WEB EXPLOITS

Hurrah! ONIGBONGBO Breasted Tape, Won The Best Performing LG In Lagos State

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:59:36 +0000

This morning we read of the award-winning Onigbongbo LCDA, one of our clients, in fact, the first client from the government sector (local government) to tap into the inestimable digital riches and resource called search engine optimisation services in Nigeria.

We congratulate the leadership of Onigbongbo LCDA for winning the BEST PERFORMING LCDA in Lagos State. We also salute the annonymous but highly credible and independent HAPPY LAGOSIAN Blog for honouring the foresight, vision and industry demonstrated by the leadership of ONIGBONGBO LCDA.

We know that Onigbongbo has not even manifested up to 10% of her potential on the world wide web but we are happy that this potential was recognised in far away Los Angeles, in Carlifornia, USA.

We wish you more international and domestic laurels that would reward your steadfast devotion to excellence as you continue to break new digital and social grounds in the service to humanity and along with the ingenious Babatunde Raji Fashola government of Lagos Megacity.

Congratulations once again from our digital family.

- Aderemi Ojikutu

Nigeria’s Top 20 Foremost Indigenous Websites (April 2009)

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:15:49 +0000

Another appraisal of Nigeria’s webspace movers and shakers is due and that is what I am listing out below:

I consider it ripe to do another update about Nigerian indigenous websites in terms of Alexa latest rankings, and as usual, this would not include Yahoo, Google and other foreign-based sites, which shared rankings in the Top 100 positions because, by my judgment, they aren’t indigenous websites.

Below are the latest Indigenous Nigerian Websites in order of Alexa traffic metrics, according to the latest updates by Alexa.

Nairaland Forum Number 1 (15)
Punch Newspapers Number 2 (18)
Naija Hot Jobs Number 3 (20)
The Guardian Newspaper Number 4 (26)
Vanguard Newspaper Number 5 (28)
THISDAY Newspaper Number 6 (29)
THE SUN News online Number 7 (32)
Guaranty Trust Bank Number 8 (36)
MTN Nigeria Number 9 (40)
Careers Nigeria Number 10 (42)
Zenith Bank Number 11 (47)
Odili dot Net Number 12 (49)
My Naija News Number 13 (55)
Nigeria World Number 14 (60)
Nigeria Best Forum NBF Number 15 (61)
Sahara Reporters Number 16 (66)
9JA Fans Number 17 (70)
Central Securities Clearing System CSCS Number 18 (73)
OSUN DEFENDER Newspaper Number 19 (80)
Daily Trust Newspaper Number 20 (82)

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OSUN DEFENDER and 9JA FANS are the two new entrants to the League Top Twenty.

Latest Alexa Traffic Ranking - Movers and Shakers of Nigerian Webspace

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:21:30 +0000

Its almost a year now that I have assessed and appraise the Alexa Rankings Update. I consider it ripe to do another update about Nigerian indigenous websites in terms of Alexa latest rankings. As Usual this doesn’t include Yahoo, Google and other foreign-based sites, which shared rankings in the Top 100 positions because, by my judgment, they aren’t indigenous websites.

Below is the latest Indigenous Nigerian Websites in order of Alexa traffic metrics, according to the latest updates by Alexa.

Nairaland Forum 4,813 up from 5,361: same position as May 2008.
Punch Newspapers 7,175 up from 9,312: same position as May 2008.
Naija Hot Jobs 11,402 up from 33,828: 9th position in May 2008
The Guardian Newspaper 9,925 up from 18,145: 5th in May 2008,
Vanguard Newspaper 12,550 up from 24,204: 7th in May 2008,
THE SUN News online 10,995 up from 13,297: 4th in May 2008
JAMB 21,066 up from 423,930: drop-out in May 2008
THISDAY Newspaper 11,103 up from 13,455: 10th in May 2008
Guaranty Trust Bank 18,497 up from 25,920: 8th in May 2008
Naija Pals 19,871 up from the blues in May 2008
Zenith Bank 25,582 up from 34,833: 12th in May, 2008
Careers Nigeria 24,504 up from 37,147: 17th in May 2008
MTN Nigeria 25,767 up from 35,358 : 14th in May 2008
Nigeria Best Forum NBF 32,036 up from the blues
Tribune Newspaper 26,777 up from 32,507: 14th in May 2008
Central Securities Clearing System CSCS 38,935 down from 13,490: 3rd in May 2008
Sahara Reporters 27,125 up from the blues
Nigerian News 39,939 up from the blues
Daily Trust Newspaper from the blues
Odili dot Net 23,611 from the blues
F.I.T.C. Nigeria 90,756 up from the blues
W.A.E.C. Direct 65,168 up from 54,465: 42nd in April 2008, Drop-out in May 2008
Nigeria World 24,897 from the blues
My Naija News 48,870 from the blues
JOB NOW NOW 72,271 from the blues

Below are listed websites that dropped out from the Top 20 sites in the last 10 months.

Nine (9) new sites have emerged, as it were ‘from the blues’, in the last ten months and thirteen (13) old sites have sunk into oblivion.

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Growing A Multi-Million Blogging Empire Through Portfolio!

admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:22:27 +0000

I was to start a serial on how to generate targeted visitors traffic for your blog this week, but was stopped short by a surge of enthusiastic text messages and emails from readers last week, who were aroused by my article on how to nurture a blog like a stock to fruition, selling it to make =N=1.2 million Naira gain.

As the saying goes: “The Customer Is Always Right”. I defer to popular clamor that I should go deeper into that subject of Millionaire Blogging. So, let’s launch out into the deep waters of how to build a multi million blogging empire.

Before we go further, let me warn you that what I am about to share with you is not a common place information on the World Wide Web. It is a well-guarded trade secret by six-figure dollar professional top bloggers. I also teach it at advance blogging and optimization workshops. But you are a fortunate fortune-seeker that belongs to the FORTUNE AND CLASS WEEKLY family of loyal readers, what a priviledge to have it free from this column!

The journey into multi-million Blogging Empire begins with a broad anticipatory perspective:

1. REGISTER MULTIPLE DOMAIN NAMES
You must first create a portfolio by registering a minimum of six domain names that capture different niches. The reason for this strategy is because: from about the 7th month, you are going to place three blogs out of your domain portfolio of six, into the market place of the blogosphere FOR SALE! Your empire must not be empty after selling three blogs.

Another reason for this strategy is that likely buyers are going to make you sign contract of sale that would prevent you from creating blogs around the niche which you have just sold for them, to prevent competition and future rivalry from you within the first three years after sale.

In such scenarios, the remaining three blogs in your portfolio can come alive as you would now shift your devotion from the former blogs which you have now sold, to these three, so you can nurture them too. This time, you would not be starting from the scratch as you did with the first three you sold. This is called your “Fall-Back” blogging plan.

2. TIME-STAMP YOUR KNLOWLEGE
When you registered six domain names at the beginning, you would have put the future three blogs in automation publishing for a minimum of 6 months, through “time-stamping”. Time-Stamping is the process whereby you break your knowledge about a subject into several blogposts for regular and frequent future automatic publication at the appointed time frame to activate.

It could be twice daily for the next six months, which is about 360 blogposts or one post per day for six months, translating to 180 blogposts. You could make it three posts per week, translating to 72 blogposts in 6 months!

While the first three blogs would take a chunk of your time and attention, the latter three would be in automation, so that they too would be ranked and develop their own followership in your ‘absence’. By the time you financially “get rid” of the first three blogs, you would not be starting from zero with the latter three blogs. That means they already have contents, ranking, authority, and also have been generating passive incomes for you.

This is an escape strategy that places you in good stead after you sold your former blogs. I know of some top bloggers who reaped practical millions from this portfolio blogging management strategy.

If you have a rejected script or manuscript by either a movie producer/director or by a book publisher, this is your way to appeal to the internet audience to adjudicate over your labor that was disdained by ‘big guys’ in the movie producing or book publishing industries.

If you are a person that is bubbling with a bundle of passionate ideas that you know that the world is waiting for, consider going the way of portfolio Blogging Empire. Go to the appeal court of the internet public and plead your case, you would not return empty if your case is sound.

Don’t ever forget to quickly register more domain names around subjects that would move the internet public as soon as you make money from sale. Don’t eat with your ten fingers; learn to re-invest part of your fortune from sale into the source from which that fortune came from, for the purpose of wealth regeneration through blogging. That is how to become a Blogging Emperor over time.

Remember the 1st rule of the web: OLD WINES ARE SWEETER! The older your domain/blog, the greater your reckoning by the search engines. The earlier you register multiple domain names and create automated blogs around them the better!

At the back of your mind, always monitor what triggered the most excitement from your readers, which could be a good index of building a Forum or community around. Remember that Forums are products of spontaneity. Also specially note that successful Forums are worth more than successful blogs on the web. You could sell a successful forum for a least amount of half a million dollars!

Being a netpreneur is a sweet vocation and calling, once you hit it big, you are off the ground and up on the mountain of wealth recycling. Poverty is banished for ever, never again!

Before I conclude this piece, let me open your eyes to one eternal web truth. There is place called the “University of Web Relevance”. In that virtual ‘University’, there is ‘department called the “Department of Needs”.

Those who find that Need Gap and plugged it are the ones atop the pinnacle of web glory today. Start by asking yourself: what are the craving needs of average web users today? Once you find an answer to that, you are on your way to web wealth.

HAPPY and PROSPEROUS BLOGGING!
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Author: Aderemi Ojikutu is the Chief Blogging Officer (CBO) of Blogging Resources International Ventures. Telephone +234-703-334-2535 ceo@web-konsult.com(Member of the Search Engine Strategies International Group) SES

The Trade Secret Of Commercial Web Success

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:14:45 +0000

“The language of the web mob is not in diction, it is PASSION!” – Aderemi Ojikutu (President & Chief Consultant, Blogging Resources International Ventures)

Being Snippets of the Speech Delivered By Mr. Aderemi Ojikutu on 22nd May, 2008, at THE GOLDEN GATE RESTAURANT, IKOYI, LAGOS. On the occasion of LUNCH WITH 50 CEOs, organized and activated by PROGRAMOS SOFTWARE LIMITED.

“The world is shrinking! Global borders are disappearing!!” That is the growing ‘wake up’ call to CEOs of corporate Nigeria, which has begun to gather momentum. That call is for the translation of their off-line successes into on-line exploits. Today, (May 2008), a quarter of the 6 billion world populations are active internet users seeking unique products and services, and are ready to pay a global price, at a global currency for those services.

Those 1.5 billion audiences organize to search for information ‘gold mines’, 80 billion times monthly, for services and products that meet their dire needs, and in the process, paying $25 Billion Dollars monthly, for those services and products!

It is not an overstatement to say that the growth of the global economy in the last 16 years was partly induced by the unbelievable growth of the internet over the same coincidental period. That phenomenal boom created awesome opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and venture capitalist to leverage huge incomes, by taking advantage of the ‘web surge’, through savvy web optimization skills.

THE BEST TRADERS SHOULD GET THE BEST LEVERAGE!

It is time for Corporate Nigeria to put a value on her web profile. Global standards, Global metrics, Global rates have begun to find a responsive echo in our market and society, all because of the shrinking borders.

Who else could be a better buyer or seller in our society than Corporate Nigeria? Yes, that is what we are: guru buyers and guru sellers! Many of our companies are far older than the internet which is less than 16 years old in its commercial essence. Unfortunately, this teenage internet industry that corporate Nigeria had successfully ignored is on the verge trouncing and overthrowing our cherished offline heritage and commercial accomplishments.

That is why today’s forum of “LUNCH WITH CEOs” organized by PROGRAMOS SOFTWARE LIMITED, is highly commendable. The internet has become the most potent tool of communication and wealth acquisition. In the next five years, if Corporate Nigeria would not wake up to this new challenge, our ‘buying and selling game’ would have become obsolete and fit only for commercial archives!

The millennial CEO in Nigeria is already proficient with the computer machine, but is still found wanting in matters of web literacy and optimization. If that gap is not closed very soon, web quacks and cyber touts would take over and rip our hard-earned accomplishments to pieces.

The era of urging people to be “computer literate” has long expired, that is best left for retirees, and the police force. The new lexicon of web literacy and web optimization has crept into the vocabulary of the internet public, and corporate CEOs must not be caught napping.

Thank God for the Jet-Age, but the Web-Age is 100-times faster and more comfortable than the Jet-Age! From the palm of your hands, or on your lap, you can connect anywhere in the world from your bedroom, without boarding any jet liner. I humorously told a CEO client recently that if the Jet Age took us to Space, the Web Age would literally take us to heaven.

If corporate Nigeria occupies her rightful place on the web as corporate players, it would out-perform her current lofty offline accomplishments 100 times over!

THE WEB AS THE NEW ROUTE TO THE MARKET

According to the global internet information center, INTERNIC, Nigeria’s internet users population tripled, in the last three years, from 3.5 million to over 10 million today, leading other African nations from the ‘off-line jungle’, ahead of South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, which had 6 million each.

The internet has become a potent tool hijacked from the hands of one heroic and skillful writer or a corporate zealot, by a passion-driven web mob, and transformed into a mass medium vehicle that serves the passion of the mob. Over 90% of active internet users are people seeking for a platform or community to share their common passions. Wherever these seekers go, they create a buzz that makes great things happen there.

Have you ever wondered how the people we regarded as dregs and scumbags, becoming musicians succeeded and ‘arrived’ at fame and fortune? It is not so much because of talent but because they played to the gallery of the mob.

The mob is a passion-driven crowd of people bent on fulfilling their passion. The mob has taken over the web space, and has propelled unimaginable successes for those who subscribed to her ‘music’. Corporate Nigeria should not look enviously at mob success on the web with envy, we must plug into that market with acquisition of web skills and also with a platform (website) that could profitably tap into that hidden fortune.

The profound lessons learnt from the phenomenon of mob success on the web is that: Anything that captivates the imagination of men and women, driving them to actionable movement, would create a mob situation, and … of course, commercial web success.

Corporate Nigeria has a compelling obligation to tap into these ‘mob energy’ with our commercial grasps of the market trend and awesome potential of an awakening Nigerian economy.

At the heights of web success are social networking sites and blogs. Business networking sites are not as successful as the mob-driven social networks. The social networks like Nairaland Forum and Telenovela Love Stories blogs are the ones that occupy the pinnacle of Nigerian web space. Just like FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Skype, dominate the global webspace.

Google and Microsoft have paved the path to web reconciliation by approaching the mob-driven social networks, buying part of the ‘insane’ traffic of visitors for their own commercial profiting and to service their billion-Dollar enterprise. Corporate Nigeria must not be left out of this global trend. Let’s get down there and get that mob up to dance to our tune, which is pleasing to their ears, and would be highly profiting to our corporate purse and goals.

Though the mob may be despised as a band-wagon crowd, nevertheless, it is a potent internet dynamo, when channeled or guided into productive and profitable ends.

When that mob votes for your product or brand, you will automatically win any competition and rule the commercial waves. This mob is to be courted and ‘toasted’, and not despised.

The Web mob is not a passive readers club. It is a hyperactive, independent, opinionated, participatory and contributory group of people online.

Mob action on the web is a trade secret for commercial web success that no agency or corporate player worth her salt should ignore. When you tap into that kind of audience on the web, the result is always terrific.

Every mob has a language and seasonal wave. The language of the web mob is not in diction, it is PASSION! Once you subscribe to that passion, once you plug into the movement, it would carry you to the crest of commercial success. Moreover, we are in the season of the mob, to ignore them would be to our commercial peril.

If there is anything to prove in the last five years, which has been proved again and again, it is the fact that the web race is not to the swift, neither is web victory to the strong and mighty web household names. The last five years in the frenzied history of the web is strewn with defeats and overthrows of renowned web leaders by web newcomers who understood the changed times and seized the opportunity of the momentum provided by the web mob.

There was nothing called You Tube until 5 years ago. MySpace is a new-comer into web space, so is FaceBook. These and others have overthrown traditional web leaders like Yahoo, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Network (MSN) in many social web metrics today.

There is football mob on web, the horror movie mob, the thriller movie mob, the erotic video mob, etc. The secret to commercial web success is plugging into the passion of these mobs via giving them a platform of expression.

The phenomenal rise of Barack Obama in the U.S elections in the last 16 months is a product of the Web 2.0 Mob. From the obscurity of a freshman Senator, the web mob promoted him above every candidate of the powerful political establishment.

The Clinton political dynasty could not find a conventional answer to the political riddle posed by the unprecedented political and racial breakthroughs, of the mob-driven Obama movement.

In less than 16 months, that mob catapulted OBAMA online campaign funds above an unprecedented U$D200 million. That is more than doubled the U$D109 million fortune garnered over the last 8 years by the revered Clinton political dynasty.

That is what the web mob is capable of, if given a platform to vent their diverse pent-up passions and emotions.

We must be creative enough to harness the explosive energy of the web mob for our commercial success.

========================================================

Aderemi Ojikutu

(President and Chief Consultant) Blogging Resources International Ventures.

WEBSITE: http://www.web-konsult.com Email: ceo@web-konsult.com Phone: +234-703-334-2535

A Best-Graduating student of Econometrics, from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. A prodigious scholar and robust research Economist, he had served on many of Nigeria’s Federal Government Committees, including the National Economic Commission, and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Forex Allocation Committee (1994).

He is a Blogging and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategist, and pioneer in Africa. A web mentor, tutor and editor of profound skills. Having authored quite a few books, his consummate passion for writing culminated into blogging, which led to the meteoric rise of the blog which he inspired, at peak point, becoming the 3rd most popular indigenous website in Nigeria, after THE PUNCH Newspapers and the NAIRALAND FORUM, commanding a crowd of over 5,000 daily global unique visitors, with 32,000+ daily page views.

He is a web consultant to many institutions in the academia, government agencies and also many corporate outfits in the software development, Nigerian capital market, public relations and media advertising Industries.

A BLOG IS LIKE A STOCK: SELL IT & MAKE MONEY!

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:08:16 +0000

Landlord Blogging is not the ultimate in blogging. Once you become a landlord blogger, you must set your eyes on becoming a PALACE BLOGGER. Who is a Palace Blogger? He (or She) is the owner of a successful blog, and has become a blog merchant, nurturing blogs to maturity and selling them off to make a handsome gain.

As I quickly run you through the THREE STEPS TO LANDLORD BLOGGING, I would conclude by showing you how to nurture a blog in 12 months and make 10,000% Gross Revenue from the sale. I call it Gross Revenue because you have not deducted the cost of internet connection for 12 months and of course Fuel for your generator-powered blogging for 12 months.

3 STEPS to Landlord BLOGGING

Register A Domain Name: The first step into a landlord blogging career is to register a domain name. This costs from $2 to $20 or more per annum, depending on who your domain registrar is, and also if you are registering a dot com, dot tv, dot net or dot co.uk or any other custom domain name. In fact customized domain names are known to cost as much as $200 or more.
Host Your Domain Name: The second step into problogging career is hosting your domain name with a web hosting company. You can host your domain with any amount from $50 to $150 per annum for a standard disk space of 10.0 Gigabyte (10,000 megabytes), and a minimum traffic data (bandwidth) of 100 Gigabytes per month.
Upload WordPress Blogging Software: The third and most important step into problogging career is to upload the most popular problogging software unto your hosted webspace, from WordPress.org

Teaching you how to upload your WordPress software to your paid host and domain name can be found at WordPress. That stage is a subject of Special BLOGGING TO THE BANK SEMINARS which we organize regularly. Anybody who cannot understand how to upload from the codex link above must humble themselves to come and learn the tricks at our seminars.
After the third step, you are then set to start your problogging career. Any further step to enhance your blog’s reputation and rank would be taught in the succeeding at our seminars. I hope to touch the subjects of how to generate visitor traffic for your blog soon in the coming weeks.

Forum or Blog?
Because of the much initial labor in the building of a blog, many lazy people suggest that it is better to create a forum, which requires less labor. This is a misconception. Most successful forums on the web are products of spontaneity.

They grew because users or subscribers found particular passionate interests in the subject being treated by the forum. It takes 5 times more effort to write than to read. Many web surfers prefer to ‘read and go’, than writing to contribute their 2 cents.

If they would write, at all, it must be because the issue is sufficiently passionate to warrant their written contributions. That is why the population of blogs to forums in web space is 1,000 to 1. Meaning you would have seen 1,000 successful blogs before you come across one successful forum.
The web space is full of dead forums than you can imagine.

A BLOG AS A STOCK!
In conclusion, I dare to assert that a blog is like a penny stock. Investing some twenty-five thousand Naira to set it up could be like seed money sown into a business. If you can nurture it to maturity to climb to a respectable 1,000 unique visitors per day, then you are ripe to sell it off at the marketplace of the blogosphere.

By the time you climb to that level between 6 to 12 months of starting that blog, your monthly earnings from the blog would have proportionately climb to about $1,000 (ONE THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS). The rule of the thumb used at the marketplace is that a blog is worth TEN TIMES of its monthly income! That means your blogs is worth about U$D 10,000.00 That is about 1.2 Million Naira!

Let us do some little arithmetic.
Cost of Training                                                        =N= 10,000.00
Cost of setting up a blog                 =N=25,000.00
Internet connection for 12 months                                                        =N=144,000.00
Fueling for generator for 4 hours daily for 12 months                      =N= 72,000.00
—————————————————————————————————————-
Total                                    =                                                                        =N=251,000.00
================================================================
At this point, you may calculate your Net profit as =N=1,200,000 minus =N=251,000 which is equal to: =N=949,000.00 but the truth is that from the seventh month of consistent landlord blogging, you should have started earning about U$D1,000 (One Thousand U.S. Dollars) monthly.

That is the reason why you find many people not willing to sell their blogs at that stage. They genuinely question: “Why sell a golden goose, when you can make it to lay more golden eggs for you monthly”. My response to such people is that they are being sentimental.

If you need to pay children’s school fees or need to make a balance deposit of chunk money like one million Naira, to take possession of a choice plot of land. Selling your blog comes handy, since you can always cultivate another blog for sale in about a year’s time.

Much as many prefer to sentimentally keep their stocks and watch it appreciate in value and enjoy annual bonus and dividends, critical time comes and at such times, you let go the stock for immediate pecuniary interventions.

Next week, I would look into the terrain of domain hosting and resellers in Nigeria, what blessing or curses have they brought on website owners and bloggers.
HAPPY and PROSPEROUS BLOGGING!
_________________________________________________________________
Author: Aderemi Ojikutu is the Chief Blogging Officer (CBO) of Blogging Resources International Ventures. Telephone +234-703-334-2535 ceo@web-konsult.com(Member of the Search Engine Strategies International Group) SES

Re: Blogging Hits Crossroads: A-Listers Giving Up

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:05:57 +0000

My esteemed friend and writer from WEB PRO NEWS - Jason Lee Miler, wrote on the above subject of blogging crossroads today and I commented my reply, this is the crux of my reply and I would definitely talk more about this in nearest future. Enjoy the debate.

All I can proclaim here is that Passion is the fuel of blogging NOT MONEY, if that fuel is exhausted, or dried up, the natural sequence is to walk out from that digital romance before it becomes a bore or a chore. In four years, I have not seen anything to bore me from this uneding digital honeymoon called Blogging.

Passion is the fuel of any career success. The blogging career or profession cannot be an exception. Blogging is first and foremost, an expression of passion.

I strongly sense an abortive attempt here to redefine blogging. When Justin Hall started out as the world’s first blogger in 1993, money was the least of all his consideration and motivation. Pls friends, don’t let us re-write the noble history and purpose of our blogging profession.

I find it ludicrous on this day of our ‘blogoscopic glory’, even acknowledged by New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/politics/10media.html when President Obama recognized one of our own: 26-year old Sam Stein, from The Huffington Post, among the elite White House press corps during the White House news conference a few hours ago this evening. This was a day when web Titans like, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Time, were marked present but not recognized.

Thanks for the money, if, and when it comes, but the greatest joy of any blogger is AUDIENCE. It’s always and would continue to be great joy, when you write from the corner of your room or even from a corner of a football stadium and thousands and hundreds of thousands locate you, to feast on your post. That has always been our joy - RELEVANCE! and FULFILMENT!! I dsay this because I run the 3rd-most visited site (and it is a blog) - 54,000 daily hits, from the digital jungle called NIGERIA! I am happy to earn well above $1.5K monthly in a depressed economy.

True, its a weakness on our part that we are so consumed by production of quality content to the detriment of savvy marketing skills for converting our traffic optimally for great incomes. That is a subject for another day, but it would not rob us of the joy of royal contents that still rules, and would forever rule the web.

Like I always say, CONTENT is a King that must not be stranded in the wilderness of the web, but must find its way to the Palace of the web, where a royal crown and a kingdom awaits it.

Walking away from Techcrunch by Mike cannot rob TechCrunch of its glory just as walking away now, from Huffington Post by Ariana will not rob Huffington Post of her throne in the blogosphere.

Five Dangers of Tenant Blogging

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:01:49 +0000

Having shown you the MINDSET of a successful and prosperous blogger last week, now, I am going to show you the booby-trap lurking on your way to monetized and prosperous blogging. Remember, that I defined a Tenant Blogger as an amateur blogger who is dwelling in a free-host blogging platform.

In sharp contrast, a landlord blogger is one who registered and paid for his or her own domain name, and also for hosting it. A landlord blogger does not exist at the mercy of anybody. All the labor of a landlord blogger goes directly into building his or her web reputation, blog traffic, blog rank, blog authority and brand name, in the blogosphere.

There are two schools of thought. One says you need the tenant blogging to practice and make your mistakes in blogging before transiting to landlord blogging. Another says it is better to start with landlord blogging and make all your mistakes there while perfecting your blogging and optimization skills.

I belong to the second school because, landlord blogging does not drop from the sky, and it is a learning process you must go through. Why waste precious time learning about tenant blogging (which is limited in scope and not so profitable), when you can learn the ‘real thing’ and begin making good money sooner online.

PRE- BLOGGING DANGERS

All the free blogging platforms are Pre-Blogging experimentation ground. But I always advise my students and corporate clients never to dwell too long on any free-hosting platform.

The fact that Robert Kiyosaki, the foremost American investor and mentor on Rich dad Poor dad, came to use free blog platform in March 2008 is no justification for you to use it. He came there purposely for social networking with his investment fans, not for making money. In your case your first goal is to make money online with blogging, so, don’t copy Kiyosaki.

These are the five dangers associated with tenant blogging:

1. Vanity of Labor

The first disadvantage of Tenant blogging is that, it is laboring to increase the rank, traffic, reputation, authority and brand name of the hosting platform to your own detriment.

If such free labours were invested into self-hosted or paid hosted blog, the speed of promotion of that blog’s authority would be great and fully rewarding. I know of some of my students who applied my teachings and got promoted by Google to page rank 5 in three months! That is a rank higher than most newspapers and banks websites in Nigeria today!

I always advise my students and corporate clients never to turn the shadow of tenant blogging into a substance.

2. Lose Alexa Rank:

Another danger of free hosted blogging platforms is that, when eventually you decide to transfer to your own paid hosted blog, you will lose all your former blog ranks, like Alexa & Technorati ranks.

The only thing you can carry over is your former content and not your former credits or attributes. In this blogging business, those credits and rankings are what separate the ‘boys’ from the ‘men’, also separating poor pre-bloggers from 4-figure or 5-figure bloggers!

3. Lose Blog Authority:

Blog authority acquired over months and years of blogging is not transferable. It is only your personal reputation as a blogger that you can carry over, even then, it would take time before the new blog can measure up to your reputation. That is why it is better to take off from the beginning with landlord blogging.

4. Lose Subscribers

A good blog would naturally have followership of loyal fans. That followership, which is openly flaunted in your feed counts, particularly when you have over 700 syndicated feed subscribers, is a cool source on money for you. If you have such followership on your tenant blog, it is unfortunate because you cannot transfer that followership to your landlord blog when you want to begin to make real money, you will automatically lose those precious subscribers once you transfer. There is no carry-over.

5. Can’t Sell Your Blog

The 5th danger of free hosted blog platform is that, you cannot sell your blog. In the Blogosphere, (old wines are sweeter), the older your blog, the more profitable and attractive it becomes to internet marketers and Dot Com merchants, who may want to buy it.

These are a group of web professionals who may not know how to build a successful blog from the scratch like you are trying to do now, but once it is successful, they know how to sustain and increase that success.

A free hosted blog cannot be sold because it is not yours; you are merely a ‘tenant’ dwelling freely in another man’s house, which you cannot sell without his consent.

Recently, two of my blogging friends sold their less-than-one-year-old blogs. One for U$D 20,000 and the other for U$D 15,000. It is like a stock you acquired last year at almost =N=25,000 (that is the standard cost of setting up a landlord blog), and now disposing it for over =N=2 million Naira. That is almost 10,000% gain in one year!

A big multinational media-buying organization approached me in April this year (2008), to buy one of my blogs for, 1 Million Naira. I would have sold, but for the legal clause which stated that, I cannot build another blog for the next 3 years, to avoid rivalry and competition.

I was not prepared for a 3 year sabbatical from blogging (if I had accepted, I would not be here today writing and showing you the tips of making money online with blogging), nor was I ready for premature retirement from blogging, so, I rejected the offer. I told them to pay me =N=36 million upfront, to take me out of circulation from the blogosphere for the next 36 months.

LANDLORD BLOGGING

All the rewards (monetary, ranking, branding etc.) of landlord blogging come directly to him or her. A landlord blogger has every right to offer for sale and sell his or her blog in the market place of the blogosphere. Next week I would continue with the thrilling experience of Landlord blogging, and how to be a landlord blogger.

I am also looking forward to a swell time meeting you at the BLOGGING TO THE BANK SEMINAR on Saturday, June 28th, 2008. Register now, before the D-Day. It is only =N=10,000.00

HAPPY & PROSPEROUS BLOGGING!
_________________________________________________________________
Aderemi Ojikutu is the Chief Blogging Officer (CBO) of Blogging Resources International Ventures.
Telephone: +234-7033342535 ceo@web-konsult.com

(Member of the Search Engine Strategies International Group) SES

FREE BLOGGING PLATFORMS: DANGEROUS COMFORT ZONES

admin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:08:27 +0000

Let me share some vital views concerning questions and comments raised by many readers of this blog.

Yes many of us are familiar with the broad world of INFOTECH, what is blogging? I am of the strong view that the Word “BLOGGING” cannot be erased from the lexicon of popular readership. If we feel and think that people would not like or do not even know that word because it is not popular yet, that would never change the nomenclature. All over the world, BLOGGING IS BLOGGING!

The latest adverts by STARCOMMS Plc. - Nigeria’s largest CDMA and Internet service provider for her broadband (EVDO) internet service is wrapped around this so-called unpopular word “blogging”. All the flexi banners, and billboards of stacomms in all her offices and branches nationwide carry that promo declaring “GO BLOGGING WITH EVDO BROADBAND”. The next question that the 2 milliom+ Starcomms customers nationwide would be asking in the next few weeks is WHAT IS BLOGGING? It is better to anticipate that, than to shy away from our “unpopular profession”.

In the next season as the world economy struggles in the throes of a great slump, “MONETIZED BLOGGING” is going to acquire such a great momentum because every potential investor would be looking out for what this new offsping of the infotech world carries for the proffiting.

Now to my main subject of BLOGGING PLATFORMS. last time I treated the subject of ‘Blogging as a passions game’, particularly if you have passion for making money online; blogging is one of the most veritable escape windows from poverty.

If blogging is likened to the entertainment world with a blog as the ‘stage’ set for performance of bloggers as ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’. I concluded that, to be a successful and prosperous blogger, you must possess TWO THINGS:

Have a consummate passion about something, and be willing to share that with others (‘spectators’) who share the same passion with you.
Develop the mentality of an actor. Not that of a spectator. You must be conscious that you want to perform, and good performance would bring huge crowds coming to ‘watch’ you. The greater the spectator crowd, the more the money you will make, from your ‘performance’.

Stop seeing yourself as a visitor to many websites or blogs, start seeing yourself as a creator of original content on the web, which the spectator or the internet public is searching for.

Until now, many of us were satisfied to be ‘Spectators’ who go a-visiting blogs and websites, either for information and entertainment. But from now our attitudes must change. We must become part of the solution to the internet world. We must have something unique to offer the internet world. It is an “OFFERER’s World” out here on the internet, if you have nothing to offer, you will suffer, even though you may not know it, while surfing the internet.

Just as in the game of football, the spectators reward is the pleasure and entertainment derived from the game. The real profiting, glamour and honor however goes to the footballers who win the match. Surely, the spectators helped them to boost morale to win the match, but the spectators are not given any award by the referee or judges.

Similarly, in a cinema, the crowds come to watch a movie and derived pleasures from that leisure. But the money goes to the actors and the producers of that movie.

The next thing you need to know after the introductory blogging stage is what I called BLOGGING PLATFORMS.

This is so crucial seeing many attempts made at blogging by so many startup bloggers dying premature deaths, because of confusion about the blogging platforms which they deployed at the start of their aborted blogging career.

After post, I received many honest queries by text messages and by mails from readers. Some asked me to inspect their ‘blogs’ and proffer a critique. Others asked me how they could get regular content for their blogs, while majority of the queries were focused on how to invest in blogs and reap, as it were, a harvest within 3 months!

I noticed a palpable and genuine expression of hunger for financial change in the land called Nigeria, and I am happy for this surge. A blog is like a corn seedling, and you must have patience for its full maturity within six to nine months after ‘planting’, if you really want to reap the full harvest. Blogging is a process which you cannot jump each stages of growth, first the blade, then the ears and finally the full corn.

A Blogging Platform is a device or software used to publish your blog posts.

There are many free blogging platforms on the web. The most popular ones are Google’s BLOGGER http://www.blogger.com which has over 60 million blogs freely hosted on her blogspot.com platform; WordPress dot Com http://www.wordpress.com is another popular and free software for publishing blogs, it has well over two million blogs freely hosted on her server. Yahoo also has her own platform called Yahoo! 360° http://360.yahoo.com/ which is also a free blog software for anyone maintaining a Yahoo account. Microsoft also has its own free blog hosting platform called Windows Live Spaces http://www.space.live.com. Movable Type, Multiply and TypePad, are other popular ones.

There are hundreds, if not thousands more free blog hosting platforms out there on the web. The truth however for the unwary, is that there is no free lunch anywhere on the web; you would give something in return without even being conscious of it. If you want to make money through blogging, it is better to steer clear of all these myriad of ‘free’ platforms to make real money.

Many of the blogs that most of you requested me to come and inspect last week belong to these ‘categorical traps’ of free platforms. Such platforms did not dignify you as a real blogger. I traditionally call those who operate on such platforms as PRE-BLOGGERS. That is, a preliminary blogger.

You have not started, you are just warming up. Another popular name I call them is TENANT BLOGGERS. You are just a tenant, with limited space and freedom. Your ability to make money or be richer than your landlord is severely hampered. Tenant Blogging is a dangerous comfort zone for any aspiring blogger.

All these free platforms do not give you space for nothing, they usually and subtly add their own paid adverts making cool money off your labour, through your ‘free’ blog. Even Blogger.com that gives you space to monetize your ‘free’, blog still had a means of gaining an extra reputation and great branding from your free labor.

If you must be a professional blogger, that is, one who engages in blogging with the goal of earning a living and prosperous income from it, the place to go is Paid hosting, after buying your desired domain name with less than =N=2,000 (Two Thousand naira). WordPress dot Org has the most flexible and comprehensive array of tools and plugins to customize and adapt your blog to your taste and choice freedom.

Next week, I would show you the FIVE dangers of TENANT BLOGGING and the THREE sure steps to LANDLORD BLOGGING. The BLOGGING Seminar slated for June ending has started gathering steam with 17 people registered at the time of going to the press. That is where the ‘face-to-face’ BLOGGING BASH would happen, and it is more than my weekly tips in this column. There is 10% discount for early registration before 15th of June, 2008. That is saving you a cool =N=1,000 (One Thousand Naira).

(Member of The Search Engine Strategies International Group) SES

The Heart of The Web Is Traffic!

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:59:35 +0000

The most common and most popular index of relevance on the web today is traffic.

Traffic has become like oxygen to any healthy website, to lack a constant flowstream of it, is to be choked up or ‘malnourished’.

Your web relevance is determined by your level of traffic that you command: No Traffic, No Relevance.

There is a throne-room in the Palace of the web. Traffic is the pathway to that throne.

Traffic is what authenticate your ‘rulership’ in the web world. Without traffic, there are no ‘netziens’ (citizens) or subjects to ‘rule’ over.

Traffic is the democratic plebiscite that gives legitimacy for a florishing and victorious web career.

The big names in the internet industry became big, by reason of heavy patronage of visitors, not because they have a beautifully designed website.

Content Is King, a value-driven site would magnetize traffic. If your content is of no value to your guests, you would naturally not experience patronage.

This timeless article was posted 22nd October 2006, and is here published with permission from Philomena of Web Metrics

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LANDLORD BLOGGING

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