A few months ago, Pete and I were invited to a book launch, where (unsurprisingly) we met a couple of authors. We were introduced to one as people who knew a lot about the internet, and she asked the inevitable question – how do I make money from my website?

The lady in question had paid a small amount of money for someone she knows to build her a basic website. It was occasionally updated with news of events she would be at, or new books she had just published, but mostly was just a static site.

Shockingly, it didn’t increase her book sales by a noticeable amount. For some reason, people who don’t spend a lot of time on the internet think it runs on some magical principle, but it doesn’t. It works the same way as most aspects of life – you get out what you put in.

If you only have the budget for a cheap website (and don’t have the skills to improve it yourself) then it is unlikely to do wonders for your brand. There are things websites need to be successful – including engaging content, regularly updated to encourage readers to return for multiple visits. If you want to make money from your website then you need some way of tracking those visits, so you can see what works and what doesn’t. And if you want your website to sell something, then you have to make it easy – either by having your own webshop or by linking to a decent online supplier (for books, Amazon is usually the vendor of choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours).

If you don’t have the time to get really engaged in social networking, then don’t bother starting. There’s only one thing worse than an account that dries up after a couple of weeks, and that’s one that’s used intermittently to fire out ‘information’ – essentially nothing but an infomercial when you have something to promote.

So if you don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and can’t pay someone to do it for you, don’t expect to make your millions there. Market your wares through one of the other activities that you have time for, and that you enjoy doing.

If you do spend time on the internet then market your website by engaging with the online world. Read blogs on relevant topics and join in the discussions – leave meaningful comments with a link to your site and people will follow them. Leave dross and they won’t. If you’re in to forums then do the same – be part of the conversation. Add something beyond advertisements if you want to feel the internet love.

And learn a little bit about SEO. Perhaps we can get Pete to write about that for Part 2 :)

---

This is all good advice if you have a website already, but if you’ve yet to set one up then don’t forget to check out our GoDaddy discounts page!

It seems that the official FarmVille podcast is put on YouTube now, so I can share the podcast itself rather than a link. Don’t get excited, though, it’s not a vidcast!

In the latest podcast there’s some more information about Free Fuel Week (which appears to be nearly over!). Every consecutive day you play the game you get one more free tank of fuel – so 1 tank for day 1, 2 tanks on day 2, etc. If you miss a day, the counter gets reset back to 1 tank. And you have to wait a full 24 hours before you’ll get the next one.

And when you post a free fuel feed to your Wall, up to 5 of your Neighbors can collect it.

The big news this week is the changes to the chicken coops that allow you to feed your Neighbor’s chickens when you fertilize your farm. When you feed the chickens there’s a chance you’ll find some mystery eggs to share with your Neighbors – up to 3 sets of mystery eggs ‘per harvest period’, whatever that means. You also increase the chance that your Neighbor will find mystery eggs in their coop that they can share with you. You’ll also get 1 XP and 4 coins for feeding their chickens.

If your Neighbors have been feeding your chickens, then even if you don’t find any mystery eggs you will get a cash bonus. If you don’t find any mystery eggs then you’ll also get a chance to post a message on your Wall, requesting that more Neighbors come and feed your hungry chickens.

The first day these changes were put in place they caused huge connection issues for many farmers, who couldn’t get to their farms for an entire day. Fortunately these have been straightened out.

There are new Cow Print decorations and buildings, a new flower crop – Morning Glories – that takes 12 hours to mature and is harvested for 123 coins (only available at level 13 and above), and a new Starfruit tree. And there are two new Ribbons. The ‘Fenced In’ ribbon requires you to place fences on your farm (150 for the blue ribbon!) and you gain the ‘Egg-celent Discovery’ ribbons by finding mystery eggs in your chicken coops.

And there’s an update to the storage system – you can now host a barn raising to increase the capacity of your farm. Invite your Neighbors to help you improve your barn or toolshed and they’ll get 100 coins as a reward, and you’ll get a bigger building! Apparently we’ll be able to expand the animal buildings (chicken coops and dairy farms) soon.

There’s a new segment in the podcast for people to submit user questions, via the forum, and according to the Sneak Peek section we should be keeping an eye out for new things to do with our unwanted items, more ploughing/ planting/ friend missions, new buildings and new mystery boxes containing mystery animals.

The City Link man is coming tomorrow, bringing more goodies care of Amazon Prime. This one is a book to go with a TV series that just started yesterday – Grow Your Own Drugs. And now that I’ve mentioned that we’re going to get all kinds of odd people visiting the website… ;)

Anyhoooo… in the current economic climate there are plenty of people who aren’t in the market for having goodies delivered from Amazon or anyone else – but I’ll let you into a little secret: I wasn’t either, last year, and yet the occasional package still arrived – having cost me nothing but a little time.

There are lots of survey sites all over the internet that exchange cold hard cash or reward points for some of your opinions. Some are better than others; YouGov is a good one, although it takes a while to build yourself up to the £50 cash payout and there are plenty more that are open to everyone. Be a bit careful when you sign up – some are scams, but you’re much less likely to fall foul of a survey site (which needs quite a hefty infrastructure) than those awful pay-per-click schemes.

Anyway, if you’re still employed and can answer survey questions about business stuff then have a look at QNA. They pay out good rewards to people in business for participating in their online surveys. I’ve been doing it for some time now, there’s no commitment and it is genuine – I receive Amazon vouchers for each survey that I complete. You should take a look at it, here’s the link to their website, where you can read more about it and register to take their surveys.

Signup for QNA Membership

The company behind it is Vanson Bourne, a well-known market research company in the technology and business-to-business field. I don’t get invited to surveys particularly often, but each time I complete one I get £5/£10 in Amazon vouchers – a nice chunk towards a book or a DVD. The amount you’ll receive is mentioned in the invite email, and once you’ve completed the survey you don’t have long to wait until your reward plops into your inbox as well. And then you’ve got the joy of choosing what you spend it on, and later still the joy of it actually arriving.

A little bit of Amazonia can go a long way when you’re strapped for cash….

A few months ago, Pete and I were invited to a book launch, where (unsurprisingly) we met a couple of authors. We were introduced to one as people who knew a lot about the internet, and she asked the inevitable question – how do I make money from my website?

The lady in question had paid a small amount of money for someone she knows to build her a basic website. It was occasionally updated with news of events she would be at, or new books she had just published, but mostly was just a static site.

Shockingly, it didn’t increase her book sales by a noticeable amount. For some reason, people who don’t spend a lot of time on the internet think it runs on some magical principle, but it doesn’t. It works the same way as most aspects of life – you get out what you put in.

If you only have the budget for a cheap website (and don’t have the skills to improve it yourself) then it is unlikely to do wonders for your brand. There are things websites need to be successful – including engaging content, regularly updated to encourage readers to return for multiple visits. If you want to make money from your website then you need some way of tracking those visits, so you can see what works and what doesn’t. And if you want your website to sell something, then you have to make it easy – either by having your own webshop or by linking to a decent online supplier (for books, Amazon is usually the vendor of choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours).

If you don’t have the time to get really engaged in social networking, then don’t bother starting. There’s only one thing worse than an account that dries up after a couple of weeks, and that’s one that’s used intermittently to fire out ‘information’ – essentially nothing but an infomercial when you have something to promote.

So if you don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and can’t pay someone to do it for you, don’t expect to make your millions there. Market your wares through one of the other activities that you have time for, and that you enjoy doing.

If you do spend time on the internet then market your website by engaging with the online world. Read blogs on relevant topics and join in the discussions – leave meaningful comments with a link to your site and people will follow them. Leave dross and they won’t. If you’re in to forums then do the same – be part of the conversation. Add something beyond advertisements if you want to feel the internet love.

And learn a little bit about SEO. Perhaps we can get Pete to write about that for Part 2 :)

---

This is all good advice if you have a website already, but if you’ve yet to set one up then don’t forget to check out our GoDaddy discounts page!

It seems that the official FarmVille podcast is put on YouTube now, so I can share the podcast itself rather than a link. Don’t get excited, though, it’s not a vidcast!

In the latest podcast there’s some more information about Free Fuel Week (which appears to be nearly over!). Every consecutive day you play the game you get one more free tank of fuel – so 1 tank for day 1, 2 tanks on day 2, etc. If you miss a day, the counter gets reset back to 1 tank. And you have to wait a full 24 hours before you’ll get the next one.

And when you post a free fuel feed to your Wall, up to 5 of your Neighbors can collect it.

The big news this week is the changes to the chicken coops that allow you to feed your Neighbor’s chickens when you fertilize your farm. When you feed the chickens there’s a chance you’ll find some mystery eggs to share with your Neighbors – up to 3 sets of mystery eggs ‘per harvest period’, whatever that means. You also increase the chance that your Neighbor will find mystery eggs in their coop that they can share with you. You’ll also get 1 XP and 4 coins for feeding their chickens.

If your Neighbors have been feeding your chickens, then even if you don’t find any mystery eggs you will get a cash bonus. If you don’t find any mystery eggs then you’ll also get a chance to post a message on your Wall, requesting that more Neighbors come and feed your hungry chickens.

The first day these changes were put in place they caused huge connection issues for many farmers, who couldn’t get to their farms for an entire day. Fortunately these have been straightened out.

There are new Cow Print decorations and buildings, a new flower crop – Morning Glories – that takes 12 hours to mature and is harvested for 123 coins (only available at level 13 and above), and a new Starfruit tree. And there are two new Ribbons. The ‘Fenced In’ ribbon requires you to place fences on your farm (150 for the blue ribbon!) and you gain the ‘Egg-celent Discovery’ ribbons by finding mystery eggs in your chicken coops.

And there’s an update to the storage system – you can now host a barn raising to increase the capacity of your farm. Invite your Neighbors to help you improve your barn or toolshed and they’ll get 100 coins as a reward, and you’ll get a bigger building! Apparently we’ll be able to expand the animal buildings (chicken coops and dairy farms) soon.

There’s a new segment in the podcast for people to submit user questions, via the forum, and according to the Sneak Peek section we should be keeping an eye out for new things to do with our unwanted items, more ploughing/ planting/ friend missions, new buildings and new mystery boxes containing mystery animals.

The City Link man is coming tomorrow, bringing more goodies care of Amazon Prime. This one is a book to go with a TV series that just started yesterday – Grow Your Own Drugs. And now that I’ve mentioned that we’re going to get all kinds of odd people visiting the website… ;)

Anyhoooo… in the current economic climate there are plenty of people who aren’t in the market for having goodies delivered from Amazon or anyone else – but I’ll let you into a little secret: I wasn’t either, last year, and yet the occasional package still arrived – having cost me nothing but a little time.

There are lots of survey sites all over the internet that exchange cold hard cash or reward points for some of your opinions. Some are better than others; YouGov is a good one, although it takes a while to build yourself up to the £50 cash payout and there are plenty more that are open to everyone. Be a bit careful when you sign up – some are scams, but you’re much less likely to fall foul of a survey site (which needs quite a hefty infrastructure) than those awful pay-per-click schemes.

Anyway, if you’re still employed and can answer survey questions about business stuff then have a look at QNA. They pay out good rewards to people in business for participating in their online surveys. I’ve been doing it for some time now, there’s no commitment and it is genuine – I receive Amazon vouchers for each survey that I complete. You should take a look at it, here’s the link to their website, where you can read more about it and register to take their surveys.

Signup for QNA Membership

The company behind it is Vanson Bourne, a well-known market research company in the technology and business-to-business field. I don’t get invited to surveys particularly often, but each time I complete one I get £5/£10 in Amazon vouchers – a nice chunk towards a book or a DVD. The amount you’ll receive is mentioned in the invite email, and once you’ve completed the survey you don’t have long to wait until your reward plops into your inbox as well. And then you’ve got the joy of choosing what you spend it on, and later still the joy of it actually arriving.

A little bit of Amazonia can go a long way when you’re strapped for cash….