zerotomed.com

Yeah, I definitely did not last that long at my job. As much as I wanted to work, it wasn’t for me and since I nearly sliced my fingers off about three times (I work in a deli), I figured it was time for me to go. A doctor needs his fingers, so I think that making 300K a year is a bit more important than $8.00 an hour. Anyways…Now that my job is over, it is time that I look towards some other ways to make some money to supplement for the loss of a weekly income. It was nice having the money, but I don’t think the job is for me.

I am looking to do some content writing again. As you may know from how I write on my blog, I am rather talented with the English language. Granted, I am not a flawless writer; however, that does not take away from the fact that I can write well. And I can research well due to my education and college needs. Now…Just because you contact me does not mean that I am going to write the articles for you. They need to be on something that I find mildly interesting because I do have some slight ADD. If I cannot find the articles interesting, I won’t be able to do them, so I just turn them down indefinitely if it is hard to write.

Now…I am sure the biggest thing on your mind is the price and the time it takes to write the articles. I charge 2.5 cents a word. Yes, that is $12.50 for a 500 word article, but you know that you are getting an article that is written by someone who can write. I’m not some cheap author who crams out ten articles in one day; if that’s what you’re looking for, don’t contact me for articles. I do take my time and do try and write them like I would if they were a school paper. Now…For the time length it takes for me to write these articles. I get my work done by the deadline; however, if your deadline is unacceptable in my book, I will either give you a date that I can get them done or just say outright that I can’t do them. If you are interested in trying my service (and I have had a reader of my blog who was pleased with my writing), please send me an e-mail to: jacob@zerotomed.com. Yeah, I finally set up my own e-mail! Anyways…Thanks a lot.

Today I had the pleasure of having an interview with one of the employees of ContextWeb. If you remember a few days ago, I mentioned that I was in the beta-testing for ADSDAQ. What ADSDAQ is is a way for publishers to determine how much they want to get paid per thousand impressions. If you want to see what I mean, go look at science chats and you tell me what you think about what you see.

Now…You may see adsense and you may see a banner ad. That’s the great thing about this program. Not only can you decide how much you get paid per 1000, but if they don’t sell all your ad inventory, your alternate ad (for me, adsense) will appear and thus, you’re always making money in a sense. Now, what I love about this is that it is not pop-ups. I was worried when putting it on science chats that I was going to start getting pop ups, but instead, all I get is that single little ad on the right and that is all. It really makes things much easier and that is something that I like.

Now…I took the survey today and I learned a few cool things. First off, they are in the works of creating a referral program which, since it is a brand new company, would DEFINITELY benefit those that get in early. That is one cool thing I learned. Another cool thing that I learned is that they are going to be adding other sizes. I requested specifically for a 250×250 and if that works, perhaps I could throw the code onto my blogs to rotate between adsense and those ads. It would definitely allow for some great money making methods, you know? Anyways…That’s what I did with my survey. They’re closed for beta, but you can sign up for the main release.

One thing that I have not used very much are social bookmarking sites. Sites like Digg and Stumble Upon are two that I have just not used very much. I use Digg a little, but I have a small fear that if I actually DO get dugg, my hosting will go crazy and my sites will go down. It’s a small fear, but it is a fear none the less. Now, I decided that I would start to use it a bit more to try and bring more people to my site. I figure that if I could get more people to my science forum, I may be able to increase the number of members.

The site that I am going to use is not digg, but Stumble Upon. My friends have said that this is a great way to get people to the site and that is what I am going to try. I don’t like how my firefox is getting more and more cluttered, but I suppose that is something I can tolerate. I am going to use it a lot, try and increase the people to my site, and if it works well, I may use it for my other sites. For now, my science forum will be the tool that I experiment with. And if that works out well, I might just start using it for other sites.

I have been thinking about it recently and I wonder if the use of adwords would benefit my science forum. As you can already see, I am beginning to try and rank for a much tougher term, but if all goes according to plan, I will be sailing towards success if I get on the first page for the term ’science.’ But that’s beside the point. I was wondering if people thought the use of Adwords was a good move to get people to my site. And I began to wonder if it was worth the cost.

Science requires high paying clicks. Granted, I don’t HAVE to pay a lot, but to get the best results, you have to pay more. At least, I think that is how it works. I figure that if I were to invest maybe fifty bucks into CPC, I could, potentially, get some traffic to my site and with that traffic, I could potentially get more people to sign up. But then there’s the problem that I won’t get any sign ups and it’d be a waste of fifty dollars. Perhaps that’s the gamble, huh?

So…I am trying to figure out what I should do. Should I sign up for Adwords and maybe invest fifty bucks to see how it pays out? Or do you think that I should just stick to word of mouth advertising and trying to rank higher in the search engines? This is definitely something I could use the help of from my tiny community because I am very ignorant when it comes to paying for advertising like that. So, let me know your opinion so that I can really decide what I want to do.

Alright, so perhaps this post is mostly for fun, but I have to say, whenever I am having a hard time focusing and I really need to get my work done, I go upstairs and get a snack. Now, I am not talking about having a five course meal with wine and a handy waiter come and take care of you with a very nice French accent. But, when I say have a snack, just go upstairs (or downstairs) or across the hall or whatever and just get something small to munch on.

For me, one thing that I love to have are the best college food in the world: Ramen. I don’t know why, but a hot bowl of this soup is just perfect. Granted, I totally messed them up tonight and they were all hard and stuff, but that’s besides the point. I didn’t let the water boil long enough before I put it on. However, another type of snack could be some pretzels or fruit or perhaps a few chips. What you want to avoid is eating TOO much. If you eat TOO much, your body gets lazy and then you don’t get any work done.

Snacks are a good way of giving your body a boost. Sugars are a quick boost, but you then have a drop. Carbs are good for the long hall, but they take time to start working. That’s why sprinters eat sugar and long distance runners eat carbs. I recommend some fruit for sure and perhaps a good old bowl of Ramen. It helps me when I have to think of things to write about for my blogs and I am sure it might help you too. One other thing to stay away from is alcohol. Beer slows your mind down (don’t we ALL know that) and alcohol in general won’t help you. So, that’s just my advice.

I think it is kind of funny that I talk about wanting to own all these different content sites, but if you think about it, I only own one about arthritis and one about the women of rock. Perhaps the best sites to own aren’t content or perhaps they are, I don’t know. What I wanted to mention right now is that I bought a new site with my friend. It was pretty inexpensive and although it is missing some things that I really wish it had, I think that the site does its job. Now, you may be wondering what the site is, and that’s cool because I am going to tell you…DUH!

I bought local movie theater times yesterday with my friend. It is a relatively new site, but I think that it is the kind of site that can actually do pretty well because of what it provides. Now, I don’t know if it has all movie theaters in it, but I think that it takes the results from another website, so perhaps it is good. I am not sure if I am pleased with the ad placement, but if anyone wants to look at it and give some advice, you’re more than welcome. I like it, though, because it is so basic and stuff. I am going to try and get it ranked for the search engines, but in truth, it’ll probably just be viral marketing.

I intend on selling it, though. I don’t want to keep the site for that long unless it really does start bringing in profits. If it brings in like ten or fifteen bucks a month, I may sell it for two hundred dollars and make a profit off of it. But, I may just keep it if it is making that money and try to build it up more. It’s a really basic site, though, and although it cost us close to $80, I think it was a good buy simply because so many people want to go see the movies. We’ll see how it goes, eh?

Since being accepted into ReviewMe, I have been really hoping that just ONE person would buy a review and then I’d be able to show that I really am serious about my reviews and then more people would do it. Unfortunately, no one wanted to fork over 40 bucks to do it and I didn’t want to lower my price so much that I did not make any money from the reviews. So, I let it sit and I continued building my site and now here we are, once again, but this time, I am giving PayPerPost a chance.

If you read my post about being accepted into ReviewMe and all of that, you’ll notice that PPP denied me at first. That makes me laugh because they said that I had made this blog just so I could profit off of them. What egotistical comments. Anyways, I got an e-mail about three weeks later being invited to PPP again and when I told the person why I did not want to use it, he was all, “that won’t happen now, we’re so cool, etc, etc.” I said no still because I had a lot of faith in ReviewMe. But, still nothing from them, so now I will try PayPerPost.

If you’re curious about what my reviews will look like, continue reading the article about my acceptance and denial and it will all make sense. I want to give you what you deserve. For twenty bucks, you still deserve an amazing review and that’s what I will give. Now…There is one thing that I know will happen. If I do start giving reviews, I know that I will have to increase the number of posts that I make. But, this isn’t a bad thing, so maybe these reviews will really help my site grow. If you’re interested in getting a review, just go click that button I put on my sidebar and try it out. Thanks!

For those that don’t know, ADSDAQ is a brand new ad network that works with impressions, but not with pop ups. It’s a pretty nifty system and I am not going to go into too much detail about it right now because I have not had the privilege of actually setting it up on my site(s). However, it is a pretty cool system that allows YOU to decide how much you get paid per 1000 impressions. I like that and that is why I agreed to do beta with it.

I am not going to ramble on too much about it, but if you see some random ads on this site as well as my science forum, it’s because you’re looking at the ADSDAQ ads. Perhaps they will make me money, perhaps they will not. However, I am going to experiment with it and if it goes well, I will give a more proper review about it here. I get to talk to their representatives though, so that’s definitely very cool. Anyways…Off to get to work on that. Take care!

This post is going to be relatively short because I want to take my own advice and not get overloaded. But, one thing that I do want to say is that it is very important that you don’t get bogged down with work. Don’t overload yourself. Don’t push so much work out that you’re overloading yourself. In a future post, I’ll write about how it is important to really find something that relaxes you. But for now, let me just give you a few tips on avoiding overloading yourself.

First and foremost…Set up a schedule so that you’re not working at all the hours of the night. I like to work, so I don’t really feel overloaded. However, tonight, I am not going to work ALL night. By setting a schedule, you really give yourself a chance to get everything done in a very fast manner.

Secondly…Don’t try and do too much in one day. If you need to write twenty content articles and also do five blog posts, try and see if you can’t do that over a few days. If you try and do it all at once, all your writing abilities will be dead. Trust me, I have tried and I have failed.

Thirdly…Don’t set unattainable goals. It is good to aim high, but it is alright to not reach those goals. If you want to get forty articles done in a day and can only get twenty done, that’s alright. Don’t beat yourself up or force yourself to do it.

Those are just three little things that I recommend so that you don’t get overloaded. Schedules, practical goals, and it’s alright to fall back on something smaller. Try it out and you might be surprised to know that you’re getting more work done because you’re not stressed and you’re not overloaded. Good luck!

Three days ago, I posted an opinion about spamming. I said that it was wrong to spam forums or blogs or any of that. I said this out of true feelings. I think that is wrong. I especially hate those people that come to my site and post about penis enlargement and all of this other rather annoying stuff. Now, the problem is, when I think of blog comments, I think of the blog owner coming to my site and posting. He’ll post something and I usually can tell when it is an obvious “come look at my site” type of post. It’s not that difficult. However, I tend to just say, “it’s alright.” Want to know why? Because then I go RIGHT back to their blog and bam, I post something with a link to one of my articles.

So…Anyways, I wrote that post out of a response to a new website where you buy blog comments. You buy them to do the exact same thing that you would do except now you’re not wasting your time doing it. Now, I had an uproar about this because my fear was that I would be getting a lot of spam. Now, not the type of spam where the site is looking to enlarge your penis. I was just worried that while it might be relevant comments, the comment might just say, “that’s so cool, click here to read another article.” Now, that’s just useless for my blog. I don’t like those comments. However, I have read a lot of the uproar and my opinion has changed slightly.

I still think it’s sort of shady and I don’t agree with Cody’s comment that the only way to make money is to use BlackHat methods. But, perhaps the term BlackHat is the wrong term to use. Do I think that a linkbait is BlackHat? Because if that’s the case, then I am a BlackHat person as well. I think the site’s only problem is that there is no guarantee. I don’t care if someone comes to my site and posts a comment that is bought. It’s the exact same thing as if someone came to my site and posted a comment. I won’t use the service personally until there has been some, “wow, this is awesome! This totally worked!” because I don’t want to take that risk.

Now…So long as the comments are NOT spam and they are NOT obviously purchased, I don’t mind it. However, I have no problem denying comments left and right if they appear too spam like. I do think that the prices are sort of out there; however, right now, he is the only provider and there are lazy people out there that will attempt to take some business from him. The only thing that Jon has to worry about is competing with overseas writers. For a few bucks an hour, I can get a lot of comments for a lot cheaper than from Jon. People might not care about perfection if it saves them some money. So, the only thing that I would change are the prices. Offer a deal for going for more comments. So, as long as it is not spam, I don’t care. However, if it is spam, then a lot of other bloggers will have something to say. Good luck, Jon.