just a single day. Quite a lot of bloggers (including yours truly) engaged on a mission to create a huge Digg profile hoping that if the friend count increased one day their blog would get enough votes from friends to send a post to the front page and score a massive amount of hits. First of all traffic from Digg does not convert. Second, if you are an Internet Marketer, the Digg community already hates you. Third, if you are on a shared hosting and you hit the front page, your site will go down due to CPU overload. Fourth, Diggers have a tendency to visit, look and Digg and hit back on the browser.
Trying to sell products on traffic exchanges. Traffic exchanges are good if you are trying to build a list. However if you try to sell something on them you are just wasting time. If fact the vast majority of people that have had success with them just put on a micro squeeze page with just some catchy bullet points and a form to capture emails and names. The ones that are not successful usually list niche blogs on them with Adsense and end up banned by Adsense for invalid impressions, put on a blog instead of a squeeze page to try to capture readers or just put up a page with a few banners on them hoping someone would click. Note: People participating on traffic exchanges are just looking to get traffic to themselves and are waiting impatiently for the counter to get to zero. If you want to have a chance to get something from them set up a squeeze page with a few words offering them some free crap if they sign up to your “news letter”. You even get more chances for sign ups if you put on a video or some audio content.
Trying to get recurrent traffic from Stumble Upon. Been there, done that. Waste of time. Leave the stumblers alone. Stumble Upon is fun, just that.
Check your Adsense account every 15 minutes. If you spend most of your time online checking your Adsense account you are losing valuable time that you could be spending writing content and building links to your sites.
Check you web stats 10 times a day. While stats are a very important indicator of your sites performance checking stats multiple times a day is just losing time. It is better if you check them a few times a week or even better, once a week. This will help you spend your online time more efficiently.
Read a thousand blogs. This happens a lot when people read too many make money online blogs. Every marketer has an unique way of making money online and some of them contradict what others say. If you spend to much time reading every blog you find you will end up hit by the analysis paralysis. It happened to me at some point and some times it happens again but now I have only hand full of selected blogs that I read on a constant basis on my reader. I also unsubscribe at lightning speed from blogs and lists that alternate from a post and a sales pitch an a constant basis. Not only are these blogs a waste of time, they are also after your money.
Read a ton of free or even worst, paid ebooks on the same subject. Ok, reading ebooks is nice but if you are reading 5 ebooks on Article Marketing you will notice that most of them say the same thing. There is no secret technique just write a lot of interesting articles to and you will get traffic or, write a lot of boring articles and you get at least links.
Trying to build your “brand” by having a beautiful blog with a theme that cost you a thousand dollars and all that stuff. I have seen bloggers that have paid some thousands for some logos and a theme only to announce that they will be selling their blog a few weeks after they invested a lot of money. Again this not exactly a time waster is mostly a waste of money. I wanted to mention it because there are a lot of people that think that you can’t make money from a blog if you use a free theme. Totally False.
Changing you blog theme more than you change your underwear. Changing a theme is not as fast as they say since widgets appear move to where they want or just suddenly out of nowhere you have the same one two times on your blog. Find a theme you like, tweak it and leave it like that. Changing your theme will not make you rich.
Focusing on a sole make money online blog. Make money online blogs are profitable if you have an enormous amount of social traffic or if you have decent search traffic. Niche blogs are profitable with as low as 50 visits a day from search engines if you manage to monetize them correctly. Build lots of them.
Hang around too much on webmaster forums. Webmaster forums are nice but they can also be misleading be careful what you read there and do not spend too much time posting. Build your VRE not somebody else’s.
Read too much on how to blog. Don’t just read about it, do it! Writing techniques are interesting to implement and help create engaging content but are more useful if you actually use them.
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32 Comments on this post
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Carl @ make money online said:
I’ve found that SU can work for you, but not by having a big profile or or getting traffic. Instead use the SU toolbar find blogs in a niche then comment on them. Same thing with Digg, you don’t have to use them for their intended purpose, it’s quite OK to use them for the sites that are listed.
December 6th, 2009 at 5:48 pm -
Residual Income Business said:
Alot of sites out there make promises they can’t keep so you really have to do alot of research.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:07 am -
Make money online free said:
Wow this post was very interesting and I could relate to it greatly. You mentioned the thing about checking your adsense earnings every 15 minutes lol I usually check my adsense earnings often but not that often. I still write valuable content however so I wouldn’t consider myself wasting time. Another interesting you mentioned was the read one thousand blogs lol. I could see people feeling the urge to want to do that since I used to do it but now I try my best to resist that urge. But overall this was an excellent post.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:18 am -
Nick | r4 revolution said:
Rule number one: Don’t pay for ANYTHING. If some site makes you pay a membership fee, don’t do it.I suggest doing what my sister-in-law does for spare cash… she buys things from thrift stores and pawn shops for cheap and then re-sells them on ebay for a profit.It works and you don’t have to spend a dime!
August 20th, 2009 at 12:50 am -
sell my house fast said:
After trying Digg for a long time I give up it. I found its a total wastage of time. I got nothing with it.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:45 am -
Buat Duit Online said:
I have tried traffic exchanges, but did not get banned. However I notice that my page rank fell. I never used it again.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:37 pm -
Finance Advisory Stop said:
After reading this, I am going to stay well away from Digg. I tried using it in the best, but I didn’t see any success from it, for me at least.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:10 am -
Gry said:
Becoming a top user on digg is almost impossible. HOWEVER having a nice profile with lots of friends means that your posts will probably get dugg more
July 6th, 2009 at 7:36 am -
Nick | r4 revolution said:
You are right we should analyze our performance over which time we are spending on internet and what is our productivity according to spending time. Your suggestions are very effective.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:31 pm -
Dekoracja Okien said:
But it’s just so hard not to check the stats and adsense earning every time you have a free moment is so deliciously addictive. I don’t know how to stop.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:59 am -
Mike Hersh said:
That list is unbelievable!
There are 100’s of things that you can add to that list, but I must say that those are the things that stops most of the people from making money online. They are busy in other things who don’t create an income and the mistake is exactly here.Thanks Archie, keep the quality content coming up.
Mike G Hersh
IMBlogging.com
June 15th, 2009 at 11:07 am -
Conveyancing said:
Hugo santos @ Hi friends am Online at least for 5-6 hours daily. I think I can make good money with this time. Am doing my job also online. Though am earning minimum of a hundred dollars per week I would like to know how to increase it and what are the best ways to make money online. Do help me
June 13th, 2009 at 3:01 am -
Conveyancing said:
Harshit You can start a blog for free, like at Blogger.com and monetize with Google Adsense, Amazon affiliate program or there are many third party programs you can join and add ads to your blog. You can sell craft items at at any online craft store, like etsy.com and there are many others. You can offer to tutor students online. You can write articles and submit to websites, like Associated Content.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:48 am -
harshit said:
thanx a lot man……
efficient stratergies….
sure to help…June 6th, 2009 at 9:08 am -
Conveyancing said:
Your way is really very efficient and effective. you Provide always very useful tips. Thanks for this one.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:05 am -
Work At Home Blog said:
You have some good points on wasting your time. If you read “how to” blogs I would suggest you take advantage of it. Great point you make on this.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:15 am -
Conveyancing said:
There are 2 things you must have if you seriously want to earn money online.
1. you need a website with good content
2. Lot of Traffic for your websiteJune 1st, 2009 at 4:55 am -
Internet Writers- Make $2000 Now said:
These are the best and funniest tips I have ever read. You are right…but i must admit, I can’t help but to check my stats….people get caught in how much money they have made…but I would never read a bunch of blogs unless I would make a comment…another way you can waste your time is spamming sites..Google is starting to cut down on the spam by not indexing pages with duplicate content, this is why article marketing doesn’t work anymore.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:50 am -
Hugo santos said:
i’ve done many of what you said and simply it isn’t worth (for most at least)
May 20th, 2009 at 11:19 am -
Archie Pennies said:
@SD Just exaggerating LOL but I have been guilty of this. I now only visit a handful of blogs. Most of them are what I consider friends blogs they know who they are because I usually comment on them.
@Matt You are right. Most people who succeed with them are email marketers. So the plan is catch your attention and give something in exchange for joining the list. The usual auto responder marketing applies later.
@Dream Jobs I use to chase SU traffic but never earned a penny out of it. It is good if you want to bump your alexa though. Some bloggers have reported some sign ups when using the cliche aweber e book trick that John Chow and company uses.
@ Brad Hey Brad thanks for visiting ! Actually your blog is one of the ones that I referred to as friends blogs.
The trick is email auto responder and video or audio on auto play. The idea is to get people to sign on your list so you can send them offers later through e mail.
Or you can create a squeeze page to get them to sign up to your blogs news letter in exchange for a free ebook. There are actually some ebooks that you can find online that have give away rights and that are re-brandable.May 17th, 2009 at 10:54 pm -
Brad Blogging.com - Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help said:
You’ve really done a great job with this article.
Again, your knowledge continues to amaze me! Traffic Exchanges + Email Subscription = Gold mine.
Great idea, WILL employ it in the future
- Brad Ney @ Bradblogging.com
May 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm -
Dream Jobs said:
I use SU traffic, but not for a blog that have adsense in it. Tried with adsense, and i know what you mean. I use for my hobby site, i monetize by selling direct advertisement space instead of adsense.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:27 am -
Matt Hayden said:
An accurate list. I’ve certainly been guilty of a few of these in the past.
Very true about traffic exchanges. Surfers on exchanges are all sellers, not buyers. Pretty much a waste of time. Exchanges are good for referring people to other traffic exchanges, however!
I suspect that it’s possible to accumulate such huge downlines using this method that you can ultimately earn a good residual income from their upgrades.
Still, what a boring way to go!
May 13th, 2009 at 7:36 am -
Stuart Reid said:
A lot of what you say can be boiled down to too much reading, and not enough action.
It’s best just to jump in and do as you learn. And once you get some success, repeat on the next project.
You can always tweak and improve later once you get the basics sorted.
Great post BTW!
April 30th, 2009 at 4:47 pm -
SD @ Discount Airfares said:
hmmmm, read a thousand blogs….
i’m not sure I read a thousand, but certainly quite a few.
I try to just go through my feedreader at the start, then the end, of the day, and STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM IT for the rest of the day.
I did say “try”, I don’t always succeed.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:58 pm -
Steve_Marshall said:
Nice article. As you have mentioned, it is quite easy to fall into the trap of over analyzing your performance online and spending hours upon hours reading blogs and forums while you could be out there actively creating some real brand awareness. Contacting a digital agency such as Next Digital may be a good idea, as you will find integrating Digital Media & Marketing activities together can create efficient results online.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:08 pm -
Free LCD TV said:
Actually you can get something out of social media if you work hard enough as for Google I think that they are just greedy Moe Fuggers. But, if you rank you will make money.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:35 pm -
Archie Pennies said:
Thank You Bakshi!!
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm -
Shanker Bakshi said:
Your Blog has been included in my Top commentator Widget blog List
Thanks
Shanker BakshiApril 23rd, 2009 at 10:02 am -
Archie Pennies said:
I know of people that use some of these tactics and get benefits out them like forum posting but their approach is different. Instead of just reading and hanging around they post articles that are useful. Sort of like the article marketing approach. But building super Digg profiles and Stumble Upon profiles is a huge time waster and the return on time investment is almost zero. I kind of feel sorry for people that have spent money on a Stumble Upon Traffic course that I will not mention it’s name but most people know what I am talking about. I chased SU traffic for months only to discover that my Adsense CTR was less that 0.25 % (which can get you banned by the way) and decided to protect my Adsense account by using it only on my niche sites.
April 19th, 2009 at 6:00 pm -
Mikael @ RetireRichRoadmap said:
You are so right. Most of the areas you write about can be used productively but you will need a plan of action and then just go do it. Without action you’ll get nowhere and I believe that is where most people is at (unfortunately).
April 19th, 2009 at 4:51 pm -
Conveyancing said:
I think to make a account and reach it it top it most beneficial way to earn money and increase site traffic.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:57 am
