Not long after I started my finance and investment blog, I wrestled with the idea if I should monetize my blog. Was I blogging to learn about investing or did I have an ulterior motive? Well, since it is a blog about anything related to money, I should make the effort to make money, right? But let’s face it, the personal finance blogosphere is huge and you really need to stand out in order to make a profit. Being in the technology field, my simple goal was to be somewhat intelligible if someone asks me how blogging and monetization work.
It wasn’t long before I came across John Chow’s website on how to make money online. Cool, I’m at the right spot. He had blogged about a young entrepreneur by the name of Graham Langdon who had launched the Million Dollar Wiki.
We all know about the huge popularity of Wikipedia but wouldn’t it be great if you could write your own content and monetize it with affiliate ads and such? It’s an intriguing idea. For his million dollar project, Graham is hoping to sell 10,000 wiki pages on his site for $100 US with a keyword or phrase of your choosing. $90 if you use the coupon code JohnChow. The site is guaranteed to be up for 15 years.
Here are my views on it. Remember the Million Dollar Webpage of pixel ads? Well, this is not capped off by area limitations and that page still has a Google PageRank of 6 after the hype from a few years ago. It can go beyond the 10,000 pages if Graham chooses. Page owners can also resell their pages at a later date.
My main critique is how this would compete with the actual Wikipedia. Would anyone surf on this knockoff? Then I thought about my own searching habits. I google things and if I happen to land on Wikipedia then so be it. I don’t directly go to the website myself. If I have what you’re looking for, you’ll come to me. Personally, I see the Million Dollar Wiki as a directory of products and services where people expect to see ads. At last count, Graham has sold 417 pages in roughly 2 months. And the addition of new pages within the community will aid in traffic for the benefit of all.
All this being said, I took the plunge and bought a page myself. For me, this is a very small gamble but others might argue that $90 is a lot for one page when you can set up your own domain and site for the same amount. Well, from someone who blogs on their own domain, I realize how hard it is to generate traffic especially if you view this as a hobby. Setting up one page to sell stuff and share traffic with other pages is a good concept.
In any event, I chose my keyword based on how people arrived at my site. They were googling for stock picks on Shore Gold, Tahera, Wi-Lan and Timminco. That convinced me to make my purchase for Million Dollar Wiki: Stock Picks. I hope to learn more about online marketing by using the Stock Picks page so I keep the ads on my blog to a minimum. As an added benefit to me (I don’t know about you guys), it gives me a new topic to blog about. Stay tuned to see what I’ll be doing to this page. That’s not a boast, but really, what the heck am I going to do with it?
If you believe this is a good idea, then buy a page and enter John Chow’s contest which ends in September. See details below.
John Chow dot Com is holding another evil blog contest. He’s giving away a 24″ wide screen LCD monitor and a signed copy of the best selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek! Find out how to enter here. The contest is being sponsored by The Million Dollar Wiki. Use coupon code JohnChow to save $10 on a page.
*Edit to fix contest date.
Investing, Making money online ::
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