Remember how I told you that I was hot on ReviewMe? Well, here are the fruits of that success, resulting in the second ReviewMe review to appear on Beyond the Rhetoric.

There is no shortage of blogs out there that claim they can help you make money online. They promise greater traffic to your site, increased performance of your ad networks, and improved search engine optimization. Most of these are full of crap and regurgitated material that you’ve surely seen somewhere else. Admittedly, I approached Zac Johnson dot Com with a similar pre-conceived notion of BS, but thankfully, Zac actually has some quality content that makes the site worth seeing.

Haha, Caught You!

When I went to check out the site on Saturday afternoon, it seems that Zac was in the middle of some sort of update, and as such, his blog was down. Instead of being presented with money making tips, I got this screen:

Moments later, I got a similar page telling me that “Apache is working on your cPanel® and WHM™ Server.” Normally, this isn’t a very big deal because sites go through updates and upgrades all the time. Downtime is not a good thing, but sometimes it’s one of those necessary evils… BUT I would advise against doing an update when you’ve ordered up a ReviewMe. What impression are you giving the reviewer (i.e., me) if they can’t even see your content?

Moving On with the Super Affiliate

After a rowdy night of poker with my friends, I returned to the Super Affiliate’s blog on Sunday and found that it was up and running again. The first thing that struck me was the cartoon representation of Zac in the top-right corner. Many bloggers are proud to display photos of themselves — Zac does too — but Zac took a different route and chose a webcomic-like avatar. It was a little off-putting at first, but the look is starting to grow on me.

By and large, Zac Johnson dot Com is about making money online and primarily through affiliate marketing. I found no Google Adsense, Kontera ContentLink, or any “direct” advertising on the blog. The only monetization is in the form of embedded affiliate links in select posts. What else would you expect from the super affiliate? And although he has site reviews, “NONE are paid sponsorships,” according to the site’s intro message

Here are a few money-making tips that caught my eye as I perused the archives:

• To Sell or Not to Sell…
• Great Friends and Money Making Blogs
• Why Do Affiliate Networks Let Super Affiliates Leave?
• Digg Traffic vs. Google Traffic
• Bad Companies & Lost Commissions

It’s not about money-making, but I thought the Spiderman post was great. The pictures made my day.

Let the Reign Begin

Zac Johnson dot Com launched less than two months ago and I’d say that he’s off to a pretty good start. The website’s layout has a similar feel to it as Nice4Rice in that it’s light, cartoony and fun. And what would be the point of being a super affiliate if it wasn’t fun?

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, so I’m going to a lazy Sunday spree of speed linking. When you’re a top commentator on Beyond the Rhetoric, there are more rewards that just a linkback on the PR4 (soon to be PR5?) blog… you occasionally get mentioned in speed linking posts such as this. Let’s see what’s happening.

Ajith pumps out all sorts of useful information for Windows users, but one of his most recent posts wasn’t all that useful. Instead, it was amusing. He teaches you to make images dance with JavaScript. It’s actually pretty funny if you want to give it a try.

Ed Lau promises to deliver 100% of your daily recommended intake of awesomeness. This week, he’s telling us that Top Gear will race in the Arctic. More specifically, they’re heading to Alaska. If he’s wrong, he says he’ll let me kick him in the chest.

Kumiko finally got a Google PageRank (looks like my prediction was correct) and she’s already looking into ways to monetize this newfound fame. She lists a number of ways that you can make money from the Google PageRank update. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the PR update, but I just got accepted by Text Link Ads. It’s time to make some money.

Calvin Harvey is bent on making money online, just like so many other bloggers out there. After a little initial research, he describes the best strategies or ideas for internet marketing. Pair that with some sage advice from a marketing expert and you’ll be making money in no time, right?

Andy surfed the web and returned with a whole slew of tech buzz. Now if only Andy updated his blog with original content more often.

In case you missed it, I posted up a blog entry on John Chow dot Com the other day talking about how you can make money online from someone else’s blog.

In a nutshell, it talks about how it’s easier (at least in the beginning) to make money blogging for someone as a freelance writer than it is to make a livable income through your own personal blog.

There are several benefits to blogging for others, in addition to the money that you receive for doing the guest spots. The biggest benefit is that you can get your name “out there”, reaching an audience that you may not otherwise have an opportunity to reach. If it weren’t for my articles on Mobile Magazine, LoveToKnow, and John Chow dot Com, most people wouldn’t have stumbled across Beyond the Rhetoric.

Remember though, that freelance writing is not the same as blogging, even if it involves blogging for others. Anyways, check out the full article over at John Chow’s blog.

I already wrote about this new Wordpress plug-in by Andy Moore and AdMob over at Mobile Magazine earlier today, so I’m not going to regurgitate all of the material. (You can follow the link to read the full story.) Instead, I’ll just provide you with the Coles Notes version here.

The new tool — available here — takes your Wordpress blog and makes it mobile in two ways:

1. It creates a mobile version of your blog that is more cell phone friendly, just as so many major websites — like CNN — have mobile versions of their sites.
2. It grants you the privilege of updating your blog on your cell phone. This includes posting content, uploading files, and checking stats

Seems neat. I wonder if I should give it a try. After all, it’s free and free is always a good thing.

Beyond the Rhetoric is far from being my primary source of income, but it’s nice to see a steady growth both in terms of traffic and monetization on this site. While automatic and self-serve networks like Adsense, AuctionAds, and PayPerPost have been reasonably successful, my dealings in the marketplace haven’t been quite so hot.

For example, I signed up with AdVolcano to sell ad space on this site and I’ve received limited success, despite some very competitive pricing. The same can be said about ReviewMe, but it seems that things are about to change.

I wrote one review for MEGATechNews (as well as several that have been posted on John Chow dot Com), but I haven’t received another request since. Well, until today (I’ll probably be doing it in a couple of days).

So, I started to wonder where it came from. I haven’t asked the sponsor directly, but when I went over to the ReviewMe site, I saw that I was #1 for “Today’s Best.” According to this list, I’m hot. So hot, that I got one reviewed ordered…. the first of many, right?

Getting into the Wordpress tool to put up this post, I had to put in a password. When I woke up this morning to get started on writing news articles for Mobile Magazine, I had to input my password. When it came time to check on my AGLOCO account, guess what, another password. In this age of online everything, we are bent on keep everything secure — as we should be — but far too many people don’t pay enough attention to the passwords they create.

The whole point of an online password is to keep everyone out of your business, but if this password is too easy to guess, it kind of defeats the whole purpose. That’s why proponents in the industry suggest that a “strong” password consists of both letters and numbers, including an upper-case letter or two. If the system allows it, they even suggest that you toss in a random symbol like @ or $. Alas, most people keep their passwords as actual words, all in lower-case. But what are the most common passwords that people use?

According to newlaunches.com, PC Magazine has a list in their upcoming issue (May of the top ten most common online passwords. Here they are:

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

The first few don’t surprise me all that much, but what’s up with letmein (let me in), monkey, and blink182? Those are just… weird.

Anyways, remember the importance of a good password. And don’t use any of those listed above.