Harry Blogs

Free Hosted Blog or Paid Hosting and Domain?

Harry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:53:46 +0000

This is a common question by everyone who wants to make money online . Almost everyone asks me whether they should start their blog on a free service like blogger, wordpress etc. or they should spend some money in buying hosting and a domain. My answer to this will always be the same regardless of who the person is. The answer is to straight away spend some money, buy a domain and hosting to start a blog or a website. There are reasons why I say this.

When we spend some money, we tend to be more serious with it. Spending some money and starting a website or a blog automatically brings in that seriousness and attention towards the work. Your monthly hosting bill will drive you to work more on your blog and earn more money.

People look at you like a serious blogger or business man when you have your own domain name. Having your own domain and hosting space makes you look professional. This helps you in getting more regular visitors, clients and business.
Having a good domain name makes it easy for people to remember you and your blog/website name which makes them come back again and again.
The biggest problem is shifting the site from one place to another. At some point you may think of moving your free blog to a paid one with your own space and domain. This process might not be easy. You might lose lot of visitors during this process or the entire shifting might not be possible.
Keeping your things with others is always a risk. I have seen people do good with free hosts and some morning when they get up they see that their blog is gone. People get banned due to various reasons. No data is backed up and you lose everything. Don't let this happen to you. Every blog post has some efforts in it and losing all of it is a big pain.
Having an email address with a proper domain or business name always creates a good impression. You don't want to visit a client and give them your Gmail or Yahoo email address. People expect you to have a proper website with a business email when you are in a business.

There are many more reasons to have your own web space and domain name and the ones above are most critical. This does not mean you should not make blogs on blogger, wordpress etc. You should make them if you want to have nice backlinks and share content but your main blog or website should be your domain and your web space.

Free Skype Messenger For Mobile Phones

Harry — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:55:21 +0000

I always believe in being in touch through either phone, email or a messenger. If you know me, you would always find me online on Yahoo Messenger either on my PC or my phone. I always like being in touch with everyone I know. This helps me in discussing things, having fun and sharing thoughts while traveling or anytime when I do not have access to a computer. Lot of people at my workplace use Skype messenger and I need to be in touch with them most of the time. To avoid communication gaps, I thought of getting Skype messenger for my phone. I thought it would be easily available just like any other messenger....but I had a very tough time finding Skype messenger for my Blackberry phone. There were couple of them available but they were paid.

After doing lot of research, I came across this Skype messenger for Blackberry known as iSkoot. Yes, iskoot might not be user friendly but I am happy with this only FREE Skype messenger available for Blackberry phones as of now. It works good for me with no lag whatsoever. I am now happy that I am in touch with my people while traveling or whenever I do not have access to my Computer.

Using iSkoot, I can:

Make Skype To Skype Calls
Make a Skype Outcall
Receive a Skype Call
Use Skype Text Chat

Isnt this what Skype on my PC does for me? So if you are Blackberry user and would like to save money on International calls or be in touch with your Skype friends then just download and install iSkoot - The FREE Skype Messenger for Blackberry phones.

BTW, iSkoot also supports lot of other mobile phones. Here is the list of phones which support iSkoot.

Content for eBay Affiliate Sites

Harry — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:14:26 +0000

I got a question through my contact form a few days ago. The person wants to be called as CC and here is what she asked:

Your website has some great I feel practical making money online advice without hype. that is great. Anyway my question is I want to purchase PHP Pro through your affiliate link, but i do not have time to write on the blogs i will get made for the articles. how would i add articles to the ebay partner affiliate blogs. If i say sell fans, maybe there are no articles on fans. Do I usee rss feeds exclusively for my blog articles, or hire someone to write for my ebay partners blogs? what do you do on your blogs for ebay? Thanks.

In other words, CC wants to make money from eBay Partner Network (EPN) but does not have anything interesting to share due to less time. I would recommend CC not to waste her time on creating an eBay Affiliate Site. Why? Because CC's website will get banned by Google and EPN very soon. All her work will be wasted when she sees that she will get no money from eBay nor is her site listed on Google.

Google will ONLY list sites which add value to their visitors. Imagine you visiting a huge electronic shop and following a path that says follow the arrow for iPods. You follow the arrows and at the end of the path you see that there are no iPods. Same is with Google. Google does not want its visitors to go in circles looking for something. If CC starts a website with nothing but EPN links all over, she is not adding any value to the Internet and nor to her site visitors. The site will be just another gateway to eBay. Google cannot afford to waste time and money on such sites which provide no value to the Internet. Thus, such sites get banned from Google very quickly.

Also, EPN is strict with the pages or websites where its links are placed. The pages need to have some information on the product before listing it. Websites with just EPN links will get banned soon by EPN as well.

So what can CC do? CC will have to figure out what she knows and is interested in. Prepare a list of things you can talk about, it can be anything...your favorite TV Show, Your Favorite Artist...anything. Once you filter that, try and figure out what products related to your thing are sold..for e.g. DVDs of your favorite show, Posters of your favorite artist, new models of cell phones etc. The options are unlimited. I believe that every person can write on a topic so don't ever say or think that you don't have anything to write. If you still think that you cannot write on anything then go watch a movie or read a book and write its review. Read another book or watch another movie by same author/director and review it again...Sell that book or Movie CDs, DVDs, Posters, T-Shirts and other accessories using EPN links. Its easy, thinking extra hard makes it difficult for us.

CC also says that she does not have time. I spend around 12-13 hours at my work which includes traveling. Still, I manage to update at least 3-4 posts on my 4 blogs weekly. Its all about focus and dedication. Yes, CC can also hire someone to write good articles for her. Using rss feeds from other websites can be good but as an additional content. RSS feeds from other sites should never be used as the only content on your site as such sites have high risk of getting banned by search engines.

The bottom line is to develop nice content about something you know or are interested in or get it written from somone else. Once you have good 8-10 pages content, then list down products which relate to your content. Planning to list products first and then falling short on content will not make you money.

Do you have a Google Profile Page yet?

Harry — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:25:51 +0000

With Social Networking on a rise, I see many people nowadays creating profiles on every top Social Bookmarking site. I get invites from people who never bothered about the Internet in old days. This is back in days when I had already started making money using the Internet. Having a profile on top most websites always helps and what if its from the King of Search engines Google itself. Will Google not rank its own pages high? Then creating a profile with your own name and ranking it high on Google would be a great idea. Yes, this can be done by creating your profile on Google Profiles.

So what kind of profile should you create? I would start by using the fullname, followed by contact details, work experience, hobbies, interests etc. The most important would be a link to your main website or blog. There are people who don't know about you blogging and adding your blog link to get more vistors can be really cool.

I have been creating profiles and linking back to my sites since the very beggining. I remember old days when every new site link used to go in to my Yahoo Profile. Most of such profile links are Do Follow links and can help you to pass on the link juice. A No Follow link also helps because there are many people who will simply click the link and visit your website. These visitor can become potential buyers and make money for you.

So have you created your profiles on the Internet with links to your blog or website? If not, then start creating them before someone else takes your profile name. Get started with a Google Profile now!!!

Google Page Rank Update – 24th June 2009

Harry — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:54:14 +0000

There has been a Google Page Rank update today i.e. 24th June 2009. This blog of mine moves to PR 3 from PR 0. The best thing about this PR update is that all my sites/blogs now have a PR.

What do I expect with high Page Rank:

Higher PR on my site makes me look a bit different than everyone who has a low PR. It makes me look more "ELITE".
Higher PR definetly means some more traffic from Google. Yes, this does happen....You will always see more traffic from Google once your Google Page Rank is increased.
Higher Google Page Rank means more advertisers for me. People do advertise more on websites with high Page Ranks. Its not that my blog PR is high but its better than the zeros, ones and twos out there.

So am I affected by this Google Page Rank update? I am for sure...What about you? Do you still care for Google Page Ranks? Let me know how this update has treated you.

Importance of Domain Name

Harry — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:49:25 +0000

The first person with whom I started my training program is Pratik Bagaria from India. Pratik is a good designer and also has a day job. Pratik owns a domain name www.pratikbagaria.com and is planning to make it big by blogging about designing on his blog. I shared some money making techniques with Pratik. All the techniques explained to him involved his designing skills. If you have some skills then you can do wonders with it and make lot of money online. Pratik and I, while discussing various options had a debate on his domain name pratikbagaria.com. I told Pratik to use a different domain for his designing related blog while his original domain can still be there and later can be used for a personal blog.

It was very difficult for me to convince him but at the end he did agree. Its not only Pratik, there are many people who like to buy a domain with their name on it. Lot of times this is their first domain name and hence the excitement of having their name in the domain. Before rushing in to such a domain people should consider some points as explained below.

Your domain speaks about what your site/blog is about. In this case Pratik's blog is dedicated for designing so a domain like designingtips.com or mydesigningworld.com will help for sure. For e.g. When a person searches for something on Google, he will have a look at the results and then the domain. People will always visit relevant domains. You cannot sell mangoes on a blog called www.myapplestore.com. On the other hand, a domain with your personal name on it usually suggests that its a personal blog not focused on a single topic. Such domains should not be used for business.
Keywords in domain help a lot. People will search for keywords related to your content and hence having those keywords in your domain/URL does help. This does not mean that the domain in this case should be mydesigningskilldonphotoshop.com. It should be short and one should try to include at least one keyword in it.
Your domain should be easy and should not include complicated words. In this case many would spell pratik as prateek and might mispell his last name as well. This is the main reason why my blog domain changed from Harry-Inc.com to HarryBlogs.com. Your domain has to be simple enough for people to remember and easy to spell. Complicated or not so easy to spell domain names can lose lot of traffic.
Avoid using hyphens. I have a good personal experience on this one. People usually forget the hyphen in domain names.

This means your domain has to be easy to remember with your keyword niche in it. How has your experience in choosing the right domain been?

Free One on One Training To Make Money Online

Harry — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:50:33 +0000

I have got a few emails by people asking me questions on various topics related to making money online. I cannot answer them all because I need to know your background and other information for giving you a proper suggestion. Starting today, I will give training or help people one on one. I am sure there are many of you who want to start websites and make money online but are not able to do so due to some or the other reason. I will help you guys for FREE and ensure that you kick start your online money making journey soon.

I will select one person who can get in touch with me via email, Yahoo Messenger or GTalk. I guess around 5 - 7 days for each person will be enough to start his/her online empire. I will help everyone but it will be on a first come first serve basis. Please note that I won't be available forever to help you.

You need to do the following to get my FREE help or training:

Post a comment here with as much detail as possible. Please note that person providing all details will be chosen first. This means if the first person does not post his background and details then I move to the second. The first person will get a chance later for sure.
You will have to document everything you do and provide it to me. I will post it here for everyone else to read and help themselves. This post can have your link of the website we have worked on.
You may also create a PDF which can be downloaded by blog readers here.

Depending on the response and people needing help, I will move everyone to a forum on my site where we all can brain storm and help each other make money online. This forum will be private where we can discuss and share our SECRETS of making money online. Start with your entries soon!

More Scams Through Television Now

Harry — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:43:48 +0000

We all are aware of the famous Nigerian Scams. Then there is a scam where you get cheated after getting convinced to change your Mobile Phone talk time plan. While this was not enough, I came across another scam. This scam is done through television. I was aware of such scams before but was never convinced that they are cheating people. I got cheated by these TV channels a few days ago. The channel is called E24. This channel hosts a lot of contests which are easy to win. For e.g. They will cover half face of a very famous actor or actress and then ask us to guess the actor. These guys themselves make fake calls and provide wrong answers to make people believe that this is real. Couple of days ago there was such competition going on. The challenge was to guess the actress and even a kid would guess that she is the famous actress from Bollywood Madhuri Dixit. These guys give a phone number and ask us to hold for very long. They say that the person who holds the line for maximum time will have a chance to win this contest. The contest prize money kept on increasing as people were giving wrong answers and some of them got disconnected. It was really hard to believe that people did not know it was Madhuri Dixit. This program was called Bollywood Dhamal and the prize money was Rs 95,000.

The calls people make on these shows are charged from Rs 7 to Rs 10 per minute. This means, you can easily lose upto Rs 50 or more in such calls as they never answer your call. All they ask is to keep waiting or keep trying again. After doing some research, I found out that NOONE has yet won these contests. This is just a SCAM to make money for themeselves. These TV show owners tie up with network operators. They get a share of the money we spent on dialling these numbers which cost us HUGE money. There was another show on ESPN called STUMPED which I came across recently. The stumped show always concidered me lucky after going through their menu three times. They said they will call me as I am lucky but I never got the call. Why am I always lucky after going through the menu three times? Because I am spending my time and paying for the call charges out of which these scammers get some portion. They also make money by asking us to send SMS. They also say that person who sends most SMS has chance to win. I am sure there are people who waste 100s and 1000s on such scammers. Have you ever got paid by such TV shows? Post in comments to provie me wrong.

Search Engine Optimization Revisited

Harry — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:56:08 +0000

It has been time I have talked about SEO. I deal with SEO everyday. That does not mean that I read or practice lot of SEO stuff. I have never ever hired an SEO pro and I don't think I will ever do it. No one can ever guarantee you top positions on Search Engines. If they do, then they are fake or are using some bad methods which can harm your website in a long run.

I always have belived in a simple thing. I am not sure if I will be able to explain it out here but I will give a try (you can bad mouth me in comments for free:P). We all do small projects everyday and those projects should be done at a certain level. Lot of our projects fail due to some reasons. Lot more of our projects fail because we tend to overdo things. This is the biggest problem with SEO. Lot of websites get banned or de-indexed by search engines because we overdo lot of SEO. I am not getting in to what NOT to do for SEO in this post. Here are a few tips on what you need to do for your website to optimize it for Search Engines:

Try and update your website atleast 3 times a week. Search Engines are hungry for new content and you can impress them with publishing new content most of the times.
When we talk of new content, It needs to be really NEW. Just because I ask you to update your website 3 times a week does not mean that you start copy pasting content everywhere. All your content has to be unique.
Don't link to useless or bad websites. Even if that website belongs to you, just see if the website is worth it.
Always link to good websites. Search Engines like it if you guide them to good websites with nice and unique content. They will always appreciate your guidance.
Don't submit to useless directories. I do submit my websites to directories but the count is not more than 5 directories. When I say directories, I mean Yahoo Directory, Dmoz and similar directories. Submitting your site to 9123921837 directories will never work.
Check who is linking you. Don't let illegal or bad websites link you. This is not a serious offence as you don't have control over someone linking you but you can definitely try and get linked by PR5+ websites rather than getting linked by 100 PR0 and PR1 websites.
Meta Tags still do count a lot. Make sure that your meta tags are proper. Also make sure that your alt tags along with your h1, h2, h3 tags are good. Always bold the keywords without stuffing them a lot.

Without acting more as GOD on SEO, let me share a presentation with you. This presentation comes straight from Google's Anti Spam Team Head - Matt Cutts. Do share your views on this.

You can also download this presentation here.

Bing.com Sending nice traffic

Harry — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:54:49 +0000

MSN search is now called Bing. The all new search from MSN looks much better and is sending very good traffic to my sites. It is believed that MSN still gives lot of importance to meta tags and keywords. I have a few websites where I use the All in One Seo plugin with wordpress. I put some keywords and descriptions for individual posts which is getting me good traffic from Bing. I have always had good conversions with Bing/MSN and thus using meta keywords is helping me a lot nowadays.

How is the new Bing search engine treating you?