How to Make Money Online From Your Webcomic

By Daniel Ted C. Feliciano

I am assuming that you already have a webcomic so I am not going to discuss what a webcomic is and what it is made of. I will instead go straight to the point and enumerate the ways on which you can make money from it. So here we go:

Project Wonderful Ads - Visit any webcomic and chances are there is a Project Wonderful ad box on it. There could even be three ad boxes on it. The good thing about Project Wonderful is that they love webcomics. Yes, they do. You will soon find out when you sign up with them. Joining their advertising program is free so there is no reason why you shouldn't give it a try. All you have to do is sign up, add your webcomic for their approval and once it's approved, it's all but a matter of copying and pasting code to your webcomic site. Now, here's how you make money. Once the Project Wonderful ad box is live on your site, potential advertisers will then be bidding on that particular ad box. So obviously, the more popular and the higher your webcomic's traffic is, the more advertisers will bid on it. More bidders of course mean bigger payouts. Project Wonderful also allows you to place up to five ad boxes on your site. If you play your ads right, this could mean multiplying your Project Wonderful revenue by five. Not bad, huh.

Google AdSense - AdSense is the provider of the best contextual ads in the internet. It serves your site with highly-relevant ads. Highly-relevant means the ads are related to the content of your webcomic so visitors will more likely click on them. This is very important because Google AdSense pays you based on the number of clicks on the ads present on your webcomic site. Click rates range from a few cents to several dollars. Google AdSense also has great help and support for publishers. It provides you with tools which you can use to track the performance of your ads.

Donations - This is a very good way to make a few dollars from your avid fans and followers. If a lot of people like what you publish, there are those who will be willing to hand over a few dollars as a way of saying thank you. There are many ways of asking for donations but the most effective of these is by placing a PayPal Donation Button on your webcomic. PayPal is a popular online payment system. If you still don't have a PayPal account, it's time you go over their website now and sign up. All you need to register is an email address. After registering, just grab the PayPal Donation Button code and paste it on your website.

Cartoon Commissions - Once your webcomic starts building its readers and traffic, expect that you will soon be receiving emails from visitors who want you to draw a few cartoons for them in exchange for cash. You should take advantage of this and start your career as a freelance online cartoonist.
Ebooks - Once you have enough cartoons in your webcomic archives, you can compile them all in one document such as a PDF file and sell such document as an ebook.

Making money from your cartoons and webcomics is not a very hard thing to do when you play your cards right and take advantage of all the monetization strategies that come your way.

The author of this article writes and publishes a webcomic over at: http://dcfeliciano.blogspot.com/
View his compilation of the 101 funniest webcomics here: http://www.squidoo.com/the-101-funniest-webcomics-on-the-internet-

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Make-Money-Online-From-Your-Webcomic&id=5355839] How to Make Money Online From Your Webcomic

My SBI Experience And Why I Left

There are a lot of opinions out there regarding SBI vs blogging. Some have even gone as far as to say that SBI is anti-blogging. As an ex-SBI user I have to say that SBI isn’t anti anything. But I do see where some people may get the idea. SBI promotes websites almost to the point of annoyance, but that’s because that is what they are. For those who are on the fence about whether or not to go with SBI, read on about my experience, why I left it and whether or not I’d go back.

When I first got onto the work at home, bus I started with blogging. It was simple and a good way to learn how to develop content for a niche without the technical hassle. But blogging on a free platform like blogger has the drawback of inflexibility. There are a lot of things you can’t do, at least not without some proficient technical knowledge. Thus I wanted more and, after doing some research, decided that SBI was a good fit.

My  few years with SBI were pleasant. SBI has a great community of helpful knowledgeable people that will walk with you through the process. This is indeed a very powerful tool for a beginner who is still learning about online marketing. There are several videos and several guides that if you use give you basic fundamental knowledge about building a niche business.

But the action guide, while up-to-date, doesn’t provide advanced knowledge about using an online platform to build success. In fact, a number of the things in it I learned while blogging and you can probably Google and get the same information.

SBI likes to pride itself on being some kind of “coach” but the site itself is not fantastic in that regards. It’s the forum users who really offer the tips and you can actually gain access to the forum simply by being an affiliate and not buying the package.

Ken provided a lot of different case studies and website examples of different niches, giving confidence to anyone with any niche idea that their website may work. I chose to go with a self help magazine type site and noticed that with SBI it had the potential to be successful. I followed the action guide, hung out in the forum asking and answering questions, and made sure to use as many of the tools as were necessary for my site. Like with anything, it takes time to see success but slowly there was a buildup of traffic, adsense and affiliate revenue and subscribers. So why did I leave?

Something that I wish I had known about SBI before joining is just how tailored it is for people who provide physical or e-products or services. SBI is not the best platform for those who aren’t selling something of their own.

As much as it likes to toot about being an infopreneur site, it isn’t. For those who aren’t selling an ebook, homemade chocolates, or counseling services, SBI can be a difficult money making platform. The reason being most of the tool are geared to those who do more than just provide great content and affiliate products. If I had an ebook and wanted to presell it, then SBI would have been perfect.

 But I was simply writing helpful lifestyle content and after a while I noticed my SBI site was getting too cluttered with the information, especially since I was writing every other day. The site was not as easy to navigate anymore and it was getting difficult to manage all that content, especially if I had to update. With SBI, 30 pages seems to be the maximum in terms of content. Ken Envoy says after that you should be looking at simply promoting your site or building another one, and I agree completely. If you plan to create more than 30pages worth of content, SBI can seem small.

Another thing I disliked about SBI is how difficult it actually is to change the template. People say you don’t need to be tech savvy to work it, but you do. Because these days with all the vibrant hip looking blog templates, it’s essential that your website looks at least close to ranks of “pretty.” Users expect more now and SBI was slow to react to what many web readers want today.

 I had fresh content on my site, Google liked my site, but my site looked and felt outdated. It didn’t have a fresh look or even up to date tools. And updating it wasn’t easy anymore. All this made the revenue generation slow. I thought I was alone in this, but noticed that many SBI users had the same complaint of having clunky looking websites with a lack of community building tools.

The biggest thing with SBI however is the expense. It claims that all the tools together would cost more than they charge, but honestly a number of their tools can be found free and are provided by some blog platforms.  It was costing me $300 to run a site and learn about web marketing at the same time. If you have your own products some adsense and affiliate programs and are market and tech savvy, you may be able to break even by the time you have to renew. But if you’re purely on affiliate programs and aren’t a skilled marketer, you can easily get the 2 year blues where you see your site close up sooner than expected.

SBI does have many advantages and it is a good site for those who want a web business. So, if I did have the time to create and manage my own product or service I would choose them over a blog. However, if sharing great content and gaining sponsors or hosting advertising is your main goal, then blogging may be a more economic and easier platform.

If you are looking for great web hosting or want more information visit SBI today

How To Find An Effective And Free Internet Marketing Course

Are you an Internet marketer? Perhaps you are just aspiring to become one. If you are doing business online, then maybe you are looking for ways to boost your website's traffic or have it more visible to the search engines as well as to your targeted customers.
But, are your methods and efforts fruitful? Have you reached your expectations? Have you accomplished something out of doing the things you thought can help you become successful?

However, fret not. Even though you may think that you're only good in failing or that you have only wasted your time and effort for nothing, there are still so many things left for you to do.

When it comes to making money online or promoting your business on the web, the chances and opportunities are always countless. All you have to do is be keen and determined in finding effective and suitable ways to prop up your website or the business itself.

You should never close your doors to possibilities as you can always find ways to succeed or stay on top. Online marketing is about trial and error, application of the best means and maintenance and continuous search and learning as well as practice and application.

     You should always keep your mind open and make yourself busy discovering methods, information and other interesting stuffs. You must come out of your shell and explore as much as you can. Have yourself trained in a regular manner so as to sharpen your ideas and skills.

So to be able to supply yourself with the appropriate, effective and updated skills or information with regards to SEO and other related things, you must take part in an SEO training or other means of gathering helpful stuffs for the sake of your business and online growth. Participate in an Internet marketing class and see to it that you get into the best group.

You can even get a hold of free stuffs. Many expert marketers are sharing their ideas for free. Search for free internet marketing courses or SEO trainings where you can possibly get the best of everything for free. It doesn't matter if you have to pay for the training so long as you can guarantee yourself that you can learn more valuable and effective techniques.

Roam around the web as much as you can. Go from one website to another so you can gather sufficient resources and references. Find loads of internet marketing courses especially those offered for free by some experts.

You should be able to determine the reputation or credibility of a particular website offering SEO training or internet marketing class. The least that you would want to is to participate in some form of a scam or something that would only waste your time, effort and even money.


     Nowadays, you can certainly get a hold of free stuffs provided you actively participate or visit their website. Of course, it will always be a win-win situation.

Ask around: either online or personally. Perhaps you have friends who are also making money online or doing business through the Internet. Gather information as much as you can. Compare services or offers. You should pay attention to remarkable benefits or things you can get during the training and after that.

Inquire as many questions as you can to the website offering SEO training or free Internet marketing course. Ask who would train, the modules involved and other necessary information to determine which training is truly worth everything.

It pays to go for trainings rendered by seo experts or Internet marketing gurus. Pay if you have to. That is why you need to make a thorough research so you can compare and choose wisely.

     About the Author: Maurice Manhattan - Have a successful online business by looking for effective and free Internet marketing courses. You can find loads of resources online so do your best in getting a hold of the best Internet marketing class.

The unseen work at home business problem

In a classic work situation people are set up in specific positions that allow them to do tasks based on a skill they possess, thus becoming specialists in the task. Most of the working society is used to having very set tasks to accomplish that don’t leak into other realms of specialization. The front desk personnel at an office most likely does not handle reviewing business plans. Now jump online to a work at home business and you see a work situation where people are required to become task generalists at a specializing level.

  By this I mean they are required to be able to be jack of all trade and master of all trade. This is practically impossible since most work at home members fall into one of the following categories.

1. Idea architects: These are people who have the ability to come up with ideas at a quick pace. They can enlighten others by taking bland topics and niches and spinning them in an creative fashion to make them more appealing. Work at home business coaches fall into this group.

2. Idea Constructionists: These are the people that actually build the ideas. They create the websites or blogs. They execute ideas with precision.

3. Idea Pushers: You find a lot of these types online. Think you’re average affiliate marketer. These people know how to connect with others that would have an interest in an already standing idea.

The problem however is most people only fall under one category and if you are truly blessed you can convincingly shift your way into another. But usually idea architects don’t execute ideas as well as actual builders and the builders have trouble selling it to the world.

It is because of this reason that people have come to rely on outsourcing. They focus on the realm they excel at and depend on the talents of others for everything else. Thus bringing back the office work concept, where each person focuses on a specific skill.

The main issue however, is 90 percent of people are forced to wear multiple hats in their first three years of operating a work at home business, because they just don’t have the financial resources to outsource.

It’s difficult enough to master a new task online but learning 3 makes for a steep learning curve. It’s no wonder people give up easily. How can they build websites that can compete with those that employ the talents of others when they are left working with simply themselves?

Here is where skill swapping comes into effect. Instead of paying someone to write articles for you, ask them to trade skills. You may be good at ad analysis, a skill that could be of use to a writer who most likely has a lot of ads out. Trading skills gives you the opportunity to gain other people’s talents and ease the work load without having to pay the high prices of corporate companies.

Most companies know they cannot build a successful business with just their skills, even if they are multi talented, which is why outsourcing has become so important. Instead of paying for outsourced work try trading skills with someone.

Four reasons why Google might not use the anchor text in the links to your website

The text that is used in the links that point to your website has a major effect on the position of your website in Google's search results.

For example, if many people use the text "buy blue widgets" to link to your website, then it is very likely that the linked web page will get high rankings for the keyphrase "buy blue widgets" in Google's search results.

The link text (also called anchor text) is the text that is used in text links. Example:
this is the link text

Unfortunately, not all anchor texts will be used by Google. Check the following things to make sure that the links to your website pass the correct anchor tag:

1. The nofollow attribute
This is a no-brainer. Links to your website that use the rel="nofollow" attribute don't pass the link text to
Google. Example:
great keyword
 
You can use IBP to find out if the websites that link to you use the nofollow attribute: start IBP, click the "Links" button and click "Check links".

2. Invalid characters in the URL
If an URL contains invalid extra characters then chances are that search engines won't be able to index the link correctly. Example:
great keyword

In this example, there's a space at the end of the URL. Some webmasters found out that anchor text is not passed to Google if the link contains an extra space character.
Note that most browsers are able to correct this link and they will display the web page correctly. Unfortunately, search engine spiders seem to have more difficulty with malformed links (or they take them as a signal of low quality).

3. The links use 301 redirects
Google's Matt Cutts recently confirmed that Google won't consider all anchor texts that are used in 301 redirected links. Example:
great keyword

The web server redirects "http://www.example.com/page.htm" to "http://www.example.com" with a 301 redirect. In that case, it's likely that Google won't use the link text.

4. The first link passes the link text
If a page links twice to the same page then Google will use the first link text and discard the other link texts. Example:
This is an example. The link text great keyword will be ignored by Google.

The first and the second link go to the same URL. In this example, Google will use the link text of the first link, which is "This". The link text of the second link will be ignored by Google.
If the second link points to another page of the linked website, then both link texts will be used by Google:
This is an example. The link text great keyword will be ignored by Google.

Links are the most important factor when it comes to getting top 10 rankings on Google and other major search engines. Details about how to get links to your website can be found in the IBP manual (starting at page 91).

Article from Alexa.com

Are You Perfect?

Dr Wayne Dyer says in his book, The Sky’s the Limit that “you must allow yourself to think of yourself as perfect if you are ever going to achieve your full potential.” He then goes on to explain that thinking of yourself as perfect in no regard means that you are lacking motivation for future growth.

These words provide great truth. Many people “settle” with the status quo. Then there are notions that we associate with perfect as arrogant or a cop out to journey further in life. But the truth is you can grow, change and reinvent yourself and still be perfect.

It’s important that the essence of one’s perfection is evaluating themselves, accepting what they perceive as perfect in the present and growing from that.

When was the last time you marveled at your potential? Yesterday? Last week? Maybe you never have. Every single person should marvel at their potential each and everyday. The only way you can fully arrive into life is to view yourself with new eyes instead of meekly “going with the flow” because you don’t think you’re good enough to get into the big game.

Grant yourself permission today to grow and achieve further. Very few people give attention to the born capabilities in every human being to achieve greatness beyond the status quo.
There is no hard statistical data to measure greatness, so you don’t have to chart your data between normality and something worse.

If you feel that you are coping with life as well as the next person why not see yourself further, instead of seeing how you stack up against other people.

Begin to look at yourself in a new and exciting way.

Google uses page speed as a ranking factor

Last Friday, Google announced that they started to use site speed as one of the 200 signals that influence the position of a website in the search results:

"As part of that effort, today we're including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests. [...]

We've decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings. We use a variety of sources to determine the speed of a site relative to other sites."

Will your website rankings drop?

Google's Matt Cutts says that the change will affect only some websites:

"Fewer than 1% of search queries will change as a result of incorporating site speed into our ranking. That means that even fewer search results are affected, since the average search query is returning 10 or so search results on each page.

So please don?t worry that the effect of this change will be huge. In fact, I believe the official blog post mentioned that 'We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing.'

The fact that not too many people noticed the change is another reason not to stress out disproportionately over this change."While 1% does not sound much, it can be a problem if your website belongs to the pages whose rankings will drop.

At this time, Google's new site speed signal only applies to visitors searching in English on Google.com.

How to keep your web pages listed in Google search results

There are several things that you can do to improve the speed of your web pages:

1.    Choose a fast and reliable web host with a good connection to the Internet. A "cheap" web host could cause problems.

2.    Combine external JavaScript code files into one file. The fewer files the server has to request, the faster your web pages will load.

3.    Compress your JavaScript code to make the JavaScript file smaller.

4.    Combine external CSS files into one file and compress your CSS files.

5.    If your web server supports it, enable gZip compression (your web host can do that for you).

6.    Use as few images as possible on your website and compress your images. Most graphic tools enable you to choose the compression rate when saving an image for the web.

7.    Put tracking codes and other JavaScript snippets at the end of your web pages.

The faster your web pages load, the more visitors of your website will be able to see the contents of your pages. Web surfers are impatient people. The average web surfer wants immediate results.

Page speed is not Google's most important ranking signal. The end of Google's page speed announcement contains a very important sentence: "While site speed is a new signal, it doesn't carry as much weight as the relevance of a page."

It is important to optimize the speed of your web pages but it's also important to optimize all other elements of your web pages if you want to be listed on Google's first result page. IBP's Top 10 Optimizer analyzes all important ranking elements/signals that lead to high rankings on Google, including page speed and many other factors.

   Article originally from  http://www.axandra.com/