Earn Online Geek

Bare All: What IM Guru Are Reluctant To Tell You

2015-08-05T13:48:00.000+08:00

If you’ve been on the internet on the 90s to the early 2000, you will know what I mean by what IM guru are reluctant to tell you. Those are the days when the phrase ‘making money online’, ‘get rich online’ and ‘be your own boss’ was really famous and many got scammed online.

I am not talking about online scam but the real IM guru that sell products for you to start blogging. Blogging is a famous term then. By blogging it means that you start from scratch and write anything that you are interested in like hobbies, occupation or even talent that you had.

Famous gurus from the 2000s were big names like John Chow, Pat Flynn, Jeremy ‘ShoeMoney’ and many more. I love these guys and I even bought some of their product. Some work and some don’t but it depends on your part also. If you are lazy and broke, you can’t hope for anything.

It is during those days that I realize that making money online is not an easy task. You must have some skills and passion to draw your internet success. But what’s still pissing me off until today is the way that the gurus are presenting their making money online products. They made it sound so easy that any school children can follow their instructions.

Honestly, I bought their product because they tell their readers/customers on how easy it is to set up a website. I didn’t purchase because of greed for money or anything. I just want to learn something. I have passion for IM and I will learn about it no matter what!

The moral of the story (in my case), every business no matter where do you plant it, will get a rough start and this is including IM. I learned my lessons well and thinking back about it will surely made my day. Anyway, here I want to bare all what are the things that IM gurus are reluctant to tell you.

1. IM Guru said: Build your own website

Bare all:

There are many types of website. The most famous website for making money are micro niche sites (MNS), authority sites and e-commerce websites. Blogging will get you nowhere. Well, it will but for a long period of time.

2. IM Guru said: Buy a self-hosted domain and hosting (usually they will recommend Hostgator and Bluehost)

Bare all:

There are a lot of other cheap hosting provider out there. Hostgator and Bluehost are not bad hosting but it is expensive for newbies who just wanted to take their first step in learning. For example 123system offer $4 hosting per year. But cheap hosting are usually not the best hosting. I have bad experience with 1and1 hosting.

There are also a few types of hosting. The cheapest and that I would recommend for newbies are shared hosting. For full control of the hosting, buy a virtual private server (VPS). Search Google for more information about web hosting.

For domain, if you register a domain with a different provider, you will have to learn the steps to point the domain to the hosting. You will not encounter this if you have the same provider as your hosting company. For this, I personally, use different domain registrar and different hosting provider for security reason.

3. IM Guru said: You can get a cheap domain for $0.99

Bare all:

This is absolutely true, however you will sometimes need a discount coupon for that. In rare cases, you will stumble with $0.99 promotion while you were registering for a new domain. That $0.99 is just for the domain name. It is not including whois privacy protection. Without this, people can see your details if they check the domain name.

4. IM Guru said: Choose a profitable niche (topic) to write

Bare all:

The Google Keyword Tool is long gone. This is the best tool so far to find a profitable niche. The topic not also must be profitable but with low competition. Keyword research and the right keyword is the most important thing for a website to go explode.

At this time, the most popular keyword research tools are Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai. Most people now use LTP because it can count the competition and it can generate long tail keywords. You can try LTP for a 10 days trial, one-time payment of $97 or with monthly subscription of $27 (pro + platinum).

Market Samurai comes with only one time payment of $149. The trial version is for 14 days and if you purchase before this trial is over, you will have a discount of $50 and Market Samurai will cost you $99 for a one-time payment. Even Market Samurai is not a popular choice anymore but I still use it because it has a good user interface with different colors to examine competitors.

5. IM Guru said: Build backlinks to make your website famous

Bare all:

You can build backlinks by building web 2.0 properties, using Private Blog Network (PBN), blog commenting, forum posting, using social media, guest posting and many more. That is only for one website, yes, one only. That is really a tiring work for just one website. To make it worse, Google regularly update their algorithm for their search engine ranking.

People nowadays outsource this kind of stuff. A SEO package for a website is not cheap. It can cost about a few hundred dollars to thousands. You can find such package in the Warrior forum or BlackHatWorld forum. Those guys’ rocks.

6. IM Guru said: Write often on your website

Bare all:

The recommendation varies according to which guru you learn from. Some recommend once a day or a few times a week. Again, this is only for one website. If you have 10 websites, it will give you a total knockout.

You will also need to outsource this. It is easier than done. Cheap articles are always crap. You have to edit them yourself to make it readable. For tips, buy articles that cost more than $5 for a 500 word article.

The Falling of Ringgit and Effects To IMers

2015-01-29T16:17:00.000+08:00

We are all aware that Malaysia is now under a bad economic situation. Starting with the loss of MAS airplane (MH370), the bombed airplane (MH17), floods everywhere, the drop of oil price and also the bad investment made by the government.

These entire terrible things lead the country to the downfall of our currency. At this moment, the current Ringgit is RM3.61 compared to 1USD and that sucks. With all the terrible things happening in the country, it will cause investors to run. No businessmen are going to invest in a falling economy.

More bad news is coming for internet marketers in Malaysia. In the coming April, there is going to be taxation everywhere with the implementation of GST. With GST, the highest tax is going to be imported goods and foreign currency. Even the MEPS service will have GST.

The Effects to Internet Marketers

You might ask, what are all these things matters to me as an internet marketer? The main impact is the high currency conversion. As an internet marketer, we use US dollars in everyday transaction for example, the web host and domain name for starters. High impact is expected for new marketers so spend your investment wisely.

Ebay and Amazon resellers also need to watch out. If you are buying products as stocks, you are entitled for the 6% of GST. Try dropshipping instead. By drop ship, you don’t have to buy the product yourself. You only have to advertise them.

Many internet marketers are also shoppers because they are expert in cheap deals and they know where to find cheap stuff. Well, nowadays they are not as cheap as you think. All items will cost more than what you are bargaining for.

For those who are already earning income and quite successful, you can smile a bit because the US currency is quite high right now. The only problem is the percentage that the bank will take from you. I am not sure if the currency is GST taxable but for now it is not. Enjoy the high currency exchange at the time being.

Another problem that is going to cost you money is the local internet marketers. That means that all your currency is in Ringgit and you sell locally on your website, Facebook page and any other alternatives for local market only. This type of business must be registered with GST. One guy on Facebook says he currently has more than 20 websites running. That’s gonna be sucks.

The only good news is that you must register with GST is ONLY when your income is more than RM200,000. If you earn less than that, you can breathe now. Honestly speaking, I hate registering for any online business because I think it is personal unless if you have mega website like Zalora, Ebay and Amazon.

Conclusion

The time finally comes for us the internet marketers to face our country’s legal system. Before this, we are enjoying our freedom from the back of our laptop and computer and earn small income just to live. Now the government is taking that away from us. Don’t blame the government. It means that you must work harder to maintain what you already have and don’t have.

My Blog Failed But..

2014-11-11T12:56:00.000+08:00

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you should already know that I have started a blog a year ago. If you haven’t read about it, you can check it out here. Actually I already know the consequences in starting a blog like that but I go ahead and try.

My blog is about men’s lifestyle specifically on Asian fashion and lifestyle. I don’t really regret starting this blog because I learnt a lot from my failure. Learning from hands on experience is the best teacher.

Everything that I did on this blog is a total mess. Nothing about it is special. That is the main reason why it failed miserably but the blog did earn a few pennies from adsense though.

Starting from the domain name (casually-asian.com), it has hypens which is a terrible choice for me. I ask around and some people said it has value (only the domain) so I list it on Flippa. I cancelled my hosting with Hostgator and dump the whole website.

The keyword analysis is poor. I hardly do any in-depth keyword research for the website. I created the content from my own experience. My intention was to share my opinion to my friends but I still have low traffic every month. In short, I hate the website and I don’t want to do anything with it anymore.

The only thing that I regret was wasting my time posting contents and backlinks. It takes time to build those. My Hostgator account was setup for a year but I only update my blog for 7 or 8 months then I leave it alone plus I don’t have time to manage the website.

Even though the blog failed but I don’t feel like a failing person. I accept my defeat and I learn my lessons well. Blogging is a business and you as a blogger are an entrepreneur. You must treat your blog as a business and a business is not that easy to manage.

Now, I’m free again after my final exam. Getting back to work and also back to my internet business plan. This time I will take it more seriously and do more research before starting a new blog.

Actually I already started a niche website but there is a problem with the hosting. For this new website, I use 1and1 hosting and domain name. I know that it is a bad idea to use 1 company for both hosting and domain but I already change my hosting to Hostgator.

I will update my website when I’m done with the hosting issue. I think it will take up to 48 hours in waiting time for Hostgator verification process. One more thing, the domain casually-asian.com is not listed in Flippa anymore but I still want to sell if anyone is interested.

Seminar Review: Two Hours With Derek Gehl

2014-09-22T15:36:00.001+08:00

Last week on Thursday 9/18 I have been attending a free seminar by Derek Gehl and yes you heard me right, it is FREE. I was wondering why someone like Derek Gehl would give a free seminar. What is the catch? I’m not new in internet marketing so I have some idea on what is the seminar is all about. So I thought to myself, I would not lose anything because it’s free and I have the chance to meet Derek Gehl in the flesh.

I book the ticket at the very last minute and it is still available. It was easy because all you have to do is book the ticket online or by using SMS. This was the easiest job. The hard part was driving there and waiting for the long cue to end.

As soon as I enter the hall at Pullman Hotel, the event starts. I was glad that I didn’t miss anything at the first few minutes. By the way, this seminar is organized by Maybank. The event attracts about 200 crowds and many of them are working adults. Also attending the event are a few youths.

Derek started his seminar by explaining what online business is and how to create an online business or literally on how to create a website. He explains all the basic stuff but not in detail because the seminar is only for two hours.

Honestly, I was bored to death and nearly abandoned my seat. All the stuff that he explained was just basic. But to my surprised when Derek ask the audience about who never build a website before, I think about 99% of the audience raise their hands. This makes me think OMG, am I in the wrong place?

I forced myself staying there because I was waiting for the ‘catch’ of the event. Finally, at the end of the seminar, he told the audience about how he can help new internet entrepreneurs on starting their internet business. This is what I’m waiting for, the real ‘meat’. I wish I could upload a few photos but taking any photos and videos is prohibited.

Derek Gehl Seminar Ticket

He was talking about his website The Entrepreneur Lab. This is a membership website and members can start by subscribing to a whole year package valued at RM6997 or USD2157. Back to the OMG thinking again because I don’t have the money that much.

This kind of membership is very important for people who don’t have any mentors to start an online business and this is a good place to start. I am used to buying ebooks and books about online business but it really doesn’t help much. The technology is changing every day and you need the latest method to keep your business running.

Here is some stuff you get when you register:

A-Z step-by-step training
No product idea needed
No advanced technical skills
Easy to follow video tutorials
Work at your own pace
Access training 24/7
New training added regularly
All skill levels, all ages
Learn the skills to make money for the rest of your life working where and when you want

For those who never tried building a business online, you should know that it is not easy. You at least need to know how to build a website. The steps involved are very hard for some people. That is why people like Derek create this type of business. But again, it’s not cheap.

At this moment, when I check back at the website, it said that they currently not accepting any members. I guessed that maybe because of Derek’s trip to Asia and they are trying to avoid membership overload.

In my opinion about this membership site, they should reduce the price for the first year. They said that they can guarantee that sales can be made from the website build and if this is true, reduce the price. For example, the first year they can charge about USD100 per month or USD1200. The next year if the member wants to renew their membership, they can charge more. It is as simple as that.

For this reason, I have to let go so many good website that offered me membership. It is not because they are not good but because of the ‘guarantee’ to make money. Imagine that you pay for something that you can’t lose and yet you cannot earn anything.

Conclusion

To be successful online, you must get any help that you can find. Working alone is very-very hard especially when there is no one that can give you support. The best thing to do is find a mentor who can help you with the little details. If money is not a problem, get some training.

Stop Wasting Your Time Mining Bitcoin

2014-07-16T16:18:00.000+08:00

For anyone who don't know about bitcoin (BTC), I suggest you read about it first before reading this post. You also can see the video about bitcoin in Youtube. People are going crazy about bitcoin because it is considered a new currency with high value. At this time, the value of 1 bitcoin is around USD620. You can check bitcoin live value at Preev.com.

The highest value ever reached by bitcoin is USD1000. With bitcoin high in value, people are going bitcoin-crazy about it. If you don't know yet, bitcoin can be obtain freely on the internet. With the right hardware, it is easy to mine bitcoin. The hardware that you usually need is the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). To mine bitcoin, your hardware must be really mean and it can cost up to USD10,000.

Bitcoin is better than gold

That sounds easy because many people can afford to buy the hardware for their mining rig. The bad news is the mining process is going to be difficult from day to day. We are talking about high-tech mining equipment here. With your home pc or laptop, you can forget about it.

I tried to mine bitcoin using my laptop once. In a few days, I only can mine 1 satoshi. That is equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC. I know it sounds stupid to mine from my laptop but I would like to try it hands on to see how difficult it is to mine bitcoin.

Mining is not for everyone including me and all those who have crappy pc like mine. The good news is, you still can get bitcoin in any other way. You can sell something online and tell your customers that you receive bitcoin as payment and you also can buy bitcoin online.

My favorite way to get my hands on bitcoin is through free bitcoin sites. You don't earn much but it is faster than mining it yourself. Basically I'm talking about earning bitcoin through visiting websites. Here is my best two website where they pay high in commission after clicking and viewing other websites.

Bitvisitor

This is the best website out there and the easiest website to earn free bitcoin. The minimum payout is 0.00006000 BTC. You don't have to cash out your balance. It is automatically credited to your bitcoin wallet. To reach the minimum payout, it takes up to 2-3 days with no affiliate.

All you have to do is enter your wallet address to log in. Enter the capcha image and wait for 5 minutes for the advertisement to finish. There is a counter on top of the website and wait for it to finish and click next to proceed. Your balance also will appear at the timer's banner.

Coinad

The difference about Coinad from Bitvisitor is the amount of ads to click and the amount you receive. Coinad pays much better but it takes longer to pay you. It can take up to 1 week before you can see your earning in your wallet. The minimum payout is 0.15 mbtc.

Coinbox faucets

This is a group of websites that pays you bitcoin when you enter your wallet address. All your earning from these websites are send to coinbox. You can check your balance there. One website will pay you once in every 30 minutes. Your minimum payout will be 0.00005500 BTC. Here are the websites:

BTC4You.com

nioctiB.net

BTCMine.net

BitCats.net

BitcoinSpain.net

FreeBitcoins4U

Fr33bitcoins.com

Update 18/07/2014
Landofbitcoin.com
This is one website that contain all the faucets above including others. There are 99 faucets listed and you don't have to click to open any other window to view them. In one day you can get up to 7000 satoshi. Enjoy!

There you have it! Those are all the websites that can give you free bitcoins. However, if you think that mining is good for you and fast enough, you can go for it. But in my case, I think I prefer to earn bitcoin in other ways. If you have other websites that you want to recommend, please share them at the comment box.

Beware of Phishing Email From Gmail

2014-07-03T22:44:00.002+08:00

A few days ago, I receive an email from Gmail (update). Yes, it is including the bracket. For regular internet user, it is easy to identify any type of phishing. However this is the first time that I receive a phishing email. I usually get Facebook account phishing scam send to my inbox.

I fall victim to the Facebook phishing scam twice but it is not serious. At that time I was very busy and very success with my poker game. I am sure for everyone who likes to play poker will know about Zynga poker and how addictive the game was. It is not real money but some people will do anything to get the fake chips including using phishing technique.


The phishing email sent to my inbox

As you can see the phishing email above looks very convincing. I even clicked on the "view" hyperlink. It even brought me to the Google account login page that is of course a fake one. I open the email again today for this post but the page is already taken down by Google. That is such a relieve because I really hate if someone fall prey for those thieves.

What is phishing?

The act of sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. Phishing email will direct the user to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as a password, credit card, social security, or bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The website, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the information the user enters on the page. - Webopedia

Final words from me, keep yourself safe on the internet. This cyber world maybe a gold mine for internet entrepreneurs but the danger are also real. No matter how convincing any email sent to you or anything inside your Facebook inbox, please keep away from it and delete the email immediately.

Getting Traffic To Your Website With No Cost

2014-06-20T13:46:00.000+08:00

We all started for free. Why not go for free until the end? This article is intend to show you free stuff and how you do it the right way. So we are getting to the bringing the traffic part. No money is needed in bringing traffic to your blog. All you need to do is know the right way to do it for free.

Some people don’t care about how many visitors they have because what’s more important to these people is the content of their blog. Updating their blog is the crucial point. Remember that we are talking about free website builder here. Blogger user don’t care about traffic because the blog is free to use.

What I want to tell you is, you should really care about your blog traffic. At least check out whether your visitors is rising or dropping. We know Blogger is free and that’s why you should take advantage of this free opportunity. Don’t you like free money? People who use paid domain will go insane if they don’t have traffic and you should be thankful that you use a free service.

Here are some free methods on how to bring traffic to your blog for free. I don’t put a few methods such as link baiting and link exchange for some reason even though it is also free to do.

1. Article marketing
In my opinion, this is the best method available. It is because people like or need to find article that are important for them. If you are in the same topic as the finder, probably they will use your article with your blog’s address in it. When your article user post your article, it means your blog link is expanding. Imagine if ten people do this everyday with your article.

People don’t always take your article for the sake of posting it in their blog. Sometimes people only wants to read and gain knowledge. If you write an interesting article, people will wonder who is the writer and they will click on your blog link directly to your blog.

2. Use social media
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are accessed by billions of user everyday. The best part is they have ‘like’ and ‘share’ button. Post something interesting, funny, touching or anything that people may find worthy of reading. When people like your posts, they will not hesitate to share it to their friends and your blog will become known to others.

Blogging style website for instance Squidoo, Tumblr and Pinterest also can help promoting your blog. The method is the same. Blog something that what people want to read. But the best way is to write something as same topic as your blog. It is weird when you write about books review when your website is about electronic devices.

3. Blog commenting
Go read other blogs related to your niche. Leave a few comments on their blog. When commenting on a blog, you will also leave your blog address (most blog owner allows this). Make sure you leave quality comments and not spamming their comment box. When people who read your comment like what are you saying, they will click your avatar and visit your blog.

Leaving comments also helps you to make friends with other bloggers. That is what blog is all about. You make friends or make enemies. It’s called socializing. Professional bloggers will allow you to post negative comments. It shows that they are able to make you say your thoughts.

4. Word of mouth
This is a traditional way of promoting something. With high tech gadgets and people are getting lazy, people are beginning to forget the good old days. Promoting physically or by word of mouth sometimes can get good results. Just because you are using the internet, it doesn’t mean that you cannot go outside and tell your friends about your blog.

For instance, a college student who have a blog will tell his friends about his blog when he hangs around with his friends. This can be done directly or indirectly. Sometimes you don’t realize that you are babbling about your new blog that you are currently building. Take the opportunity nicely. Don’t force your friends to visit your blog.

Tips For Creating A Blog: Bringing The Best From Blogger

2014-06-18T10:36:00.003+08:00

I am sure that every blogging gurus will tell you NOT to use any free blogging platform to start your blog. To tell you the truth, they are right. Blogging is a business for some people. If you are very serious about building your business online, use paid domain name. That is the best place to have your business running.

But this doesn't mean that free website platform is bad. If it is that bad, why Google even bothers to buy Blogspot in the first place? There are a lot of free website platform that you can use for blogging such asWordpress.com, Tumblr, 000webhost and including Blogger.

Blogger was known as Blogspot before Google bought it. Blogger doesn' t change a lot and it is still free to use. As mentioned above, there is also a lot of other free blogging website where you can start your own blog for free but I use Blogger as example here and because I love using it.

Most internet users are used to Blogger especially for blogging beginners. Besides Blogger, Wordpress is also a popular people' s choice. These people who start blogging are usually teenagers and individuals. They use Blogger as their diary and also like other people, they also use Blogger to share their thoughts to the world.

Using a free platform for your blog is not a bad idea. I often heard that blogging gurus always say that you will lose everything in the blog if Google closes it. Technically, this is true. That will happen ONLY IF your blog violates their terms.

There are not many tips that I can share with everyone here because this is about a free domain blog. You can’t really tweak and customize your blog exactly like what you are thinking. In that case, I will share three best tips for blogspot. This is how you can really make the best out of your blog.

Tip #1: Choose the right template

I usually go to Btemplate to download free template for Blogger. This is my favorite place because there are no hustle to install your new template and it is easy to use. But you can choose anywhere on the internet for your satisfaction.

Choose template with large font, large icon and large everything. Most important is the font. People go to a blog to read something interesting. If you use small font, it can tires the eye or visitors will leave without reading anything because they are too lazy to review your blog one by one.

People judge a blog by its cover (looks). Good quote I have there LOL. Choose any beautiful template design that you can find. People are attracted to beautiful things and if your blog looks like a dump site, they will leave. No doubt about that.

Tip #2: Arrange your widget nicely

Assume your widget as decoration on your blog. How you arrange them will tell visitors that your blog is carefully arranged or not. The default arrangement is acceptable. If you started to put some ads, you will face a few problem. Ask someone to look at your blog first before you change your widget arrangement.

Do not overdecorate your blog with ads. I’ve seen a few blogs full of ads and it’s quite hard to find the content. The worst part is sometime you don’t know where are the content. Make your content stick out than your widget and ads.

Tip #3: Tweak your Blogger blog

Tweak your blog for the best performance. Keyword density is not a very good idea to win the heart of the search engines. Tweaking here also means that it’s including sending your blog to search engines so that they know your blog exists. To tweak a free blog, you have to do it manually. It doesn’t have automatic plugins like paid hosting. Spend some time to do this

Advantage and Disadvatage of Blogger Blog

2014-06-16T14:20:00.001+08:00

Advantages Of Blogger

1. Free to register and use

2. User friendly and easy to use. You don’t need to know a lot about html to use Blogger.

3. You can still make money like any paid domains

4. Free templates everywhere

5. If you want to, you can register your domain name only for $10

6. Build in membership registration

7. Receive low criticism because people know it’s free

8. Have built in analytics

9. You can post adult content. Blogger have built in permission page before entering adult content

10. Comments can be moderated

Disadvantages Of Blogger

1. Technically the blog is not fully yours

2. Cannot customize exactly like what you intended

3. Little choice of paid template because people rarely use Blogger paid hosting. The best place to look is Themeforest. They have pretty cheap theme.

4. It is hard to trust a free hosting blog especially if you don’t have an about me page

5. Can be closed by Google without further notice

6. You are bound to the Blogger T&C

7. Limited writing tool

8. Hard or less methods to promote

9. The built in analytics also trace bots. The analytics is not reliable

10. Easy prey for spammers and bots

Blogging: What Is Your Real Intention?

2014-06-12T10:40:00.001+08:00

Blogging has become such a trend today that even a kid can start a blog. With so many free blogging platforms available, it is possible for even someone with no budget or experience to start a blog. People blog for many reasons and most of them are tied to personal gain. The most common intent for starting a blog today is to make money online to gain financial freedom or for side income. Whatever reasoning behind it, these aspiring bloggers have to make sure that they are capable of blogging well first.

When it first began, people started blogging, for the most part, as a hobby. Blogs created were mostly private and the blogger's intention was to share the content with friends and family. The content of a particular blog was about personal activities and bloggers did not having to go "viral" on the internet as a goal like what many are doing today. Some people even treated their blog like their diary and they wrote their blog about their everyday life.

Imagine how naïve bloggers are during those days. Bloggers don't even think about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), page rank, backlinks and not even something seemingly simple like keyword density. However, this is the real reason why people blog nowadays. Blogging is a social media and it is used to interact to other people. Business owners eventually acknowledged the power of the blog and used it to interact with their customers. That was the beginning of blogs being used for business intention.

Blogs are also used by some to gain attention. These types of bloggers, in general, do not care about the credibility of their blog content. Their intention is only to seek attention - positive or negative - and to gain readers. These blogs take physical form in the shape of gossip magazines and tabloids. Good article is not necessary true because the true intention is to attract readers and raise their curiosity. If the article reach the right people and shared with others, it will become popular which we today call it viral content.

Some people who have very strong opinions about the world but do not know the right channel to express their ideas can blog about them. These blogs are more than ideas, it is about someone's feelings towards the world that we live. These people actually can change the world. Helping other people can be a blessing and inspiration for these people.

Last but not least, people blog in the intention to spread news, activities and share events. We talked about gossip bloggers above but this is very different. News blogs are about quality reporting, unique points of view and facts. That is what these bloggers were supposed to do but people are starting to question the quality of the news reported.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, before you start thinking about making money out from blogging, remember what blogs are supposed to do. There are too many fake blogs who collects articles, spin them and then post them as their own. That is not quality blogging. It is because of their greed for money that keeps them from becoming a real blogger. People like this will not last long in the blogging world. When they realize that they do not make a single penny, they will throw in the towel.

Remember that blogging was supposed to be fun and exciting. People write articles to inspire, share experiences and to inform other people with their ideas, jokes and facts. If you feel miserable and not having fun doing it, then blogging is not for you.

Get Free Facebook Likes, Free Twitter Followers and So Much More

2014-05-23T13:49:00.000+08:00

Are you setting up a new Facebook Fan Page, a new Twitter account or even a new Pinterest board? I know it is hard to get likes or even followers. Some people even buy their followers but what is the use when you can get it for free and the good news is they are real followers. What I don’t like about buying followers is sometimes they are not real. Sellers sometimes use bots to like your Facebook page.

I came across with a website that offers so many things for a new account that you have just set up at AddMeFast.com. Here is what you get when you register to AddMeFast:

Facebook

Facebook likes
Facebook share
Facebook followers
Facebook post likes
Facebook post shares

Instagram

Instagram followers
Instagram Likes

Twitter

Twitter followers
Twitter tweets
Twitter retweets
Twitter favorites

Youtube

Youtube subscribes
Youtube likes
Youtube favorites
Youtube views

Google+

Google circles
Google share

Ask.fm

Ask. Fm likes

Vine

Vine likes
Vine followers
Vine revines

Vkontakte

Vkontakte pages
Vkontakte groups

Myspace

Myspace friends

Pinterest followers
Pinterest repins
Pinterest likes

Reverbnation

Reverbnation fans

Soundcloud

Soundcloud follow
Soundcloud play

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon follow

Website

Website hits (traffic)

How it work

1. Go to AddMeFast.com to register. The registration form is not long and easy to fill.

2. They will send you a confirmation email and click from your email to sign in.

3. On first sign up, you will be given 50 free points

4. Now go to the green button on the left and click Add site/page

5. Register any account you want and any service that you need. Tips: Don’t register any service that you don’t need because you will lose points there when someone click on it. Think of it like adsense CPC.

6. Set up the Cost Per Click (CPC). Minimum is two and maximum is ten. I use two at first because I really need likes for my Facebook Fan Page.

7. If you need free points, click on the buttons under the Free Points. You will like other people’s page, share or follow to get free points. This will give you a win-win situation. You get followers and other people also get their followers.

8. You also can buy points. Click on the ‘Need unlimited points on addmefast’ banner and you can choose three different packages that charge you on weekly basis.

AddMeFast aslo have affiliate program but they don’t give you money (correct me if I’m wrong). You will receive 300 points if you refer others.

Conclusion

That’s it! You are done. Now you can have express free Facebook likes, followers or anything you like all for free and real people. Enjoy!

What Are Backlinks and How Do You Create Them?

2014-05-12T13:34:00.000+08:00

Webmasters, internet marketers and bloggers are very familiar with the term backlinks and what it does to a website. People who never start a website and never heard of backlinks will one day become familiar with them. This is because backlinks have great effects to a certain website. It shows that the particular website is popular and talked around any other website or forums.

Now the main question, what is a backlink? Wikipedia defines backlink as:

"Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node." – Wikipedia

For easier understanding, backlinks are your website’s signature that you leave behind when you visit another website, forums and any other social interactions on the web. When other people who want to know more about you or your website, they will click on those links and they will be directed to your personal webpage, Facebook fan page, google+, blog, twitter or any other thing that you want visitors to go. In this case, usually people will drive traffic to their blog or blog post.

If you see the backlinks definition by Wikipedia, you realize that there are a few types of backlinks that you can create. We will go to that part later. Let’s stay at the basic first. The basic thing about backlinks is they are supposed to help your website rank better in search engines and they are good for SEO.

When you create backlinks for your website, it is closely related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and your website’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Hundreds and thousands of backlinks means that your website is popular among internet users and it will push your website to higher ranking when internet users do search term related to your website topic.

Backlinks can be created manually or automatically. Manual backlinks are when you go to a certain website and comment, post or submit your link yourself. This is quite tiring but it is the best way to do it or at least pay someone to do it. Automatic back linking is when you do backlinks using certain software which is usually paid software. All you have to do is put your website url there and it will magically send your website link to any bookmarking site.

In terms of SEO, the term black hat, grey hat and white hat will be most commonly used. It is like doing SEO with ethics whether it is bad, moderate or nice. Good backlinks means your website is SEO friendly.

Black Hat SEO

These techniques are not ethical at all. It is aggressive and usually done automatically with software that usually created by the user or that you can buy from software’s black market. The results in doing black hat are extremely fast and you can get rank on 1st page of Google. Creating backlinks using black hat techniques are super-fast but it is useless. Most of the backlinks are created using bots which is considered spamming.

The black hat techniques don’t last long. Google and other search engines are not that stupid. That is why Google launch the Panda and Penguin algorithms. After these cute animals are unleashed, many websites are taking its toll and de-ranked from their original rank. Many people thought that these algorithms are bad but I personally think it’s good. These algorithms create a fair play in the SEO field. It means that only those who work hard to create their website are acknowledged by Google.

At this time, many webmasters don’t use black hat anymore although a few may still have but what is the use? Nobody creates a website just to get punished by Google. In other word it means that you also have to be a good boy and girl and work your way to the top.

Grey Hat SEO

This is the most used SEO techniques in the whole internet world, well at least for webmasters and bloggers. Grey hat are also aggressive but in ethical ways compared to black hat that use force to knock down their competitors. Black hat also mostly related to hacking.

Grey hat are also a bad boy but for good intention. It is hard to explain but it’s like Robin Hood on the internet, on steroids. People who use grey hat techniques will break the law but not for their own personal gain. What even better is, people who use grey hat techniques are considered not breaking any rules and will get away with it.

Webmasters who used the grey hat techniques will also get fast results for their website but not as fast as using the black hat techniques. Grey hat users will see their results in a month or a few months later compared to black hat users that will see results in weeks.

White Hat SEO

Need I to say more about white hat techniques? I’m guessing that you already know about what white hat techniques are. It is the most religious and polite kind of way to create backlinks. It follows all the rules on the internet and it doesn’t even tend to break any of the rules.

To use white hat techniques in creating backlinks and to get good rank can take a lot of time. Some website even takes up to six months to get to first page of Google and some even take years. Don’t let this discourage you. The long term effect is what we want. Your website will be at first page of Google for a very long time like..forever. That is unless you frequently update your content and follow the update of Google algorithms.

Commenting on Facebook DOES NOT create backlinks, it works only on websites

Now you already know what are the techniques involve in creating backlinks, we will move on to identify the types and terms of backlinks. Being a webmaster or a blogger, there are so many internet terms that you should know and what does it mean. I will try my best to make it easier to understand so that you don’t have to worry about the little details.

The “backlinks” term

Incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links are all backlinks. You don’t have to worry about what they really mean. All you need to worry about is how to create them. These terms are used to identify specifically on what kind of backlinks you have outside your website. All those terms are just backlinks that point back to your website and getting your website’s SERP on steroids.

There are three types of backlinks that people usually used to create to point back to their website. One is using the whole website url ex. http://imd208blog.blogspot.com/ . The other one is using anchor text or images which look like this. The last one is using your avatar as backlinks when you comment on other blogs or when you join a forum. The process of creating backlinks are called link building.

“Anchor Text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. In modern browsers, it is often blue and underlined.” – MOZ

Let’s make this a lot easier to understand. All you need to know is external links and internal link, also known as deep linking. External links are already explained above. It all about the links outside your website whether you create them automatically or manually or created by other people.

Internal link or deep linking is links inside your website specifically on you posts. When you create a new post, you can add a few links that direct readers to older post by using anchor text or the title itself. Creating deep links are also good for SEO because those links will also be crawled by search engines. Another good thing is users will have no trouble browsing your older content. All they have to do is click on those links.

How To Create Backlinks?

There are two ways that you can create backlinks. The first one is to create them manually. Creating backlinks manually means you have to look for other websites, forums, social medias, bookmarking sites and article submission site and put your links there. Your links can be your website url or using anchor links which I prefer better.

To create automatic backlinks, you have to use online features that are available which can be free or paid. Most people use the free service and I know you will also but there are bigger advantages if you use the paid service. You can choose which service suits you. For beginner, I suggest you use the free service because I know you don’t have a lot to spend and you want to save as much as you can.

Create Backlinks Manually

Blog commenting

Comment on other blogs with high PR (minimum 4) with the same niche as you are. If you are in cooking niche, why would you comment on car repair niche? You get the idea there right? Most of all, those links that you create at different niche will have a negative effect to your blog.

How do you leave your link there? You will find out when you write your comment. Most websites allow readers to leave comments and also their email and website. Now for the tricky part when commenting, DO NOT use your homepage url when leaving comment. Instead, put your post url. There is nothing wrong to put your website url but isn’t it better using backlink directly to your post? As I said before, it is easy for other readers to click your link and directed to your post.

Submit your article

You can submit your article to any article directories. There are a lot of article directories on the internet. You can choose to send to them all if you want. The more, the merrier it will be. This is not as easy as you think. The best article directories will review your article first before it is posted live. They have to make sure that your article is unique, free of grammatical mistake and never been posted before in any other website.

With my bad English command, I also have trouble submitting my articles there. I have to edit and read it a few times before being approved. Below is the list of article directories that are mostly used by bloggers. Before sending to other article directories, pass these three first. Good luck for that.

Don’t get me wrong. Your job is not finish here. When you pass these top three article directories, you also have to send it to other article directories. You can find them using Google. It seems that this part involves a lot of work but don’t worry, there are tools to help you do that but it is not free. Use one tool is enough.

Join forums

Joining any forums will not help you. You have to stick to your niche. Go to Google and type your niche + forum. Don’t just register, be active. Give comments and ask questions. I am sure there will be someone who will answer you.

How will you get backlinks by joining forums? It is almost the same as blog commenting. But using blog commenting it is hard to find blogs who allow links on their comment. Some blog owners think that is spamming. It is a different story with forums. They allow you to put links or even url. There is one forum that I join even let their members post about their blog there.

Use social media

Social medias are the most highly active communication hub today. People tend to be lazy and they won’t do anything. All they need is a laptop or smartphones and chit chat all day using Facebook, Google+, Myspace and so much more..much..much more. Get that fingers busy and create an account at any social media network that you like and promote you blog. Post a few of your blog content there and don’t forget those backlinks.

Guest post

For people who are still new to internet marketing or the blogging world, do not think that guest post is an easy thing to do. Many website owners go blog hunting trying to find anyone who wants to add them as a guest poster. What they do not know is not all website owners accept guest posting on their blog for some reason. The common reasons are they don’t even read your email, they don’t trust you and you don’t have the credibility to post on their blog.

Personally, I hate this option for creating backlinks. The blogs that you are going to hunt must be high in PR and already long enough on the internet. That is why those people have to scan their guest bloggers. But on the other hand, it is not impossible. Keep on contacting these sites and show them your blog. Not all website owners will ignore you.

One advice that I want to tell you is don’t ignore your readers and people that contact you via email. If you think the person is not suitable as your guest poster, tell them. Don’t ignore and keep quiet about it. You will lose readers and credibility on your blog if you do that. Remember that you were once like them. Help those people if they really need your help.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is keeping your website address and categorized them in categories for future retrieval. Easy to say, it is like in a library where books are kept in a manner for easy finding by library users. However, for SEO purpose, social bookmarking does not help like it used to be. For the purpose of link building, you can give it a try.

It is the same concept as your browser’s bookmarking process. When you like a certain website or post that entertain you, you will bookmark it. You will no longer have to browse them using your browser. Who knows that those website will lose their rank in the near future.

Even though submitting your website to social bookmark page does not increase your website’s SERP, it is still a good way to give your link away. Register to a few websites below and continue to submit your website. Do not use automation in any of them. It is better to do it yourself.

http://digg.com/ (do follow)
https://www.diigo.com/ (do follow)
https://delicious.com/ (high PR, no follow)
http://www.fark.com/ (high PR, no follow)
http://www.scoop.it/ (do follow)
http://www.folkd.com/ (do follow)
http://www.mister-wong.com/ (high PR, no follow)
http://www.reddit.com/ (do follow)

Use authority sites

What are authority sites? They are websites with high PR, trusted and full of information. To get them to link to you is super hard. If you write some crap, misleading and non-useful content, you will not get your backlink from them. In real life, you can imagine authority sites are like the local council, police, government, giant companies and so on. You’ll get the idea.

These sites allow you to write for them but like I said before, what you write must be unique and informative. This is because these authority sites have to maintain their reputation as one of the high ranking website on the internet. They don’t want their readers to get scammed or misled. Don’t even try to write any controversies if you don’t have solid proof for what you write.

Luckily, there are some authority sites that you can easily put your backlinks there. But you still have to watch out for your content. Even if your content is live, it will be removed if you don’t follow their protocol. Here is a few that you can register to:

Link baiting

Doing link baiting is easy but to get them to work is sometimes unexpected. To link bait, you create a post linking to another blog without being asked to do it. It is totally on your own free will. It doesn’t matter if you create a link text or their website url as long as links to the other website.

The trick behind the linking part is to get the attention of the other websites that you link to so that they realize that you exist. If you are lucky, they will link back to you. How good does that sound to you? Having a free backlink from high authority sites are very rare indeed so you must do it carefully with a lot of planning first.

Like always, make sure that your website is reliable to readers and has enough articles to browse for and don’t forget you must be at the same niche. Well, the concept is also the same with blog commenting. Go for the first few people who linked to that particular article, the best is the top ten people.

RSS Submission

This is the only automation in creating backlinks that is allowed today. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. I guess that most people know about what is RSS feed and I think I’ll pass the explanation part moreover we are talking about creating backlinks here. So we stick on how to create backlinks for your website.

Submitting your website’s RSS feed is the easiest part in back linking. All you have to do is take your RSS url, paste and click submit using Feedage which is free to use. You also can do it manually by sending your RSS feed to any RSS directories site. The list below is a few examples. There are a lot more RSS directory sites available online.

Create Backlinks Automatically

Unfortunately, I will not share on how to create your backlinks automatically. It is because any automation or anything involving bots will be penalized by Google. Your website will not rank well because of this. If you are aware which I know you would, that Google create new algorithm in their searches. Any low quality links will be penalized.

So, don’t waste your time learning about how to automate your backlinks in other websites. For my personal opinion, Google want us to be honest in creating a website or blog. By doing this, Google creates an opportunity for all internet marketers and the lazy will be left behind. Only the determine will stay.

Conclusion

For conclusion about backlinks, there is no other way than to create them manually. If it is too tiring for you, outsource. Pay someone to do it for you. No one really knows exactly how Google algorithms really work except for the Google boys themselves. It is good to play safe for long term effects.

Google change their algorithm every five years. When they do that, it's like they're 'cleaning' their search results. To be safe from those algorithms, go for white hat. It is slow indeed but it is the best technique if you want a long term business with your blog. But most important, write for people, not for Google.

Appreciate Your Readers

2014-04-22T15:22:00.003+08:00

One thing that I really hate when emailing, commenting or contacting any blog owners is their lack of response. I think that I am not alone in this situation. Just imagine that you are only starting to draft your way to your own internet business and you want a few advice or even one piece of advice but you get nothing. It’s kind of disappointing but it is something that you must keep in mind.

I comment and emailed a few very successful blogs around the internet even before I started blogging. It’s not that I am looking for advice but I was commenting or asking directly at the post. Out of curiosity, I comment and ask about the blog post but get no reply. Not just me but everyone that was commenting did not get a reply. What we do at that time was we answered each others questions.

It was a terrible experience for me for not being treated as a guest in someone’s house. Not only this was happening a few years ago but these kinds of bloggers still exist today. That will be my last day in visiting such blogs. I don’t care how much money you make or how successful you are, you can get lost from my sight!

A real successful blogger will always reply to their readers. You should always remember this. Some bloggers hired other people to reply their emails or comment for them but it doesn’t matter. As long as your name is used, your readers will be happy enough to hear your reply. If you don’t reply at any comment or email, people will start to leave your blog and may never return again.

I get it when you said that you are busy with other commitments. You can reply late or leave a message asking your readers to wait. It doesn’t hurt to wait if you ask your readers to wait for you. Like being mentioned above, you can always hire someone else to do it if you are busy. Having an online business is like having a physical business. It can take away a lot of your time but don’t let it be in your way.

Conclusion

Take care of your readers. They are the one who makes your blog successful and also who will become your customers. Appreciate every single comment that they leave or any emails that they sent to you. A short reply won’t hurt. As long as your readers get what they want, they will surely be happy about it.

Have any comments? Leave it below and I will surely REPLY..GET IT? LOL..

Fiverr Review on Gigs Offered

2014-04-17T17:23:00.001+08:00

Fiverr.com is a website that promotes gigs for people who wants to make some extra cash online. They use the term ‘gig’ for the services offered. People who have expertise (even a little) can register their gigs at Fiverr for quick cash. I found myself is also interested to put my gig there. I love to write for about anything and maybe one day I’ll post my gigs there (don’t forget to purchase lol).

If you head to Fiverr now, you will notice most of the gigs are insanely cheap. For a basic gig offered, it will cost flatly just $5.00. That is just the basic gig. If you want more ‘intensive’ and ‘accurate’ gig, you have to pay more. But it is still considered cheap than hiring someone from Odesk and Elance. For an extra gig, they will cost about $10 to a few hundred dollars. But mostly you will find it is up to $50.

The ordering process is also very easy. You can order any gig by using your Paypal account or Bitcoin. With a few clicks, you are good to go with the order. This is the best part that I like about Fiverr. There are no hassles when ordering. It is better than buying stuffs online. I hope other website will learn this kind of stuff from Fiverr. Everyone is a consumer, can’t they see what makes people lives easier?

For internet marketer who wants to make a few bucks to kill time, this is the right place to look for. Considering the pay is cheap, the services are also quite simple. There are a lot of gig types like article writing, resume writing, buy facebook ‘likes’, get twitter followers, get website traffic, learn to play musical instruments, design a web page and so much more for just $5.00.

Other people who needs their job quickly done or don’t have the time to do their work, Fiverr is the best alternative to search for the appropriate services needed. Like I said at the above paragraph, the purchasing process is as smooth as silk. It’s easy to use and the job that you require will be done in no time. The period of time stated is 24 hours. Most work will be done during that time period except if they ask for extra time.

Choose your gig wisely. I spend a lot of money at Fiverr because I wasn’t satisfied with the work done. The gigs advertised are rated by user but high rated ads will usually have their hands full. I have no other choice but to pick other low or unrated gigs. Contact the gig advertiser before you do any purchase. Ask any question before agreeing with the purchasing.

Fiverr

It is quite a terrible experience for me at Fiverr during the first few purchase. As I was adjusting myself with Fiverr environment, I become better at choosing. You cannot bargain the price but you can choose which one you prefer. Once purchase is made, you cannot take it back however you can do a cancellation at the beginning of your order if you feel that you don’t need the service anymore.

Bad experiences don’t stop me from purchasing more gigs. The trick behind any purchase is the choosing part. You must choose carefully. For as low as $5, don’t expect the gig offered is the best but some advertisers are the best in their business. If you don’t like the gig after it is delivered, you can give negative comments to the advertiser and learn from your mistake.

Conclusion

For conclusion on Fiverr and their gigs, I think they still give the best offer any money can buy. It does worth the money spend. There might be bad services but when you think back it’s only for five bucks, you get what you pay for.

To avoid getting bad business with the advertiser, contact the advertiser first and see whether he or she is responding fast or bargaining for their service. If you are not satisfied, don’t place your order. It is a simple as that.

If you are thinking about placing your own gig at Fiverr, that is the best place to start to advertise your service. I think most people go to Fiverr now because of their cheap and fast product and services delivery. You can place more than one gig at a time.

Disagree with me? Add a comment below and share your thoughts. For those who never visited Fiverr, go and check for yourself at Fiverr.com.

Blogging Is That Damn Hard

2014-04-11T15:45:00.003+08:00

Have everyone tried blogging yet? You may not be influenced by me maybe some other blogging gurus out there that may be your coach or trainer. I hoped somebody will tell their story with me and other readers on their personal opinion when blogging. Experience is the best teacher in life. What makes you tomorrow is your own experience.

I will share mine first. For anyone who already started blogging, they will realize that it is not as easy as they think. That is why only a few survived the blogging world. With millions of blogs out there, there is almost no chance of survival. Many can start a blog but many can’t maintain it and they will give up. Don’t think blogging is a piece of cake if you never blog before.

The reason I blog is to share my experience and I want my readers to feel what I feel. I love to influence others by my writing even though my English is not that perfect. As long as readers understand what I’m trying to say will be enough for me. The feelings that when everyone read what comes out from your head is priceless. It’s worth more than all the money in the world.

Feels like giving up?

It is important to blog about something that you are passionate about. I’ve read about this but I can’t put it in the right word. Describing feelings is my weakness but I try to make you understand. Blogging is actually like a job or hobby. Don’t think about money first. Get your job going and you will reap on what you sow. If you have a daily job, you will understand this. No job means no money.

For me, readers are more important. Concentrate on bringingtraffic to your blog rather than focusing on trying to make money. A blog is an online journal, don’t forget about that. How can you write a journal when nobody wants to read your blog? Bring readers first, and then you can make money. Bringing traffic to your blog is the main obstacle that you must overcome because it is the hardest part of blogging. For this reason also, many will give up.

Avoid negative thinking in your head. Don’t listen to those voices in your head saying “you are not good enough”, “nobody wants to read those crap you write”, “there are too many competitors” or “this blog will take years to develop”. If you are not sure if blogging suits you, do many experiments. Create a few blogs from free blogging platform. If you love what you are doing, then you can go for paid domains.

Here are examples of obstacles when you start a blog:

Lack of idea in writing
Lazy to update your blog
Not consistent in updating your blog
Too many competitors those are obviously better than you
No traffic (don’t know how to get traffic)
No traffic (too lazy to find traffic)
Always doing things for money (this can really frustrates you)
Thinks that blogging is easy
Don’t care about asking for help
Give up too quick

I can list down a hundred more obstacles if I want to. This is just the example. People are different and they see things differently. Some may give up for a while but they will continue back what they have started. Some people just give up and do something else. Not all people are lucky enough to head straight to success. Almost all have to work hard.

Discipline yourself if you want to blog. Some people see blogging as an impossible way to make money. This is certainly almost true. You can make a few cents and a few bucks per month but to really make money seems impossible. But think back again, if you can make a few cents or a few bucks, it means that you can make money by blogging.

Conclusion

Blogging is a business and no businessman starts their empire in a blink of an eye. You have to work hard. Let’s stop talking about blogging for now. Talk about starting an outlet, shop, stalls or any other physical business. You will again face the same problem. You don’t get successful if you don’t do anything. You have to advertise and introduce your business to others.

Top 10 List About Things You Should Never Forget If You Have A New Blog

2014-02-11T14:37:00.003+08:00

You set up a blog or you bought one, get your post ready or at least some ideas, post it to your blog and everything should be fine, right? Wrong! I’ve been doing this for a few months but I can’t seem to get traffic to my blog. It bugs me for a while then I realize I didn’t do anything to improve the blog’s SEO and keywords.

Being a blogger means that you always do the same thing with a new blog in your possession. There are no other ways to get traffic to your blog. Doing the same thing every time can make your brain forgetful. Sometimes you are too busy with your personal schedule and you will tend to forget about small stuff about your blog.

I was truly devastated knowing that I don’t have good traffic to my blog for no apparent reason. But it’s not anyone’s fault. I’m only tired and couldn’t remember to set up the SEO pluggin and everything else. The only thing I remember was just to post my article every two days. Then I have to continue with my work and study.

This is not a long post. I only want to remind you about the things that you might forget to do with your blog. Remember that you should always keep this list on your note so that you would not forget. Here is the top 10 list:

Do keyword research
Set up your SEO
Wait for your blog’s traffic results
Do a few experiments with your tweak to get the best result
Test your blog again
Comment on other blogs/competitor
Join forums
Be active on the internet/be social
Update your social account often
Build your relationship with readers

All In One SEO Pack Pluggin Tutorial And Configuration

2014-02-04T16:11:00.001+08:00

2014 Resolutions For Bloggers

2014-01-30T11:13:00.002+08:00

It is almost the end of January. Have you thought about your resolution for 2014? Even a blogger also have a resolution or few resolutions. Remember that blogging is a business. You must have a goal for your blog. Do it slowly but it is a must. Don’t waste time blogging if you are not in to it.

If you like blogging, I guess you already have a resolution for this year. Resolutions are different for each blogger. It is according to their achievements. If you failed to achieve your last year resolution, you can also do it this year. No one is forcing you to do something because that is your own duty.

For my resolution this year, I want to draw more traffic to my blog including this blogger blog. I love this blog even though it is not perfect. It is a place where I can write my personal emotions about blogging and my blog development. If you need help to find your resolution, you can read take note below:

Start a new blog

Register to another mailing list service

Changing the entire template

Sell old blog

Changing SEO style

Give more comments on other blogs/make friends

Driving more traffic

Get more sales

Increase more profit

Finding sponsors

Register new affiliate programs

Learning new techniques in web development

Learn some HTML

Create a landing page

Work more on social network

Get your article published in article directory

Increase blog security

These are only examples. You can choose one if you are interested. If you already have your own resolution, get it going now. Make sure that you can finish it before the year ends. Start your engine immediately.

Top 7 Myths About Blogging

2014-01-28T14:10:00.001+08:00

If you ever came across some advertisements, blog posting or even a landing page selling blogging ebook, you might have been thinking is this guy is for real? Many thoughts will come across you because the way the person creates his promotional method is sometimes look like a get-rich-quick scheme.

Most of the time (maybe they don’t exist anymore), common sentence used are ‘all you need is a computer’, ‘no computer skills needed’ and ‘I earned xxx in just two days’. In common sense, this trick also will not help you sell. Even if you do, there will be enormous returned back.

Many people are desperate to look for other alternatives to find money. Money is the no1 motivator for an individual. It is not a wrong thing to do but the way you put your mind into it is wrong. It is like working the worst job you ever had just to put your meal on the table.

Here we are going to see some blogging myths that have been circulating around the internet. I’ve seen a few still exist. I don’t know the rest of them. Maybe they have been removed by Clickbank or banned. Most of the products are ebooks.

Myth #1: All you need is a computer/no computer skills are needed

Basically, this is true. What you don’t know is, if you don’t know how to use the computer or some skills on the internet, you have to pay somebody to do it. The costs for all this html, marketing, seo and any other internet crap is not cheap buddy.

You really need computer skills. You don’t have to know all of it. A little bit of basic html is fine. This simple Blogger blog that I have also requires me to have some html skills to tweak and maintain. You can hire someone to do the hard part.

Myth #2: Bloggers sell male enhancement products

This is not totally untrue. Bloggers start their blog with the niche that they are expert in or want to be expert in to. It is a common thing that bloggers sell male enhancement products. Maybe that is the niche that they like so much.

What you really need to know is, bloggers have many niche or sub topics. They can technically sell anything they want. If all bloggers sell male enhancement products, I will not read another blog my entire life.

Myth #3: I made $xxxx for xx days

With great confidence, this IM guru brag about how much he/she can earn for a certain period. Usually the period is only for a few days. To gain that kind of money is not impossible, you heard right, NOT impossible. That takes a few simple tricks to do so.

What the guru don’t tell you is it takes for example $4000 to make $5500. The $4000 is for ads purpose and to buy email lists. Be extra careful when you come across this type of ads. You might lose more money than earning them.

Myth #4: Get rich with blogging

I think everyone is aware about this is really a myth. By blogging it doesn’t mean that you are joining a get-rich-quick scheme. But, some people still thinks that way. Internet involves so many scams. When someone is not familiar with the internet world, when they think about internet, the first think that cross their mind is scam.

It is true that many things that you read online are scam. Do some research about the product if you are interested to buy them. It is a good thing that these days you can find many product reviews are available online. Read a few reviews before intending to buy. I also use this method to shop online.

Myth #5: Blogs are used for internet marketing

It is not only for internet marketing or teaches you to blog and make money. Blogging is freestyle. You can blog about any niche topic that you want to. Basically, you can blog about anything. People get confused what blogs are usually for.

It’s not their fault to get confused. This is because of the ‘misunderstanding’ that the blogging gurus taught them. People read blogs like Copyblogger, John Chow, Entrepreneurs-Journey, Problogger and so much more blogs that teaches them how to blog. Beginners sometimes think that they should do the same blog like what they are reading.

Myth #6: “I got this information from a blog”

Blogs can cover many topics such as funny, sad, touching, current news, entertainment and so much more. Not everything that you read is true. The blogger’s intention was only to attract readers and subscribers. They ‘cheat’ their readers for a good purpose and sometimes also for bad intentions.

Good intentions means that the blogger want his/her content to go viral on the internet. Even big company like Google does this with their first 3D glasses video that they post on Youtube. Google want to see the public’s reaction on the video. Entertainment blog can post a few gossip articles. The story doesn’t have to be true because it is gossip.

Bad intentions mean that the blogger intentionally writes a negative story and post them on their blog. Their intention was to give a negative image to an individual, a product or a company. This is not a very good idea to begin with. You can face charges by the party involved in your blog content.

Myth #7: Blogging is the only money-making tool on the internet

This is totally untrue. There are a lot of money-making methods that you can do on the internet. In my opinion, blogging is the best because you can have a long-term earning. But blogging is still not the only way to make money. Some people don’t have the skill to write but they are good at something else.

For example, if you have a shoe store by your place, you can sell those shoes through Ebay. You don’t have to have a blog to do this. But if you are very good in shoes, you can have a blog and write articles about shoes. Tell your visitors how good your knowledge with shoes.

Another example is a gambler. Gambling is a habit just like smoking. It is hard to leave behind. If you are really a good poker player, you can register your name and your credit card at a known gambling site. You can earn through gambling from the internet.

How To Add Hostgator Email To Microsoft Outlook

2014-01-21T15:40:00.002+08:00

I found this video on Youtube to share with everyone. This is a simple explanation on how to add your Hostgator email account to Microsoft Outlook. The video is only a few minutes long and I guess that you will be setting your email for that period of time also. Enjoy!

Methods To Promote Your Blog For Free

2014-01-18T23:19:00.003+08:00

Bloggers are so crazy about visitors. Many bloggers check their blog visitors every day to see how many people are visiting their blog. This is because all bloggers want other people to read what they are trying to say and their personal opinion.

No one creates a blog for the sake of blogging without anyone visiting them. That is what a blog is all about. Blogging is socializing. You don’t have to be a great writer to start a blog. You blog because you want to hear other people’s opinion and also show others what is your opinion on a certain topic.

Bloggers that have extra cash to spend, they sometimes spend big only to bring people to their blog. One of the most popular place to advertise your blog is through Google Adword. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can create a hole in your pocket through the wrong step you take.

Don’t feel down with competitors that have the cash. You can go slowly in driving traffic. The best way to bring traffic to your blog is through free methods and not by spending so much in ads. Don’t get me wrong. If you have the money, you can go the faster way.

In the other hand, I prefer free traffic through free methods. I hate to pay for ads except for driving traffic to a landing page. That is a different story because you are trying to sell something. You will usually get your money back if you can sell something. Here are the free methods that can make a difference to your blog:

Blog commenting

Leave your comments at other blogs that have the same topic or niche as you are. Keep the blog’s address for you to go back in the future. It is a good idea to make friends with people who have the same interest as you.

Blog commenting allows you to leave your blog’s address when you leave your comments. Don’t do this to spam other blogs or they will block your comments. Leave quality comments so that other people who read your comment knows that you are not a spam bot.

Use social media

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are use widely around the world and the best part of it is you can use it for free. Post something that people love to read about for instance something funny, sad and touching story. When other people likes your post, they will help you share.

Blogging style social media such as Tumblr, Pinterest and Squidoo also plays an important part. You can write something about your blog or about your topic and leave a link there. If someone is interested in your article, they will click your link and you will have free traffic.

Article marketing

For me, this is the hard part but this is the best way to make your blog known to others. English is not my first language. That means I will have grammatical errors everywhere on my article no matter how much I check my article. for this reason I stick with social media.

If you think your English is great and you know how to format your article, you are good to go. The best way to send your article is to Ezine Article. People always look around Ezine to find free articles and probably they will find yours. Ezine is just an example. You can send your article in any article directory website that you prefer.

Word of mouth

This is a traditional way of promoting. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t intend to ask you to promote your blog to anyone you see (that also works). What I meant here is when your blog is popular and worthy to read, people can introduce your blog to their friends.

If you have a business card, you can write down your blog there. Some people start a blog for business purpose and giving business cards away with their blog’s address is a pretty normal thing to do. Don’t be so down in promoting your blog.

Easiest Way To Monetize Your Blog

2014-01-16T15:26:00.002+08:00

There are many ways to monetize your blog even if you are using free platform such as blogspot. It doesn’t matter what platform you use. Monetizing can be done anywhere. For instance, google adsense allows you to put their ads no matter what are your blog ranking or what platform do you use.

However, the monetizing method can be very limited for new user even for paid host blogs. It really doesn’t matter because you can still do it slowly. No one ever said that blogging is a get-quick-rich scheme program. Start slowly and you will be rewarded for your patience.

Below is a few monetizing methods that you can use. For some of you who know a bit about monetizing a blog, you may notice that I didn’t mention some of them. That is because below are used by baby blogs which means the blogs are still new and they still don’t rank well and have low visitors.

Google Adsense

If you don’t know about Google Adsense, you might have living under the rock for a while. This is a common and the easiest method to monetize your blog. All you need to do is register with Google and you can access Google Adsense immediately.

Google Adsense is a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. To use Google Adsense, you can log in to your Google Adsense account, copy and paste the html given and post it in your blog. Whenever visitors come to your blog and click your ads, you will get paid. The range of payment is from $0.01-$3.00.

The payment range can change according to the advertiser. To cash out your payment, you will need to reach $100.00. Payment will be made using checks.

Click here to register with Google Adsense

Infolinks

I think this is the best ad network available, at least according to my own opinion. Infolinks create link ads within your blog post. The links will be underlined in any color that you choose. When you hover over the link, an ad will appear. They also have banner ads and categories ads.

Infolinks claim that they are the highest payee for publishers. I don’t know if this claim is true. All I know about is I’m going to make money out of it. I am still new with Infolinks so I don’t have much to tell. You can check it out yourself.

By the way, this blogspot blog is not approved by Infolinks. I only add Infolinks to my wordpress blog which is a paid domain. Don’t worry about this. I have seen Infolinks on other free blog platform. Blogs are easily can be accepted into their ad network. Maybe there are some content on this blog that they don’t like.

Click here to register with Infolinks

Bidvertiser

This is also one of my favorite. I like how they manage the page and ads settings. It’s like looking at Google Adsense page with a better version. You can register as publisher, advertiser or affiliate but you can have all in one account.

Bidvertiser is like Google Adsense. They have the same format and methods of advertisement. But one thing I don’t like is the ad setting. If you put more than one ad on your blog, the template of the blog is the same. You can’t customize it differently.

Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

Chitika

This ad network works depending on searches. They have banners with the searches that you made using the search engine, usually question based searches. If the visitor clicks on your link and came to your website, they will see the question they search is on the ad itself. Link ads also available.

Payment is still the same thing. It requires visitors to click on the ad before they pay you. Chitika is also easy to manage and their dashboard is simple enough for you to make your own settings. They also have website traffic graph for your convenience.

Adf.ly

I don’t think that everyone likes Adf.ly kind of method in monetizing. But I wrote them here because it is easy to use. Adf.ly is link ads just like Chitika and Infolinks. With Adf.ly there are no ads when you hover over the links. Visitors have to click on the link themselves for you to get paid.

This is easy money because all you need to do is put a link on your blog. Most people use important links for people to click on it. But the payment is not a satisfaction. One click is worth like $0.0005.

Click here to register with Adf.ly

Conclusion

I know that you are thinking that there are other monetizing methods that pay higher. You are right but those methods are for professional bloggers that requires your blog to rank high. For instance, Review Me. They won’t accept your blog if it is still new and have a few visitors per month.

That is why I only recommend the above method for you to try. It is a bit slow but please be patient. Everyone that succeeds already feel what you feel now. It’s up to you if you want to be like them or to give up.

How To Start Blogging From Scratch

2014-01-14T22:10:00.001+08:00

Before you start blogging, I guess that there are a lot of things in your mind bugging you. People always worried about costs, research, keywords and so on. These things are normal. Sometimes it feels like getting married for the first time. I was like that before and I even think too much.

Let me tell you this, most people don’t even know how to start including myself. I thought what do I have to do? Should I do this or do that? It seems small but a lot of internet marketing gurus don’t care about the starting point where it is the most important step in starting an internet business.

The first step is important because that what makes you start and if you don’t know what to do, it can paralyze your step for a while. People need guidance from successful people. They need to imitate what others do before starting to do it themselves.

What I want to share with you today is about the product that helps me going through those ‘big steps’. The first time I started blogging, I bought this product and I think that this product is one of the best products when you want to start blogging.

It is called Blogging With JohnChow. I don’t know who John Chow was but I find him around the internet when you search something about making money online. I have read that his website Johnchow.com was penalize by google a few years back and he is not on the front page of google anymore.

I also have been to his blog and became a regular reader because I like how he teaches us new bloggers on how to blog and I also like his explanation on things. He uses simple English like mine here because both of us don’t use English as our first language (I think mine is worse).

John Chow himself now is one of the successful internet marketers in the internet world. His ebook, BloggingWith John Chow shows that how does he started blogging and now he shares it with us. This is not the best book available online but in my opinion it is the best for newbies to start up their blog.

Advantages of Blogging With JohnChow

The best thing about this ebook is the thirty days action plan to follow. You will be given a thirty days plan about what you need to do from the first day until day thirty. It’s a to-do list. Don’t worry because it is simple and easy to follow.

You will be given nine modules for you to read and understand about blogging and other things that you can do with your blog such as making money from it. There is another one bonus module for you called ‘Automation Empire Module’ is where John Chow reveal some secret and ‘tricks’ about his success.

You don’t have to worry because there is no black hat tactics in this ebook. This ebook even can’t be copied because you only can access it online. I think this is for copyright purpose and I don’t have a problem with that. Nobody wants to get scammed, right?

Bonus

If you buy Blogging With John Chow, you will be given a few bonus. When I look at this bonus, I think it is for the convenience for us to start up a blog. I don’t want to share what is the bonus. You have to buy the ebook yourself for you to find out.

Disadvantages

One thing that disappoints me is the module part. I think it is too simple and short. Maybe John Chow himself doesn’t want us to get information overload or it’s only just me who wants some more. It is really fun to read and entertaining too.

The second thing that I don’t like is the bonus part. It is rewarding if you have the right niche but for me, I couldn’t find my niche there. Because of this, I don’t feel that I have the bonus. Make sure you have a common niche with high demand before purchasing the ebook.

This ebook is for total beginner and intermediate level. If you think you are good enough and have started blogging before, this book is not for you.

Overall

As conclusion from reading the whole ebook and follows what it tells me, it is the best ebook that I can find that really can help you get started. I know how a beginner feel and think. That is why I recommend you to purchase this ebook for your own convenience.

Some of you might think, there is no way an ebook would tell me how to start from scratch. Well, this ebook does. It has step by step guide for you to follow for each day. This ebook is quite cheap for the quality it gives and it is a value for money product.

Bonus Technical Videos

I think I will pass to make a review on this but I think I should share it here briefly. John Chow also have video collections about blogging technical stuff such as setting up the blog for yourself. It’s kind of do-it-yourself video. It is called Wp Blog Videos -Step-by-step Blogging Tutorials.

The collection is over 100 videos of setting up your blog. This video collection is not sold with Blogging WithJohn Chow. It is sold separately.

Product Name: Blogging With John Chow

Type: Online Ebook

Price: $37.00

Rating: 4 star

Product Name: Wp Blog Videos -Step-by-step Blogging Tutorials

Type: Video format

Price: $97.00 (A lifetime access)

I Make Money From Blogging At Blogspot

2014-01-10T16:52:00.003+08:00

Usually we heard or read about making money online using wordpress but what I get here is a very different effect. In my situation, I get more money by using this free blogspot platform. I have my own domain name but it doesn’t look very good, in the case of making money.

Actually this doesn’t look good for my wordpress blog. Even if I make money with blogspot, I shouldn’t feel comfortable with it. It is because blogspot is a free platform and it can be shut down by Google at any time without my concern. The blog is not fully mine.

Don’t get too excited knowing that you can make money out from a free platform like being told here. It is not something shocking or interesting as it sounds. This is quite normal for some cases like mine. There are a few reasons why this is happening.

Here are a few things that you should know if your free platform blog is making more money than your own domain name:

Your blog’s age

How long does your blog are live on the internet will determine how many visitors you have. The longer the age, the better it will get to be well-known. A new blog will take its time to be ranked on the search engine.

In my case, my blogspot blog are older than my new wordpress blog. I got a lot of visitors every day and got some sale from my affiliate links. However, free website platform have bad adsense clicks. People don’t really trust a free platform blog’s ads.

Affiliate links are a different story. You still can make money of it if you give an honest review about any product that you sell. The best thing to do before selling any product is to buy and use them first. By doing this, you already experienced the product yourself and you can tell if the product is good or bad.

Your blog’s topic

What is your blog topic can also affect your earnings. This blogspot blog is mostly about technical stuff, blogging and reviews. People love reviews especially an honest one. Don’t try to lie in your review because people will know about it.

My wordpress blog is more about lifestyle and physical products. I don’t say that physical products are not good but it takes time. This blog also take its time to develop. I also have little visitors at my wordpress blog and I can’t get my blog registered at a few affiliate websites because of this.

Your product choices

Blogging about blogs have tremendous amount of product. You can choose which one that you think is best for your visitors. That is why people love product reviews. They want to know if you already try the product or not. The product doesn’t have to be good. If it’s bad, write it in your review. Your readers will also appreciate your point of view.

If you never try the product, do not write a review about it. You don’t even know what you are writing about. If you duplicate your content, you can get in trouble with the original reviewer. But in most cases, I don’t find anywhere in the internet about duplicate review for content.

Conclusion

No matter how much you find it is interesting that you can make money from a free website platform, don’t rely too much on it. It is not a stable business to start with. This blogspot blog that I have here is from my assignment and I continue to update it because I have my personal notes here.

It is not impossible to make money with a blogspot blog but it won’t go anywhere. When Google shut it down, that’s the end of the world for you. My advice, if you don’t want to wait to get visitors, buy a blog at Flippa.

Step By Step Guide To Build Your Blog The Cheapest Way

2014-01-08T15:42:00.000+08:00

When starting a blog, many people don’t seem to understand the costs and what do they need to pay to get their blog running. People that have the money, they like to spend in anything that they could think of to make their blog at its best. People that don’t have the money cannot do this. They have to think carefully on what they should invest in.

I don’t encourage you buy everything to build your blog. You still can save money and still have your blog running. Don’t build a blog if you wake up today and thinking about blogging. Do a lot of research before you can start one. If you jump in the water with both feet, you will regret it later.

Before starting my blog including this free blogspot blog, I also do some research but it takes me too long to do so. It takes me about five years before I started to blog seriously. During those five years, I have many blogs but none still exist now. It was an experiment even though I regret shutting a few of them down.

You don’t have to get that far to start a blog. A few months are just enough. I had to ‘think’ for five years because of the costs. I was so scared that I will lose money if I invest on the wrong thing. I guest everyone who don’t have a fat paycheck also thinks like me but you are lucky that I share it here so you don’t have to wait a few years to start a blog.

Okay, on this post I want to share with you on how to build a blog the cheapest and effective way. If you are really a newbie and you don’t know anything about blogging, you can read my ideas below. Here is my step by step in starting a blog the cheapest way:

Step 1: Learn simple HTML

Blogging is like building a website from scratch. Even though you buy the template but you still have to learn a few HTML basics. You don’t have to be a pro but you have to know a few things. See this post as example.

How learning HTML is going to save you money.

It does save you a lot of money. If you don’t know a thing or two about HTML, you will have to ask someone else to do it for you. Website designers are not cheap. You can check it out at Freelancer.com. I don’t know about you but I hate to waste money on something small like this.

But there are also other choices. If you have any friends or family member that knows about HTML, you can ask them to help you. This also can save your burning pocket.

Step 2: Buy blogging books

Go to a book store near you or you can click the below image to buy from Amazon the books about blogging. I love reading and I also hope you love it too. Blogging is not about just writing, it’s about reading too. If you hate to read, you can’t blog. You have no point to start a blog.

How buying blogging books help you save money

When you ask successful blogger, they will advise you to have a mentor. A mentor can be someone you know or someone you pay to train you. This kind of people is not cheap. They charge you according to how many hours they train you. However, the results are the best.

Like step no. 1, there is exception if you have friends and family member that can help you. One by one training creates the best result. Don’t feel so down if you can’t have a mentor. It’s not up to them that make you successful. It all depends on your own hard work.

Step 3: Learn or buy a book about internet marketing

Internet marketing is the most important element in blogging. Even if you don’t plan to make money out of your blog, you will still have to market your blog. No one starts a blog with zero readers. This is why I love blogging. Blogging is a way for me to communicate with other people about the topic I love.

Step 4: Do research for the topic that you want to blog

When I read other blogging gurus’ article about doing a research about the blog topic, it’s quite hard for me to understand why I have to do that. At first I thought blogging is about writing on a topic about what I like and that’s it. Then I realize that I need to have readers for my blog. That is why research is important.

By doing research for your blog topic, it is including topic searches and keywords. If you manage to keep up with both, you are in the right track. If there are nobody is searching for your topic, what’s the point to write about it?

How doing topic research is going to save you money

It doesn’t save you money but it saves you a lot of time and energy. Don’t waste your time and energy to build a business that no one wants to know about or no interest in.

Step 5: Learn about search engine optimization (SEO) and keywords

This part you can learn from the internet. I also have this topic in this blog. You can read about SEO here and keywords here. You will learn the basics but the important part is when your blog is already running. You will see how visitors come to your blog using search engines by looking at your blog analytics.

How learning SEO and keywords are going to save you money

When your blog is up and running, you will see the visitors’ flow by looking at your Google Analytics. This can be a frustration for some people because it can take a lot of time to see your search result at the search engine. Some people will start to hire SEO experts to optimize their blog and you can guess it, it’s not cheap.

Step 6: Choosing a template

This is a tricky part for some people and also for me. My eyes are sparkling when I go shopping for my template. There are a lot of choices and also different price selection. Most of the place I check ask you to become its member and you have to pay monthly to use their template.

It is okay if you are a professional in blogging but for newbie like us, I don’t recommend you to pay monthly for a template because you don’t know when you are going to need some extra cash.

For newbie, I recommend you to buy your template from Themeforest. They sell their template ala’ carte style. You only pay for the template you buy only once and the template is yours forever.

How is choosing the right template going to save you money

Need I to explain? I guess you already know by reading the paragraph above. Template also can be customized by website designers. If you don’t know yet, customized also means custom money.

Step 7: Register you domain name and hosting account

I guess you can’t save a lot of money here. The price is almost the same. However, I give you these choices of well-known web hosting and domain company that you can register to.

Webhosting:

Hostgator.com – write down ‘albertheywood9433’ at the coupon code to get 25% discount. Discount is usually 20%. This discount doesn’t apply to domain name registration.

Bluehost.com