IPower Driving Me Nuts

It seems like everytime I do business with Ipower hosting I walk away from the experience telling myself that I will never do business with them again.

But I keep doing what should be more simple transactions with them and they keep screwing things up more and more.

I think I am going to establish my own hosting or reseller account for domain registrations.  I've had it really with IPower.  They just continue to fail no matter how many second chances that I give them.  Their tech support people seem to have a brain made up of a single brain cell or maybe just a dash of amino acids and half a peptide.

I tried looking at GoDaddy for this type of thing.  They advertise $1.99 domains, but you have to jump through so many goofy hoops that you wonder just how much you have to pay to get the opportunity to buy something for $1.99.

Monetizing the Public Domain Update

I wanted to give you an update on this project.  This project has been going fairly smoothly.  I've been picked up by a half dozen Paid to blog advertisers at this point.  Plus, I'm finding some cool and interesting content to hit.

I think I am going to expand this project out into additional sub domains on several related topics.  This time, I'm going to run everything off of one database and see if I can code the headlines into the primary home page.

So I will have a home page on the primary domain, with one directory blog on the primary domain.  Then I will run maybe 2 additional blogs at a time on sub domains.

I'll get a good PR build off the directory blog and the home page for the domain.  I'll also get individual PR builds off of the other sub domains and increase my earning potential on all the domains.

I've just started monetizing the site.  So far it has earned about $50.  Not too much, but it literally just started earning money.  I invested about $10 in the book at auction.

I spent about 3 hours on setting up the blog and its theme, which I'll likely duplicate on the other sections.  So I'm probably at the break even point right now, getting ready to go profitable.

Right now my daily earnings potential is only about $30 per day(3-4 days per week), but with the addition of more sources of revenue will increase that soon enough.  Then maybe I can channel some of my new found revenue into my dream house and hire a good real estate broker to help me with some of the heavy lifting on the house hunt. That will then give me more time to focus on my other blogs and sites and I can keep printing money for the next round of investments.

Build a Bigger Link Bait

I have been working on a new blog for a couple months now.  Sometimes I'll start a new blog as I'm filling development time.  Then I get distracted when my primary projects kick back in and the new blog gets delayed.

Its not really suffering, its new, its just not happening much yet.

Well, I have been trying to catch up on a new blog called Home Loan Focus.  It will obviously help provide more information to people trying to get a Home loan or mortgage.  It will also give a number of tips on saving money and improving credit.  They all go hand in hand together.

So I found inspiration in a newsletter from Military.com.  They provide a list of 7 things to do to save money on Childcare.  I read the list and saw that they had missed a lot of things.

Building a Bigger Link Bait

The list gave me an idea.  I realized that I could use the newsletter as a source for some content.  So I started writing and before you know it, I had not 8 or 9 total but 26 ways to save money on childcare.

Now I've covered a mess of ways to do linkbaits in the past

1. How to Build a Linkbait
2. Types of Linkbaits
1. Video
2. News Hook
3. Attack
4. Humor Hook
5. Resource Hook
6. Pictures
7. Long Lists
8. Contrary Hooks

As I see this, this is a slight twist on the Long Lists version of linkbaiting.  Its essentially building a 'long list' than already exists and boom you have a linkbait.

Now I would definitely cite the original source.  Don't rip off someone else's work.  Besides if you are adding to their contribution, then they might check out your article and possibly send some of their readers your way for the additional information.

Technorati tags: building a longer linkbait, saving money on childcare

Domain Speculation for Link Building

We were having a speculative theoretical conversation

in the performancing community's evening.  We were talking about the possibility of purchasing domains and developing them with a dozen or more static pages.  We came up with a hypothetical situation where you could build a website and establish a page rank with that website of three or four.

The website should cover a particular niche lets say cross stitching as an example.  You could then set up 10 similar websites that also covered the particular niche of cross stitching.  None of the site utilized any duplicate content, they would all be entirely unique.

Each of these sites within point to your preferred site which also focused on cross stitching.  Your focal site would then be developed as you develop any site but you do have 10 good links from PR three or four blogs or websites for months and months and may be years.  To keep the search bots moving you could even move those links around on the different pages potentially.  It doesn't cost hardly anything to register a domain and so you could establish a link building campaign for dirt cheap, but those links will last a very long time.

The outstanding question is "How long would the page rank of all those sites hold up?"

Google Referrals through Adsense

In addition to putting contractual advertising on your website and then running Google ad sense programs, you can also utilize Google's referral programs.  They provide incentives for anybody that downloads their applications and installs them on a computer.  These referrals tend to take place, after some these actually utilized the program once.

That means you don't get credit for the download and hence don't earn any money until the following things happen

1. someone goes to your website
2. They click on one of your referral buttons from Google
3. they download the software package that Google is offering
4. they install that software that they've just downloaded
5. and they run the program for the first time

 

There are a few other odd exceptions that sometimes creep into the mix.  Google tends to pay different amounts based on sometimes the location of a blogger or the website owner that's running their referral buttons.  Sometimes they pay different amounts depending on the location of the person that downloads the program.  This location-based payment amount seems to focus on currency exchange rate differences.  I see a lot of conjecture on how this is actually cockpit but never seen anything factual.

I pointed out so that if you see some amounts that aren't typical for what you expected from that referral buttons, it could be because the person that use the button was located in a different country where the exchange rates are different generating a payout rate that varies from the norm.

Get your Blog Updated by Google Every Day

Many bloggers and website owners probably stare at their pagerank tool bar button dreaming of the day when their page rank will go up another level or another 2 levels.

The reality is that your page rank is being adjusted every single day, if . . .

That's a big IF

If your site is being searched by Googlebot.  Googlebot does not stop searching the internet and Google does not stop updating their search results.  If your site is indexed and its being searched by Google Bot then you are getting updated everyday!

Google only publishes the results of those cumulative updates about every 10 - 14 weeks and that's when the 'visible' page rank changes.

So don't focus so much on making that big move every three months, settle into a continual improvement cycle and make that improvement every day.

Most Important Strategy Adjustment

The most important strategy adjustment that you can make is to work to get your blog, website and every permalink or article, indexed and re-indexed as often as possible.  This is why deep linking is so important.  You need other sites to link to your deep pages or articles specifically, and you to need to link to your older articles on a regular basis as well.

Getting Paid to Go to College

How would you like to get paid to go to college?

it wouldn't be that hard if you're a blogger.  As a blogger, you analyze and provide your thoughts and opinions and perspectives on the knowledge or content that you take in on a daily basis.

College is a treasure trove of content.  I'm not talking about stealing your professors notes or publishing a textbook on line, I'm talking about providing your views on each of the topics that you study, your views and experiences around campus, and much more.

Blogs are all about content, and if you can provide a compelling writing style with a great deal of detailed information about what you're learning you can make a lot of money. 

You don't even have to leave the comfort of your own home.  According to a recent release, there are many online degree programs available, or you can get a college degree or Masters degree online.  You can search through directories of online degrees and find over 1,300 colleges or universities to choose from with over 9000 different degree programs.

You can take out a federally backed student loan to get your degree, and your studies can become your full-time paid job.

So what are you waiting for?

Go out there and get smarter and get paid for it!

Quick Indexing Tool

When you first start out as a blogger, one of the first hurdles to overcome is getting your main site indexed by the Search Engines, especially Google.

Then the next hurdle to overcome is getting your individual articles indexed and not passed over by Google.

Blue Hat SEO provides a quick indexing tool called QUIT.  This tool is designed to help you get your blog or website and/or your individual permalinks or individual article pages indexed rapidly.

This tool is been out since last fall and reports the ability get a site indexed within 24 hours.

Link to Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics » QUIT- Quick Indexing Tool

There are several other techniques that you can use to accomplish the same goal if you have a blog.  One of the easiest ways to do that is to establish a feed through feedburner and drop the buzz boost code from feedburner into a Google pages account.

But sometimes you need to have other tricks up your sleeve and this would definitely be considered an advanced option.

Running Adsense on New Blogger Templates

If you have converted from the old blogger platform and are having a hard time inputting your Adsense code into the new template, its probably because the new code is on xhtml and won't accept some of the characters generated by Adsense, they need to be escaped.

Example the symbol & when read by XML needs to be expressed with the symbols &

That may seem less efficient for coding purposes, but its better for the web browsers to confirm that you are talking about a symbol and not the word 'and'

Here are three articles that will guide you through the setup of Adsense in your new blogger account:

1.  From Enviroman this article sums things up showing you how to Incorporate Adsense into your blogger blog

2.  From Blogcrowds you get more details, which Enviroman references as well. (Source Article)

3.  Then there is this handy tool at Blogcrowds for converting the Adsense code into something that New Blogger can read and create your Adsense blocks.

Welcome Back to Adsense, New Blogger Bloggers!

Using Your Blog to Increase Property Values in your Neighborhood

This week I am engaging in a little free advertising campaign for my neighborhood.  I am covering in this article a home for sale a couple blocks away.  I went and toured the home thise weekend during an open house and it has been remodeled throughout.  In Georgia they do not provide square footage numbers, but I'd guesstimate the square footage at somewhere between 2,200 and 2,600 sq ft, plus a 2 car garage and 2 cover decks (one screened in and one open air).  They have done a lot of work remodeling the inside, the outside was in decent shape although someone with a green thumb could do even more with the landscaping.

As I see it by covering this home, I am helping the home sell, just a bit more than it would on its own and that's good for overall property values where I live.

Here is a Link to Homes for Sale in River Bridge, Lawrenceville, Georgia $210,000 for this particular home.

I will keep you posted on how this campaign goes and how the house does.  Typically text link advertising provides a boost over the long run, but does not always provide a significant up front lift.  I am testing to see how much lift I can provide in the sale of this home located in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Exodus 3000 Break

I needed a break from blogging and web work today, and received an email from Exodus 3000.  They were running a good promo today.

I hopped in and learned that I had won like 4000 over the last month just sitting there.  :)

I also won some free moves.  I logged in an played for 20 minutes, and won 500 md from attacks and several thousand dollars from other activities including the find of 7,000 in md cards!

So I made quite a bit of advances, but the cool thing is that they have done a number of things to improve the game system.

If you are unfamiliar with Exodus3000, its basically an online game, kind of like risk or stratego maybe.  You search for various things and earn martian dollars.  Those martian dollars can be converted to real cash whenever you want to cash out of the game and start over!

Numbers 5 & 10 from Top 10 warning signs of Blogging Addiction

I came across a funny top 10 list this week.  It is the Top 10 Warning Signs of Blogging Addiction.

Here's Items 5 and 10, you'll have to drop by the site to see the rest of the list.  ;)

 

10. You call tech support to find out how to “activate” your Glade Plugin.

...

...

...

...

5. Your Boss, who you dislike, tells you that you did an outstanding job on the last assignment and and that he’s going to put you in for a raise. You reply by saying “Can I Blockquote you on that?”

...

...

...

...

This is not only funny but practical also.  Nice example of a short little viral linkbait.

Keyword Plurality

You may work to optimize your keywords on occasion chasing that top spot on google, but are you paying attention to the top spot for plural versions of your keywords?

You can check the numbers in Overture on keyword searches for plural derivatives and you will not find the results most of the time.  They are all lumped in together.

But try a google search and note the slight differences in results.

I tried a search on Swiss Army Watch and Swiss Army Watches.

You will not see a night and day difference on this (except with the number of adword ads on the singular compared to the plural).

There is one difference.  EWatches appears in the number 5 spot for Swiss Army Watch but comes in at number 7 for swiss army watches.

Many companies would kill for seven but 5 is better and the top 3 is the goal, especially on words where Google runs a lot of sponsored ads at the top.  As you are putting together your keyword campaigns you should consider the plural versions of the search and maybe even a few mis-spelled versions too!

Sister Site running Show Us Your Big Digg!

Our sister site at Top10Tech.com has a Web Tips section that is asking visitors to share examples of their biggest diggs on Digg.com.

Drop by and share your biggest Digg example and you will be mentioned in a future in depth article on the success of Digg submissions and blog marketing.

They have a great little provocative picture on this article that is pretty funny too!

Tracking Links and Cloaking

This almost sounds like keywords out of a Star Trek convention but not quite.  If you do any work with affiliate programs or if you are working with some of the great new CPA Blogging Collaboratives then you may want to pay attention to how effective your blog articles really are at leveraging your readership.  That's where Tracking Links come into play giving you information about what is really going on in your blog.

Similarly, you sometimes need to cloak your own IP address when you are working to set up these programs.  For example, I'm currently putting together an article comparing three different services.  Two are available only in the United States and the other is only available in Canada.  I'm located in the United States but have hundreds of subscribers from Canada and many search engine related readers as well.

If I want to look at a link and see how it will look to someone from Canada, I won't have a chance if I click on the link from my US based IP address.  But if I go through a cloaking site, I can see the same thing that my Canada readers will see and therefore I can insure that I am designing the pages effectively and also that the links are working!

When Web Partners Fight

I mentioned in my last article about the problems associated with your web partners that devolve into a turf war.  Last night I wrote up an article about the developing turf war between Google and PayPerPost.

They are essentially fighting over bloggers and the revenue that bloggers generate.  In many ways, both companies treat bloggers like cattle and they are just working to send us off to the slaughter.

The thing is that neither company is engaging in a business practice that is good for consumers, the industry, bloggers or possibly even their own bottom line.  They are fighting each other when they could be existing synergistically together.  Check out the article with all its details and let me know what you think?

Disclaimer

This site utilizes Adsense.  It does not utilize PayPerPost (It did for a short time in July of 2006 but is no longer registered in the PPP program.  I do have other bogs that run in the payperpost program and some of those also utilize Adsense.  I personally like both systems and would like to see them get along.)

Choosing your Web Partners Wisely

Many bloggers tend to hop from advertising partner to the next searching for that perfect match where they get paid the most for doing the least.  Google Adsense at one time probably fit that bill pretty well, but it seems to be stumbling a bit.

The thing is that it takes a lot of experimenting and sometimes we choose partners that don't deliver or that do not work well with our site or blog.  Maybe its a seasonal thing, maybe its the type of ads that are running, maybe its the technology, but something in the equation might not work and that stalls out our plans to buy that elegant luxury home on a bay in Boca Raton.

That means you have to pull out old code from your template or site, find a new partner, install their codes, optimize for their specific requirements and start all over again. 

Partners that Fight

Sometimes the partners compete with each other and they don't always play fair.  One advertising company might prevent you from working with another.  They make it a requirement of participation with them, but in many ways it feels and smells like anti-trust even if it doesn't fall under that within the letter of the law.

So that means you have to scrub all those agreements for each partner and understand who allows you to work with who and under what conditions.

They are all fighting for your web real estate and hoping like a realtor chasing a 7% commission on a milion dollar home to lock you into an exclusive deal so that they can control your real estate offerings.  My advice read the TOS carefully and be ready to pull the plug on non-performing partners.

Pack in Your Blog for the Summer

Following up on a theme, one of the questions raised at performancing was whether or not a blogger should take the summer off.  If your website traffic is going to decline anyway, maybe you should take some time off and come back to it in the fall.

I suspect that our sponsors at Orlandofuntickets.com might appreciate that idea.  They provide tickets to most if not all of the major theme parks and attractions in the Orlando area.

If you want to find Cheap Universal Studios Tickets, and according to their latest press release date and get what you're looking for.  After all if you were going to stay fresh and in touch as a blogger, it does make a good deal of sense to get out and relax and have fun and see what the rest of the world is up to these days off-line.

Adsense Slow Down in the Summer?

I have been following a discussion thread over at performancing about the concept that website traffic may slow down during the summertime for certain websites.  Personally I haven't seen this type of slowdown myself.

However I'm sure that it does exist for some websites.  As we've been discussing that at performancing, we talked about what you could do with your time to best you leisure efforts in turn to slow traffic situation akin to a glass half empty into an opportunity to refill the cup.

Personally I think it's a good time to consider rebooting your blog and preparing for the times to come.  I also think it's a good time to diversify your web business into other areas.

If neither one of those options are good for you, then start sandbagging and writing content and articles that you won't publish until the traffic picks up!

You need to write articles that won't fade or look out of place if you publish them two months from now.  That's not always easy to do in the world of the Internet were things change so fast, but it is possible.  Then you can capitalize on getting the most bang for your buck out of your published works later on down the road when your readers come back.

What Is the Practicality of Using AdSense on New Websites?

Every few weeks I get a question from someone who asks if it's actually possible to make money from working with AdSense on a website or blog.

The simple answer is that it is possible, but almost anything in life as possible.

The reality is that you probably won't get rich from AdSense unless you develop a website that can attract millions of people every day. Once you have a website that does that you will probably find other ways to make money from it anyhow and AdSense won't be your primary tool for earning money, but it will be a nice extra.

So what should you do in those situations where you're starting up a site and you're looking to make money from it?

You can use AdSense but you should also look to use many other things in addition to AdSense. It's only one tool that can help your site earn a little more in the early days. It will not earn you a lot, but there's no point in turning away a little bit of money.

In the early days using AdSense is very similar to putting a transfer tank on the back of your pickup so that you can put an extra hundred gallons of gas in your truck every time you fill up. If you're only going to drive 20 miles it's not going to help you a lot, but if the day comes when you start to drive a thousand miles a day, it may pay off.  You won't have to spend as much time at the gass station, reducing the number of of times that you have to stop for gas over and over and over again.

The same holds true for AdSense it won't do you a lot of good up front until you develop the capacity to use it as a tool. When that time comes theen you will be in a good position to capitalize on it.

I tend to put AdSense onto websites and blogs immediately so that the users and readers of those sites can become accustomed to it and won't be surprised by a change later on down the road when the site is established. When that time comes I do not want to upset any readers by the change.  I want them accustomed to the presence of Adsense right from go and that's what I use AdSense immediately from the beginning of the site.

Putting it on a site early also enables me to identify in the early months which ads and keywords my site is prone to attract advertisers.  This helps me gauge and prepare the site for a future with more readers and more traffic.

Want to be above the Top 10 in Ask Searches? - Make a Video

Ask.com has made some additional improvements on their web search and they are positioning themselves in a way that could someday put them at the top of the game for Search. 

While Google focuses on offering a zillion programs for a zillion purposes, Ask.com is focused on creating a better search engine.  Sounds kind of like Yahoo! and Google about 7 years ago doesn't it?

Well if you want to position yourself well with Ask.com there is a simple thing that you can do to get on top.

Make video tutorials on topics.  I have done this for several different topics and my videos are now routinely coming up in the top 3 videos listed for those keywords.  These are not video searches.

Ask.com puts videos where they exist above their top 10 text searches.  So this is actually a way that you can be in a position above the top 10 without paying for it!

Softduit's Blog Revenue Tool's

If you are looking for more ways to make money online and or from your blogs, you should check out our Blog Revenue Tools at Softduit Partners.

We provide a solid list of the best companies that connect you with Blog article sponsors that will pay you to blog.  We also provide infomation on many other business models for bloggers from text link advertising, to affiliate advertising to domain parking and more.

Plus, if you are looking for ways to increase your pagerank or your traffic we have many more tools to help as well!

Paid to Mash News

The NewsRoom is offering a new method for bloggers to monetize their website while providing good information to their readers.

They incent bloggers to post videos on their blog or in their sidebar.  These are videos of news feeds and other shows, with advertisements inserted into the video.

They pay on a cost per thousand model.

So if you have 1,000 people view a video from your site with the video inserted, you'll receive $4.00.

If you do not have high traffic this won't pay much, but it pays better than nothing. 

Pro

The good thing about this model is that they are providing useful information and content, so it actually improves your blog or website as oppose to detracting from it with ads alone!