SlicethePie.com Review

I would just like to share to you one interesting money making site that you might want to join which is SlicethePie.com. My friend told me about this site and how he started generating income from it through listening to different music and referring some friends. Here is what I found out about this site:

What is SlicethePie.com? 

SlicethePie started way back in 2007. It gives opportunities to music enthusiasts, artists and investors to get involved in the music industry. This site pays any individual who listens and reviews music from several aspiring music artists. It uses the opinion of the reviewers to determine whether an aspiring artist may have the chance to get some financing from investors and get launched.

As a reviewer, you should give detailed and valuable feedback so you have more chance of earning. You will be helping sort out the best music and giving those undiscovered artists the opportunity to get wider exposure and established a name in the music industry.

How does SlicethePie work? 

Be honest and offer a constructive review. Your reviews should be descriptive as possible. Remember, those reviews will be viewed directly by the artist, radio stations and even record labels. You can review different genre of music. Take note, never ever cheat. If you would get caught cheating, SlicethePie would not pay you. Cheating includes plagiarism, reproducing contents, submitting reviews using a proxy server and more. For more detailed information about this, just visit the site.

Now, once you built a good reputation as a reviewer on the site, your rank will increase. As a result, you get higher base payment per review you submitted.

Who can apply? 

Not everyone can join on SlicethePie. It all depends on your country. Once you open the site and your country got a restriction to use it, then the following will appear:

Server Error

403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.

You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

How much can I earn? 

Earnings may vary greatly. It all depends on how many reviews you can submit in a day. $10 is the minimum amount to cash out.

How do I get paid?

Payments is through your PayPal account.  So, be sure that the email you will register on the site is the same email for your PayPal account. You will receive a notification on the 1st week each month informing you of all the commissions you got from the previous month. Once you reached the minimum amount to cash out, you can request to withdraw your earnings. It would usually take 5 business working days to cash out your money. You can get your pay either by Mondays or Thursdays.

 

How do I get paid more?

Submit good quality reviews  and you will earn more. You can help not only yourself by earning extra income but as well as help the artists to get aware of the things needed to be improved. In addition, you can earn through their referral scheme. You get a bonus of 10% from the scout earnings of each individual you referred to the site. You can refer as many as you want.

For those aspiring artists, you can join SlicethePie by uploading your tracks on www.soundout.com. You can get some free reviews of your tracks. Anyway, the good thing about SlicethePie is that you can earn here without compromising your usual daily routine. All you need to do is to spend a few minutes of your time, do some quality reviews. However, take note, this is not once again a quick rich scheme. You have to work and do quality work to earn a decent amount of cash.

Earn Money By Becoming a Mystery Shopper

My friend has just recently joined a mystery shopping site. She has been asking me regarding the legitimacy of mystery shopping. Actually, I already joined a mystery shopping site before but I never got the chance to perform the task assigned to me. 

Anyway, mystery shopping came to rise due to those market research companies. They commission mystery shoppers to evaluate the quality of services and products of some establishments. These mystery shoppers would then pose as a regular shopper to do some specific tasks assigned to them. Most of these tasks include purchasing a product, inquiring about the prices of products, evaluating customer's service and more. After that, you provide a detailed report to the market research company who hired you. Usually, you only have to fill in some online questionnaires and key in your feedback. Based from my experience, mystery shoppers are asked to visit places like fast food chains, computer shops, jewelry shops, testing centers, restaurants, retail stores and several others.

Now, if you enjoy shopping, you think this might be the right job for you to earn extra income. But wait, I heard several feedback from other people that there are several mystery shopping sites that do not readily pay their freelance employees. They give reasons like your evaluation is not detailed or you fail to follow the appropriate requirements and so on... So are they scammers? I cannot really attest their authenticity as there are tons of sites that hire mystery shoppers these days. You have to do a thorough research first before you accept the job. Sometimes, you need to shell out your cash as part of your task and later on it will be refunded. The problem here is what if your report is not approved, then you lost your cash which could have been enough to buy you a ticket to a movie. 


Anyway, if you got any experience to share regarding mystery shopping, feel free to share it here. Your opinion is of high value to everyone.

Quantity vs Quality Content Post

 

 
I have been blog hopping a lot lately. Trying to read, leave comments and bookmark blogs that are informative and interesting. These blogs give me additional information that might be useful in the future. Anyway, I have just noticed that there are bloggers that regularly post around 3-5 articles in a day while still there are blogs that only have a single post weekly or just around 5 to 10 posts a month.

It made me wonder, which is really important when it comes to blogging? Is it the quality or the quantity of your content? I read several blogs that stated that content is king. Well, it is...but it is also a known fact that with great quantity, the quality would diminish.

Quantity Content 

Correct me if I am wrong but the way I understand how search engines work, they usually grant higher ranking to blog sites with a lot of meat in them. So, which means, the higher rank your blog is, the more you gain visibility and  traffic. I observe that most blog sites that got 3 or more contents a day are about current events, movie blogs and personal blogs. 

Quality Content

Posting a quality content on your blog would take time to research depending on your niche. You also spend time proofreading before you publish your post. It may be a lot of hard work but the result is quite fulfilling. I have noticed several blog sites which have less contents in them but receive several comments and consistent visitors in their sites. 

Conclusion

Weighing all these things, I can say that quality is much better than quantity since you can get return visits and develop loyal readers who will be looking forward to your interesting posts. However, I cannot discard the fact that quantity is also important in blogging. These two should go hand in hand. Both are necessary for successful blogging. I have seen several blog sites that offer regular post each day without compromising their quality. Their secrets, some have several authors in their blog and some blogs offer guest posting. I can say guest posting will greatly help increase quantity and at the same time maintain the quality of your blog contents.

To fellow bloggers and readers, I would like to know your opinion regarding quantity against quality content. You might want to add something important regarding my post. This topic is nothing new and in fact there has been several discussions about this over the years. 

Skyword.com Review

Online writing is one of the most common online jobs for everyone. If you have the knack for writing, then you can apply readily on several legitimate writing sites. One of the writing sites that I have joined these past few months is Skyword.com. So, far I have not started writing for them yet but I am planning to start soon once my schedule from my full time work is fixed. Anyway, for those of you who may be interested to join Skyword.com, here is what I learned from the site:

What is Skyword.com?

Skyword is a site that gives opportunities to online writers to work for the leading brands in the market. Hired Skyword writers are trained to write using Skyword platform and some SEO techniques. Skyword has a user friendly tool that will guide writers with no SEO experience. There are also step-by-step instructions that you can browse through for you to learn more about online writing. Once you learned all these techniques, you now have greater opportunities to publish your content to various major brands and media sites. Aside earning extra cash from Skyword, any hired freelance writer can start building their portfolio and get exposure to all those brands when they start writing. 

How does Skyword.com work?

Now, after learning the ropes within Skyword's platform, you are ready to join different programs. You need to complete three steps for the application process. Your application will be reviewed thoroughly  by a  program manager. You will get a notification of your application whether you are accepted or not to the program. Don't worry, there are several programs to choose from. The photo bellow shows some of the available programs that a Skywriter may join in.

Now, all you need to do is to click Join Program on the right side if you are interested to write for a certain program. You fill out some information. You will be asked about your writing qualifications, a writing sample and other requirements. Wait for your approval and once approved, you can now start writing. Actually, joining Skyword is quite easy however, it is joining those programs which are a bit challenging. You can either be rejected or approved of your application.

Who can apply for Skyword.com?

Upon signing up on Skyword, you fill out your country of residence on their online form. You can also choose the languages you can write in. So, I think any individual can apply even outside from the US as long as you got a passion for writing.

How much can I earn?

Your income will depend on the the companies' or brands you are writing for. Some programs offer a flat rate which would range from US$5 to as high as US$40 per article. Still, there are some programs that pay through per page view.

How do I get paid?

Payment is through PayPal account on a bimonthly basis.

My verdict:

I like the fact that the people behind Skyword are quite accommodating and they always update their writers especially newbies like me. I receive email messages from them regarding some announcements and other important stuffs. Every freelance writer would always want to work for a company who is readily available for their employees and I think Skyword is able to provide me with that. So far, I have read positive feedback from people about this site. Soon, I will start writing for them and hopefully my working experience with them would be great. Anyway, if you are interested to sign up the site, just check out Skyword.com.



Now, if you got any ideas, violent reactions or experiences to share regarding Skyword.com, feel free to share it on the comment box. Your comments are highly appreciated.

Get Paid To Blog With ReviewMe.com

Another site which offers extra income for bloggers is ReviewMe.com.I joined this site after I read a blog from a fellow blogger. She made a few reviews on the site and even showed off her payout proofs. Anyway, here is what I learned from this site:

What is ReviewMe.com?

From its homepage, one can make money by reviewing and promoting products and write your honest review on your blog. If you are interested to apply as a reviewer, you can easily create a free account on this site. They will check your blog whether it meets their required standard which is meeting the minimum number of subscribers, content and traffic. You only have to wait for a few hours to know whether your blog is approved or rejected. Don't worry if your blog is rejected, you can always reapply after a few months.

How does it work?

ReviewMe is quite different compared to how SponsoredReviews works. Instead of the blogger finding the advertisers to review, in ReviewMe.com, its the other way around. The advertisers will choose blogs to make a review on their sites or products. In short, a blogger should wait for review offers from the advertisers. Once you get the offer, you can either accept the offer or not. For more information on how to make reviews on this site, you can check out their review guidelines.

How bloggers can earn?

A blogger can start earning when clients buy reviews from you. You have to have a good blog site contents and higher ratings from Alexa, Google and other big search engines. Now, if you are writing a different language aside from English, you can still earn from ReviewMe.com. There are advertisers who expect to get a review written in German, Russian language and more.

How much can I earn?

One can earn anywhere from US$20 up to US$200 for each completed review. It all depends on the amount offered by the advertisers. The more offers you get, the more chances of getting extra income.

How do I get paid?

Payments can be through PayPal, check or through Prepaid MasterCard. There is no minimum amount to cash out from PayPal. However, you need to reach US$25 for you to cash out your earnings through check and Prepaid MasterCard. Payments are made monthly.

My verdict:

I prefer SponsoredReviews compared to ReviewMe.com. I have been a member of this site for barely a month now. So far, I have not received any offer yet from any advertiser. I guess, competition is just so stiff among reviewers. There are several established bloggers who already made a good name on this site. Of course, they will be prioritized by advertisers. If you are still interested to join the site, you can check it out for yourself, ReviewMe.com. 

Feel free to share your experiences or ideas regarding ReviewMe.com. This is for the benefit of everyone, the readers and other fellow bloggers who want to earn extra income online.

Google is Redirecting My Blogger Blog

This post is in connection to the recent post I made last March 8 regarding my blogging problem. I investigated further and I found out that Google is redirecting my personal blog to country code top level domain (ccTLD). Instead of the common http://[blogname].blogspot.com, a certain viewer from a specific country can view my blog according to his/her current country location. That's what happened to my blog. My blog's url is keepworkingon.blogspot.com. but it is redirected to keepworkingon.blogspot.in when someone views it from India.

Why is this happening? If I may quote from Blogger Help Center:

"Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD. " explains Google.

 

Google does not specifically mention the countries that may apply to this situation but definitely India is one of these countries included. They are planning to apply this approach in other countries, too. Google is doing this so they can have easy access to censor offensive contents hosted on Blogger account based on specific country location. Right now, if you try to access any of the Blogger hosted blogs coming from India, Google readily redirect the viewer to blogspot.in address. 

 

Google imposed this approach with all the best intentions but it would give a bad result based on SEO perspective. Here is what Google says in Blogger Help Center and if I may quote:

 

Q: Will this affect search engine optimization on my blog?

 
A: "After this change, crawlers will find Blogspot content on many different domains. Hosting duplicate content on different domains can affect search results, but we are making every effort to minimize any negative consequences of hosting Blogspot content on multiple domains. 

The majority of content hosted on different domains will be unaffected by content removals, and therefore identical. For all such content, we will specify the blogspot.com version as the canonical version using rel=canonical. This will let crawlers know that although the URLs are different, the content is the same. When a post or blog in a country is affected by a content removal, the canonical URL will be set to that country’s ccTLD instead of the .com version. This will ensure that we aren’t marking different content with the same canonical tag".

 

Take note, this is only applicable for free blogs hosted in Blogger. It does not affect at all Blogger blogs that utilize a custom domain. Now, I am contemplating on using a custom domain for my blog.

Another Problem I Encountered With My Blog

I got so busy these past few days that I was not able to update this blog. Anyway, a  few days back, I posted here regarding the problems I encountered with my blog. I still need to work out those typical blogging problems. I thought those were just the problems that I would encounter. Yesterday, I checked my blog stats at Alexa.com. At first, nothing was out of ordinary except the number of sites linked into my blog increased. However, I was shocked when I saw this site, keepworkingon.blogspot.in. Now, this really freaks me out. When I opened the site, it led me to my own blog site. Notice that the domain I used is keepworkingon.blogspot.com. There were some differences that I noticed on the other blog site. Look at the pics below and see the difference. 

• The domain name is different. 
• The ad which is running on top of my blog is not shown on the other site. 
• Alexa rank is way different from my blog.
• I got a PR 1 but the the copycat blog got zero.

Aside from those differences from my site, I was shocked that it has its own Alexa ranking:

Mine is this one:

 

 

I searched the internet on how to rectify this problem but to no avail. Did this ever happen to you? Maybe someone out there can help me with this. I may have made a mistake along the way. Any advice?

Get Paid To Blog With SponsoredReviews

There are several ways you can earn from your blog. You can earn from those advertisements, affiliate programs and blog reviews. Talking about blog reviews, one interesting site that bloggers might want to join would be SponsoredReviews. The following are important information regarding this site:

What is SponsoredReviews?

A site which gives opportunities to bloggers  to get in touch with advertisers, marketers and SEO's. There are corresponding amount of money for each approved post. You should take extra careful in following the required task by the advertisers. If you could not follow those requirements, your reviews would be rejected. Of course, you do not want that to happen especially when you are still building up yourself in the blogging review business.

Who can join SponsoredReviews?

Any blogger can join SponsoredReviews as long as your blog is three months old, got all original content with at least ten posts and indexed by major search engines.

How bloggers can earn money?

As a blogger, you submit your three months old blog to SponsoredReviews and wait for its approval. Approval would only take a day or two. Once approved, you can start bidding on any opportunity available on the site's platform. You should follow the instructions given by the advertisers or you might risk getting rejected. Give an honest review. Constructive criticisms are also welcome. Take note, you need first the approval of the advertiser for your bid. After that, you can earn a corresponding amount for writing the review. In addition, you must bid only on tasks that would match your blog category.  Plagiarized, rude and insulting review is a big "No-No". This would lead to account suspension.

How much can I earn from SponsoredReviews?

Earnings may vary according to the quality of your blog review and the number of your readers. One can earn anywhere from US$5 to even as high as US$1000 per blog post. In addition, if there are several available opportunities for you, you can grab all those and start writing blog reviews. The more reviews you made, the more bucks you can earn. 

How do I get paid?

Payments will be through PayPal account. You will get paid every two weeks.

My verdict:

Actually, my blog got approved from SponsoredReviews just last week. I am still trying to understand how it works. Right now, there are several advertisers from the site open for bidding. Categories range from Technology, Travel, House & Home, Health, Art, Personal, and several others. Now, if you are interested, feel free to check out, SponsoredReviews.com.

Making Post Title Appears Before Blog Title

One of the things that I learned from blogger account is that it has a default setting in which blog title appears first before post title. Now, this is a bad news since it is not SEO friendly. Our main goal as a blogger is to share our blogs with other people and get visible online. Therefore, it is a must that our blog is indexed and optimized by those search engines. Anyway, the good thing about making post title appears before blog title is that you can target readers who are interested in your blog content and get return visits. Furthermore, Google only shows a maximum of 70 characters in the title in search results. So it is best to let search engines read and show your post title first just in case you have a very long post title. This is an additional idea from Peter.


Anyway, here are the steps I did to be able to make post title appears before blog title:

• Go to Design Tab.
• Then, click on Edit HTML.
• Before editing your template, back it up by clicking Download Full template.
• You search for this tag: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> or you can press Ctrl+F to search it faster.
• Then, once you found the tag above, replace it with the following code. 

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

• Finally, save your template.

Just wait for your previous blog posts to get re-indexed by search engines. It would take some time. For your new blog post, you can see that your post title will appear first before your blog title by searching on Google. Wait till your blog traffic shows significant increase over the next few days. For now, just enjoy blogging.