The Lady Programmer

You’ve probably noticed that there is no obvious change in this blog’s template. A few days after I had published the announcement that I am going for my own template design, an angel was suddenly sent down from heaven to help me grow my blog. I would not be putting much detail on what this sudden change is all about. For now, I’m sorry to disappoint everyone, but chances are, I’ll still be using a free template. However, the change is much different – and more exciting – than sporting a new look.

I promise.

Oh, I still hope everybody is still checking me out. I have not visited you guys for a while. I do blogging as a part time work right now so I don’t get to update all my blogs and I find myself running out of time to promote my stuff. But I will find another effective way to make up for the lost time.

I miss you guys.

UPDATE: Hoops! Almost forgot, thanks to Pastilan for emailing me a copy of SEO Optimization.

I’ve previously mentioned about my quest to learn SEO skills which is a growing demand in freelance jobs. Even before I put out that post, there are a number of people who had been asking me through email or through blog comments on any previous post that instructs them on how to do SEO. I am not really an expert on this one, and I’ve realized that SEO skills takes time – it can even take years to understand this stuff.

I keep a number of blogs that I follow all along to learn such skill. Here are some SEO sites that I keep in my Google reader:

• Tech At Hand Dot Net 
• Macuha.com
• Money and SEO
• Search Engine Guide 
• SEO Fast Start 
• The Ad Master

I only know Marghil Macuha through reading his Macuha.com blog regularly. It was from his site where I found the eBook in understanding SEO the easiest way. His blog deals more his SEO explorations though.

Dexter of Tech At Hand Dot Net is a blog that I visit regularly. This guy too, has his own SEO explorations. I find his posts useful in learning SEO. You might want to check out his SEO category – I’ve been digging through that archive a day ago and find his posts very helpful.

Engr. Cesar Noel was very helpful guy who is into this stuff for several years. He had been very helpful in giving me leads on where I could get the good SEO resources to start with.

All the remaining blogs are also worth reading. Check them out too.

Like Dexter had mentioned, on the previous post on freelance SEO skills, forums are a good way of learning SEO. Here are some good ones:

• DigitalPoint forums 
• SEO Chat forums
• Webmasterworld
• and even our own SEO Philippines Forum

Engr. Cesar Noel was also kind in mentioning SEO Guy forums. He also reminded me that the best SEO practice is producing good content.

I’ve done a series of posts about paid blogging sites. I hope you did not miss any of these past posts:

• Earn by Doing Paid Reviews with PayPerPost
• Make Money Doing Paid Reviews with SponsoredReviews
• SocialSpark: A Paid Review Site with a Social Networking Twist 
• Other Sites That Lets You Earn Money From Blogging 

All of these cover how a blogger can earn from simply doing paid posts. Of course, these are not the only ways to earn from blogs. There are also other means like affiliate marketing, ad networks like Google Adsense and selling links. The last post on other sites that lets you earn money from blogging simply covers other paid review sites.

Disadvantage of Page Rank Loss

One downside to accepting paid reviews is that these blogs are prone to Google pagerank loss. To be accurate, Google is NOT against all paid reviews; Google penalizes links that have no “rel=nofollow” code. So far, SocialSpark is the only place where I can fully retain pagerank while doing sponsored posts, because their posts always require the use of “rel=nofollow” code.

I had been a firsthand witness of this. I was doing paid posts with SocialSpark then I suddenly hit PR3. Now I’m back to zero because I had accepted “dofollow” paid posts.

Matt Cutts, a high ranked employee of Google, had approved the way things are SocialSpark. Don’t believe me? You can read all about it in this IZEA post.

Unfortunately, props was not given to PPP. I guess everyone knows the issue about PPP bloggers getting spanked by Google. I strongly believe that PPP bloggers are not the only ones that get affected but any blogger that does sponsored posts with no “rel=nofollow” code on links.

I still got other opportunities to make some cash out of blogging. I never got money yet from these services, but I have seen some people successfully earning some cash from it.

Unlike PayPerPost, SocialSpark and Sponsored Reviews, I have yet to see payment proof out from these sites.

1. Smorty
Here is one paid review network that can even accept Filipino language blog – if you have a blog written out in Filipino. I had not been active with them, probably because my blog had not met their standards UPDATE: I just got one of my blogs approved in Smorty, probably after doing this post . I can only submit one blog at a time; for me to submit for another one, I had to do five successful paid posts with them.

Anyway, Smorty seemed to be a good site to earn from paid reviews. It seemed also good for building backlinks by writing exchange reviews with other bloggers.

Probably the most visible sign that Smorty has a good reputation is their active forum. The Filipino community is also active with Smorty, so Pinoys will not have any difficulty meeting other bloggers. I’ve also witnessed some big Filipino bloggers endorse Smorty by putting up widgets in their blogs.

Blog flipping is a very common trade in the forums. If you are seeking for high PR blogs to buy then the Smorty forum is probably a good site to look for sellers.

2. Blogsvertise
I have two blogs approved with them. Blog approval is fast – I think it is faster than PPP, SocialSpark or Sponsored Reviews – but this approval is done manually. Unlike Smorty, Blogsvertise accepts a number of blogs in their system.

The greatest strength of this site is that it offers diverse options of making money, not only from paid reviews:

• blog entries – which allows a blogger to do paid reviews
• blog homepage textlink – which allows a blogger to put up side links
• blog homepage banner – which allows a blogger to put up ad space banners, and the
• experimental video ad entries – where a blogger is required to do a Youtube video of himself. Blogsvertise gives higher payouts for this effort.

I have yet to see if Blogsvertise is really a good site or not. Although their system is automated, I am impressed at their prompt customer support service. I am not very much active with them since they offer lower payout for every paid review. There seemed to be some opportunities that require “nofollow” links; for interested bloggers who do not like to lose their Google pagerank.

3. LoudLaunch
One thing that I like about LoudLaunch is its cool, streamlined design. I think they overdid the simplicity though; the site had neither forum nor blog, so I can just judge this site from what I see. These forums or blog could be a lot helpful for LoudLaunch.

Anyway, there had been some payment proofs posted around for this site. The same set of bloggers mentioned that most of the opportunities offered are on travel and mortgages.

I had already submitted two blogs with them but these blogs are still waiting to be approved.

4. PayU2Blog
When I do my daily Entrecard drops, I come across a few EC bloggers who had been happy with PayU2Blog. These bloggers posted out payment proofs in their blogs, so I guess PayU2Blog is a pretty legit paid blogging site. I got this blog submitted a long time but I never get past the front page. I must have a blog approved before I could get in.

5. BloggerWave
Although one of my blogs got approved, I never got to write with BloggerWave because there seemed to be less opportunities posted with the site. I don’t think BloggerWave makes it a sustainable means to earn from paid blogging because I have seen a lot of bloggers complain about delayed payments. They pay, but expect it to be given over several months.

6. ReviewMe
ReviewMe seemed to be very picky in approving blogs. My previous PR4 blog got disapproved several times because I didn’t traffic. I was getting one or two visitors, and on most days, none, with that old blog. I think ReviewMe wants bloggers who can maintain a combination of good Google PR, Alexa traffic, RSS subscribers and good Technorati count.

No wonder ReviewMe is an attractive site to “professional bloggers” – those big time bloggers who had a big network of blog subscribers. Like SocialSpark, bloggers are required to disclose that their reviews are given out from ReviewMe.

7. BuyBlogReviews

I just had one of my blogs approved with BuyBlogReviews and started getting emails on some opportunities. I think BuyBlogReviews is a lot similar to Sponsored Reviews – except that bloggers are required to disclose their paid reviews with a widget similar to the one used in SocialSpark.

Payment Methods

All the review sites that I had mentioned give out payments by Paypal. I will not go into detail about Paypal: I have a series of posts written about this payment method which is now fully functional in any Philippine bank account unlike a year ago. Please look into these series of posts on Paypal withdrawals to any Philippine bank account, which I update regularly.

One tip for Payoneer card holders, if you got a Payoneer Mastercard through oDesk, Freelancer, Elance then you can try linking your existing Payoneer Mastercard so you do not have to request for a new card. I had successfully linked my ReviewMe account with oDesk debit Mastercard, so I don’t need to request for a separate card from Payoneer (and pay for it).

I’m sure you have encountered other sites that lets you earn money from blogging. Share it to everyone by leaving a comment below.

I have a problem right now. Not a big one, but I don’t want to be a big disappointment to the recent EC droppers that I have right now. As you’ve noticed I am a humble member of the U-drop-I-follow movement.

I just could not return all your drops. I have been getting more than 300 Entrecard drops in my account for five consecutive days!

I guess I am now one among those who reached Entrecard nirvana of getting more than the maximum allowed drops per day. My highest number of drops reached 390 on the 6th of October, and I’ve broken the barrier since the 4th of October. The last bar shows a lower value because it represents the number of drops done as I am writing this post (13 hours since the last reset).

more than 300 drops in the previous 5 days

I think this has something to do with the sudden increase of advert clicks. I did not adopt any strategy except to advertise on active EC blogs.

advert clicks increase

Organic clicks looked consistent, so I am convinced that advertising did the trick.

organic clicks: no change

My daily 300 EC drops had almost been consistent. I haven’t reached the drop master status. Probably because there are some days where I could not complete the drops (remember the typhoon?) and a few days when I was not able to drop at all.

daily 300 drops

In case you’re wondering, I have already written out some Entrecard tips that I use to accomplish those 300 drops. I have two blogs that I promote in Entrecard; I’ve managed to do all those 600 drops in just over an hour – and bookmark those that I want to comment on or put them into my feed reader so that I could revisit those blogs.