The Western Union mode of payment is one of the reasons that makes Triond different from most Paid to Write/Blog sites. This is also one of the reasons why the Triond publisher’s population is escalating really fast. This payment system completes what Paypal and the check lacks. Through this, all the countries in the world can join Triond. Even aliens from Jupiter can join as long as they have agents there. In fact, I myself had chosen it as my payment method.

Paypal

Paypal is unarguably the number one online payment processor today. But Paypal is not for everyone. First, Paypal is not available in all countries. If ever it’s available, publishers cannot or will probably not choose it because you need to verify your account to get your money. To verify your account you need to link your credit or debit card. Some people are not comfortable with this. Second, should Paypal be available in their country, for some reasons, opening a credit or debit card account may not be easy for them or they simply don’t like to use plastic money. Payment via Paypal is preferable since the minimum is only $0.50 and sending the payment is free.

Check

The check mode of payment is preferred by others for any of the reasons mentioned above. The difference is, check is delivered by mail and you cannot get your money unless you exchange it at the bank. Your earnings will also lose $3.00 for the check processing fee. Other countries may not also choose this because the check might get lost in the mail. Check minimum payout is $50.00

Western Union

Western Union is one of the best things that ever happened to online paid writing. Western Union is available in most countries and territories. When the money has been sent, Triond will send an email containing the tracking number or the Money Transfer Control Number (MTCN). To receive your money you have to go to the nearest Western Union agent in your area. Processing fee also applies. Amount varies by country. With Western Union, you don’t need credit or debit cards and there’s no need to worry about checks getting lost in the mail. The Triond minimum payment is also $50.00

Though the $50 minimum is quite a big amount to reach, it made me work harder promoting and writing more articles so I can reach it sooner. When that amount reaches my hands, it would then be worth all the wait. By the way, I received my very first payment this month. And the first thing I bought was…pizza!

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1. Networking.

   Some sites have groups of writers that work for them, all on their own, from home. These writers can show their support for each other by posting comments. A way of saying, "I have seen your site, now check out mine", without actually saying that.
   

2. Bragging Rights = More Sharing.

   A site where you can post your comment is more likely to be shared by you personally as a way of showing your friends that you have your name on a site, with your opinions.
   

3. Input for Improvement

   Some writers like to have input as a way to improve. When they get feedback they can return to their site and edit, omit, or add things to make the site better. A better site generates more hits, and most site creators want this.
   

4. Approval

   Some writers like to have comments as a sort of pat on the back, a way to feel good. A way to get interaction with people.

Why wouldn't a site have a comments area?

1. They do not want any negative feedback.
   
2. They do not have time to manage feedback. Most sites enable the user to delete any feedback, or require them to check it before it is posted. Some site owners do not have time for this so simply do not allow feedback of any kind.
   
3. They simply over looked the importance of allowing it.
   
4. The site isn't conducive to having comments added. Meaning that what ever the site is about, there is no point in commenting on it.

My own thoughts for you to comment on, if you wish.

1. I have dial up Internet, it is slow and annoying. It is hard and time consuming to post comments, so I only do so when I am passionate about something, or have lots of time to wait for a site to down load. I prefer sites where the comment shows up right away, as opposed to ones where it has to go through a moderator.
   
2. I am frustrated when I cannot have input, especially to correct something or point out something. Recently there was a site about a couple who lost a cat for several years, and then found it. The site reported they lost a "ginger" cat, but the picture clearly showed a calico cat.
   
3. I would LOVE to be able to add comments on links where certain pet foods are being marketed as good food. However, these sites usually do not allow comments, or would certainly delete mine!
   
4. From the social networking aspect, it is sometimes hard to come up with comments more exciting than the standard "that is a good poem" comment. Sometimes I would rather say nothing than add a redundant comment.

You even might not be familiar with them at all.

It's a shame! Marketing nowadays is a necessity in every field.

These marketing words are used a lot all over the internet and it is every important that you have some understanding of what they mean.

And since I know all about these words and language, I am going to help you understand the reality and nature of these top used marketing words.

Today I am going to list the next 25 words of the top 247 marketing words you have to know about now!

1. Crawler: also called “spider” is a program that searches websites to add them in search engines
2. Cross promotion: it is a plan in which you sell your product in conjunction with promoting another product
3. CSS: cascading style sheet. It is a form of html coding which allows you to change the style of a web page without having to edit each individual page.
4. Dedicated hosting: it is a web hosting server that is dedicated only for your website. This means it isn't shared by other customers.
5. Del.icio.us: a social bookmarking site for sharing and storing bookmarks with other users. It is free and viewable by public, so simply anyone can see the bookmarked pages on it.
6. Digg: a web 2.0 site that articles and blogs are listed on. It brings more traffic to your site.
7. Directory site: it is an organized site that lists a huge number of websites. You can list your sites in a directory to be found online and get more traffic.
8. Domain name: it is the name of your website such as: triond.com
9. Double opt-in: it is when you opt-in for information from a site and asks for your email to send you the information and then send you an email with a verification link to make sure that you really want this information requested. So after you verify that they send you the information requested.
10. E-bay: one of the biggest online markets where you can buy anything. It uses an auction form in buying and selling where the highest bidder gets the product.
11. E-business: it is any business that gets its income and traffic online
12. E-book: a book that is downloaded and read on computers. It can be of .pdf or .exe extensions. Pdf is the format of books read on acrobat reader.
13. Emoticons: these are icons that can be animated in order to show emotions when you are chatting or talking to anyone online
14. EPC: earnings per click
15. Ezine: electronic magazine where you can submit articles about your products to drive traffic to your selling site
16. FAQ: frequently asked questions that are asked about any website. It acts as a help forum to understand what the site is all about.
17. Flaming: it is writing comments that seem normal but they contain degrading tone and intents. These comments are called flames.
18. Folksonomy: a labeling system that allows you to categorize websites, links and photos
19. Forum: is a place online that holds discussions about a website or topic. There you can post comments or questions to be answered. A great way to express your point of view and to get more publicity to your site.
20. Freelancer: someone who works by a job done. They get paid for each job they get done. You can find freelancers on elance.com and rent-a-coder.com
21. FRA: free reprint articles. These are articles you are free to use again to add on your blog or site to gain extra content that helps you be found on search engines.
22. FTP: the standard protocol to download and upload files online. It is essential to upload your files on your website.
23. Ghost site: a site that is no longer updated but still online
24. Guru: an experienced teacher that influence others to do as he/she teach
25. Give away rights: this is when you give away a product for free and allow others to distribute it for free

1. StumbleUpon

   The StumbleUpon add-on is basically the same as the tool bar you will download on the StumbleUpon homepage. One advantage of downloading the Fire Fox version is you will receive update screens from Fire Fox like you do on every add-on. The StumbleUpon tool bar will do two things for a blogger or freelance writer. The first is, when you sign up for an account you can start submitting your content to the StumbleUpon database which will effectively bring large streams of traffic to your site if used correctly. Another benefit is if you specialize in a certain niche you can select to “Stumble” through content in that niche to get ideas for new content.

2. SeoQuake

   SeoQuake is an add-on more specifically meant for people with their own blog; however it is of some use to freelance writers as well. SeoQuake can be placed in a few ways. You can have it as a tool bar, or a bar that will open just beneath the tabs. This bar can tell you the Google Page Rank of a page, how many times Google has indexed the page, Yahoo Links, Alexa Rating, the Web Archive age of the site, the number of internal links, external links, and the density of keywords. There are a few more options you can select if you want them, but it makes the tool bar a little too big. If you click on any of the above options it will bring you to the page that is feeding it the information. So it will bring you to the Alexa site, or Google search engine showing all the indexed pages. It is very helpful for bloggers to see this information.

3. QuickNote

   QuickNote is a simple note taking pad. What makes this more effective than the wordpad installed on your computer? You can easily pull this up from your browser, and it's easier to take notes with this than a wordpad on your computer. When you would like to take a note you go to Tools > QuickNote and you will have three options depending upon your needs. You can have the QuickNote open in a new tab, open in a side bar (similar to opening favorites in a side bar), or have it open and float above the page like a normal wordpad would. It will automatically open every page you've saved on the QuickNote, so if you close it you can open it just as quickly and continue you where you left off. Great for taking notes on potential ideas, saving links, or just starting your articles.

4. Split Browser

   Split Browser is a very handy add-on for those of you doing research on products. When listing details on products such as specific numbers, or if you're writing an article with another screen open giving you information this is the tool for you. You can effectively combine this add-on with QuickNote if you're a freelance writer by opening QuickNote in a new tab. If you are a blogger simply open your blogs posting area. Then you can split your browser screen so that your typing area is on half the screen while your information is on the other side. Now you can easily write segments and then read on without having to switch screens.

5. Zotero

   Zotero is a quick and automated way to cite your resources accurately. Before you may have used an automated site where you fill out information such as date accessed, website name, author, ect and it gave you correct citation, or you credited the author incorrectly with a simple link to the “original article”. It integrates very easily with Microsoft Word which is what most freelance writers are using anyways. Never again be emailed by an author who thinks you've incorrectly cited their articles.

All of these add-ons are best used by freelance writers and bloggers. They can help you reduce the time you spend writing every day. With the time you save by using these tools you can write more, or be done sooner. I have all of these downloaded and they are spyware free to my knowledge. I'm not responsible for any problems occurring from the result of downloading these.

StumbleUpon is a combination of a social network site and a search engine. It has a giant community totaling over four million members all sharing and discovering the best sites on the internet. When you sign up you must add the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser. The toolbar has many options, but the basic three you'll need to know are the Stumble, thumbs up, and thumbs done buttons. When you click on the Stumble button it will bring you to a category you selected as an interest. There are many different things you can select as an interest. Anything from sports, your favorite hobbies, or religious topics that once selected will bring you sites submitted into these categories. Once you are on a page you found through Stumbling you can read the material, browse the site, or click on to the next one. If you would like to give the website a rating you can give it a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” accordingly. If you gave it a good review StumbleUpon will give you more sites similar to it more often, and the website will be marked as a better site under that particular interest therefore increasing the traffic that is sent to the site through the Stumble option.

Okay, so I know how to use StumbleUpon to view others sites, but how do I get people to get to a site I would like to submit? In order to get your site added to StumbleUpon you have to go to the page you would like to submit. Then simply click on the “thumbs up” button, and if it has yet to be added to StumbleUpon a screen will pop up asking for a review of the site, a title, tags, and a topic. You will learn the importance of these later on. Once all this information is filled in it is submitted into the StumbleUpon database and will start to receive the “beginning traffic”.

My website says I got between 200 and 300 views through the StumbleUpon site in only one day! Well as great as it may seem to you, this is not good because this is most likely the end of the traffic you'll receive to this page. There are many ways to improve upon this but that will take a little bit of work. First of all you will generally receive around that many views just by submitting it to StumbleUpon. You can only raise this by receiving the “thumbs up” votes on your page. (You can check these by looking at the review of your page.) By receiving only a few “thumbs ups” you will have successfully gotten more traffic. The more positive votes, the more traffic you will receive. My tips for increasing the positive reviews greatly depend upon the type of content you are submitting. If it is a list of items your best bet would be to put the best picture or item in the list as the first thing they see. Why? Well if your article looks boring they may not even take their mouse pointer off the Stumble button. A catchy yet to the point title is also important. Make your title interesting. There is a great difference between “10 Uses of Duct Tape”, “10 Amazing Things Made of Duct Tape”, and “10 Amazing Things You Can Make Using Duct Tape”. Which one catches your attention the most? If you said number two, I agree. As it is an opinion question you may think different, but my opinion is the second one. It catches my attention in a way the first one couldn't, and it's more to the point than the third one.

So you're saying that the reason I'm not getting a lot of traffic is completely the fault of my article or content? Not exactly, I'm just saying that those are important things for a Stumbler to see on your page because they can be gone as quickly as they came. Then what else might I be doing wrong? Well as I mentioned before, the information you enter when first submitting the page is very important. The most important is the topic in which you enter it. Although you may think that by entering an article about football, in the topic of sports will give you a bigger base of fans you may not do as good as if you enter it in the topic of football. Why? Well the more positive votes you receive the more traffic you will get. So what point would there be in entering it into the sports one? It will receive views from people that enjoy totally different sports and will give it a negative review thus hurting the traffic brought to this article.

I think I have good articles, but they just don't seem to get started very well. Do you have any ideas? As I stated before StumbleUpon is a social networking site. So far all you have learned about StumbleUpon is how to add content. While that was a huge part of it, you won't get very far without the social aspect of StumbleUpon. The more positive votes you receive the more views so what a better way to get your articles past that first hump where you have to receive some thumbs up quickly. Your friends will usually help you out by giving you a thumbs up and a positive review. By receiving just five friends thumbs up votes you can successfully increase your traffic to a level that if it is any good, should take care of itself. I've found articles to succeed greatly after I get the first few thumbs up votes. Remember without friends you have potentially three hundred or less Stumblers to receive these crucial thumbs up votes. The key to success is friendship.

None of my friends in real life use StumbleUpon. I'm having troubles finding a friend on StumbleUpon. How do I get them? Good question. I can say that probably 95% of the people that read this far into the article are a writer, have you own blog, or are a webmaster, or hope to become of the following. With that being said I think it would be fair to say you are in fact creating the content they are Stumbling onto. There are two ways I use to effectively start a successful friendship on StumbleUpon. The first is thing is that I'm sure you have content you've submitted before, but if not start off by submitting a few of your articles. Anybody who gives you a thumbs up, if you get them, you go to their profile and add them as a friend.

After you do this, you send them a message saying you wrote the article they enjoyed, and then maybe ask them a question like how could I improve my content. Unless you want to be blunt and flat out ask them to be your friend, you have to simply keep in touch with them until they do. This means ending each reply with a question so they will for sure have something to say in a reply. Anybody who becomes your fan, add them as your friend and make it a mutual friendship. You must message your friends so they get to know you a bit better as they are more likely to help you out then versus the only contact between you and them is sending them links. Lastly add anybody who adds you. They like your work, or are fishing for friends. Either way, you've added another friend who can potentially help you bring traffic to your site. Keeping my advice in mind, what do you think I'd do if you became my fan? You will then have a friend right there to help you with your questions about StumbleUpon. Take it or leave it.

I've got some friends, I've got the good content, and I am successfully submitting content into appropriate areas, am I ready to go? Basically, yes. There isn't much more that I know of to it than that. As you use it more and more you will learn small tricks that may help you in the long run, as well as increase your friendships. Naturally the long you are on the site, the more friends you'll make which in turn means more potential thumbs up votes. Keep in mind the term friend. Don't abuse them by spamming them with link after link, day after day. I wouldn't want to be your friend. You don't need to tell them to give you a thumbs up vote, they are your friend they'll be light hearted on the article, and usually will give you that thumbs up. A good rule of common courtesy would be to maybe ask them to visit one or two of your sites per every ten messages you send them. You'll get to know them, and your friendship won't be based on thumbs up votes. Also don't forget to check out content they discovered.

I am running an experiment to see the potential traffic StumbleUpon can bring you. I will post results, but so far the help of the StumbleUpon community hasn't been as successful as I'd hoped. Only seven have helped out. Please check out the experiment and maybe help out. The StumbleUpon Experiment 2.0. Spread the word about successfully using StumbleUpon by giving this a thumbs up and making a new friend. As a side note to all viewers please do not submit this site to StumbleUpon. If the screen comes up to submit it, cancel out and come back later to give it your thumbs up.

Yes, I think it's that good.

Urbis has a system of rewarding your reviews of other's writing with credits, which you can then use to unlock their reviews of your writing. What this creates is a website where your comments and critique are valuable, are a form of currency. This results in thoughtful reviews of your work. It also challenges you to come up with more than a mere “I liked it!” when reviewing the work of other writers. This is bound to develop your critical reading skills.

So far, I've posted three poems from my archives, and found ways to improve them. I'm finding this invaluable, despite its addictive qualities. Work that has languished in my files for years is being dusted off and given new life.

Poetry isn't the only thing you can post at Urbis. Short stories, essays, non-fiction, journalism, blogs, novel treatments - there is a category for nearly every known form of writing.

Now let's talk interface, because there's nothing worse than a great resource with a bad interface. Thankfully, Urbis has a clean user interface. It loads quickly, and is extremely intuitive. To submit your writing, you click "submit". To review the work of others, you click "review". When there is a new review for you to read, you are emailed. To "unlock" your review, you click on it, and if you have enough credits, it opens up for you to read. If you don't have enough credits, simply click on "review" and give a few critiques.

It's simple. I like me some simple.

1. It gives you a reason to write daily.

   Every other professional keeps his/her performance in ship shape by constant practice. Skilled workers keep their tools sharpened in order to do their job well. Writers should be no different, writing everyday, about any topic whatsoever, makes us better at what we do. Many times, too many knock backs and refusal notes can induce a total or partial block, but having a blog gives you the motivation, and keeps you excited about writing.

2. You can invite comments.

   The facility on your blog, of being able to invite comments from fellow writers or fans in general, means that you get to gauge exactly what people want and enjoy. When you approach your publisher later, you do so with the backing of having done practical research. You can then present the work in an informed, professional manner, thus maximising your chances at being published.

3. Access to all your work in one place.

   Many writers have work published in different places. A blog gives you a chance for people to have access to all of them from one page. Use your blog to put links of everything you've done, and when you send your work to agents/publishers, send them a link to your blog. They are more likely to access this, than a several different websites to find what you've done.

4. Marketing.

   A blog allows you to market yourself as a professional. As well as using your blog to "house" your published work, you can also, on the flip side of this, put the link to your blog on the different pieces you've published.

5. Get intimate.

   You hardly get an opportunity to put up your pictures with the different pieces you've done. A blog gives you an opportunity to do this. People like to see what you look like, as it makes them feel as if they know you on a more personal level. A blog enables the writer to become closer to his/her fans because it gives the opportunity to record personal information about him/herself (things that one cannot say in an article about personal finance or how to care for a dog for example). Fans are more likely to stay hooked, if they feel connected with the writer they read.

6. Assurance.

   It is one of the most important things that you can e-mail to potential publishers and agents (comments and all) when you approach them with your work, to convince them that you're not a novice. This information also shows them that you already have a following. Having a fan base means that you are a safe investment.

7. Networking.

   Having your own blog gives you a chance to meet other "bloggers" and to be part of a vibrant e-society. They will visit your site, and vice versa. Having like minds look at your work and comment on what you've done is a free review service. Make good use of it. Networking also means that you know more about the ins and outs of publishing houses and agents. This information gives you the power and confidence you need to approach them with exactly what they are looking for.

8. Showcasing.

   Showcase your work on your blog. Books, articles, work in progress, etc. Even excerpts from your book or summaries of your articles are welcome. A review at this early stage of your creation is vital, as it enables you to mold your work, having seen it from others' different perspectives.

9. The big break!

   Your public blog is your chance at being scouted. Having all your work, accessible in one place, may attract the right person who is looking for new, fresh talent. Quite a few writers have started in this very way. This new and growing trend sees writers serialising their novels, which eventually are bought out and published as books.

10. It's free and easy.

    It's easy to create and free, just go on to one of many free blog sites and create your very own blog today. You'll be up and running in minutes.