Michael Jackson Dead

Everyone knows about Michael, so there’s no point to showcase what he did. At this point in time the internet is going crazy since people are trying to find out how he died, where he was and what he did.

It’s also surprising that people are searching for “Micheal Jackson” rather than “Michael Jackson” so you’d think after all these years they’d get the name right! Results are in Asia Pacific times on 25th July 2009.

09:36 SEO Results

News is at the top of the page with actual results from NJ.com and WCPO.com getting listed.
The Onion is top listed after a 2005 “corpse article” was posted, Hoax-Slayer.com also posted an old article, whilst TMZ is coming up the page with a relevant article.
Note the URL setup for both “Dead” “Death” and “Dies”l - www.tmz.com/…/michael-jackson-dies-death-dead-cardiac-arrest/

10:36 SEO Results

Postcronical.com and theaustralian.news.com.au are being ranked in the news results. I think Google News is about 3 hours behind.
The bottom 3 searches are still the same, I predict TMZ will be #1.

15:36 SEO Results

News is still at the top with links from whereilive.com.au (how come so many Australian sites?) and Examiner.com.
MSN is now Number 1 with “Singer Michael Jackson dead at 50”, notice this is the first site with “Michael Jackson dead” in it…
TMZ in Number 2 and The Onion old article is still listed.

Conclusion

Seems old sites can still rank in the top 10 after a big news story breaks. Google lets News always rank first, even though it is many hours behind. Also, new articles from established sites can rank very quickly. So it seems, if you’ve got an established site, write an article about a breaking story (being careful with your keywords and url structure) and you’ll rank in Google. Old sites still rank for new keyword searches too.

Best Blogs Asia.

Misohoni Company Site

However I neglected the fact that my company web site (Misohoni) was left to gather dust and wasn’t updated hardly ever.

A company site is a representation of myself and the work I do.

My feeling is I should of continued to develop/improve my company, perhaps could of drummed up more business or other exciting opportunities.

Too easy to get bogged down with work

Since 2003, I’ve been working freelance as well as my own sites when the work dried up. I coped ok, but as trends and fashions changed, so did my tastes in domains.

I bought and managed new sites to try to be a part of a “new exciting wave” when instead I should of developed my own current sites which had a lot of potential to earn lots of revenue.

Focus on One thing

This has to be the most important piece of advice. If your overall goal is to run X site only, but have mini sites that have potential but are taking up your time…then sell them. Reach your goal first.

Second piece of advice, don’t be afraid to sell. If the time is right and you’ve got the right amount of revenue/visitors to your site and the site is not in your long term plans, then sell.

Design of Misohoni

I wanted to keep the new design simple and just explain what I do and how to contact me. Over the years my Misohoni site was a forum, a soccer site to a complex site with no focus. The latest design (which was scrawled on a napkin on a boat over to Hong Kong!) integrates RSS feeds, showcases my portfolio and is more open for users to contact me. I also wanted to focus that I’m based in Asia.

Conclusion

This was a more personal post than others on the site but I cannot stress the importance of designing your company site well. I spent nearly 5 years planning what Misohoni would look like and am finally happy with the result. If you need some advanced web analysis with your current site, feel free to contact me.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Kieron Donoghue

Kieron’s focus on 80% PPC and 20% SEO on a wide range of sites in all specialist niches. The main theme of his domains is single keyworded .uk based, which was a smart move to make many years ago since most domain owners focused on the .com addresses. He spends huge amounts on his PPC campaigns and has a great portfolio of domains.

Domains Owned

This is a selection of his domains:

• UK Offer - An Offer/Voucher site
• Here - A personal blog
• eToys - Was a popular company site years ago, now showcases online toys
• Poker - A guide to playing poker
• Creditcard - Purchasing credit cards online
• Bingo - Guide to playing bingo
• Sharemyplaylists -Spotify Music

Income Earners

• Affiliate Window
• Market Ace
• Double Click UK
• Buy.at
• Affiliate Marketing UK
• Trade Doubler
• Sponsorship - Deals with Specialist Companies (BT etc.,)

Famous Bank Statement

Driving Traffic

It’s interesting to read that he prefers to drive traffic directly to a Merchants offer page rather than a personal landing page, as it may give a greater rate of return. I would guess on his niche sites he drives traffic to specialist pages by using Adwords/Yahoo/Overture and since he owns single keyworded/targeted domains, he ranks very high in Google UK and gets organic traffic.

I also see he’s using Twitter as a means of promoting himself and his latest ventures, which is a smart move.

Conclusion

Kieron Donoghue’s specialist area is UK domains, which is an emerging market just behind the States and Korea. It took great foresight to purchase these single keyworded domains and their value has only increased since then. His latest project is sharemyplaylists which developed from a Spotify music hobby and is now being promoted through magazines and Twitter.

To get to Kieron’s “level” you need to own quality domains, pursue PPC avenues and SEO and promote and make contacts. Then perhaps you can stay home to work and snack on Kit Kats ;).

Best Blogs Asia.

Blocked Websites

There’s a big uproar at the moment in China (it’s where I’m based too) since now Hotmail and the Popular Twitter have been added to the long list of blocked sites.

Other sites currently blocked include:

• Flickr
• Youtube
• Livejournal
• Blogspot
• Geocities

Impact on Site Owners

The impact on site owners is huge. If you currently use a free hosted site service to contain your site, then there is a great chance of it been blocked by China at some point in time. The same goes for politically charged content, certain anniversaries and explicit content.

In fact it’s been said there are over 1 million “Net Police” headquartered in Beijing who monitor what the locals can and can’t view…it’s a figure worth taking into account!

Other Alternatives

I guess you will only know if your site has been blocked by contact from your China based readership or if your stats package doesn’t show any hits from the Chinese region.

There is no way to contact the Net Police for a review, only the hope that you will be unblocked at some point in time. Another way could be changing hosts, perhaps Hong Kong based if there’s a ban on certain hosts?

People use Proxy sites to bypass restrictions on sites, but it’s illegal and doesn’t offer a long term solution anyway.

Conclusion

Messaging sites like QQ and Yahoo Messenger are still up and running, which is surprising since they account for a bigger audience in countries like China!

China along with Korea and the States account for the biggest online population, so it’s important to take steps and be careful.

Best Blogs Asia.

May 2009: $205

The direct adverts are gone, replaced temporarily by Adsense and now DGM Affiliates Asia. Adbeans is still my main source of income from the site.

April 2009: $216

I added more posts this month, particularly on a Malaysian blogging theme, although traffic didn’t increase so much. I also stopped the direct adverts since it effected my PR.

Joined:

• Bidvertiser
• OIO Publisher
• Infolinks
• Webgains

March 2009: $342

This month I changed the site’s SEO, created popular posts like Add URL to Feed and Make a Twitter Site as well as gaining more site sponsorship.

Joined:

• Azoogleads

February 2009: $148

Had an idea of selling image adverts on the site (via Digitalpoint), this proved succesful in raising additional income. Also Adbeans is a reliable form of income.

Joined:

• Text Link Ads

January 2009: $55

The previous months didn’t notice any pickups but I joined Adbeans and gained some revenue.

Joined:

• Adbeans

September 2008: $205

I had a sponsored post option, $200 for 1 post for 1 year only.

2008

• Blog Earnings in 2008

Best Blogs Asia.

How to become Popular on Twitter?

I know there’s a trick where you follow as many people as possible and preferably using a sexy photo, hoping that they’d follow you back. Then the people who don’t follow you, you remove and then find someone else…and so on. This is slightly flawed: The users following you back have the same mindset as you - there’s no benefit, it takes a lot of hard work. The real value is to have people follow you who like your work, have similar interests as you and perhaps could be benefitial to you in the future.

China

China is huge for social media, so I expected more people to be using Twitter…

Lonnie Hodge

I remember Lonnie from a while back as he was the first person to buy an advert on this site years ago! He writes about China life and his One Man Bandwidth site talks about the past and the present China.

Shanghaiist

Shanghaiist is another blog I’ve been following over the years, glad to see they are popular too. The Shanghaiist website writes about what’s going on in China.

Hong Kong

From my experience Hong Kong isn’t that well-known to find Web Entrepreneurs who make a full-time living from their earnings, compared to other Asian countries such as Singapore or Malaysia.

Stanley Tang

Stanley posts about school and exams (I guess you would if you’re a 16 year old!) and owns sites like University Kid and made money from selling paperback and eBooks online, which detail how to get rich.

John Ridgeway

John hasn’t written many posts, but the posts he made are quite techy but useful. He’s the owner of Use Joomla which provides tips on maximising the most out of the CMS application and SEO information.

Japan

ilovetypography

Ilovetypography tweets about fonts whilst the ilovetypography site isn’t much different.

Neil Duckett

Neil writes about beer and the weather, whilst his Neil Duckett site showcases beautiful women and life in Japan.

Malaysia

Malaysia is popular for blogging and social networking.

Azham Zanal

Azham writes about hosting and his Wordpress CMS site talks about Blogging in general.

Atniz

Atniz is a stay at home mom/blogger (notice a trend here!) who writes about social media and her site Atniz talks about Google SEO indepth.

Philippines

The Philippines is the only Asian country (yet) I haven’t looked into detail regarding Affiliate marketing and making money online.

Manuel Viloria

Manuel talks about general internet and techny happenings, also runs the Viloria Site which shows you how to make money in the Philippines.

Pinay Mommy

Pinay Mommy write about everyday stuff and baby talk, whilst her Pinay Mommy Online blog
reminds me a lot about Singapore Blogger, Lilian Chan!

Singapore

I was right to expect Social Media would be huge in Singapore!

Xavier Lur

Xavier is a 15 year old blogger who writes about what kids like at his age, his site Techxav talks about the same sort of topics, perhaps more focused on the Asian Blogging Industry.

The Blogger Mom

Blogger Mom writes about all things blog related, her site The Blogger Mom mentions ways of making money online and SEO techniques.

Conclusion

I feel this post is an eye-opener for me too, since at least with Twitter I get an idea of who is popular and check out that person’s profile. I’m still updating my Famous People in Asia list (link) so perhaps in the future I may investigate one or two of these web entrepreneurs in detail! Note: If you add your URL to Twitter, make sure the site it’s linking to is still working!

Best Blogs Asia.

Finding Wallpaper

Finding free wallpaper is difficult as there’s so much available on the net, however you need to make sure that:

• There are no copyright clauses for the images, check for a Creative Copyright licence.
• Image sizes should range from 1600×1200, 1280×960 to 1024×768, preferably quality should be above 72DPI.
• Choose a light coloured background to separate icons from dark colours.

Useful Resources

• Free Desktop Wallpaper
• Flickr
• Yahoo Image Search

Selection of Wallpapers

Best Blogs Asia.

About Godaddy

Godaddy is America’s biggest and worlds third largest sellers of internet products such as web-hosting, hostname providers, top-level domains names and SSL certificates.

Bob Parsons Comment

I wrote on Twitter that:

Misohoni Jeez for this tax year, I worked out I spent over 1000 USD on domains at GoDaddy, no wonder Bob Parsons can afford all those strippers!

Bob Parsons wrote back(!):

DrBobParsons @misohoni Afford strippers? You must have me confused with someone else. Go Daddy girls are sharp, accomplished successful women.

I could debate back by saying generally strippers are already sharp and accomplished/successful since they earn more money than most of us and that by Go Daddy asking women to take off their clothes and pose is sort-of-like stripping…or perhaps I’m wrong.

Anyway, it’s not a big deal - Go Daddy can spend their money how they wish, but I’d never associate something as dull as domain names with hot chicks in bikini’s who promote the superbowl and other events!

Sexy Daddy

Have you seen the ads with the Godaddy Girls? Bob Parsons the CEO and founder of Godaddy managed to recruit Danica Patrick along with Candice Michelle, a voluptuous actress and ex-playboy poster girl.

• Has it helped awareness of their products - sure you bet!
• Would I buy a domain because of the women - not sure!
• Are they making more money? - I guess so, although paying for commercials and hot women must cost a bit

Conclusion

Personally, I think they should go down the route of promoting “why their services and products are better than their competitors”. Godaddy has great customer service, but it’s not promoted to potentail customers. They host sites too, but are more well known for domains and their domain coupons.

If they could concentrate on what they do best rather than the superficial promotion of using sexy women, then perhaps they could grow even bigger…my 2 cents!

Best Blogs Asia.

Popular Chinese Search Sites

The main sites are as follows, in no particular order.

Baidu

Baidu Inc., which operates China’s most popular Internet search engine, and currently the 4th biggest website in the world. They also own Baidu Baike the largest online Chinese-language encyclopaedia. It contains more articles than any Wikipedia except the English-language Wikipedia.

Soso

Soso is a Chinese search engine owned by Tencent Holdings Limited, which is well known for its other creation QQ.

Sogou

Sogou is the first search engine that has gathered up to 10 billion web pages, supplying most convenience services for searching news, music, shopping information, maps, etc.

Youdao

Youdao search products currently include search tools for the web pages, blogs, shopping, images, music, news, video, maps, encyclopaedia, translation, a desktop dictionary, tool bar and the Youdao Reader for RSS feeds. It currently powers the popular 163.com site.

Yam

Yam is one of the most comprehensive WWW indices for Taiwan. This site is modelled after the Yahoo search index.

Timway

TimwayA search index supporting both English and Chinese searches. Also includes a Yahoo! like subject index. All entries are bilingual and is Hong Kong based.

Youku

Youku is a video based sharing search engine, ranked #1 in the Chinese video sharing sector by China Internet Society, iResearch and Baidu User Index. Other similar sites are ku6.com.

How to get Chinese Traffic

You need Chinese content, in Traditional or Simplified Chinese. From my experiences you can write the content and it will be picked up by search engines. You can also Submit to Baidu (link). I’d also suggest the following:

• Declare the Meta language in the tags, example ZH for Chinese.
• Create a sub-domain and translate all the site into Chinese, then submit this to Chinese search engines.
• Declare any English text on the page with EN tags.

This will be reflected in your traffic logs. Also, if you see a lot of Translation tools like Babelfish in your stats, check which country your visitors are coming from and translate the page/site accordingly.

I think it’s a case of reviewing your stats and changing the site to the visitor’s tastes.

Recommended Translator

I’m not a Chinese national so I don’t know how to write in Chinese, however I use a reliable local Hong Kong translator who transfers my English text to both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Feel free to mention Best Blogs Asia when contacting him - Email: Po Cheung.

Best Blogs Asia.

About XR

The site is very simple to use, you type in your full url and it spits out a static yet small url containing numbers and letters. The result is very good, which makes me think this service is underused and you also have the option to change your url to something more relevant.

List of Benefits

• Easier to use than Tinyurl
• Service is Free
• Any XR site references are automatically displayed on the homepage
• Excellent tool for posting urls on Twitter
• Potential juice from backlinks and using relevant url structures to promote posts

Best Blogs Asia.

What is Pinging

I’ve made a long list of Ping Sites previously, but a “ping” is a snippet of information telling the site what your latest posting is about. You can setup automatic pings to these types of sites, so your latest content is always added. Sites like Movabletype and Wordpress have auto-pinging already enabled.

Petaling Street

Aka PPS, Project Petaling Street is an aggregator of Malaysian blogging content. The site gives exposure to Malaysian bloggers who talk about everyday life, but I also found non-Malaysian’s can also plug their posts.

Blogged.my

The types of posts on Blogged.my seem more “everyday life” focused, rather than techy or exploring a certain niche. You can add your own blogs, then setup an automatic ping on new posts via: http://rpc.blogged.my and that’s it!

Ping.sg

Not sure about this one, seems to relate to Singapore only but accepts posts and topics from all over the world which kind of defeats the object of a country specific Ping site. Same setup (and software?) as Blogged.my, enter a Blog Feed address and then ping an “Update” on the site.

Conclusion

PlanetMy is another site that’s been recommended to me, but since I’m based in China it doesn’t load for me. Ping services are useful and easy to setup. You are telling the thousands of visitors about your content without actually having to trawl through the blogosphere or promote your posts on social media bookmarking type sites.

The amounts of traffic I had for my individual posts I had made on each of these sites wasn’t great. However, I feel if I was a profolific poster and kept posts on topic (i.e. Asian focused) then I would of benefited more from the targetted users.

Best Blogs Asia.

Zhuaxia

Zhuaxia is listed as being the most popular online rss reader in mainland China, which accounts for over 30% of Chinese RSS users.

“在抓虾，我们希望能给你的，不仅是一份工作，更是一份事业。”

XianGuo

XianGuo looks more professional that other Chinese RSS feed readers and has a lot of functions which are better than others.

“鲜果网是一个在线的RSS阅读器，可以用来订阅新闻、博客以及各类网站信息，然后自动、及时地把这些网站的最新内容推送给你。”

YouDao

YouDao is a RSS reader from the Netease. Netease is the most biggest website in China and the third biggest portal website after Sina Corp and Sohu.

“有道的发起者是一群执着于搜索技术的年轻人，我们发现中文网络中的搜索还远未达到理想，所以希望通过我们现在和将来的努力，把设想中的服务一点点变成现实，分享给大家使用，让你更快一秒找到想要的好东西。”

QQ reader

QQ Reader from Tencent QQ is the most popular free instant messaging computer program in China and the world’s third most popular IM service.

“您可以用您的QQ号和密码直接登录QQ邮箱。”

Other Chinese Feed Readers

• Potu
• Feed Lite
• Panghulu
• Aobo

Chinese Ping Services

You may also add the following Chinese sites to your ping list:

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
http://blog.youdao.com/ping/RPC2

Best Blogs Asia.

Using Bidvertiser

These publishing tools can be used on any Asian country and publisher adverts can be displayed as:

• Banners
• Skyscrapers
• Rectangles
• Buttons
• Free Design

Free Design allows you to use custom sizes/colours, a very useful feature to fit in adverts on pages with limited advert space. Then after choosing one of the selections above, you then need to implement Javascript code.

Example of Banners

Benefits of Bidvertiser

I think the main benefit of using Bidvertiser is as a Advert Buyer, since it enabled you to buy cheaper clicks than Google Adwords on high quality sites.

You can also use it alongside Google AdSense. However, you need to make sure to change the colours so they are not the same as the AdSense ads (based on Google’s new TOS).

I also like how you get to choose which adverts you can show on your site and how much the advertiser is willing to spend. You could except all the highest paying adverts and try to make money that way, or choose a mix of low-high paid ads in order to get a wider variations of clicks and therefore more revenue in the long run.

Sign Up

You can sign up to Bidvertiser now, all major countries are supported.

Conclusion

Bidvertiser is still a great company and useful for publishers seeking low minimum payments ($10 minumum payment), custom ad sizes, or simply an alternative to AdSense. They provide cheap clicks as and as an alternative to Google Adsense Public Adverts, I’d recommend them.

Best Blogs Asia.

Criteria and Why Influential?

The selection process was based on “online criteria” such as Google/Yahoo/MSN backlinks, Alexa ranking and being referred to in other Blogger’s posts. I was also looking for people who blog full time and make a high income from their sites.

Previous popular blog lists have been based around technorati etc.,. Since Technorati is blocked in countries like China, it can’t give a fair result as to where visits are coming from. The best way of comparing would be to look at each site’s Google Analytic stats, but I seriously doubt bloggers would give me that information!

About the Judge

My name is Giles Dawe and my background is that I’ve been running “Best Blogs Asia“, the biggest directory of Asian Blog links since 2003 where users vote for their favourite blogs. I’m also a blogger living in Asia and web producer, so I know the reasons how and why a site is popular.

Malaysian Blog List

Whenever I’ve made searches in the past for “Best Malaysian Blogs” I’ve always come across Political blogs, Food blogs, technology or Celebrity sites. I’m looking for bloggers who have something to say, preferably about life in Malaysia and about themselves.

Kenny Sia

Kenny Sia is a funny guy.

He blogs about himself and his travels, making each post interesting and most have photos. Each entry gets at least 50+ comments so means he’s established himself with repeat visitors and has a huge amount traffic driven to his site.

Why is he influential?

He’s been on tv, blogs about everyday life, makes substantial amounts of money from his blog whilst not pushing for the hard sell.

Liew CF

Liew CF is a techy blogger who promotes all things techy and internet related.

Why is he influential?

Whilst there may be other Malaysian bloggers who can earn more than Liew CF by discussing tech/make money online, from reading his blog it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to make you click on any affiliate links or anything else which can make him richer.

He just gives useful advice and has got very rich from his trusted readership.

Hot Screensaver

Hot Screensaver is a blogger who talks about food, fashion and everyday life in Malaysia.

Why is he influential?

He has large numbers of visitors to his site, perhaps monetising on visitors who search the site looking for “hot chicks” or latest fashion tips.

The location and colouring of his Adsense adverts must bring him substantial amounts of income, whilst the different types of postings in different niches must bring different types of visitors to his site.

5xmom

5xmom is run by Lilian Chan, a full time blogger who also looks after her family.

Her posts attract a lot of debates on a wide range of subjects.

Why is she influential?

If there was an award for hardest working blogger, than 5xmom would probably win it.

She blogs on multiple sites with different niches, consistently and makes a steady stream of revenue.

Sabahan

Sabahan is a Borneo based blogger, who blogs and sells his own affiliate products online.

Why is he influential?

He discloses how much income he makes, which programs he uses and whether they were effective or not.

This form of honesty is reflected by his users interest, whilst their comments on posts are always replied to by Sabahan.

Malaysian Blogger Chart

Notable Mentions

It’s always nice to see the top bloggers, then people always link to them and they get more popular. But what about other popular bloggers?

• Jeff Ooi (Screenshots)
• SP Blogger
• Zeo
• Sapiens Bryan
• Raymond CC
• Sixth Seal
• Sweat Lee
• Gobala Krishnan

Other Malaysian Bloggers are at in the Directory.

How do they all make money?

This is the million dollar question, but it’s a combination of having the right amount of visitors (Malaysia, Singapore and US mostly) who are targeted at the products they are selling:

• Google Adsense
• Nuffnang
• Advertlets

Other ways to make Money

• Direct Advert Selling
• Malaysian Dating Affiliate Program - Sign up
• Adbrite - Sign up
• Play Asia - Sign up

Conclusion

There are always new bloggers coming about on the scene and the list would be ever changing. This isn’t a definitive guide, but should be used as indication of who is out there in this particular country. If there is someone who is missing from this list, let me know!

Best Blogs Asia.

ADSDAQ/Contextweb

(www.contextweb.com) I applied for the program, received a courtesy email but then no reply from them to say whether or not I’ve been accepted.

Clicksor

(www.clicksor.com) They are used by a large group of people and from my experience I’ve received money from them in the past. On one occasion I was meant to receive a $50 payment, but the transaction didn’t go ahead since I received “fraudelent” clicks on my ads. No explaination why and I lost all the money. Avoid.

Emagin Adbank

(www.emaginadbank.com) I can apply, received a confirmation email (which also requires confirmation by fax and post) but the account wasn’t activated.

Kontera

(www.kontera.com) Applied got accepted, but I didn’t like the low paying amounts offered or the large amounts of underlined ads per page.

Max Bounty

(www.maxbounty.com) Max Bounty wasn’t so bad, I had a personal email stating “Our decision was not a judgment on the quality of your website, but rather that it was not a suitable match for our current list of sponsors”. So I hope in future they have more relevant advertisers for bloggers in Asia.

Shareasale

(www.shareasale.com) You click on the link, enter your details and then receive a message stating they are no longer accepting affiliates.

Text Link Ads

(www.textlinkads.com) I’ve already written about Text Link Ads, they pay but you can’t control the price of links and they are all dofollow which effects PR.

Conclusion

Shoemoney made a recent post stating that you should apply for as many affiliate programs as possible. I don’t agree, I think you need to be selective on what programs you apply to, make them relevant to your site and avoid the ones listed above and perhaps recommend these Asia Affiliate Networks.

What do I expect from an affiliate network?

I expect them to at least have a working web site, contact/sign up page which isn’t overly complex, support telephone number and email address, I expect replies as to why I haven’t been excepted, would like referral links and also more importantly, great products to promote with a fair commission structure.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Yes Asia

Yes Asia is similar to Play Asia where they sell Asian based products to a worldwide audience. They seem more “Asian focused” compared to Play Asia, since they have a bigger back catalog, more products in local languages.

I like the way the site is split into other Chinese languages, catering for a worldwide audience and the layout has simple navigation. I’ve also used them before with no problems and have received free shipping (also applies to rest of Europe, US and Canada).

Target Audience

As shown on their website, their main customers come from English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean speaking countries and supporting the relevant currencies. Products are targetted at these specific groups, where I’d imagine the US and Europe are the biggest markets due to the unavailability of these products at home.

Yes Asia Affiliate Program

The system works when a user clicks on your referal link, makes a purchase and you get a percentage of the sale in EUR, USD or GBP. * Note: They do not allow affiliates who run discount voucher/coupon sites to promote the program. Also, do not promote any Sony Hardware/Software to the EU regions.

The commission rate with a 30 day cookie is:

• 10% for DVD, CD
• 12% for YA Entertainment DVD Box Sets
• 7% for Games, and DS and PSP consoles
• 5% for Toys and Books
• 2% for PS3, PS2, Wii XBox360 and Electronics

Example in Action

Sign up

You can only Sign Up via Shareasale or Webgains.

Conclusion

The site looks good, is reliable and if exploring a certain niche - can make some money from your sites.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Sabahan

Sabahan is a term for the people that live in the rainforests of Borneo. He’s also a software developer and PPC expert, so not all revenues come from his blog.

Income Earners

Affiliate income makes up a portion of his main income, whilst the rest comes from selling his own products online.

• Google Adsense
• Kontera
• Direct Ad Selling (125×125 pixel ads, Direct Links)
• Maxbounty
• Commission Junction
• Text-Link-Ads

Driving Traffic

A paid review post from John Chow in 2007 must of brought a lot of traffic to his sites. Contests like “Free Blog Hosting for life” must of brought in visitors too as well as posts like “10 most useful Wordpress plugins”, “Swiss Mutual Fund Scam” and “50 most influential blogs in Malaysia”.

His postings aren’t prolific which leads me to believe he gets a lot of search engine traffic for previous keyworded posts, Digg backlinks, delicious bookmarks and links from a previous link exchange programme and other bloggers.

Conclusion

Whilst his postings aren’t regular, I think for the niche area of “Malaysian Blogging” his site is a must read. His posts are targetted towards bloggers in Malaysia (although most of his visitors come from the States and India!), making money and developing your blog.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Feedburner

FeedBurner is a web feed management provider launched in 2004. FeedBurner provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers. Services provided to publishers include traffic analysis and Adsense advertising.

Feed Benefits

• You will use your single Google account to log in to your feeds instead of having a separate one for Feedburner.com
• You will be able to use Adsense for Feeds
• You will have better email subscription capabilities

Moving the Feed

Log into your Adsense account, go to “Adsense for Feeds” under “Manage Ads” and select “Move FeedBurner feeds to your Google Account”, then follow the instructions.

Your feed will now be http://feedproxy.google.com/feedname, update your META date and/or site settings.

Now you need to login into feedburner.google.com to access your feed rather than feedburner.com.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Lilian Chan

From finding information about her, she’s a full time blogger and runs a series of niche websites from religion to berevement to food to blogging. It seems she likes to complain about the injustices about daily life and the complaining reminds me a bit of Big White Guy, combined with the brutual honesty of Shoemoney. However by debating what’s going on, it attracts more comments and therefore more visitors come to her sites. God also plays a big part in her blogs.

All photos are copyright of Lilian Chan.

Income Earners

Previous income came from Payperpost, LinkXL, Reviewme, Textlinkads etc., but just as I realised by using these types of sites, they can suck your link juice and ultimately effect your page rank. Lilian is currently using the following on her sites:

• Paid reviews
• Selling links on old posts
• Nuffnang
• Hosting Referals
• Infolinks
• Google Adsense

Driving Traffic

She has a long blog link list, which I guess is a reciprical way of gaining traffic. A lot of her links are noFollow, which helps to keep the link juice on her site. On 5xmom she writes about practical ways of developing a blog, which again can rank her high on search engines for particular key phrases and any affiliate programs she’s promoting will be passed on to her users.

50%+ of her traffic is from Malaysia and she recently got a traffic surge due to the recent Malaysian election and the Edison Chen scandal, so her targetted keywords must rank her sites quite high.

Conclusion

The number of niche sites which are all blog related help to diversify her income. She exchanges links with other bloggers which helps her backlinks, as well as constantly writing on her 12+ blogs helps to achieve a steady stream of internet revenue.

Best Blogs Asia.

Chinese

Fanfou

Fanfou is shown in Chinese language and looks like an exact copy of Twitter.

“饭否是一个 140 字的迷你博客。在这里，你可以告诉大家你在做什么，可以随便看看大家都在做什么，也可以加几个有趣的人为好友。目前，饭否支持 饭否网页、手机上网、手机短信、手机彩信（发照片）、QQ、MSN、GTalk机器人 和 API 等方式来发布消息以及同步个人签名，发布一句话博客。简单地说，饭否就是可以随时记录自己的心情、简洁发表自己的观点的东东~。”

Komoo

Komoo could be Twitter’s twin, has exactly the same look and feel.

“因为每条极其普通的信息对您的家人、朋友、同学或同事都非常有意义——尤其在适当的时候。”

Zuosa

Zuosa is more interactive with MSN and QQ integration, feels more like a community than the other sites.

“这里是一个全球互动分享社区. 其网友们都在回答一个简单的问题: 你在做啥? 回答可以通过手机, 聊天软件或本网站发送.”

Korean

Play Talk

PlayTalk supports MSN, Windows Based Applications and Mobiles. It’s also in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean languages.

“Launched in February 2007, PlayTalk is a social network service based microblog that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. People use PlayTalk to write brief text updates and publish them, meet friends and keep up on what they are doing by enabling them to share their life.”

Japanese

Feecle

Feecle looks very simple and clean to use. It shows the latest “tweets” on the homepage and is in Japanese language only.

“Feecleのサービスは、より便利にご利用いただけるよう会員登録をしていただいております。会員登録時には本サービスログイン時にご利用するIDとパスワード、Eメールアドレスを入力してください。”

Conclusion

These types of sites are useful and very easy to use. Using Microblogging people get to the point quickly and it’s great for networking and market research.

Best Blogs Asia.

Finding Social Media Websites

The main custom opensource sites available are:

• Pligg
• Scuttle/ScuttlePlus
• PHPDug

Searching Pligg

You can make the following search to find relevant Pligg sites, also add your relevant keywords for more exact results:

"Powered by pligg"

inurl:/shakeit.php

Searching Scuttle/ScuttlePlus

You can make the following search to find relevant Scuttle/ScuttlePlus sites, also add your relevant keywords for more exact results:

"Powered by scuttle"
"Powered by scuttlePlus"

inurl:/populartags/

Searching PHPDug

You can make the following search to find relevant PHPDug sites, also add your relevant keywords for more exact results:

"Powered by PHPDug"

inurl:/upcoming/0/viewall/1.html

Best Blogs Asia.

About Hot Screensaver

Blog discussion ranges from fashion, technology, Malaysia life, cars and food. There’s no real niche he explores in detail, but the wide range of subjects may mean he’s catering for a wider audience which can explain the popularity of the site.

Popularity could come from the website name “hot screensaver”, the popularity of searching for screensavers and free desktop wallpapers is huge so I’d expect he gets a lot of traffic from these keywords. The site name also comes from a popular and now defunct show called The Screensavers, so again he gets traffic from these types of searches.

All photos are from www.hot-screensaver.com.

Income Earners

Example of a Google Cheque

The main source of income seems to be from Google Adsense. This cheque was in 2008, but gives an example of earnings.

Driving Traffic

The site gets about 35k-40k unique visitors per day and there’s a number of ways he’s driven to his site. Traffic/backlinks coming from an old wordpress blog with a redirect to the new site, blogmalaysia.com which publishes new posts, funny image posts in Digg as well as making a large number of comment posts on other blogs.

One clever way he got traffic and reviews of his blog was from a post called Review my blog and get US$10.

By inviting people to write about his blog, it meant he got more backlinks and by also offering money in exchange other people wrote about what he was doing and it went viral.

The posts themselves are quite short, but nearly contain photos which makes them easy to read or scan quickly.

Also the fact that most photos contain pictures of beautiful women can’t do much harm to the readership of his site too and this is reflected by the 3,500 images in Google linking to his site.

Conclusion

The way he’s posted images is smart. He has so many photos of women on the site, it gets interest from users. The images are also ranked highly in Google’s directory and many of them are watermarked with his site’s url, so should bring in more traffic. He’s also showcasing his high Alexa figure, feedburner subscription box and each one of his posts is fun and invites comments from his users.

Best Blogs Asia.

Hot Trends and Niches

Finding trends and niches from popular sites makes sense. They have huge numbers of visitors, so by displaying what people are searching for and in targeted regions, custom sites with relevant affiliate programs can be used.

eBay pulse

With eBay pulse you can find that which product is most searched. eBay Pulse delivers a snapshot of the eBay marketplace, featuring the Top 10 popular searches, popular stores, popular products, highest priced etc.,.

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo is still on No.1 in Alexa ranking. With Yahoo Buzz you can find top searches by hours, day and month. Here you can find which term is searchable and then decide with is profitable and can write about that topic.

Lycos Top 50

The Lycos Top 50 shows which term is most searched.

Google : Zeitgeist

“Zeitgeist” means “the spirit of the times” and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries. Google Zeitgeist has several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.

Amazon Bestsellers

With Amazon Bestsellers, you can find most sellable product so that you can promote on your blog or website. You can put relevant reviews on your blog or website.

Best Blogs Asia.

Htaccess Guide

Enable Directory Browsing

Options +Indexes
## block a few types of files from showing
IndexIgnore *.wmv *.mp3 *.avi

Disable Directory Browsing

Options All -Indexes

Customize Error Messages

ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /servererror.html

Get SSI working with HTML/SHTML

AddType text/html .html
AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .html
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
# AddHandler server-parsed .htm

Redirect Visitors to New Page/Directory

Redirect oldpage.html http://www.domainname.com/newpage.html

Block Hot Linking/Bandwidth hogging

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/image.gif [R,L]

Avoid the 500 Error

# Avoid 500 error by passing charset AddDefaultCharset utf-8

Best Blogs Asia.

Using a Robots File Effectively

Generally we want as much as exposure as possible to our sites, but there some content that you don’t want indexed and listed on search engines. This is where a robots.txt can be used effectively.

Definitions

User-agent: this parameter defines, for which bots the next parameters will be valid. * is a wildcard which means all bots or Googlebot for Google.
Disallow: defines which folders or files will be excluded. None means nothing will be excluded, / means everything will be excluded or /folder name/ or /filename can be used to specify the values to excluded.
Allow: this parameter works just the opposite of Disallow. You can mention which content will be allowed to be crawled here. * is a wildcard.
Request-rate: defines pages/seconds to be crawled ratio. Example, 1/20 would be 1 page in every 20 second.
Crawl-delay: defines howmany seconds to wait after each succesful crawling.
Visit-time: you can define between which hours you want your pages to be crawled.
Sitemap: this is the parameter where you can show where your sitemap file is (You must use the complete URL address for the file).

Example

This the robots.txt I use on my site:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cms/feed/
Disallow: */feed/*
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /cms/wp-content/
Disallow: /cms/wp-plugins/
Disallow: */wp-content/*
Disallow: /cms/wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /cms/index.php
Sitemap: http://www.bestblogs.asia/sitemap.xml

Best Blogs Asia.

Popularity of Asian Dating

I’ve spent about 30 minutes trying to think of reasons why Asian Dating is so popular, having tried to do some research on the internet…and couldn’t think of a real reason. I think the main popularity comes from mainly Western men who particularly like Asian women and Asian women who are fond of Westerners and the lifestyles they lead. Dating may lead onto marriage, visas etc., so promoting these types of activities would be benefial too.

List of Asian Affiliate Dating Programs

Friendfinder is probably the biggest dating network available on the net, with Asia Friendfinder being the best niche site to promote.

Friendfinder - Signup
Statitics: USD 1-2 Per Lead, USD25 Per Sale, 50% of Sale, Recurring: Yes.

Asia Friendfinder - Signup
Statitics: USD 1-2 Per Sale, 50% of Sale, Recurring: Yes

Date - Signup
Statitics: Earn $35 per paid subscription.

Example in Action

China Region

Guanxi - Signup
Statitics: USD $0.05 per free member sign-up

Indian Region

Indian Friendfinder - Signup
Statitics: USD .50-1.00 Per Lead, 60% of Sale, Recurring: Yes

Malaysia Region

Cari Kawan - Signup
Statitics: USD .50-1.00 Per Lead

Korean Region

Korean Friendfinder - Signup
Statitics: USD 1-2 Per Lead, 60% of Sale, Recurring: Yes

Thailand Region

Thailand Date - Signup
Statitics: USD 0.10 Per Lead, 50% of Sale, Recurring: Yes,

Philipines Region

Filipino FriendFinder - Signup
Statitics: USD 0.5 - 1.5 Per Sale, 100% of Sale, Recurring: Yes

Conclusion

There’s a lot of money being made from affiliate dating programs, look at Marcus Frind! This is a particular niche area which Blogs in Asia can explore and try to make reliable revenue from.

Best Blogs Asia.

Domain Overview

Domaining is the perfect web business model. Once the domain is purchased and the parked page is set up, there is nothing left to do except to collect the money. Unlike a site or blog, a domain page never needs to be updated.

You can try coming up with a completely new phrase for branding purposes, you can incorporate important keywords into 2 or 3 worded phrases buying the exact matched domain name for your main keyword. I purchase my domains with Godaddy, as I feel they are the most reliable.

Making Money

Domain values can come from typed in traffic, from users using search engines to find a particular item/subject. Some users may just type in say KEYWORD.com and expect it to contain the most relevant results.

Buying names can have branding benefits, for example toyrus recently bought toys.com. The association of Toys and Toysrus go hand-in-hand so made sense for them to purchase this name. Also by buying single keyword(s) names, you are more likely to be ranked higher in terms of Google listings.

Finally, the value of domain names is growing year on year. You could purchase a keyworded domain now, do nothing to the site and sell it for x5 it’s value.

Where can I find domains?

There are many options available such as contact existing site owners and make an offer, Use domain auctions, buy existing domains or search for dropped domains.

Auctions and Drop Domains Searching

These are sites that hold expired names or sale current owner’s names.

• Fresh Drop
• Top Picks
• Snap Names
• Go Daddy Auctions
• Parked

Domain Parking

“Parking” or locating your domain is an easy option to earn money. You link you domain to a company page, it had adverts on it and if the ads are clicked then you make a %. Google Parking is the best since it integrates with Adsense.

• Google Domain Parking
• Sedo

Conclusion

It’s very hard to get top level domains due to continual rising prices and backordering domains is even harder since most owners auto-renew domains. Consider country specific tld’s instead, heavily investing in upcoming keyworded .com’s and also building up own sites to create your own branded name.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Xia Xue

Her English name is originally Wendy Chang, a blogger based in Singapore. The site seems to be her outlet to rant about things going on her life, talk about relationships, new technology and of course, herself.

Her blog is her promotional outlet which has led her gain revenue, sponsorship, column writing and even a Tv show!

Her popularity could stem from that she’s an attractive woman, promotes all things makeup related and is very girly (hence the pink colours).

All photos are from www.xiaxue.blogspot.com.

Income Earners

Sponsorship/Promotion

• Local Brand T-shirts
• Pixel Ad Space
• Phlook Photos
• Munky Superstar (Acting, Voices etc.,)
• Clicknetwork TV

Other Advertising

• Direct advertising
• Nuffnang

Nuffnang Cheque

Driving Traffic

There’s a lot of things going on with the site. It contains a lot of text, a lot of images and bright colours. The actual content is humorous and very frank, which make me think her popularity comes from regular readers.

She also links to herself from other Blogspot accounts, has a Dmoz listing, links from other bloggers (strongest being Zucket and Kenny Sia), Wikipedia and the Asian Weblog Awards 2005. Surprisingly Google Images account for 10% of her referrals.

Conclusion

She’s a persistent blogger, who writes long detailed posts on what’s going on with her personal life. People know what to expect from her posts, she’s been promoted in different media outlets and is successfully marketing herself and making money from it. For any bloggers who are starting out and like to write about their lives, I’d recommend checking her out for inspiration. I guess this is a prime example, if you blog enough…the money will come!

Best Blogs Asia.

Using Direct Advert Sales

When I first started this blog late last year in 2008, I was more concerned about getting content available on the site rather than monetising it. I used Google Adsense for a while, but I was only making a few cents/dollars per day and losing visitors at the same time.

By recently implementing direct ad sales, I found it was an option to add extra revenue to the site. For example my approach was:

• Getting some popular articles written on the site, with backlinks.
• Improve the Page Rank level.
• Set a cheap price and promote the site on Digitalpoint.
• Place image adverts only, on all pages and include doFollow links.
• Limit the number of spots available.

Benefits of using Direct Ads

Direct ad sales is a great way to monetise your blog since there’s no middleman to take your profits. You can set you own ad rates and have more control over the advertising and payment options. As the site develops with more backlinks/popularity you can increase your advertising rates. Bloggers like Shoemoney and John Chow state that direct advert sales make up the majority of their site’s income.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage is that since it’s up to you to find advertisers, you could end up with unsold inventory especially when you are just starting out.

Lessons Learnt from these types of Sales

I used this form of advertising recently, I found it’s slightly flawed. The price level was set right, I had a backlog of potential advertisers however the price was dependant on the Page Rank level and number of backlinks.

By selling links, I was in fact selling my Page Rank Juice by accepting doFollow paid advertising. In the most recent Page Rank update, my level dropped from PR5 to PR4. I think this is due to selling a high number paid links on all pages.

Since, then I’m filtering out the number of paid adverts and will not offer DoFollow paid links anymore, instead exploring:

• Adbrite Sales
• OIO Publisher (Wordpress Plugin)
• Buy Sell Ads

Best Blogs Asia.

Browser Features

The browser showcases tabs in a different way as you can isolate certain tabs. You can also run video direct from the browser, isolate pop ups, webfonts support, link to Web Applications and create third party plugins. It also supports various tools such as:

• Search
• Desktop Search
• Gmail
• Virtual Drive
• Web browsing
• G Docs

Using Google Chrome for Websites

For web site owners, Big G’s browser will be a useful addition. What I found useful was support for Javascript heavy sites and web applications, site locked quickly and less resources were used up on my computer.

Integration with RSS feeds worked well since they were instantly loaded in the browser.

Download and Install Google Chrome

• Download

Conclusion

It’s still a bit buggy and being Windows XP compatible only, the launch feels a little premature. I do believe it’s a useful addition to my browser collection for testing compatibility issues, loading many sites at once in different browsers and also for ease of use with RSS feeds.

My current preference is to use IE for do to do usage as I’m comfortable with the layout, Firefox for site testing and Google Chrome for final testing and multi-site viewing.

Best Blogs Asia.

List of Types of Domains

The list below is a selection of the names available with a description of their intended target audience. I would recommend Godaddy as a reliable registrar.

.aero Aviation
.biz Business Organizations
.cat Catalan language and culture
.com Commercial
.coop Co-Operative Organizations
.edu Educational
.gov US Government
.info Open TLD
.int International Organizations
.jobs Jobs
.mil US Dept of Defense
.mobi Mobile devices
.museum Museums
.name Personal
.net Networks
.org Organizations
.travel Travelling

.ac Ascension Island
.ad Andorra
.ae United Arab Emirates
.af Afghanistan
.ag Antigua and Barbuda
.ai Anguilla
.al Albania
.am Armenia
.an Netherlands Antilles
.ao Angola
.aq Antarctica
.ar Argentina
.as American Samoa
.at Austria
.au Australia
.aw Aruba
.az Azerbaijan

.ba Bosnia and Herzegovina
.bb Barbados
.bd Bangladesh
.be Belgium
.bf Burkina Faso
.bg Bulgaria
.bh Bahrain
.bi Burundi
.bj Benin
.bm Bermuda
.bn Brunei Darussalam
.bo Bolivia
.br Brazil
.bs Bahamas
.bt Bhutan
.bv Bouvet Island
.bw Botswana
.by Belarus
.bz Belize

.ca Canada
.cc Cocos (Keeling) Islands
.cd Congo, Democratic republic of the (former Zaire)
.cf Central African Republic
.cg Congo, Republic of
.ch Switzerland
.ci Côte d’Ivoire
.ck Cook Islands
.cl Chile
.cm Cameroon
.cn China
.co Colombia
.cr Costa Rica
.cs Czechoslovakia (former – non-existing)
.cu Cuba
.cv Cape Verde
.cx Christmas Island
.cy Cyprus
.cz Czech Republic
.de Germany
.dj Djibouti
.dk Denmark
.dm Dominica
.do Dominican Republic
.dz Algeria

.ec Ecuador
.ee Estonia
.eg Egypt
.eh Western Sahara
.er Eritrea
.es Spain
.et Ethiopia
.eu European Union

.fi Finland
.fj Fiji
.fk Falkland Islands
.fm Micronesia
.fo Faroe Islands
.fr France

.ga Gabon
.gb United Kingdom
.gd Grenada
.ge Georgia
.gf French Guiana
.gg Guernsey
.gh Ghana
.gi Gibraltar
.gl Greenland
.gm Gambia
.gn Guinea
.gp Guadeloupe
.gq Equatorial Guinea
.gr Greece
.gs South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
.gt Guatemala
.gu Guam
.gw Guinea-Bissau
.gy Guyana
.hk Hong Kong
.hm Heard and McDonald Islands
.hn Honduras
.hr Croatia
.ht Haiti
.hu Hungary

.id Indonesia
.ie Ireland
.il Israel
.im Isle of Man
.in India
.io British Indian Ocean Territory
.iq Iraq
.ir Iran
.is Iceland
.it Italy

.je Jersey
.jm Jamaica
.jo Jordan
.jp Japan

.ke Kenya
.kg Kyrgyzstan
.kh Cambodia
.ki Kiribati
.km Comoros
.kn Saint Kitts and Nevis
.kp Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of
.kr Korea, Republic of
.kw Kuwait
.ky Cayman Islands
.kz Kazakhstan
.la Lao People’s Democratic Republic
.lb Lebanon
.lc Saint Lucia
.li Liechtenstein
.lk Sri Lanka
.lr Liberia
.ls Lesotho
.lt Lithuania
.lu Luxembourg
.lv Latvia
.ly Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

.ma Morocco
.mc Monaco
.md Moldova
.mg Madagascar
.mh Marshall Islands
.mk Macedonia
.ml Mali
.mm Myanmar
.mn Mongolia
.mo Macau
.mp Northern Mariana Islands
.mq Martinique
.mr Mauritania
.ms Montserrat
.mt Malta
.mu Mauritius
.mv Maldives
.mw Malawi
.mx Mexico
.my Malaysia
.mz Mozambique

.na Namibia
.nc New Caledonia
.ne Niger
.nf Norfolk Island
.ng Nigeria
.ni Nicaragua
.nl The Netherlands
.no Norway
.np Nepal
.nr Nauru
.nu Niue
.nz New Zealand

.om Oman
.pa Panama
.pe Peru
.pf French Polynesia
.pg Papua New Guinea
.ph Philippines
.pk Pakistan
.pl Poland
.pm St. Pierre and Miquelon
.pn Pitcairn
.pr Puerto Rico
.ps Palestine
.pt Portugal
.pw Palau
.py Paraguay

.qa Qatar

.re Reunion
.ro Romania
.ru Russia
.rw Rwanda

.sa Saudi Arabia
.sb Solomon Islands
.sc Seychelles
.sd Sudan
.se Sweden
.sg Singapore
.sh St. Helena
.si Slovenia
.sj Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
.sk Slovakia
.sl Sierra Leone
.sm San Marino
.sn Senegal
.so Somalia
.sr Surinam
.st Sao Tome and Principe
.su USSR (former)
.sv El Salvador
.sy Syrian Arab Republic
.sz Swaziland
.tc The Turks & Caicos Islands
.td Chad
.tf French Southern Territories
.tg Togo
.th Thailand
.tj Tajikistan
.tk Tokelau
.tm Turkmenistan
.tn Tunisia
.to Tonga
.tp East Timor
.tr Turkey
.tt Trinidad and Tobago
.tv Tuvalu
.tw Taiwan
.tz Tanzania

.ua Ukraine
.ug Uganda
.uk United Kingdom
.um United States Minor Outlying Islands
.us United States
.uy Uruguay
.uz Uzbekistan

.va Holy See (Vatican City State)
.vc Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
.ve Venezuela
.vg Virgin Islands British
.vi Virgin Islands U.S
.vn Vietnam
.vu Vanuatu

.wf Wallis and Futuna Islands
.ws Samoa

.ye Yemen
.yt Mayotte
.yu Yugoslavia

.za South Africa
.zm Zambia
.zr Zaire (non-existent, see Congo)
.zw Zimbabwe

Best Blogs Asia.

About Yun Ye

He was a programmer and used custom software to buy domains in the 1990’s to early 2000s’. He and his company, Ultimate Search Inc managed to get the best domains by employing a system of “Drop Catching” which involves buying up sites which people gave up on or forgot to pay the fees on (Something which sites like Pool and Snapnames are doing today). He bought single keyworded domains, typos to random worded domains.

At the beginning he was making money from buying and selling domains, until paid searches and domain parking was introduced which is a system where an advertiser pays only when someone clicks on an advert on your site. He then later sold his portfolio to Marchex.

About Marchex

Marchex has developed from a series of investors to a local search company. They bought the domains, linked them up with advertisers who support local information services, Yelp and Localese sites to match relevant data to their domains.

What sites did he own?

Yun Ye and his practices were notabily well hidden. He operated under the site of noname.com and owned sites such as:

childabuse.org, traditions.com, Beijing.com, cuisine.com, MiamiMotels.com, DetroitResorts.com, oscarnet.com…

How to make money from Domains?

I touched on this at the Most Expensive Domains, but there is a prestige in owning a single keyworded preferably dot.com domain. The secret of how they make money is from type-in traffic, using the example of:

“Looking to buy candy? Type in Candy.com, a page filled with links to candy-related products comes up. Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn sends a share to the Candy.com owner.”

There’s also domain parking facilities such as Sedo, which don’t require any web site design at all - just point the domain to their servers and wait for the payments.

Conclusion

He later sold his domain portfolio to Marchex, who paid $164 million back in 2005. The reason why he sold his portfolio could have been due to the pressure he faced from companies/individuals who felt he was “cyber-squatting” names. He’s now become a recluse, but is probably still based in Vancover, Canada or in Hong Kong.

Reading about him makes me want to jump on the bandwagon also, although my feeling is most of the unique keyworded domains have already been snapped up, there is potential for buying mis-spelt names and country specific names also.

Best Blogs Asia.

Why so much?

A famous (but reclusive) domain seller called Yun Ye, used to make up to $100,000 a day from his domain names. He didn’t have a site, just used domain parking redirection services to make money on whoever clicked on his sites. The reason why he made so much as he owned key domain names. Single keyword domains which either represented expensive commodities (money, funds, cash etc.,) or popular everyday items (magazines, books, videos etc.,). The most money is made from .com’s since it’s believed they are the best and are worth more in terms of search engine ranking and type-in traffic.

Expensive Domains List

Sex.com
Sold for $14 million on January 19th, 2006

Fund.com
Sold for $9,999,950 in 2008

Porn.com
Sold for $9,000,000 - $9,500,000 in 2007.

Diamonds.com
Sold for $7,500,000

Beer.com
Sold for $7,000,000

Casino.com
$5,500,000 - Sold to a private company in 2003

Toys.com
$5.1M sold to Toys R Us in 2008

AsSeenOnTV.com
Sold for $5,100,000 in January of 2000

Korea.com
$5,000,000 - Sold in January of 2000

SEO.com - $5,000,000
Sold for $5,000,000 in 2007

YP.com
$3,850,000 - Sold to YellowPages.com

Shop.com
Sold for $3,500,000 in 2001

WorldWideWeb.com
$3,500,000 in 1996

Software.com
$3,200,000

Candy.com
$3,000,000 Sold in March 2009 by Rich Schwartz. Deal was $3M + % sales.

CreditCheck.com
$3,000,000 -Sold in June 2007

Loans.com
$3,000,000

eShow.com
$3,000,000

Vodka.com
$3,000,000 Sold December 2006

Wine.com
Sold for $2,900,000 in September of 1999

Wines.com
$2,900,000

CreditCards.com
Sold for $2,750,000 in July 2004

Pizza.com
$2,605,000 April 3, 2008

Tom.com
$2,500,000

Autos.com
$2,200,000

Computer.com
$2,200,000

Coupons.com
$2,200,000

England.com
$2,000,000

Celebrities.com
$2.0 million (1999)

Telephone.com
$2,000,000

Express.com
$2,000,000

Savings.com
$1,900,000

Mortgage.com
$1,800,000

Seniors.com
$1.8 million (2007)

DataRecovery.com
$1,659,000 Sold in 2008

Branson.com
$1,600,000

SolarEnergy.com
$1,600,000

Cameras.com
$1,500,000

How can I make money?

Well if you already own a single keyword .com domain, then you’ll be rich. My advice is to hold onto it, it will only increase in value. Other tld keyword names are still available if you try hard enough. They may be region specific, but still are useful depending on your target audience and type in traffic.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Shoemoney

His most famous posts are about when he used to be fat and when he failed at most things he participated in. Many of his followers can relate to him which in turn has boosted his traffic.

He definitely speaks his mind on all range of issues, which in terms sparks debates and gives him and his site more promotion. He states he’s not an SEO specialist and looking at the HTML of his pages, I can see why! His way of receiving traffic is to debate, talk about certain upcoming projects in the web industry, post photos of himself and his followers…and he’s constantly doing this everyday!

Income Earners

He’s definitely a guy who likes to promote himself and anything he’s involved in and makes money, the following ways:

• Conference talks about Blogging
• Referal links in posts
• Branded tshirts
• Sponsored advertising on his Sites
• Sponsored Product Placements
• Shoemoney SEO Tools
• Google Adsense (Upgraded account)

That Cheque from Google

There’s a famous photo of Schoemaker holding a Google Adsense cheque many years ago. This was the time affiliate marketing was taking off and no one really knew how much they could make. This photo changed that, especially since it was only a slight portion of how much he made during the year and has gone on to make much money since with other affiliate programs. I’m sure anyone who has seen the cheque photo below would wonder: How did he do it? How can I do it!

Other Shoemoney Sites

His other sites are just as profitable and have focused on certain niches.

AuctionAds
This was a specialist site which depended on eBay for live auctions. It was a clever site which displayed listings more clearly than eBay and was later sold on.

Nextpimp
This is an interesting site, since it looks very basic. How it has a huge following from users who upload and download ringtones for free. This site was launched many years ago during the height of “Free Ringtones” and made a lot of money from ringtone related adverts. I did some quick research and found the popularity of the website was attributed to two main causes 1)The free ringtone convertor application 2)A lawsuit brought on by Nextel.

Fighters
This is a “one to watch” site which showcases fights and MMA fighters. He’s already placed Adsense adverts on the site and has also sponsored fighting events.

Conclusion

So what can we learn from him? Well, Jeremy always writes that to make money from blogging, he talks about himself and what he’s upto. I think people try to hard to copy what he does and it doesn’t work. The niche topic of ringtones is oversaturated, eBay is becoming more established in more countries and new “Make money online” blogs are popping up everyday.

By finding your own niche and consistantly writing about it, making contacts by developing your site, you will become estaliblished in your own right.

Best Blogs Asia.

About Kenny Sia

It’s funny how his most popular sections on the site would be “Thoughts and Musings” as well as “Life Documentary”…although would of liked to have seen more tips on “Understanding Women” haha, since it’s a complex subject! He’s been involved in offline activities such as the Mister Potato TV commercial ad too.

One thing I’m surprised about his site, is that he’s still using Movabletype. It’s something most blog owners used “back in the day” but then we later transferred to Wordpress because of ease of use (who uses the Cgi-bin in MT anyway!) and the number of available plugins make WP better.

Kenny and Nuffnang

He promotes Nuffnang adverts on his site, which is a main source of revenue but is also involved in offline promotion, giving talks on how to use Nuffnang and making money from it. I see he uses their Polls, although unsure how he can make money from that. Nuffnang is exclusively Singaporean and Malaysian targetted.

Example of a Nuffnang check

This cheque was from 2007, but imagine he’s making much more (12k RM)

Income Earners

As mentioned, he uses Nuffnang instead of Advertlets but also uses the following to make revenue:

• Adbrite (Sign up here)
• Google Adsense
• Advertorials in Posts

Driving Traffic

Luckily for me I didn’t have to research too hard as to where his traffic is coming from as he’s got a SiteMeter app installed, which is useful for potential advertisers. He gets around 15k visits per day and has popular applications like the “Benglish Translator”.

Conclusion

The honesty and down to earth writing can be identified by his readers, which is probably why he has a huge readership. The layout of the blog is simple, contrasted with (watermarked) photos in nearly every post, it makes reading easier.

This is one of those sites where you look forward to his activities and understanding that his blog “niche” is talking about himself, say compared to Yongfook (Web Tech news) or LiewCF (How much he’s earnt).

Best Blogs Asia.

Amazon Associates

Signing up is very easy, you need a current site and email address and you’re ready to go. The main benefit of the program is that you can link to any of the products in the catalog, placing your referral url and then implement the code on your website. They also have regional versions in local languages so Japanese and China customers (via Jojo) can be targeted.

Types of Sites to Use Amazon

The types of site that use Amazon can range from product review sites, blogs, customized storefronts and recommended book reading lists. You can use integrate it on your Wordpress blog.

Example in Action

Types of Code for your Site

There’s a number of creative ways that you can link to their site via:

• Recommended Product Links
• Search Box
• Context Links (Text)
• Slide Show
• Widgets
• Site Stripe
• aStore

Commission Structures

They offer two types of payment structure, depending on the size and growth of your site:

• Classic Fee Structure
• Performance Fee Structure

Classic Fee Structure

It’s a 4% referral fee on items or by third parties, some product’s fees are capped at $25, and Video On Demand as well as Amazonmp3 products are capped at $1.50 per item.

Performance Fee Structure

You earn a referral rate from 4% to 15% on items shipped or third-party sellers. Screenshot of referral fees structure:

Payment Types

Payments range from paper check, direct deposit into a checking account or Amazon.com gift certificates. All payments are made in U.S. dollars and there’s a minimum payout amount of $20.

Sign up to the Amazon Affiliate Programme

• Amazon Affiliate Program

Conclusion

The payouts from them may be considered a little low, but Amazon are a trusted brand and will be around for a long time yet. I’d suggest experimenting with locations, perhaps place a widget in a sidebar, implement links within pages for certain products etc.,

I found faults with their use of Javascripted widgets which would delay some page loading times and also having spent time to check for out-of-stock products and links which are no longer active.

As of 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic.

It’s not a major source of my revenue, but is still a site I use now and again. In the past, I’ve made my major income from it by selling DVDs and books but now there’s more options available to users.

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General Guidelines

Your favicon should reflect your site and be relevant to your users. Don’t forget not only will they see your favicon in the browser window on all pages, but in saved bookmarks too. I recommend the following:

• Icon size must be 16×16 pixels.
• Don’t make it too complex.
• Make sure the icon and icon colour reflects your site
• If designing using a paint package, create the icon at 64×64 pixels, then when downsizing to 16×16 there won’t be any blur.
• Convert the image to .ico format and upload into your root directory.

HTML Code

The following code needs to be implemented in between the < head >… code:

< link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" / > 

Favicon Generators

The follow is a list of useful .ico generators/convertors:

• Favicon Generator
• FavIcon Generator
• FavIcon from Pics
• Favicon.ico Maker

Screenshot of Nice Favicons

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About Play Asia

Play Asia is a trusted online computer game, dvd and toy seller based in Hong Kong. They are popular and in the past I’ve bought many items from them with no problem.

Their main selling point is that they can buy products cheaper in Asia and sell them to worldwide customers, whilst still making a profit. Games and DVD’s may also be “region free” so have the benefit of being played on most machines, which is another benefit of using them.

Target Audience

As stated on their web site, the top countries that visit and buy from the site are from Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. This is worthwhile to note if you’re an affiliate in any of these countries. The keywords they suggest using are quite broad and range from:

• Video games
• Toys
• Music
• Cds
• Dvds
• Movies
• Gadgets
• Shopping
• Anime
• Classic Gaming

Play Asia Affiliate Program

The affiliate program is very flexible, they state you don’t even need to own a website to promote them and links can be promoted via websites, forum footers, IRC channels, e-mails & footers, message boards and shopping directories.

The commission rate is between 3 - 12% of the total purchase value and there’s a selection of:

• Iframe banners
• Standard banners (rotating)
• Buttons
• Html Text Links

Example in Action

Sign up

• Join the Play Asia Affiliate Program

Conclusion

I’ve used them as an affiliate many times and found their reports basic, but useful. If you live in the targetted countries, it’s worthwhile joining the affiliate program. The ease of use of implementing their code is great and wish other affiliate sites did the same!

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About Adbrite

Adbrite has been around for a while now, developed by Pud who is a serial entrepreneur. It came about as an alternative to Google Adsense, but very different in that a price is given for a set period of time and for a set price. There’s no ppc (pay per click), which is favoured by Adsense and it’s copycats. The point of Adbrite is to get as many clicks possible to your advert in the alotted time.

There are a few options to promote your product:

• Text Links - Standard Text link adverts, with a title and description and link to your site
• Banners - These can be graphic banners of any size, although you may be restricted by kb size
• Inline Ads - Adverts on special text keywords.
• Full Page Ads - It would link to your custom landing page
• Britepic - Used in Videos and Images

Advert Tips

The point is to drive as much traffic possible to your advert, so as an Advertiser I’d suggest the following:

• Use Text Links and Banners, you can find cheaper ads this way
• Try to keep adverts relevant to the site
• I’d prefer to use Text Links, so make the wording clear and exciting
• In the Site Directory, use the category filters and sort by Uniques.

Adbrite Publisher Tips

As a publisher (which may be the best option), you can display potential advertiser’s adverts on your site. The pricing structure is allocated by the number of uniques, pagerank and impressions your site has! I’d also suggest the following:

• Manage your Ad Zones, experiment with Text Ads, Full Page and Inline - although Text Ads are best
• Keep initial startup prices low and DO NOT use the recommended price adjuster
• When increasing ad prices, they need to be justified..if you’ve got a backlog of advertisers, then that’s the time to do it!
• Make sure the ads are on all pages, even 404′d ones..there’s no restriction compared to Adsense
• Limit the number of adverts. I use a vertical section of 4 ads only

Join Adbrite

They also have a publisher program, which offers:

• 50% of AdBrite’s profits for the first 3 months
• 10% of AdBrite’s profit for the next 9 months

Conclusion

Adbrite isn’t so great, I always feel I could of got a better return somewhere else and think is designed for sites with huge amount of traffic and unique visitors. I also felt that a few years back when they sold off part of the business to BLA, I lost a lot of revenue so it takes time to establish yourself as an advert seller.

If you need any help, ask me here.

Best Blogs Asia.