I'm using affilliate links from time to time. I wanted you to know.

I realized that I used an affiliate link in my blog post yesterday about building niche sites without telling you. As a former newspaper reporter, I couldn't live with myself without posting about it.

A full disclosure policy is included in the footer of my blog. But, for those of you who don't scroll past the newest post, I thought you should know. And, for the newbies, an affiliate link is a link to a site to which I'm affiliate meaning I get paid if you sign up at the affiliate site or buy something.

I started including advertising and affiliate links in the sidebar of this blog this past summer. After all, this is a blog about making money and working from home. My newest interest, making money off my own sites is spilling into this site. But, at the same time, monetization isn't my main goal here.

The affiliate links are for services I already use or have used or just generally like and support. For example, yesterday I included my affiliate link for HostGator when talking about setting up hosting for my new sites.

From time to time I'll use these affiliate links. Sometimes I'll spell out for you it's an affiliate link, other times it will be obvious. Hope you can deal with it.

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My newest online experiment: building niche sites

I still haven't been pursuing a full-time work at home career, but instead have focused on the impending birth of my first child. Cora Mae is due December 4, and I've managed to turn being pregnant into a full-time job.

I posted a couple months ago about hoping to create a passive income from home while pregnant. I've had some success at eHow. I've written about 45 articles and am averaging about $35 a month. Each article takes between 10 and 30 minutes to write so I've only put in about 8 hours of writing time there. If my earnings stay the same, I'll make about $420 this year for those 8 hours. And, could earn for years into the future. My investment there should pay off, and I love the flexibility of this type of income.

This month, I'm creating a niche Web site. A lot more work because I'll have to write the Web site content based upon keyword research and set up the back end stuff, but I'm interested to see how profitable this can me. Based on my keyword research, I've picked student loan consolidation as my niche. The research shouldn't be too bad because I've been thinking about looking into consolidating my own loans and needed to do some research any how.

I'm still learning much. For anyone who would like to create a niche site along with me, I've used this eBook from Caroline Middlebrook to learn about how to use Wordpress to create a static site and an eBook by Josh Spaulding to learn about picking a profitable niche and how to market the site.

I've set up the hosting through HostGator and bought a domain. This week I'm busy getting ready for a baby shower at my house, but next week will be all about content.

My goal is to have the niche site up and running by the time baby is here. Any advice?

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A quick and easy post about a quick and easy way to make extra money. Cloud Crowd, a new MTurk type site pays daily.

A few weeks ago, I read about a Facebook app that pays daily. I quickly filed the opportunity into my scam folder and moved on, but the buzz around this new site was too much for me to not check it out.

CloudCrowd is indeed a Facebook app that pays daily. The app works a lot like Amazon Mechanical Turk. Users complete tiny jobs and are paid for job. Cloud Crowd pays anywhere from $.05 to $1.50 per task.

I was especially leery, but have seen several posts with proof of payment. The application also doesn't butt into your normal Facebook stream and seems non-invasive in general.

After each task is approved, payment usually comes via PayPal within 24 hours, according to reports on forums and blogs around the web.

My only problem after signing up is a lack of available tasks. I'm curious about what this could pay per hour. I've read reports of people making around $10 per hour when constant work is a available.

The application also pays for referrals. In the interest of self disclosure, I've used my referal link in this post.

Anyone have more to report on CloudCrowd? I'm anxious to learn more.

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