Ultra Business Ramblings

Ultra Business Cell Phone Site Relaunched

noreply@blogger.com (G.C.) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:08:00 +0000

One of our business sites, which has been in existence under a couple different names, just re-launched. We have been happy with the direction of this site, especially since we managed to sell the original domain and re-acquire it 2 years later for less than 3% of what we sold it for. Here is the press release, which was originally here on "DeadlyPR":

UltraCellSaver Offer Cell Phone Upgrade Deals UltraCellSaver.com are extremely proud to announce the launch of their new and enhanced website. Since their business first launched, Ultra Cell Saver have been giving power to consumers who are looking for cell phone upgrade deals. Now, in an attempt to better serve their visitors, they have redesigned the website to show all of the information in an easily view able manner. Their front page lists all of the information visitors need to know about getting better cell phone upgrade deals. Currently, Ultra Cell Saver actively collects and scours the internet for the best deals. They list opportunities where consumers can pick up completely free phones – including smartphones in some circumstances.

Because Ultra Cell Saver works with different carriers, they are able to present and display the absolute hottest offers from around the United States. As their page explains, consumers are able to pick up great AT&T phones, and other phones for just a mere $0.01 when taken out with a 24-month contract.

To learn more about Ultra Cell Saver and their selection of cell phone upgrade deals, head over to: http://www.ultracellsaver.com/

You, Yes You, Can Go to College for Free

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:29:00 +0000

It's been quite a while since I've written here, but I've found some inspiration to write this post since this subject is something I have to explain to people on a regular basis.

So many people are amazed when they hear that my wife and I go to college and don't pay a dime. So many people claim they either can't afford to go to school, or don't know how or where to start. For anyone that doesn't know I will state it here....grants and loans are readily available and easy to get, you just have to put in the SMALL amount of effort to get it done. "Yeah but don't you have to pay that back?" is THE most asked question that comes next. To explain this you have to understand the types of financial aid available.

Grants are financial aid from the Government that you receive based on your income, and you do NOT have to pay these back. Depending on your situation, you can attend school using grants alone to pay for tuition and books. Also available if need be are loans from either the school you choose, or also numerous other financial institutions. Personally I only went with loans from my school since the interest rates are very reasonable and the entire process is very easy and workable. You DO have to pay loans back, but not until 6 months after your graduation from school in most cases. And keep in mind, you are going to school to earn a degree that will help you get a better job/income, so this is an investment to better your situation in the long term.

Now the big question that everyone seemingly wants to know...."Where do I start?" Many people get this info., and even though they claim they wish they could go to school for free like I do, they STILL never follow up on it. All that is required is to obviously go to your school of choice and register (this can be done online on the school's site, just follow their instructions,) then go to FAFSA.gov (which is the website for Federal Student Aid) and fill out the info. THIS is how you get the ball rolling, all the information you fill out determines how much aid you are eligible for. These 2 simple steps can get you in college, and at no cost.

Keep in mind the information I have provided is for the Federal Student Aid site, but there are tons of ads out there offering loans and grants for college. Some of these ads could be trying to talk you into high interest loans and taking things in a confusing direction, so be sure and do your research if you are going to look into any other grants and/or loans. If you are unsure and just want to stick with the actual government grants and loans, stick with FAFSA.gov. And keep in mind, ALL schools have a counseling office for the express purpose of helping you! If you are 100% lost on the idea of college, 1 trip to a counselor can answer all your questions and point you in the right direction.

So there you have it, college for free, available to just about anyone that isn't making 6-7 figures, and in the case do you really need financial aid? I will answer any questions in the comments below if anyone still finds any of this confusing or would like anything clarified.

Unintentional Typo Domains and Longtail Keywords

noreply@blogger.com (G.C.) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:40:00 +0000

One thing I like to do is collect keyword relevant domains. I have a running list of keywords I am looking for and update it when certain ones are available. Keep in mind I develop every site I register, and I go for generic phrases. There is no "squatting" involved.

Unfortunately my laziness has caused some unwanted registrations. This is due to typos and errors copying and pasting names,etc. Typo domains can be useful and valuable- IF they are generic and usually very short. In other words, the type of word that might get type-in traffic and likely misspelled or misstyped.

However, I made this careless mistake with 3-4 long longtail keyword domains. Let's say I researched the keyword "classic digital widgets" and meant to register classicdigitalwidgets.com, but instead I registered classicdigtalwidgets.com.. Sucks. And I didn't catch it until a few weeks later. I COULD still develop that domain, but it would be a waste of time if the correct one is available.

The good news is I've only done this a couple times and they were during sale ( 99cents, usually) registrations. But if you are going to do anything seriously in business, PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS! You don't have to be a perfectionist- that can be wasteful. However, avoid really stupid mistakes and careless errors.

Scratch Pad, Brainstorming, Link Development, etc

noreply@blogger.com (G.C.) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:11:00 +0000

I am just writing down some thoughts here that I might make into a more proper post or series.

Right now I am thinking out a certain web development strategy and need to write down some thoughts somewhere.

#1- I am thinking about links. If you know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about. Link building for a nice website in this case. I assume I have done research and developed a domain based on niche affiliate marketing. I have a KW domain with search volume and now it's time to rank and make money. I need links. I have a strategy with link sources, diversification,etc.

In this case I have a site called "best pi charts." I want to be the authority on this term. I also want power for "pi charts" and "pi" by itself. it doesn't matter what this is or what it means. Think of it as widgets. I just used "pi" something because I wanted a phrase with a very short word, under 5 characters and preferably <3. OK. Then I just used something that wasn't complte gibberish. In addition to these terms, there are a few phrases only partially within the domain- let's say "pi graphs, free pi charts, 3d pie charts, cheap pi charts, pi pictures, purple pi,whatever,etc"..plus various assorted long tail terms. I want to be THE site for the best pi charts. I sell pi charts. People search for pi charts and then I make $$$.

I want to create or influence links to my site. I am not interested too much in social traffic other than very relevant traffic ( posts on "pi forums" by interested customers) and the secondary benefit ( someone sees a social bookmark or post and then chooses to create a link to my site or spread word of mouth,etc).

I want diverse links. Preferably I want high quality relevant links with strong anchors. If the Government Bureau of Pi Chart Standards website links to my site as the "best pi charts", fantastic. This is valuable. And Not Going to Happen. SO I'm going to settle for links from crappy sites, some with good anchors, some with urls and no anchors, some that say might site sucks, some highly relevant sites, and some with no relevance. most will be 1 way, some might be reciprical. I mostly care about the overall value. Of course I will focus my resources in the most efficient way when possible. But some sources and methods are preferred for certain types.

I am mostly looking at the following types of links: Links I Create and Control ( internal links and crosslinks from owned or controlled sites), Links I Create but do NOT Control( comments, forums,etc), Links I request/Submit (directories,webmaster requests), Recips I request ( manual or automated requests to fellow webmasters), Link I do Not Control at all ( "natural" links, linkbait response,etc).

1. Links I Create and Control

Pros:
I Control everything, the quantity, the type, the anchors
Can easily create very relevant content and links

Cons:
I control everything-

Creates a Footprint. If someone wants to manually penalize all of my sites and declare them a "link farm" or spam, Bye Bye. Doesn't matter if they are high quality and relevant or not. Someone can click a mouse and send my sites to Hell. I am sure even many automated systems are in place that detect and act on this. I also risk damaging my other sites if they participate in any seo "gaming."

Strategy:

if "one" were to do this, one could make many different kinds of websites, pages and blogs that are relevant to a topic. You can go broad vertical, niche, sub-niche,etc. One could make many different blogs hosted on a variety of hosts and platforms and well as "regular" static sites. Mini-sites, big sites, informational sites, full-on huge commercial sites,etc. Then you leverage them together. Use domains you host yourself as well as "free" blogs, sites,etc. Control exactly what terms are used in linking and from what content pages. You can basically develop a building with many floors that add value to each other and the building as whole. You can get relevant link power.

Specific things to target- When you get links from sources you DON'T control, it is very difficult to get a few types of links. For example, if you are trying to rank for a promotional phrase, like "BEST" Anything. Directories and others will not want to link to you with promotional sounding language. Take advantage of pages you control to get some links for "best pi charts." You may have to settle for "pi charts" or "pi charts store" or whatever from outside sources. Just make sure you do not exclusively create promotional links like that.

Short words are hard to rank for and get links for. One word links are hard to get, especially 2-3 character ones. You will not be able to submit to thousands of directories or other link sources and get many links ot your site using "pi." You may not want to rank for such a short term anyway. But maybe you will. Focus on 2-3 word and longer phrases that include the short word. But on the sites you CONTROL.... Throw in some contexual "pi" links where they make sense.

AVOID sitewide crosslinking among all sites to all other sites. Dont use a sitewide footer, for example. Some people stll get away with this, but I prefer natural looking relevant and informative links within text. And the process should be deliberate but not automated or overdone. Put things where they "fit." This includes linking to many other sites you do not control, especially well known high quality sites. Don't be afraid to link out when it adds value. Don't write a 200 word page/article and link out to 20 of your own sites/pages. But writing a 800 page article that links out to 10 sites, including 2 of your own and a couple internal links..thats probably effective. Numbers aren't hard/scientific. just writing what I feel as it comes.

2. Links I Create but do NOT Control

Pros: Have control over anchors and placement

Cons: Links can be removed for the owner. Links can be rejected.

Strategy: I am mostly thinking of links like blog comments ( which honestly can really be called blog spam), and forum posts. Places where you can make a link and choose how it shows up, but you dont control IF it goes up or stays up. The site could undergo a remodel, the webmaster could decide to remove it or change your anchors, the site could cease to exist, etc. You also have "No Follow" considerations.

Really in this circumstance, I would limit your links to relevant posts at sites and forums where you are part of the community. This can mean a lot of time creating a reputation. Therefore its more natural for subjects your truly enjoy. If you are a gamer and run a gaming site, maybe you are a member on some forums. You make posts on appropriate topics. You might occasionally insert a link, maybe a review you did or something of interest. You don't join a gaming forum and never contribute, but then create a post in an irrelevant forum that says "Hey guys, what do you think of this?" and then link to your porn site. Not good. The same goes for blogs. If you are going to spam them, at least make sure you are respected in the community and it's "high quality spam" that makes up a very small % of your contributions.

Different places have different criteria. Some blogs advertise as "do follow" and encourage keyword linking in the "name" field. this may sound good, but these can actually be ones to look out for. Personally I dont want a comment link in a post where there are many fake and irrelevant comments that all link to gambling, adult, enhancement products. Etc. If it's a Pi blog and all the comments are from the Pi Chart community to relevant topics- that's what you want. Often you will have to settle for links with your real name ( or a reasnable psuedonym) to your blog/site. Do not automatically reject this opportunity. While anchors are most valuable, any links will probably have some value, especially if they are relevant. If you post on Thw World's #1 Pi Chart Blog and link to your pi charts site with your name "John Smith", this still helps. It might not help as much as if your name shows "Best Pi Charts," but it is still worthwhile. Others including the blog owner may even choose to link to or write about your site if you show something of value.

I also believe in diversity of link anchors. Some people will tell you to only get links with your preferred keyword as anchor text. Bullshit. I do not want a whole bunch of links to my site that say "best pi charts" and nothing else. I want keyword links, site name links, etc. I want many natural looking links from people who are not search engine marketers and places that are not part of a deliberate SEO scheme. This means some people will link to me with my name like "John's site." People will write "here." People will typein the domain "bestpichartsdotnet" or whatever and some will only have the url with no anchor text like http:bestpichartsdotwhatever. That's Ok. You also dont want every anchor text to say "best pi charts," especially if "best pi charts" is an industry with a lot of spam sites and high paying keywords. "pi" "pi charts" "best pi charts" "free pi" "purple pi eaters" whatever. You dont want it all deliberate and exact. Of course you don't want a whole bunch of terrible anchors either, but you want some mixture.

3. Links I request/Submit

Pros: Have some control over placement, description, anchors
You can build a lot of links, often for free with little effort

Cons: Anchors can be limited to certain criteria
Page placement criteria can be sub optimal
Site might be considered worthless providing no vaue to link
Often very broad categories and sites that are not relevant to your niche
Links can be rejected or removed for whatever reason

Strategy: I am mostly talking about directories here. The more relevant and less spammy, the better. Try to avoid directories that seem to accept every submission and use tricks like linking through a redirect or no-follow without passing any link juice. At the same time, the more picky you are the more likely your site is going to be rejected. If you submit to a high number of lower quality sites, do not use the same title and description for all. Personally I use at least 5 different descriptions, plus shorter and longer versions ( the character limit and minimums vary)and at least 5 distinct Keywords and variations. Submitting "best pi charts" or "pi charts" 1000 times is probably not going to end well. "best" might be rejected right away for protional language any way. See above for where to get more of those links. Alternating titles like "pi charts, pi chart store, pi graph information, order vintage pi charts, free pi chart reviews,etc" might work better and pick up a wider variety of longtail combinations as well. You get the picture. When you request these links use a name and a domain specific email. I like the create catchall email accounts with forwarding to a main account. What I mean is if someone emails anyname@yourdomaindotcom it all gets forwarded to one account with a lot of room. You can control all your email confirmations from one account.

I have found this mthod to be both the Best and Easiest as well as worst method to build links depending on the niche and site. The same goes for reciprocal links, or at least used to. I have seen sites dominate fairly competitive keywords and niches with almost exclusively low quality directory backlinks. I have also seen sites that ranked fairly high and then drop off the face of the earth after acquiring a high number of directory links.

4. Links- Recips I request

Pros: You can pick anchors
You can add links fast
Can choose to focus on relevant exchanges

Cons: Time Consuming and Labor intense
Automated options usually don't work well
You will get a lot of terrible links and requests that are trash
People will try to scam you by removing your links or placing on orphaned pages
Not as valuable as one-way links
Even if they don't hurt ( debatable), they often help very litte
You could link out to a page that you regret

Strategy:

5. Links I do Not Control at all

Pros:

Cons:

Strategy:

BlogRush is Shut Down - Bye Bye!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:49:00 +0000

A couple of my posts here on this site have been dedicated to "BlogRush," a program that promised to bring all bloggers more traffic, and related traffic at that, and everyone would benefit. Well first I wrote about how BlogRush was a great idea that would help us all get traffic, then I wrote about how BlogRush kicked us out for no reason, and never let us back in. Well now I'm writing to say that BlogRush has said screw it and just shut down. I figured since the "big timers" like John Chow and Shoe Money said that BlogRush was going to be great, it would surely be useful to some degree. You just put their widget on your site, and they exchange traffic with other relevant sites...seems great, except the fact that the started getting spammed, which most programs like this do, and then they went manually accepting sites into their program, which sounded good, but somehow it got all of our sites kicked out, with no reason or explanation, and they were never allowed back in. So yeah, farewell blogrush, the minute they decided to kick out hard working people like ourselves and couldn't get your shit together, it was all downhill from there. So BlogRush goes to the cemetery along with other programs that will supposedly help you skyrocket your business, as we keep on plugging away with straight up hard work, and the use of the everyday methods that are out there for everyone to use like link building and some social networking sites when needed. Maybe someday a program that actually works and helps will be created, but BlogRush, you are officially NOT it.

MuellerDeals.com Returns Home, and The Journey Continues.

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:51:00 +0000

It's been a few months since I've updated here, and there's no better time for an update being that I recently was able to secure my original website, MuellerDeals.com, after having sold it a few years ago, which i wrote of in my very first post here on Ultra Business Ramblings. As explained in my first blog, I sold MuellerDeals.com after accepting an offer from an interested party who had seen the work and presence in search engines we had achieved with it. Well I guess after a couple of years, the person did nothing with it, it became available again, and we have now secured it and plan to bring it back to it's original level of success, and even further. This is a big thing to make a nice profit off hard work on a site, then be able to bring our flagship site back into our family of business sites.

Aside from the return of MuellerDeals, it's been more of the same as far as keeping focus on building and improving money making sites, and getting college classes under my belt. College is still something to do on the side to help me through this building period until sites are making sufficient money. So that's my Business Ramble for now, I'll be back in the next few hours or so with news on the BlogRush, which I've posted on before here, but I'll only be posting one more time on it from the looks of things.

Stay Away from the MLM BS Kids

noreply@blogger.com (G.C.) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:36:00 +0000

People who should know better always seem to fall for these MLM scams. No matter what "product" is being sold or the type of pay "matrix" when it comes down to it all this garbage follows the same script. We mentioned Amway failures before, but there are many opportunities just as bad or worse. MLM by any other name still smells like shit.

What I really hate is there really ARE legit ways to Make Money at Home on the Internet. But most people are uninformed or just plain lazy. No one wants to do any actual work but everyone wants a "business." It's too bad that so many people would rather ripoff people and even scam their family than put in some time and effort doing something productive.

Let me give an example by comparing 2 Home Business Opportunities. I would think this one is a no-brainer but I guess I am wrong.

Opportunity 1:
No fees; $0 to join
Get paid commissions on sales of actual services
Allowed to use competitive vendors/programs to offer the best deals
Your market is the world- serve millions through online or offline marketing
No need or pressure to recruit other agents- Compensation based on your efforts
Commission is very high- either a very high residual or % or high double digit spiff

Opportunity 2:

Pay $500 to join
Get paid commissions mostly on recruiting, services are secondary
Has one offering, no competition on quality or price
Prohibited from selling online or marketing in any way, can only sell to warm market
Only get paid anything significant if you talk SEVERAL people into parting with 500 bucks
Commission on services ( similar services to opp # 1) is pennies

Now do you know which one of these people seem more likely to choose?

Don't do it, kids.

Multiple Income Streams: Huge Key to Online Business Success!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:10:00 +0000

For the past few months now, one of my huge focuses in my online businesses, has been to bring in multiple streams of income, so that there is always a security blanket, if one of my income streams are struck down for whatever reason. For years, I've worked on bringing in my income from my cell phone site, and that has done well, but as with anything, there are ups and downs, and nothing is totally 100% secure. If there was ever a roadblock or a change in search engine ranks for my phone site, I'd need something to fall back on....basically, you don't want all your eggs in 1 basket. This blog was one of the original ideas we had to expand out, and build some other sources of income, being that I'd seen a few other online business people blogging, and sharing their ideas on making money with blogs. Google Adsense was the first step, and pretty easy to do some research on the best ways to set up and utilize it. Then it was moving on to learning about affiliate sales. Basically seeing what's out there and related to your website or blog, then offering it to your readers for a % of sales in most cases. Finally in the last month, I've seen revenue come in from 4 different sources, with others building as well. So I've reached a small goal as far as the security of having 4 sources earning me income, now I just need to build them so the amounts are a nice big secure number. The whole idea here, as I stated, is to build different sources of income, so that you can afford any disaster that may happen to one of your sources, and be backed up by so many others, that you're never left in a tight spot, and your income is always protected. Also keep in mind, you don't want to spread yourself all over the place. If you start 1 thing, and it doesn't work in a month or less, don't jump to the next thing and drop the first. Sometimes building 1 stream can take a long time, but usually pays off in the end if you put in the work required. When you have 1 stream working for you, then may be the time to look at what else could be done. Once your rolling well, 5-6 sources paying you in the thousands each month, will give you security, and a very nice monthly income, just be careful which programs you go with, and explore all options and narrow down to what works best for your site. I personally hope my current 4 streams, will soon be up to 5-6, and hopefully I'll be reporting back here that the streams have grown, and the stability I've been working at for the past few years may be reachable very soon.

Business Building, College, Marriage.....Time to Update!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Time to get this blog updates, as it's been neglected for awhile now, just because life has been very busy. As I've posted here before, I'm back in college, while balancing keeping all my online businesses running smoothly while growing at the same time, and I even got a week long marriage and honeymoon in there! The base of making it all happen was the college decision. Basically, I run my websites in hopes of making money....college grants and loans are there for the taking, and that money will help you go to school and get educated in your field (mine being e-commerce of course,) so why the hell would you not take the free money, get the education, and just run full speed from there. You're getting paid to get educated, which only helps you do more and make more down the line. Anyone who says free college money is for losers, must just enjoy making life harder on them self. The extra cash from school has helped greatly while I continue to work towards building my streams of income from online business. School does take up some time that could normally be used working on directory submitting, blogging, etc., but I've also noticed that by not having all that free time, I tend to think up a LOT more ideas about things I need to do or could do. Many times I'll have assignments due, and I'll just brainstorm what I'd do on a blog or something if I had that time free. Then when I do find some free time from school, I get the blog post up, so things have been productive on all fronts. I'm hoping when school is done, I can be more productive and get a lot more things done.

One major change that I haven't been a part of as far as "hands on" goes, but does affect me, and I've enjoyed watching, is the transformation/merger of Cognigen, the company I've been a member of for years, and which the company that brings together all the telecom services I offer, to Commission River. The new management team has come along, and brought a ton of much needed updates and improvements, which has given me a much needed boost to once again dedicate more time to working on selling more telecom services. Cognigen has always been a reliable company that always paid and I never had to question the integrity of the company. It simply had become outdated and behind the times. I think in order to keep selling agents happy, the company has to give us the latest tools, and show them they really want to help them succeed, which is exactly what the new team is doing. Luckily, I had the patience to learn about Cognigen, and was lucky enough to find some people already in Cognigen, who were willing to help and get me going. Once I was in, it was hard to get someone else in the company, and have to explain everything to them, without a whole lot of tools or references from the company. I think Commission River will not only help new agents understand how to get started, but will also deliver everything that veteran agents need to promote the products, and make the sales. I've had my cell phone site now for a few years, but this change in management, and their motivation for the company, has me wanting to work more and expand out with our VOIP services, and eventually our new service, which is credit card ordering and comparison. With all this going on, I'm hoping to get some free time to update this blog more, and keep a record of my progression, as I now have a few streams of income finally coming in, so all the working and waiting is slowly showing some pay off, so with patience and even more hard work, the progression I've made in a few months, will soon start snowballing into something bigger.

BlogRush doesn't like us anymore, do they still like you?

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:08:00 +0000

Well about a month or so ago, blogrush hit the scene, and spread like wildfire across almost every blog i came across. Great idea, bring more people to everyones blogs so we all benefit, awesome, we're always cool with that. After awhile, it was apparent that they were overloaded with new members signing up, spammers of course joining in, so they had to get things cleaned up. At first they were rolling out more features like a better selection of colors for their widget and such, cool, integrating colors is great. Next up they talked about TONS of new categories coming our way, good deal, we can pin point what section our blog should be in even better. THEN the big one, they were doing a massive clean up, totally MANUAL reviews of sites, etc. Welll that sounded great, cheaters and scammers suck and make it harder for those of us who bust ass because we have to, and because we can't afford to have our shit shut down and lose it all. Anyway, Blogrush's big cleanup hit, and it seems like a LOT of people, (including us) got left out in the cold. Now it's fine if certain blogs were kept out due to a violation of their terms or something, but we run a variety of blogs from this one, to cell phone news, to reality TV, to an entertainment site, and not 1 of them has been approved. It would also be nice if they gave us a REASON for not being approved, other than "You're not approved." I've read some places saying that money making blogs were hit, well this blog is just a record of what we're doing to make money, a business journal if you will, so we really don't know what's going on with this new strict stuff. Either way, we had Blog Rush on all of our blogs, and were looking forward to seeing it help us even more, but who knows if blogrush is going to keep all of us out, or if they will realize that they might be going overboard in the strict department. Odd thing about all this is, we received an email from BlogRush saying we were IN....but then upon logging in to blogrush.com, all our blogs show up as not approved. So who knows what is going on, but hopefully it can be fixed and it can still be a helpful program!

BlogRush.com, One Step Closer to the Traffic We Need to Our Blogs?

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:19:00 +0000

As some of you have read before, I enjoy learning about the various ways that other people are making money on the net, either with web sites or blogs. These days I mainly check out Shoemoney.com and Johnchow.com....2 of the biggest money makers on the net. So when I hear both of these guys endorse something, I know its at least worth me looking into it. Some, or actually a lot of the programs they use are strictly meant for the big time sites and blogs that are pulling in hundreds of thousands of visitors, but a few weeks back I read about BlogRush.com on JohnChow.com in passing, and didn't give it much thought. Then after seeing that ShoeMoney had also mentioned it, I gave it a look. Turns out the program is free, easy to install, and is all about bringing bloggers traffic, and traffic means money, so of course that grabbed my interest. Basically you sign up, which takes no time, pick your category, and that's really about it. You install their widget on your blog, and you're done. The widget shows headlines from other blogs in your category, and thus your headlines show on other peoples blogs. You earn credits each time your blog is viewed, and credits mean your headlines get shown more and more on other peoples blogs. Also if people sign up for blogrush via the widget on your blog, they will be "under" you, and they will also earn you credits for more views to your blog. All this basically means that it's set up to bring your blog the most traffic possible. All this seems like a great program, and after reading about the recent work they're doing on it to improve it even more, such as adding more widget colors, adding more categories to put your blog in, and manual approval which will weed out spammers and blogs that are trying to cheat the system, the people behind blogrush seem to be all about keeping everyone informed, and listening to what the members want. I'm looking forward to see what this program can really do, once its been going for a good while and they've added all the features and fixes that they want to have going. If your interested in checking it out, just look at the blogrush widget on the right, and click on the "Add Your Blog Posts Free" to sign up.

Making Money with Blogs to Build Income. Learning Adsense, Drawing Traffic, and More!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:39:00 +0000

Since things aren't exactly explosive on the Google front for my cell phone site right now compared to a couple of months ago, and since Google really can't be controlled, and can pick you up and drop you as it pleases, I've been working more with the few blogs I own, including this one. Along the way, I've come across blog mogul sites like JohnChow.com and ShoeMoney.com, which are the top dogs who have worked their way to the very top of the online money making world, and their blogs are a major part of that. When I first started blogging, I created a blog for my cell phone site, and it was basically to aid my main site by writing content about cell phones, and linking to the phone order pages on my main site. Since then I've opened a few more blogs and have invited some others to blog on a couple of them, covering various topics like entertainment and reality TV. Then I opened this blog with G.C. basically to record our path to making it in the online business world. So with all this going down, we've picked up so many different aspects of making money online, and doing it with various sources of income. Blogging itself has turned out to be one of the biggest potential money makers out there. Of course, this sounds like the easiest thing in the world, you do blogs, you make money, bam! Of course there is the part about learning adsense and how to maximize it, how to get incoming links to your blog and why, getting your blog seen in the first place, etc. etc. For me it's one of those things where you can see the big picture (that seems to be a trend with most businesses I'm involved with), but you can also see the long long road ahead, and what has to be done. I myself wrote a blog awhile back about doing the work or never making it, and today I ran across a good blog by rkelley on ShoeMoney's site, about getting off your ass and working. The article basically puts the point across of just how hard is it to actually make money with blogs and only the few who actually put major effort in will ever make it. I've spent a descent amount of time between my cell phone site and college classes trying to learn anything I can about making some more money with the blogs to make ends meet. Of course Google Adsense is the most popular way to get some income coming in from your blog. I've recently taken a look at Joel Comm's Adsense-Secrets.com, which has some great tips on learning about placing ads, color schemes, and a lot of other aspects that are big factors in making money with Adsense. I'm really hoping the blogs can bring in some more money with some time and good content, and with all this potential, who knows how big things can get. I know there are bigger programs out there like Kontera and ReviewMe which can also big money makers once blogs get to a certain level of traffic on a monthly basis. Here's hoping that this will be one of the blogs that will one day have floods of traffic and I can sit here and blog about successful blog building, and share my tips on what I've learned in making money with blogs.

Going Back to College to Improve My Online Business...Finally Some Direction in College!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Last week I returned to college (via online courses) for the first time since 2002. I graduated high school in 1999, then took a year off, and started community college in 2000. At the time, I had no clue why I was going other than "college is good," therefore i just went and took basic classes, with 0 actual plan in mind. I surprised myself by getting an A in English 1, (prob the first A I'd gotten in a class since the early 90's) and did pretty average in the other classes like History 1, and a class in Microsoft Excel which I took just because I had a mild knowledge of the program from learning it in high school, so i signed up to take that class online. I took a full 12 hours in the first semester, then dwindled down as time went on, until I took time off again in 2002 due to burnout. I was just going and taking classes, with no degree in mind other than just something general, and I was also involved in the wrestling business at the time as a referee and manager, so weekends had distracted with the travel, doing shows, after parties, etc. My focus was off, and I knew if I kept going, I'd blow more money and get a less than stellar grade in more random classes, nothing really clicked, so i just "took time off" again.

Anyway, looking back to 1999, that was the time i started noticing the idea of "Making Money Online." I've already stated here in past blogs about my experiences with some companies, and I've also talked about my current telecom business, and my various other projects such as making money blogging, etc. I've been fairly successful with these ventures, but after some time, I started thinking about more and more ways to enhance what I already knew and was working with. My fiance began taking classes last summer for the first time, and I'd been helping her learn about all the different financial aid that was out there and ways to obtain it. After seeing how well the financial aid system is set up at our county college, and then stumbling across the E-Commerce certification that the school offers, I finally saw the opportunity to enhance what I was already going with my business online. I could finally take classes that go hand in hand with the things I do daily with my website, blogs, etc. Talk about a difference! 7 years ago I was bored to death with random classes, and now I'm taking Marketing and web page design classes which will enhance, and even teach me totally new things that I can apply, and see results with in my now chosen "Career" of working for myself, on my own time. The schedule for online classes are great, and very laid back, more my style.

For anyone who is working online, or has a certain interest they want to enhance, I'd definitely recommend finding out about financial aid at your closest school. Not only are you enhancing what you're doing or learning something new, but the government will even pay for it as long as your not already banking at a current job. There are even more opportunities out there with loans on top of grants if needed. This was an awesome opportunity for me to jump on in my transitional period of dropping my shitty unreliable day job to totally focusing on my own company, which will now eventually be backed up with a college education. It's an investment I couldn't afford to not take.

Riding the Google Coaster.

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:14:00 +0000

As a person who is trying to achieve success with a website, it is essential to take a on google as part of your life if your depending on getting a steady flow of traffic to your site to accomplish your goals. There are a ton of search engines out there, but Google is the king by far. In the year I've ran UltraCellSaver.com, we've had so many ups and downs with google. When the site first went up, it seemed as if we were in google right away, and everything was great, and then, GONE. Then the learning process begins, learning of the "Google Sandbox," which will keep your website out of the google ranks simply due to being new, and proving its a legit site, not a spam or illegal site, etc. Then once out of the sandbox, optimization. What does google like? What does google not like? What does Google penalize you for? The roller coaster seemingly never ends, as Google seemingly constantly changes their methods. Hours upon hours of testing and experimenting with different on page factors is the only way to halfway figure things out. Our site has been running for a little over a year, and certain things we've determined are definitely beneficial to any site such as incoming links to your site. We've compiled lists of directories out there and have been hard at work getting listed all over the net as much as we can, and that's something that any website that is looking to grow needs to do, plain and simple. But as we've learned, incoming links are GREAT, but are only half the battle. The on page factors play such a huge part, and almost every engine looks at different factors when determining your sites rank. Everyone wants to be on top in the google ranks, but google is seemingly the hardest to figure out. We've had some good week long runs of coming in on the first page of results for our targeted keywords, then a week later, we're gone again, and back to the drawing board to see why we're being penalized now. Luckily we've gotten ourselves back into google on a few occasions, recently having a great 2 week run in great positions in google, but now we're back to trying to figure out what we could be penalized for now. Google is definitely a learning process that will be on going as we attempt to settle into a nice spot that will let our site figuratively "Get over the hump" and continue on at a steady pace. Eventually we'll tackle the google monster and get off the roller coaster once and for all! The only approach I can suggest, is learning the way things work, avoid the shortcuts and cheats, because taking a chance on Google taking you out of their engine for good, is not a chance worth taking.

Ryan Shamus dot Com Review!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Fri, 18 May 2007 05:40:00 +0000

We continue to hear from other bloggers who are checking us out and wanting to exchange links and reviews. Our latest review is on Ryan Shamus dot Com.

Like many of our link exchange partners, Ryan Shamus dot Com wants to learn how to make money on the Internet. He has a similar set up that we've seen with other bloggers trying to make money, in that he is offering a link to your blog with the anchor text of your choice just for reviewing his blog. Ryan seems to cover a wide variety of news on people making money in the online world such as covering the recent sale of porn.com for 9.5 million bucks (Wow). Overall he has a really good set up with lots of valuable info. and links, facts and figures, for anyone who is also wanting to learn or hear someone else's thoughts on making money on the net.

I Never Want to Retire

noreply@blogger.com (G.C.) — Thu, 17 May 2007 23:12:00 +0000

A lot of the personal finance advice found on the 'net is geared towards one common goal: Retirement. In many cases more specifically, Early Retirement. Mostly this consists of maxing out IRAs and 401(k)s and amassing enough wealth in mutual funds to live off a percentage ( commonly 4% per year)of the nest egg.

This method makes some morbid assumptions. For one, you will have to die in X number of years. Now it IS possible to only "touch the interest." However, you will have a very restricted budget and inflation will still eat away at the principle. Being strict with a budget and investing wisely will allow many to outlive their money ( or in the case of many planners, die broke). However, there are many variables that can't be controlled, such as future inflation, health care, and tax policy. I am not too worried about this aspect. If I had a couple mil in the bank, I would feel comfortable taking early retirement. But why would I WANT to?

There is ( mostly) only ONE reason: You have a JOB/career that you absolutely HATE. You work only for the sake of working while looking forward to eventually retiring on a fixed income.

In My Humble Opinion, if you are a "general-specific" skilled person who uses his intellect and takes advantage of modern technology- you can earn a living doing something that you ENJOY that is not physically taxing. Personally I do things that I would enjoy doing even if I were not making any money to do so. Technology will change, but I could easily see myself still tinkering with the same type of things when I am 80 years old. Of course I could come down with Alzheimers or Dementia at some point in my life, but there is still a small risk. I will probably be able to do enjoyable productive work my entire life.

This is because most modern production is not dependent on PHYSICAL LABOR. I have 2 uncles who REALLY can't wait to retire. They make great money and have awesome benefits. But Their BODIES are wearing down. One climbs up poles and works in trenches. The other works in extreme heat and has to crouch, stoop, and crawl on the job. They can't wait to reach the age/time on job required for full Pension.

Me? I don't want no stinkin pension and I never plan on joining a trade union. I don't care about Social Security either.

Retirement is basically INSURANCE against your body breaking down and becoming occupationally incapacitated. Don't get me wrong. I will take advantage of this insurance in the form of IRAs, 401(k)s, disability coverage- or whatever is offered to me. However, being incapable of productive work is not a GOAL of mine.

I would rather enjoy the PRESENT while also planning to keep active until my mind no longer functions. There are many alternatives, like:

Being Self-Employed and take many vacations

Take "mini-retirements" in between jobs. ( Get laidoff? Take your severance and relax for a few months)

Telecommute and work efficiently. Get more stuff done in less time and enjoy the rest.

Be an Entrepreneur and work on many different projects in your lifetime. Gone are the days of working for one company doing one thing for 30-40 years. You may never do one thing for more than 3-5 years. That's fine and it could be lots of fun.

Finding Motivation, Do It or Go Flip Burgers!

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:30:00 +0000

So I find myself here in the same position pretty much, Google hasn't brought back any of my previous keyword ranks, so I'm having to scramble to make up for it with any PPC i can, and keep building and working all I can. Problem is, sometimes I'm just here doing nothing, when in the back of my mind I know I should, and I know i should be using my time more wisely. With the position I'm in now, I've got free time to do all the work I want and not have to worry about getting some 9-5 burger flipping job to get by. I've even taken up some link work that will pay me for submitting links to directories and is a generous compensation for that type of work. So basically last night, after a convo. with my business partner, realization set in that right now I don't have my former income from my unreliable day job, my credit is good, but I cant live off credit, so why am I not in super work mode and doing the directory submission work that's sitting in my lap. Its at the point where I have to ask myself, do the work that you like doing from right here on the computer? Or go flip burgers and take orders from some schmuck who's telling you when to come and go, what days your working, etc. I am not the type who wants to be told what to do, and I like working for myself, but as I stated in my blog about working from home, I need to take my own advice and put the work in. Right now I'm getting by, but if I ever want to get married, have my own place, and be truly financially independent, AND do it from home on my own time with my own business, the work has got to be done, and it has to be done daily. The directory submission work is there, in my lap, all that's left is for me to do my part and get it done.

So after the conversation last night and thinking about all the things that COULD happen if I didn't get some financial independence, and realizing if I didn't get off my ass and DO it I'd be flipping burgers and I'd lose the battle to not get a 9-5 job that I'd hate, I finally got it together today n did some directory work and made some $. I find one big trick for me personally, is throwing a CD in the computer, letting the music play, and get your blood pumpin some, and I find myself gettin work done steady. I think TV is too distracting with its visuals, doing work in silence is too boring, but music gets the job done for me and I find myself working at a steady pace. Now I figure if I can do this daily, and get at least a couple of hours of work in, I can be making money on the side with directories, hopefully with this blog, and my phone website as well. So now I'm on a mission to make as much as money as I can on the side, while waiting for search engines to wake up and get some good rankings back. All I know is, if I can have a day like i did today, then I shouldn't be sitting on my ass doing nothing, because it's not hard to get a couple of hours of solid work in, especially when your riding the line of success or failure!

Awesome Nintendo Wii Contest...

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 02:58:00 +0000

John Chow continues to give and give to his readers. This time his blog, which teaches how to make money online, is giving away a Nintendo Wii to a winner that will be drawn at random! This contest is open to anyone with a blog, all you have to do is link back to his site, and to the sponsor of the contest, 1234pens.com, which specializes in promotional pens! John Chow dot com is sharing the wealth again and again, good luck to anyone that enters this cool contest!

Ultra Reviews: SecretAffiliateMarketing.com

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 03:41:00 +0000

Another day, another review. Actually while checking out the many other blogs that have been suggested or seen blogs that have contacted us, we've seen a lot of different methods and programs people are using in their quest to make money. SecretAffiliateMarketing.com is The Source for Affiliate Marketing Tools & Tips on Making Money Online. This blog is full of useful tools that you can take advantage of and use to build and enhance your blog. It features a nice list of the programs that are out there and give them an honest review. The other main feature I liked about this blog is that it tells you what to stay AWAY from. They hold nothing back when they provide information on programs that are a waste of time or are straight up useless. This is a great place to learn about the various programs that can be used early on, or even later when your blog is making some money and you're ready to move up to the next level with your blog. As always with the blogs we review, SecretAffiliateMarketing will link to your blog if you do the review about the blog (which is a PR2 blog.)

Ultra Reviews: Ja Kel Daily Dot Com

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:22:00 +0000

I'm glad to say my John Chow Dot Com review has brought me some new readers and I'm starting to get suggestions and and ideas flowing already from readers, which is great. One of the people that contacted me was Jason Neuman, who also follows John Chow and views him as a mentor in making money online. I checked out Jason's blog and have enjoyed the viewpoint of someone who is closer to my level and trying to accomplish some goals that John Chow and others on that level have achieved. Jason has also adopted John Chows method of getting links back to his blog. Jason's Ja Kel Daily Dot Com eventually wants to make money and is offering to link to your blog if you review his blog. I was surfing through his blog and liked the layout and navigation of the site, combined with some good reads. I particularly liked his blog "Bloggers are Millionaire's - When to Quit" which takes a look at peoples expectations when they start a blog, and why some people give up so easily. It also provides some great tips on how to handle frustration when trying to build a blog and how to handle the temptation to just give up on blogging. I recommend this site as a good read for anyone who is starting out, and needs some direction and tips on how to stay on track with their blog.

Motivation Anyone?...A Review of John Chow dot Com

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:08:00 +0000

So when I started all this blog stuff, I had read a few different ideas and stories about how blogging could help your site grow, and just like I am now, I"m willing to do anything to help my site and grow. After a few months of doing blogs about phones that were featured on my site, and then later on some blogs about some entertainment topics, I stumbled across some stories about people who were actually making great money off their blog itself, and that was an idea I'm a big fan of, so what better place to find a blog that is making great money than the top, in other words John Chow dot Com.

John Chow dot Com was one of the top reasons I decided to create this business blog. After hearing the story and some of the facts, I was surprised to find that John Chow dot Com wasn't a a super site with bells and whistles and filled with super graphics like I expected. It was in fact just a normal blog that featured great content, especially on how to make money online. This blog was highly appealing because it showed me that even with a basic layout and some knowledge on using ads and tools like Feedburner properly, combined with a drive to type up loads and loads of good content (such as John has), achieving financial success with your blog was indeed possible. John Chow's blog basically set off a light bulb in my head, that I could blog about my everyday business experiences, and maybe even get some readers who could add some knowledge on certain topics or maybe even get help themselves in their businesses, which is the type of environment John Chow has created, while also keeping a fair amount of humor and entertainment content as well, which I'm sure keeps his readers going back for more and more.

And now while John Chow dot Com is one of the top blogs on the Internet, he is willing to help other peoples blogs and will link to you if you review his his blog. I think this is awesome to see someone who is at the top still willing to help out those of us who are striving to make it. If you are someone who is interested in making money online, I highly recommend John Chow dot Com as the first place to visit, as I've learned a huge amount of different information in a very short period of time.

My Past Business Failures Series: AMWAY part 1

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:17:00 +0000

Welcome to my new series that will look back and review my past business experiences and what went wrong, and what I learned or experienced from it. I'm starting from the beginning with my first "own your own business" experience, when in 1997, at the age of 17 and in my Junior year of high school, I was introduced to Amway. I intended on this being just 1 blog, but after getting some of this down, I realized my Amway experience will come in multiple parts, so with that, I bring you, Amway part 1:

I was introduced to this company by my dad (who I have to honestly say is notorious for falling for anything that claims to make you rich, and get you rich fast.) My dad was introduced to this opportunity by his boss (who owns a successful janitorial company with contracts across the country and even over seas,) and he was introduced to it by his accountant, and so on and so on (notice the pattern already.) All I knew so far was that my dad's boss was coming in from out of town, bringing some "business people" with him, and they were going to show my dad, our family, and anyone else my dad could get to come to our house, this great opportunity, OK cool. So the night arrives, food is on the table, people over, got a little party going on, works for me. The business people arrive, complete with dressed up attire and ready to do their thing. They bring out their dry erase board and they're ready to do this. So somehow things get going, and somehow I get targeted for the first question:

(For the sake of naming names, we'll refer to my Dads boss as "Mr. R."

Mr. R: So, tell me what your dream car is?

(Me, being brutally honest, state that the '91 Dodge Stealth sitting in the driveway that I had gotten a few months earlier was it....oops, guess i messed things up from the get go.)

Mr. R: OK, well, what's another car you'd get if money was no object?

(OK I'll play along this time)

Me: Uh, a Corvette.

Mr. R: What would you say if I told you in the next 5 years, you could make enough to buy that car, have a house, take vacations, basically not have to worry about money?

Me: Uh, well that sounds good

And from here, the push was on. The dry erase board was off and running, drawing circles that represented you (everyone in the little group), then connect another circle to your friend, your uncle, your co-worker, your cousins friends sister, etc. The basic idea being, why buy groceries and household products from a store, when you could buy it from your own business? They had their stats to show how much money is made from Walmart, Grocery Stores, etc., and how instead you could be making big money like they do. Buy everything from food to toiletries to vitamins and cleaning products from your own business, then get everyone you know to buy it from you too. Also while your doing all this, sign more people up "under" you, and when they repeat the process of buying products and getting their friends to buy, you'll get paid off that too. Yeah, basically they were making a dreaded pyramid out of bubbles on the dry erase board. They showed how if you signed up "X" amount of people under you working, ordering, etc., you'd make "Y" amount, and that "Y" amount would grow and grow as the number of new sign ups under you grew. Well, at 17, hearing these business guys tell everyone how "Fired Up" they were (and I don't know how many times I'd hear the term "Fired Up" in this meeting,) was kind of motivational, and the idea that you could sit back and be rich with a bunch of people under you working wasn't so bad I thought. These guys were ready to give up their jobs and be "walking on the beach" together, as they put it. They let everyone know that the "kit" to get things started was only $250.00. This kit was full of reading material and cassette tapes from the big timers in Amway who were gonna share all their tips on how to get where they were. Well i was 17 and in high school, so the $250.00 wasn't an issue to me, I figured I'd just help my Dad out and hopefully we could all be rich like these guys said. It sounded like we were joining this group of business professionals that were going to work together to get super rich and be financially free! These guys had a way to make you think they were excited about YOU, and your potential. They used the popular term FIRED UP (now that I think of it, the FIRED UP gets worse and worse as this story goes on), and AWESOME in reference to whoever they were talking to at the time in the group. So my Dad was in before this meeting ever took place, and him and his boss were set to do big things with this. We were officially Amway reps.

Not long after this initial meeting, we began buying the majority of our food and products from Amway. We had a giant catalogue and I had no problems ordering food items from it (mostly frozen food), but I wasn't picky, and they had a selection. We received boxes weekly with tons of products. My Dad was using the cleaning products for his business, we were eating the food, we were on our way. Pretty soon there was word that a huge cannot miss Amway convention was hitting Baton Rouge Louisiana, and my Dad wanted me to go. I'd get a free day off from school out of it, so off we went for our first Amway weekend….

To Be Continued…

Still to come: The Amway Convention, the red flags that told me something was wrong, becoming a rep. Myself, future conventions, more home meetings, Chris Hansen vs. Amway, and much more!

Simply Stated...

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 03:41:00 +0000

I ran across a short and simple article on making money (a six figure income specifically) with your home based business from Business Program Reviews. It goes right along with what I've said in my previous posts about people not getting or wanting to get the knowledge that is necessary to succeed in what they are doing. Patience is a huge factor in home based business. I've seen people literally drop hundreds of dollars into a program because they believe every word they've been told about how "You'll be buying your dream car" and "You and me will be walking the beach together." Uh, that's nice to fantasize about, but I've learned that there has to be something fishy about this guy I met 10 minutes ago telling me how excited he is to talk on a beach with me, and if he's been doing this and is so rich already, why isn't he on the beach already?? (I'm sure some of you have been in situations like this when your being told about some GREAT program that will make you RICHER than Rich.) Luckily I don't fall for that type of stuff anymore, but i know people and even family members that have and still do. Then reality hits, you've been doing this program for 3-4 months, or even less, and you have no money, so what is the answer? Usually just drop it and hope the next "big thing" is better than this one. It's an ongoing cycle of "Get Rich Quick" mentality. The first key in getting into a program or starting a business is knowledge. You have to know exactly what you're getting into and THEN decide if it's for you, only after you know all the details you can.

After some mild success with my website, I've had people who are in similar businesses or own websites and are trying to achieve the same things I am, ask me how I do it or what I do. Well when i reveal that I spend hours doing link building and exchanges, and read entire lessons full of pages on just one small topic that has to do with what I"m working on at the time with my site, they either don't believe me, or get inspired to follow what I'm doing, then run out of gas and just give up. So basically to succeed, you have to learn various areas of how to make money with your business, and then put it all together. Having someone help you who is knowledgeable in the area and can pass along good info. is great if you can get it, I've gotten great help in various money related subjects from my webmaster G.C., and have learned a great amount, as where others are just too lazy to do all the work or they look for a shortcut that they THINK will accomplish something. I"m 100% against the shortcuts. Too much of a chance to get penalized somehow and destroy your entire business. Hard work and consistency is the only way to make it.

I want to reference another outstanding article from Business Program reviews, this one explaining How to Start Working From Home. They list things that I have done and have worked for me. And this article also explains, that contrary to what the majority of people think of "working from home" or "online business," it is still WORK, and LOTS of work if you plan on making this your primary business. Remember, there is competition out there, and they're not going to wait around while you sleep and watch TV all day. I can tell just by the way people question me at times, that they think sitting at the computer all day isn't a "real job." Well I can tell you it is if you make it a real job. As stated in the above article, sometimes you can do all the right things and get off to a great start, and STILL not be making money, simply because more work is required.

Hopefully this will give any of you who have just started out with your business or those of you who have started but haven't found direction yet on how to get things rolling. It took me a little over a year to get a direction and find out exactly WHAT I needed to be doing, but actively searching for good info. such as the articles I've provided should start things out on the right foot, and once your focus and determination to make it work are there, you can build upon that solid foundation that has been built.

Starting at the BOTTOM...

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:42:00 +0000

So today, it feels like a new beginning for me, after being away a week house sitting for some friends, and my fiance being off of work for spring break, reality hits that I'm back to my normal life and I'm looking at where i stand. As i stated in my first blog, I lost my "day job" as of last week, and I start this week with my online business being my primary income for the first time in my life. It's a good and bad feeling i guess, being that my day job was a hassle to deal with and very unstable, but it was also my main source of money so adjustments have to be made. As thing stand now, I'm making a small amount from my business, my fiance has a good job, but it will barely cover our bills right now (but this will hopefully improved as we are 2 payments away from paying off our installment loan,) and we live with my Mom in my Grandmas old house since my Mom and Dad are getting divorced and my mom was willed this house by my Grandma. So basically, I'm at the bottom of the barrel right now, barely making it, but I'm not afraid to admit it get to work. So this with this blog i wanted to put down my current situation, so I can look back in a few months and see that I'm doing better. I find that in times like this, I seem to get more work done in a day, because its motivating to have the need and want to make things better. Right now, I've just set some small goals that I'd like to achieve, like covering bills, and being able to buy groceries and such without having to worry about money. Sure me and my fiance have big dreams like many do about future vacations and things of that nature, but right now we're being realists and hoping to achieve minor goals like being able to move out and have a place of our own, and have some financial security.

There have been a few other times when we've had to worry about finances and making it, and have even overheard family members saying I need to "Get out and get an F'n job," in reference to me working and putting time into my website (which obviously isn't good enough for some people.) But I've learned to turn that type of thing around and use it as motivation to work twice as hard at my business and make good things come of it. Sure I could go scrub toilets or flip burgers at a job I hated, and make myself miserable, all for more money than what I have now. But, as I said before, those of us with the "vision" can see that we are building something much bigger, more stable, and something that we can own, without the worry of a boss walking and and firing you for whatever reason, and having your whole world turned upside down.

So now I have it down, I'm at the bottom and ready to move upward, this is the starting point of working for myself officially, and relying on my business to at least get us to a "living without worry" stage. I"m trying everything even outside of sales from my site, since my rankings in Google have dropped earlier this month (at the worst possible time), including AdSense, Amazon Affiliate Ads, Auction Ads, and blogging. I'm aiming to bring in enough income to pay for groceries and a place to live (even renting a duplex would be suffice right now,) so small goals are just fine right now, nothing fancy, just want to get by on my own, without the help of people who didn't want to give it anyway. Upwards I go...I hope!

Let The Journey Begin...The Story Behind This Blog...

noreply@blogger.com (D. Mueller) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:40:00 +0000

Welcome to my newest blog, Ultra Business Ramblings. This blog was a brainstorm of mine after thinking about all the things I do daily in an attempt to generate enough income to support my needs. I recently lost my "day job," which i held for the past 8 or so years. I basically reported payroll information and probably have been on easy street as far as a "job" goes for the past few years. Being my Dad was my boss, under normal circumstances you would think I'd be pretty secure with my former job, but really it'd been the exact opposite for the past few years and I've been well aware of it. Since about 2001 or so I'd been interested in making money online, and have been a part of many many money making programs, in which almost all of them turned out to be failures or scams. But nonetheless, my interest in making money somehow online, and bringing in my own income without having to rely on an unstable job remained steady. Around 2002 I ran across a company called Cognigen Telecommunications. At the time it seemed interesting, but it involved the sale of phone service, Internet service, and many other telecom related services, which I didn't see myself making money from being I didn't think I could go door to door selling these services, and didn't know how to drive any traffic to a website, so I passed on Cognigen at the time.

About a year later I began hearing about Cognigen again while in chat rooms with a few people discussing online business opportunities. This time around I got a better explanation of how it worked and read up more in depth and could now see it was a legit company as opposed to all the others I had either seen or been a part of in the past. I liked the business set up and the fact that no money was required to join, which told me they weren't just out to get my money like many others. I joined Cognigen and began trying to sell the services via flyer's and mainly chat rooms. I made a couple of small sales such as domain names or a cell phone plan every few months, which didn't amount to much. After some frustration, I began learning more and more about how to make this work. The first key was getting my own domain name, and driving traffic to the site. Another thing I picked up was that I had a good number of people I was talking to online, that were also frustrated with what they were trying to do, but the path most of them took was just to jump to another program or sell something different if whatever they were working on wasn't bringing in money fast enough. Those people were failing time and time again, which made me realize I needed to stick with whatever was stable, and learn how to make it work. The group that once shared ideas in similar chats was cut down fast and pretty soon, myself and my future webmaster were all the remained. We were both in Cognigen, but he had been in longer and had more experience making sales and had a lot of information to pass along to me. Pretty soon we had thrown out a lot of ideas about making it work, and our goals were very similar, which mainly were to not have to get a 9-5 job flipping burgers and answering to a boss, and instead build something we would own and could generate our own secure income from.

In 2005, after many attempts at throwing a few different websites together and experimenting with a few different ideas, I hired G.C. (who I mentioned above to take over as my webmaster. This was the first time we had a real site together and were ready to make an impact. A few months in, we were learning about link exchanged and pay per click advertising, which was a huge step that had me making a little extra cash off the site finally. We had a few thousand link exchanges going, and PPC was also bringing us descent traffic. To our surprise, in May of 2006, I was contacted by someone who was interested in buying my domain since we had built it up to the point that it had descent search engine rankings, mainly on MSN. So the price was right, and we sold for a nice amount (for a first time website.) It wasn't all about the money in the sale, we saw it more as a chance to start from scratch and go back and correct mistakes we had made early on, and had since learned how to do better (even choosing a better domain that would be more targeted).

A few weeks later, UltraCellSaver.com was born. We've had a few ups and downs so far, but we surprised ourselves and got ranked in Google for many keywords in a short period of time and picked up some nice traffic for a few months. Since then, we've dropped out of Google for a lot of keywords, so we've explored more options such as different PPC services, directory submission, and better site navigation and options. We're learning daily about perfecting the art of search engine optimization, which is not an easy process, but we've come a LONG way since 2004.

So now I've created this blog to share our ideas and maybe even get some opinions from other bloggers and readers who would like to share their experiences. Since losing my unstable job, my website and everything related to it (such as this blog) is now officially my primary source of income. I know there are more of you out there who are also trying to make a living off of their websites and doing what we're doing as well. I've experienced the question "OK you have a website, but WHEN is it going to make you money?" To those people that don't have the vision that we who believe in what we are building and see the great potential it has, those people can have fun at their 9-5 jobs with bosses they hate, hours they cant stand, and the struggle of now knowing when their rug could be pulled out from under them, until they're elderly and realize what they COULD have done with a little hard work and determination. (Hey, at least they'll KNOW when their getting paid, and the EXACT amount, unlike us website people who have no idea what we're doing or talking about ;-)

Welcome to the blog, I hope this will be a place where people can learn, share, and make all of our businesses GROW!