News Notion

This month and last month was pretty crazy for me, experiencing a whole bunch of technical and site difficulties. I can’t say I’ve solved this recent problem 100% yet, but so far so good! I’ll give it a week before I can call the endeavor a success. Anyways, interested to see how much money I made last month? Me too.

Google Adsense – Currently nonexistent on News Notion, but I have some small sites that have it running.

Earnings: $6.21
Last Month: $8.47

Private Ad Sales – Have been having trouble selling spots recently, but sold one.

Earnings: $9.31
Last Month: $35.44

Text Link Ads – Still using it as long as advertisers continue to renew.

Earnings: $10.62
Last Month: $10.62

Services -  My commenting services continued last month generating decent additional income.

Earnings:  $30.17
Last Month: $39.58

Reviews – One review was purchased last month but I didn’t publish the review until this month due to the computer problems I was having, so it won’t count for this month.

Earnings: $0
Last Month: $6.12

Other - I participated in Steve’s blogging challenge.

Earnings: $20

Expenses – I bought a header design for my new blog.

Expenses: $10

March 2008’s Total Earnings:

$66.31

Down a bit from last month but I’m even pleased with out I did. This month and last month are going to be low, no surprise, because of the string of bad luck I’ve been having with my computer. I’m getting back into routine now as I think I’ve fixed the issue (so far so good anyways) all yesterday and thanks to Bush Mackel for helping me out once again!

News Notion has gotten a sudden bump up (well, down really) in the Alexa rankings which now sits at 149,859. Alexa has updated their ranking system so every site now holds a different ranking, and probably a drastic change then before. John Chow’s new ranking is over 15k, which used to sit at around 5000. This change is due to the sources from which Alexa tracks traffic. It used to be only from the toolbar or buttons placed on sites. Though the new sources won’t be disclosed, adding additional sources to the tracking system is definitely more beneficial as it is more accurate. I went down 500k from 200,000.

Though I know dropping down a lot didn’t mean I’ve received more traffic, being that much closer to 100,000 is great motivation to work to break the 100k barrier I’ve been sitting at for so long!

On a side note, I apologize for it being extremely quite here these past two weeks. From refurnishing my room to my computer experiencing another problem, I’ve been busily working in my room trying to get back on track! To make the story short, my computer has been infected with multiple viruses disabling me from being able to access certain sites (like Google and Yahoo), and making others load extremely slow. I am currently working on backing up my data and attempting to reformat my computer (*crosses fingers*). If all fails, I’ll either take it back into the repair store or I might even ponder getting a brand new one if everything else doesn’t work out.

Again, I’m sorry for it seeming quite dead around here! I’ll keep the situation updated and next week look for a review of my monthly earnings from March and some tips on organization!

Casey 

Two of the most competitive blogging niches are the ‘make money online’ niche, and the ‘blogging’ niche. More often than not, blogs tend to clash the two into one blog which results in this unorganized confusion because they focus too much on one and many bloggers just can’t pull it off. Fortunately, there are a few elite who can and those bloggers deserve to be read!

Super Blogging Tips is an informative blog that teaches you how to make money online from various ways including blogging, and provides blogging tips… in a nicely organized fashion!

First Impressions

Upon first visiting Super Blogging Tips, I was extremely impressed with the design. Of course, I recognized it was the popular Revolution News Theme but a lot of blogs I stumble upon with the theme have it overwhelming- pictures and videos everywhere and long post excerpts. Not to mention a crap load of ads as well. Super Blogging Tips has a very clean theme, with the only advertisements being 6 125×125 ads and text links in the sidebar. This design did not scare me away.

Another thing I noticed was the organization of content in the center of the page. I really like how it’s laid out. You can see the latest post from each category- ‘Blogging Tips’, ‘Make Money Online’, and ‘Promoting Your Blog’ are the first you’ll see, and the most important. Additionally, there are other categories that will help you with your blog and making money on the sidebar.

The Content

Now let’s get crackin’ on the good stuff. If the design doesn’t influence you to stick around longer, than the content surely will. New content is dished out regularly and are usually pretty high quality. In fact, I’m sure Tay follows her own guidelines for writing high quality posts.

Some great posts to check out:

33 Must-Have Firefox Extensions
3 Ways to Make Money Online With Donations
Find Ideas for Posts by Using Forums
10 Ways To Be a Successful Long-Term Blogger
10 Reasons Why a Blog is Better Than a Website

10 Ways to Create Exposure For Your Blog

There is a lot of helpful content to keep readers interested, especially list posts which are usually preferred by readers as they are a lot easier to read and pull the main points from it.

Recommendations

Super Blogging Tips is great, but it’s not perfect. There are a few things I suggest to improve Super Blogging Tips.

Who is Tay?

Tay is the blogger behind Super Blogging Tips… and that’s all I can really tell you. It’s important to have an ‘About’ page for a ton of reasons: credibility, reference, and to develop a more personal feel. Unfortunately, there isn’t one for Tay and I think it would be a good idea to have one.

Top Posts

The posts I mentioned are some of my personal favorites, however, what posts did other readers enjoy? The Top Posts page seems to be blank. I’m unsure whether it’s a problem with a plugin, or maybe it’s planned to be added later, but it is sure something useful to have to get your best posts seen.

A Blog Feel

One thing I think the new snazzy design lacks is the old blog feel. When you go to read a post, the standard content and a sidebar is present. But, there is no way to view the blog this way. The design is similar to the layout of Problogger’s but a link to the actual blog is provided so the traditional guys can view the blog as an actual blog. I think if possible, it should be added.

Summing It Up

Overall, I think Super Blogging Tips is a useful site to learn how to blog and how to make money from doing it. With excellent regular content, it’s no wonder there are over 500 RSS subscribers. A few important key features are missing from making the blog an actual blog, and blogs are better than websites right? Nonetheless, Super Blogging Tips is a definite worth checking out.