Outsourcing your work isn’t for everyone. But at some point in your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll have to decide whether or not to bring new people in. People who are just beginning in affiliate marketing generally have time to do all the things necessary to become successful.

Once you’ve started building up your portfolio, things can get pretty tight. Especially time. If you stay in this business long enough, there will come a point when you discover that you don’t have enough time to get everything you need done accomplished. When this happens, it’s time to look into outsourcing some of the chores.

For me, it was content writing. I had so many websites that I didn’t have time to write content for every one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to write. But I can only do so much. Plus, there are different types of content. For my Adsense sites, I don’t need the best content. In fact, I’d say poor content will actually convert better on an Adsense site than good content. I can get 500 to 750 word articles written for these sites for as little as $3 to $5 per article. I don’t know about you, but my time is worth a lot more than that plus these articles pay for their self rather quickly.

There are literally people willing to do anything that you can think of. And many of them will do it rather cheaply. It comes down to the value of your time plus how much more money you could make by spending the time you do have on actions that create the most money for you.

By having a lot of articles written for my sites, the time this frees up is spent on building backlinks to my sites and creating more sites, which makes me a lot more money than writing content!

Where to find outsourcing resources

There Internet is a wonderful place to find people willing to work for you. All you need to do is look.

Here are some of my favorite places to find people to outsource my work to.

DigitalPoint forums. They have a section called the Marketplace. You can find anything you want here. Content Writers, Coders, Content, eBook creation, Link building services to people who will build backinks for you and submit your articles to directories and so on. Make sure you check the iTrader reputation of the person before hiring him/her to work for you. Most other Webmaster forums also have a similar marketplace. Other sites you may want to look into are; SitePoint, Webmaster World, V7N, Warrior Forum, etc.

eLance, Rent-A-Coder, RentAFreelancer, GetAFreelancer. These are great places to find people to outsource every aspect of your affiliate marketing. From building website templates to PHP coders and people who will build you landing pages, you’ll find them here.

Need-An-Article. When I need great content, I use these people. I can get 1000 plus word articles written by native English speaking writers for as little as $12.50 and these articles are as good, or in many cases – better, than ones I have paid $30 or more for. Their research is excellent as well and most of my article request are turned around in a few days.

Craigslist – Ha! Gotcha didn’t I? Yeah, I’ve found some good freelancers on Craigslist. Several Content writers and a Coder. Look toward the bottom of the page under the heading of “Services”.  Also be sure to check out the “Gigs” section. If you want someone local, just put up a post and you should have plenty of people responding shortly.

There are tons of other places to find people to outsource your work to. For many of you, you get hung up on the cost to hire these people. I think this generally comes from lack of confidence on most peoples part. If your sites are making money, then your outsourced work will pay for itself many times over. This will free you up to create more sites or work on an area that you enjoy and let the freelancers work on the chores you hate to do or are not particularly good at.

One last bit of advice here. And you’d better take this to heart. Once you find several freelancers that you like, keep their contact info close by. These people can be invaluable to you. Also, treat them fairly in all your business dealings. If they’re good, they’ll be an asset to your business. The few bucks you’ll save by trying to screw them over isn’t worth it. A good freelancer can be like the Goose that laid the Golden egg.

Remember, you’re the Money Man, the Rainmaker, the person with the Creative Ideas. Do what you do best and let the freelancers do what they’re best at!

To you people, I’d say give it a try. Budget some money and get those time sucking jobs that are holding you back outsourced! Your bank account will thank you!

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These illusions are quickly shattered when they see their Adsense accounts with .05 and .20 cents per click and a CTR of 1%. It doesn’t take the newbie blogger long to realize that their dream of living of off Adsense income isn’t a reality.

Is Adsense Still a Good Choice For Monetizing Blogs?

The quick and easy answer is Yes and No. In order for Adsense to be a viable option to monetize a blog, you need large amounts of traffic. And not any old traffic will work!

Many bloggers love to talk about Social Media and they spend a good amount of time writing articles and submitting them to the popular Social Networks like Digg and StumbleUpon in order to bring the masses of Social Networkers to their site. While this may increase traffic to a blog, it rarely translates into clicks on their Adsense ads.

Why Social Traffic Isn’t Good For Adsense

If you’re one of these bloggers who’s chasing traffic from Social sites and still wondering why your Adsense account is empty, listen up, I’m fixing to let you in on a little secret.

Social traffic doesn’t convert for squat. Of course, you already knew that didn’t you!

Why?

Because people who use the Social networks are pretty ‘Net savvy and they don’t click ads. They read blogs more for entertainment purposes than they do for the informational value. Sure, they may read a post about whether or not Adsense is still a good choice for monetizing blogs, but if there’s an Ad block on how to monetize a blog with Adsense next to the post, they aren’t likely to click on it.

Another reason Adsense is a poor choice for Social blogs is because the Click Through Rate (CTR) will be in the dumps. This will cause  your Adsense ads to be Smart Priced.

This is how it works. Google Adsense works of off the principle that a targeted Internet searcher is more valuable to the advertisers than a browser just clicking around the Internet.

So when your Social Network browser comes to your site, Google does not consider this a targeted user. If the advertiser is paying $2 per click, and a Social Network user comes to your Social blog about making money on the Internet and actually does click on a Adsense ad, you’ll receive a lower per click price than if that user had went to Google and typed in “how to make money online” and came to your blog and clicked an Adsense ad about ‘how to make money online’. Google considers this targeted traffic and will pay you the most for this type of Internet users. 

Why Organic Traffic Pays Off With Adsense

Stop and think about this one for a minute.  When an Internet user is searching for some knowledge, they want it and they want it yesterday! Many of us will not stop searching the Internet until we find the useful information we need. We’ll click on this or that, we’re frantic searchers and we need that information!

Let’s say you’re bills are piling up because gas is at $4 a gallon and food prices are skyrocketing. You need some debt relief. So you go on over to Google and type in ‘debt relief’. You then click on the first result that promises you quick and painless debt relief. After you browse the site for a few minutes, you realize this site can not answer your questions and you’ll have to go elsewhere. There’s an Adsense ad block to the upper left with an add about instant debt relief. Hmmm, that’s just what you need right now, instant debt relief.

What do you do?

Click the Adsense ad promising instant debt relief or hit the back button a half dozen times to get back to the Google SERPS page?

Yeah, me too. I’ll hit the Adsense link every time if it will lead me to what I’m looking for.

And you know what?

The Webmaster or blog owner gets the maximum payout for your click because you found his site by searching for the term ‘debt relief’.

If I had gone to his site looking for ‘Ways To Make Money Online”and then clicked the same ad, chances are good he would not have received the maximum payout for that click. That’s why you’ll see some of your Adsense ads paying out .20 cents for one click and the next it gives you $2. It’s all about how the Internet user got to your site.

So What Type Of Blogs Are Best For Adsense?

It’s not really what type of blog is best for Adsense, the question should be “What type of traffic is best for Adsense?”

And that question is an easy one to answer. It’s organic search traffic. Plain and simple.

Now having said that, you’ll see that many of the so called Social media blogs do not rank well for anything of value.

Ever see John Chow or some of the other popular social bloggers rank in the top 10 for terms like “how to make money with Adsense?”No, you don’t. That’s one of the biggest reasons you don’t see Adsense on their sites. They can’t bring in the organic search traffic they need to convert browsers into ad clickers and their social traffic sure as hell won’t click the ads. So they end up with a crappy CTR and get Smart Priced. The few clicks they do get, Adsense pays out a few cents here and there. Then the Social bloggers will proclaim to the masses about how Adsense doesn’t work any longer!

Adsense Can Be a Steady Income Producer For Blogs and Websites That Pull In Organic Traffic

This is the real secret to Adsense and how to make it pay the most for every click. If you have a blog or website that ranks well for a number of keywords and your pages are optimized to bring in targeted search traffic, you’ll do well with Adsense.

Your blog doesn’t have to be a custom made WordPress blog nor does it have to be fancy. In fact, you can start with one of these Adsense optimized themes. It does have to be SEO optimized with lots of backlinks to rank well for your keywords.

Forget about the Social traffic and getting your post Dugg and Stumbled. Sure, it’s nice to see all that traffic, but why bother when you know it’s not going to convert plus it’s going to ruin your CTR. And to top it off, it will get you Smart Priced with Google Adsense.

Go after the money. And in this case, the money is in ranking well for your keywords and driving crowds of targeted organic search traffic to your blog or website.

Your blog or website should cover one subject, such as ‘debt relief’. Don’t try to make a blog or website cover everything under the sun. Each page of your website should have an article or post covering one keyword.

For example, if you had a blog over the main keyword of ‘debt relief’, then you’d probably want your interior pages targeting keywords such as ‘bankruptcy’, ‘debt consolidation’, ‘how to pay off your bills early’ or ‘debt consolidation loans’.

While you’re at it, make sure your blog or website is optimized for Adsense. Don’t cover every page in Adsense ads. The top paying ad block is normally a 350 block at the top. You might also want a Tower block in the sidebar, but that’s where I’d stop.

In the past, I put those little Adsense link blocks on my sites, but have always done poorly with them. I’d rather someone click on one of the Adsense ads in the body so I’ll make more money per click. That’s why I’ve started putting only two Adsense ads on my content sites. More ads normally dilute your per click payout.

To wrap this up, if you want to make money with Adsense, forget about those cool social blogs, go with a keyword targeted blog or website. SEO optimize it, build backlinks to make it rank well for your chosen keywords and then sit back and watch the Adsense money roll in. You can still monetize a blog with AdSense, you just have to go about it wisely.

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Fast forward a few years and that’s not necessarily the case any longer.

Oh Directories, How I Use To Love Thee

As I said above, in the past Directories were a short cut to a bundle of backlinks that would help your rankings.

So what has happened?

The same thing that happens to many good things on the Internet.

Spammers.

Many Directories, especially free Directories, are nothing more than Made For Adsense sites and Spam ads.

The Search Engines, especially Google, have gotten very good at weeding out these Spam Directories and devaluing links from them.

Will links from these sites to your site hurt you? Not in my experience, but why would you throw good money at a fruitless effort, not to mention the time and trouble of submitting your site to all these Directories?

Shoemoney had an interview with some top SEO experts a while back and they believed that only Directories that sent traffic to your website were worth the money. You have to be you own judge as each site is different, but I like them for backlinks also.

Where Have All The Good Directories Gone?

I know some of you may be asking “Are there any Directories worth submitting my sites to?”

Of course there are. Unfortunately most Directories worth submitting your site to are paid Directories.

The reason many paid Directories are still beneficial to website owners is because the better ones actually review websites that are submitted. Not all websites will be accepted. It’s these types of Directories that Google actually likes due to the “Trust” factor.

Having your sites listed in better paid Directories will lead to additional backlinks from other websites. Granted, most of these additional backlinks will be from sites with lower authority, but they’re backlinks none the less.

Tips For Making The Most Out Of Your Directory Submission

Hey people. If you’re going to pay for a submission to Directories, take your time and do it right for maximum SEO benefits. I’ve seen sites submitted to paid Directories that had the lousiest descriptions and no anchor text. What a waste of Money!

Here’s a few tips for submitting your site to Internet Directories.

• Forget about paying some so called “Directory Submission” company to submit your site to hundreds of Directories for $20, $40 or $50. Most of these are automated submissions which return very little to nothing at all on your investment. If you choose to have someone else submit your site, make sure actual humans are hand submitting your site to each directory and then ask for a report that will show you which directories your site was submitted to and whether or not it was accepted. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars for this service.
• If you really want to take advantage of Directories, go ahead and pay the admission fee to top Directories. You can easily drop a few thousand dollars on submission fees to the top 50 Internet Directories. Consider this a good investment for your website, especially if this is a website you plan on keeping for long term.
• Don’t keep submitting your site over and over. Many Directories will blacklist your for this. This is why many Webmasters get into trouble by having someone else do it. They keep blasting Directories with your website via automated software until the Directory blacklist your site. Many times the unaware website owner doesn’t even know their site has been blacklisted.
• Use Anchor Text. If you’re going to the trouble and expense to submit your website to Directories, take full advantage of the submission by using Anchor Text. Also, never use the same Anchor Text over and over. Use several related keywords for Anchor Text pointing back to your site.
• Spread out your submissions. Want to grab Google’s attention quickly? Then submit your site to many directories at the same time. When Google Bot finds all those links pointing back to you site at one time, bad things can happen. Spread out your submissions over a period of time. This is another reason NOT to use a Directory Submission service or Directory submission software.
• Use good descriptive descriptions. Just like Anchor Text, take the time to use good descriptions. A good description can set your site apart from all the other websites in your chosen category.
• Make sure the Directory page you submit too is actually indexed in the Search Engines. If the Directory or the Directory Page you’re submitting to isn’t indexed, you’ll receive little, if any, benefit.
• Go Deep. Make sure the page you submit to the Directory is relevant to the category. If you have a website about Pets including sub pages on Cats, Dogs and Birds, submit your inner pages to relevant categories for maximum benefit.
• Forget Directory wide links. Forget about submitting to Directories that promise you site wide links. This too will get Google’s attention. Google will likely not value these links due to the lack of editorial integrity, ie; trust and authority, of the Directory.

The Top 25 Directories Your Site Should Be Submitted To

If you want to take advantage of Internet Directories, here are the Top 25 that you website should be submitted to.

1. www.dmoz.org
2. dir.yahoo.com
3. www.lii.org
4. www.business.com
5. sbd.bcentral.com
6. whatuseek.com
7. cannylink.com
8. 123world.com
9. www.botw.org
10. www.goguides.org
11. www.joeant.com
12. www.gimpsy.com
13. chiff.com
14. gango.com
15. www.americasbest.com
16. mavicanet.com
17. jayde.com
18. uncoverthenet.com
19. rlrouse.com
20. elib.org
21. avivadirectory.com
22. www.directory.v7n.com
23. ezilon.com
24. site-sift.com
25. isedb.com

In Summary, Internet Directories can still be beneficial to Webmasters. However, not all Directories are created equal and a Webmaster needs to be careful as to which sites they submit their site too.

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