Yes that’s right – I have not abandoned the Free Toolsday feature.  Lots of things have come up, and I’ve been a bit uninspired, but like a flash it hit me what the best tool to feature today would be.  One that can make you money!

ScratchBack, a Jim Kukral project, is a great way for your readers and fellow bloggers to both show you some love and advertise their own blogs or websites.  It’s free to join and set up, with about 15 different stock designs for your widget.  You can also design your own using the guidelines from the website and they’ll hook it up with a nice custom one.  Obviously you can see over there ——> that I haven’t had the time or focus to do another custom design as I once had!

This is how it works: you put the widget on your site.  A reader comes by and decides that they want to tip you and get a link up all in one swoop.  So they click the widget, pay the tip to ScratchBack (YOU set how much of a tip you want!) and then ScratchBack pays you 90% of the tip (they have to keep the lights on, afterall).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="How it Works"][/caption]

You have the power to decide how much of a tip you want (the minimum is $5), how you want links to be bumped, if you want links auto approved, and more.  it’s one of the better widgets out there since it rewards you for your content while allowing other readers to promote their stuff as well.  It’s free to join if you just want to check it out and you’ll almost never get any emails from them – solicitation or otherwise. It’s also a great traffic source for you to go out there & reinvest – put your links on other blogs that employ ScratchBack!

I’m a big believer – so ask me if you have questions!