Make Money Online Tips

DAY 3

It’s time for another busy workday (is the coffee on?), but this should be even more fun. Remember when you first launched your business? You called and e-mailed all your friends, who all thought you were cool and brilliant. Today is going to be kind of like that, except with thousands of strangers who are about to become your new fans.

We’re still not going to need those articles you cranked out on Day ONE. It wouldn’t hurt to keep writing more articles if you think of new ideas, though. You’ll need them to update those Day ONE pages later this week, which in turn updates those RSS feeds that are pinging all over the Internet.

Today is all about social bookmarking, and social bookmarking is fun. Dozens of social bookmarking sites have popped up in the last few years. They all basically provide a forum for people to post links to Web sites, news articles and videos they like. You like your Web site, and all these other pages you created in the past two days, right? So post the links. There’s nothing wrong with bragging about your own content on these bookmarking sites.

You might be looking at the statistics for these sites and decide to just sign up for the three most popular pages. Bad idea. Even if Technorati gets only half as many hits as Digg, there are still thousands of folks who prefer Technorati and would never see your links on Digg. I went to the trouble of listing all the sites in this post, and you should go to the trouble of listing all your pages at all these sites.
Also, you might want to read the celebrity gossip and watch the viral videos other users posted on these sites. Don’t do that. You have work to do. Wait until you “clock out” at the end of the day. You’ll still have plenty of time for Britney Spears and sleeping kittens.

Let’s get started. Again, all these links will be listed in the back of this serial post, along with
statistics for each site. You’ll want to use these links because some of these sites aren’t standard .com pages.

Start with Digg

Digg pretty much invented the idea of linking to sites and voting for them. So get in on the action. Sign up for an account. Give yourself a clever username and a password you’ll remember. You can even create a little icon for yourself, such as a photo of a stick of butter (or maybe a picture related to whatever product or service you actually sell). Now you want to bookmark your sites — not just your Web site, but also your HubPages hub, your Squidoo lens and all the others.

Twitter is another really popular site

You can’t even really look at Twitter without signing up, so there should be fewer distractions on this site — at least until you have an account. This page will also test your concise writing skills. Every posting, or “tweet,” should have less than 140 characters, spaces and punctuation included, or roughly the length of this sentence.
So link all your pages with short tweets.

Next, start linking at Yahoo Buzz

The advantage of linking at this site is obvious. Yahoo is hugely popular, and Yahoo Buzz is one of the most popular components. Millions of people are finding out what’s cool through Yahoo Buzz. If you want them to think your butter is cool, link to all your pages on this site.

Do the same at Technorati

The open-source Technorati Web site ranks popular blogs, so it’s a good place to link your blog sites and not directly compete for attention with viral videos and traditional news stories. Go ahead and post to all your pages here. Your Blogger and Wordpress sites may be more successful, but it won’t hurt to plug the other ones.

Now go to StumbleUpon

This site isn’t nearly as popular as it once was, but it still claims more than one million visitors per month. eBay thought these visitors were worth $75 million when the auction site bought StumbleUpon in 2007.
It has a unique recommendation engine, which points users toward links based on ratings of previous pages. You know the drill. Post your links here.

Now hit up Delicious

Yahoo owns Delicious, too, and the site is easier to find now that it removed a bunch of goofy periods from its old name, del.icio.us. So post all your links here.

It’s Kaboodle time

I know. You’re already thinking “I’m bored. I’ve linked to enough sites.” But each one has an important niche that will drive more hits to your Web site. Kaboodle focuses on shopping. Instead of jabbering about viral videos, Kaboodle users talk up their favorite stores and products. Don’t you want them to talk about your products?

Reddit? Link it

Reddit is like Digg with an attached coffee shop. Users post links to content, then they like to discuss all the links. Go grab a cuppa Reddit.
Mixx up your links

This site is named for the Mixx of social bookmarking, social networking and blogging. Post your links here.

Slide over to Slashdot

Slashdot is much like the others, but more focused on technology. Want geeks to find your site? Use Slashdot.

Link away at Clipmarks

Clipmarks is like a highlighter for the Internet, letting you “clip” just pieces of Web content and post them to the site. If you have a couple of really good lines about butter, post them here. This will drive people to your full pages at least as effectively as those long, clunky links.

Next, try Diigo

Diigo is like social bookmarking with a really big closet. You can store full Web pages in your Diigo account, and you can still read the whole page even if the original content is removed. The unique feature probably means it will grow in popularity, so it will be worthwhile to have your content posted on it.

Make news at Newsvine

As the name suggests, this site is focused on news, so be careful with your links. Don’t expect a product plug to get high ratings on Newsvine. Make sure the descriptions with your links talk about the latest development in your industry. For example, a new type of fat-free vegetable oil has just been invented, so tell everyone how this affects your butter.

Hit up Faves.com

Formerly known as BlueDot, Faves is organized by topic rather than raw popularity or your own social network. For you, that means butter fans can find your content faster. So post your links here, Enter the Dzone — maybe.

OK, so not everyone is going to want to link here. Dzone is narrowly focused on news for software developers. So our butter links would have a hard time getting any traction, but if you are working in the technology sector, link away. The narrow focus of the site can’t help but improve your rankings.

Blinklist your links

Blinklist advertises itself as iTunes for Web pages, but it’s more like a user-friendly favorites list that you share with your friends. Go ahead and link to all your pages here.

Simpy your links

Simpy is an older open-source service that integrates well with other applications and services. Again, it’s worth putting all your links on this site.

And FINALLY, use Blogmarks

Blogmarks created an alternative feed service similar to RSS, but it’s otherwise similar to Delicious and the other sites you have worked on today. Still, it can’t hurt to get your content on as many platforms as possible. Link it all here.
If you’re doing this right, you have spent most of the day posting your links and writing summaries.

Be back tomorrow. Same time, same place :-)