Emoneybuzz also takes the initiative to list some quick money sites such as getting paid to read emails, ads and playing games for cash.  It will be interesting to see how things pan out for the site but with the growing number of bloggers, affiliate marketers and stay at home moms or dads looking to make some extra cash filling out surveys.  Keep an eye on this site!

Due to the increasingly popularity of Wordpress (Wordpress is outperforming Typepad nowadays), it’s not a surprise that there have been a great number of Wordpress Theme sites launching across the web, including many Premium Theme Galleries.  Check out Google Trends for Wordpress and you’ll see that the popularity trend is stable and is probably going to continue growing.

There are a great number of valid Wordpress theme galleries out there but there are also some “not-so-great” galleries or “old” and “outdated” themes still pulling up high in the good ‘ol Google Search (you know you’ve seen them).  Here’s a few places to start if you are looking for a great Wordpress Theme.  There’s the gallery hosted by Wordpress at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/, also wpsnap.com, freewordpressthemes.com and a newer site called new-wordpress-themes.net.

If you still can’t find your perfect wordpress theme on any of those sites, maybe think about investing into an unique wordpress theme.  I know a few places to start (one of them being: ewebscapes.com).  Depending on your budget, you can really play the field on getting the right theme for you.

One of the most popular card games played by both young and old is poker and with the convenience of the internet, game play in the privacy of your own home makes it that much easier to play at your hearts content or in between writing blog postings. I’m not much of a gambler, probably due to my frugal nature but my husband on the other hand will easily go to a table with a plenty of cash and make back plus more on the game. His favorite game? Texas Holdem, of course. So, yes I have seen quite a few poker games being played in between MMPORG, Magic Online and other online games – all of which is played on a PC computer.

So, you know what I found out the other day? It turns out that Mac users need a special setup to enable some online poker play. Targeted to Mac users interested in playing online card games, Mac Poker Online started as an exclusive provider of information for Macintoch users wanting to play poker or casino games. I haven’t come across their site till now, but found it quite interesting…enough to actually send the link to a handful of my Macintosh friends. The site offers many lists of the best online poker sites and lists them in order of their opinion of the safest for users. They also offer various resources to enhance online poker strategy (helpful either if you are or are not a Mac owner) and offer bonus codes for popular poker sites like Titan Poker to cash in on big bonuses – how nice of them!

Many games are offered including Pacific Poker, Fulltilt Poker and Poker Stars. Prior to downloading, they do offer a convenient poker review guide and pros/cons of playing each Mac compatible game.

I’m not extremely familiar to the capabilities or browser difficulties experienced by Mac users, but Mac Poker Online appears to be quite a useful site. Although I would improve navigation on the site a bit (I felt a bit lost) or maybe add an “about us” page, it would help a newcomer to the site, like me, feel right at home more quickly. But you know what? I’ve noticed some sites that don’t necessarily “look” the prettiest as far as navigation but actually perform VERY well monetarily and deliver the goods to the consumer, doing the job its intended!

(Sponsored Review)

FYI – My husband shows up as a duplicate…yep, we know. The video was for 5 people..and there are only 4 of us so far…counting the cat! :)

Happy Holidays!

Susan

Even though I’ve been having fun playing, I’ve managed to take a break from playing the game to do some w-o-r-k, …… =)

Vizu….

Not too long ago, I signed up for Beta testing polls with Vizu to not only contribute to their research polls but make some additional income. Depending on how valuable the information Vizu receives from polls on your site, they will pay you determined on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions). But not only do you get paid for the demographic information pulled from your site, you also get to view some yummy stuff.

Since having Vizu running, I’m able to see the numbers on gender, age, income level, education, marital status and household size of those that visit my sites. That’s valuable information!!! I can see that 80% of my visitors are male and mostly between the ages of 18-34. Even though I get territory information from Google Analytics, Vizu also shares this information with me. This is a great way of determining what demographic I’m targeting and mold it to the market that I want…or market it BETTER to the current demographic visiting the site. So of course, I had to add it to my personal blog… (view right)

If you are more interested in making money from the research polls, be forewarned it’s not too much. Vizu currently suggests to keep the amount recommended on their site (which is about .25 per CPM) but I doubled that amount in the past month to test it out. So for every 1000 times, I’ll earn .50 cents. If it doesn’t sound like much – it isn’t. So don’t rely on it for money, but instead use the poll information towards making your site more effective and popular to your audience. Depending on how things work out, you could increase your CPM. Polls will never be sold below the rate you specify, but if you’re able to get more per CPM…then go for it. I know I’ll be increasing mine. So far this December, my CPM for a site using Vizu, is showing Google Adsense CPM of about four dollars…much higher than the .50 cents tested with Vizu.

Referenced Sites:
Vizu
Raymans Raving Rabbids 2

I encourage you to check out the new look – let me know what you think! http://got2begreen.com

New Look

never heard or thought about backing up her writing. Unfortunately she finds out the hard way, by losing all of her work.

It’s amazing though…how the information that we hold on our computers are so fragile to being lost but many of us don’t backup our work. Whether it be website backups or making a copy of the files and folders on your computer many don’t backup. Imagine…losing not only our work but sole copies of family photos…eek…what a heartbreaker.

So, knowing that we could lose such information so quickly, why don’t we backup? My guess – the thought that “it won’t happen to me” outweighs the trouble it takes to make a backup. So…what if there was a solution to make backups automatic?

The company, Tilana System Corporation solves this problem. By being a convenient service, they allow you to continuously make backups from any location. For those on the go or blog at work, this is time saver since it also offers file synchronization. You’ll be able to have remote access to any backed up file, which of course has an internet connection. Working on any file, will save changes and upload them back to any number of computers. You get to selectively choose files to protect and/or synchronize, offering you continuous data protection. Files deleted from one machine can be deleted from another, while being archived permanently on your off-site Tilana Reserve data center space. Quite interesting, huh?

I’ve only had one scare, about 5 months ago. My computer pretty much died. I was lucky enough to turn it on one last time and copy everything to an USB drive. I was lucky, I grabbed my wedding and family photos, business plans and stock photos. I won’t let a scare like that happen again. Hopefully it won’t happen to any of you!

Referenced Sites in Post:

Tilana
Netflix
Sex and The City
MAC

So on Saturday, we decided it will be our Santa picture day. Avery’s gotta be ok with him now. After waiting in line for 30 minutes at a somewhat early 10am, we walked up to Santa together with our very cautious child. Avery didn’t want to accept the free candy cane Santa offered her, but remained calm…still weary, but calm…her two little eyes never breaking the sight of him. I politely took the cane and passed it to my daughter who quickly then grabbed on to it (as seen in the photo). Although, she gave more of a blank stare than a smile for the photo, at least she didn’t get upset. Kids are quite funny.

Christmas time is proving to feel more hectic and burdensome over the years. Maybe it’s because as we age, we lose a bit of the fun behind enjoying the holiday as we hit the stores trying to find the perfect gift for everyone…and maybe get lucky and find something on sale.

I can’t count how many times I’ve visited the mall in the past 3 weeks, but it’s much more than I would like. Sure I get some exercise pushing around my daughter in the stroller and lifting her out when she can’t stand sitting any longer while mommy stands looking dumbfounded at picking either a brown and white scarf or a knitted checkered scarf, or whether she should get 2 of the same gift for easy Christmas shopping for the relatives.

I already shop online for quite a few things, but visiting the mall has really pushed me to find ALL my answers online. Cards from CardSmart or Hallmark…no more! I’m sending e-cards this year! A new service, Tribbit.com has a service that allows friends AND family to sign an online Christmas Card. Hallmark ornaments? Maybe it’s me, but most Hallmark stores always run out of that last Christmas ornament I’m searching for…hint, hint…like Baby’s 2nd Christmas for girls….so I end up purchasing it online anyways. And Gift cards…Now, this year I’m passing on buying individual cards from a specific store. VISA and AMEX have gift cards which allow your loved one to buy anything they want from anywhere they choose. Visa® Gift Card Lab offers gift cards with any background design – you choose (you can even customize one). I could make a huge list of things I’m doing this year a little differently….but I’m sure you get the idea.

Because it’s the biggest shopping time of the year, it’s very important more than ever as a webmaster to utilize affiliate campaigns and email lists. If you don’t have an email marketing list, check out companies like Constant Contact and StreamSend that offer free trials. They’re very easy to use and comply with CAN-SPAM laws, making managing a list, especially for a newbie, easier and less-stressful to manage. If you don’t have any lists, think about how you can turn things around for next Christmas or set shorter goals of hitting big holidays between now and next Christmas. Set up a MySpace page and see if you can get those that are interested in your niche (check MySpace Groups) to sign up as a friend, THEN try messaging them to sign up for your newsletter. Actively build lists, because they’ll be the most profitable long-run, with spikes during the holiday depending on the market. Having that extra money coming in, will definitely help with buying all those gifts. :)

Referenced Sites in Post:

1) Constact Contact: Email Newsletters – 60 Day Free Trial

4) Tribbit.com – Create an online Christmas card, complete with photos, text, voice, stories, signed by your friends and family. Free!

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve given my blog some love and attention. I’m so very sorry about that.

Over the past month, my beloved environmental project has blossomed. Treehugger and ReadWriteWeb have mentioned the site, in which ReadWriteWeb included Got2BeGreen as one of Top 35 Environmental Blogs. I’ve been working with a professional designer (the author of Wordpress from Dummies) to redesign Got2BeGreen…which hopefully will be ready for launch in about a month. I’ve also been busy conversing with other members of environmental sites in efforts to spread the word. I’m so very fortunate and thankful to be able to make a good impact on the world, through online means.

So while I’ve been quite busy with Got2BeGreen, I did manage to redesign my personal site to give a more ‘earthy’ and personal feel, somewhat in ties with the modified theme of the site. Online Marketing is something that I plan to continue speaking about, but I also want to promote topics applicable to my day-to-day life, including my environmental projects plus a few other interests. While I might not be able to post everyday as my past history has shown, I plan to keep this site active to a few postings a week. My time is spreading thin, even though I’ve recruited 2 additional people to help with Got2BeGreen.

AdsenseTrack reported tracking my site as being in ‘Critical Condition’ with a list of other blog sites….I glad to report that, I Have Returned! Spread the word if you hear otherwise.

Thank you for everyone that has stayed on board during this time. I’ve received so many emails from my fellow bloggers regarding my return date which has made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. :) During this time….my traffic has slowed a bit but not as much as I would have guessed and to my surprise, my feeds are about the same….thank you for the loyalty!

So, as I get myself warmed up and cozy in my chair, writing for SusanSuarez.com….check back Monday, December 10th for a series of interesting posts!

Best Regards,

Susan Suarez

Link popularity is measured by the number of inbound link to your site onto a specific page and gauging the quality and relevancy of the incoming links. This is including links within the site and ones coming from the outside.

In determining a site’s ranking, link popularity is one of the most important factors in deciding ranking for top search engines.

Ways to increase link popularity

1) Request link exchanges with similar sites by: exchanging small ads, exchanging articles (becoming a more popular way of exchanging links), contact potential website partners and request them of link exchange maybe including why you think the link exchange may be beneficial to both sites.

2) One-way link building are links pointing to your website without you having to link back to them. If managed, it’s a great way to improve link popularity and ranking in search engines but are more difficult to obtain. They’re a great way to secure long-term search engine ranking results.

How to get inbound one-way links?

• Submit your site to major directories. As I’ve talked about before (click to see article), FreeWebSubmission is a great place to start.
• Target a niche or industry and become an authority by displaying your expertise.
• Supplying helpful material such as informative/quality articles, FAQs, definitions, free services, white papers, etc. which will provide more reasons why a webmaster will link back to you.
• Submit article to ezine/newsletter publisher and article directories. One you can try is EzineArticles.
• Participate in forums as an expert who gives advice – make sure to include your signature.
• Frequently update your blog as search engines love the new content.
• Submit your blog to weblogs directories.

These steps should increase link popularity and enhance overall search engine popularity. They are great methods because they are free and most cost-effective!