Reviews are the core of blogging and any successful blog would write about things they have liked and disliked in the niche. So you should expect reviews on almost every blog. As a blogger, if you are writing review for some product you not only want your existing readers to read them but you also want new readers to come to your site when they are looking for reviews of the product you have already written.

At times it has happened that I read a review and when I purchased the product I shared my views of the same product and managed to outrank those reviews that are online for few years. So I will share with you some key things you should focus on when writing a review and not write a review just for the sake of writing one.

So let us begin…

1. Reviews From A View Point

The difference between a “Review” and a “Great Review” is when you write the review for users who have not used the product you are reviewing and give them the feeling of what to expect when they get the product. This means you need to get detailed picture about the product features and try to explain each feature in detail and how to use those features in a better way.

My vBSEO Review where I showed how vBSEO could improve site traffic with facts and figures or TribalFusion review where I showed how I tripled my eCPM for.

Coming back to the original point of making review detailed would mean reviews becomes longer and don’t hesitate to split the reviews in multiple articles. My reviews are pretty long explaining insider information about the product.

iPage Review, Aweber Review Or PowerYourTrade Review on Technical Analysis blog where I had to cut on the images just to make sure it just does not become too long.

2. Unbiased Reviews

Always try to review with only one thing in mind that is facts and not make your views biased. Everything positive about a product would mean there is something fishy about your review. Either the writer has been paid for the review or is some way or the other related to the product.

For positive facts about the product, show samples and screenshots of you using (or used) the product to make sure you let your readers know that you are reviewing product only for your readers and not for making quick buck out of it.

vBulletin has been my first choice for all my online forums and I shared the same in my comparison of phpBB and vBulletin but I was brutally honest to share why you should not be buying vBulletin 4 as well.

3. No Copy Paste

When someone is searching for review chances are high that they have been reading reviews from lot of other blogs as well and so if you copy content from them, users will soon detect and realize that your review is not a real one and would not be interesting in reading it. Apart from that copied content is punished very badly in Google.

If you had to copy something from somewhere you should only copy the snippet and make it as quote and link to the original article and this happens when you want to share what others are saying about the same product or you take some content from the original author of the product you are reviewing and things like those.

4. Search Forums For Questions About The Product

If you take few minutes to search forums about the product, you will find what users are asking about the product and you can answer those questions in your review as well. It has an added benefit that other people would link to your reviews as and when people post more question about the product in the forum. Make sure you understand that other people will link to your review and not you who do that because if you do, it may be termed as spamming.

When I wrote AWeber review I saw people are looking for Slideup form for subscription and so I created the WordPress plugin for AWeber Footer Slideup. Similar I saw people have lot of questions on Payoneer India Operation Issues when I reviewed Payoneer from an Indian perspective and answered those questions and it was the most linked post at that time from various forums including DigitalPoint Forum.

5. Negative Reviews

You paid for a completely crap product, you can share the review with proof and they can become the talking point in the community and forums because negative review about a product does guarantee that you are being brutally honest about the product and so people tend to link to such reviews quite often.

• Sharekhan PMS Service Review
• iPage Review
• ibibo ads Review
• And many many other …

Many bloggers like to share more negative reviews about bad product than positive reviews about good products to make sure those review drive links and traffic to their blogs. In SEO terms it is known as link baiting.

Negative reviews like Sharekhan PMS Review and others worked really well for my Technical Analysis Blog but positive reviews work more on IMTips. vWorker Review is linked from Official Wiki page of vWorker or BuySellAds review is linked from the official BuySellAds blog but that does not mean that negative reviews just did not work on IMTips. I have seen lot of my issues get solved once I blog about the issues like my Ozone Media Review where I got phone calls from Ozone Media team to solve my issues after the review.

6. The End of Review : Summary

Summary of review is very very important because reviews tend to become longer (like this one with lots) and many readers tend to skip many sections after just reading the headlines or looking at images and so if you can summarize your review in few lines, it help those readers immensely.

Positive or negative, write a review from the point of view of the customers who is looking to get more information about the product. Do you share product reviews on your blog? Share your reviews in comments below.

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Every blogger wants to be read but have you ever wondered what can make you a better blogger. I am talking about being a better blogger and not about having a better blog. For a better blog you always need to write valuable content with clean layout etc etc but there is one of the most overlooked elements about blogs that is the blogger itself.

So let me share with you few tips about how to become a better blogger?

1. Read your own blog

Just because you have blogged about it does not mean you can forget about it. I refer few of my blog posts quite often. Posts like WordPress SEO Tips or Link Building Strategies or vBulletin Optimization and the list continues…

2. Always reply to blog comments

One of the reason people comment on your posts is because they want to interact with you, the blogger. If you do not reply, they feel ignored, and will not comment again. I always reply to each comment including thanks that readers leave on my blog.

3. Read and comment on your readers’ blogs

I visit my readers’ blog and try to comment where I can make sense. Yet another way to encourage your reader’s to keep coming back to your blog.

I recent incident which I remember is where Deepak of BikeAdvice.in left a comment here and this led me to discover his blog. I say discover because I would never have landed on his blog because it is about bikes’ and I am not bike enthusiast to an extent that I search in Google about it.

I left a comment on the post where he shared how the blog Breaks Previous Traffic Records and now we both are connected to each other in more than one social networks and are interacting on many other front apart from blogging.

Remember it is not about dropping your link in comments in other people’s blog but it is more about interacting with your readers and other fellow blogger. I could have easily commented using blog comment form on the page that would allow me to leave my link on that blog but I preferred Facebook comment.

4. Repost excerpts from other blogs

When you read other blogger’s good blog post you can re-post an excerpt of it or your own views about the same on your own blog, providing a link back to the author’s blog. Occasionally, they will even make a post on their own blog and refer to your content.

I shared my views to one of the article of Manshu here and Manshu did the same on his blog here.

Remember don’t post an entire article because that is illegal but posting a brief excerpt and linking back to the original is the right way.

Final thoughts

It is just not enough to write a great blog post but you also need to be a good reader to other great blogs and interact with other bloggers.

How do you make yourself a better blogger – Share your views in comments below.

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Almost every webmaster uses Google Analytics but there are very few who can use it to the full potential and I will share one of the secret trick in using Google Analytics that can help you understand your site audience and what they are looking for. The feature we will enable is called Site Search feature which tracks the site search terms for your site and you can use it to give your audience what they are looking for when they visit your site.

What Is Google Analytics Site Search Tracking?

If you’re a webmaster, you probably have a search function on your site. If don’t have search feature, you should definitely add one because it is an easy way to allow your site visitors to find content on your site. Once you have the site search feature on your site, you can track what people are searching for on your site using Google Analytics and this is termed as site search.

How To Benefit From Google Analytics Site Search Tracking?

Most webmasters and bloggers have site search option on their website but they don’t track searched terms and use it to their advantage. They don’t track what their site visitors are searching for and though the tracking can be enabled with just few clicks in Google Analytics. Today I will explain how you can understand what your visitors are looking for.

How To Set Up Google Analytics Site Search?

• Access your Google analytics new interface account and click on the settings button in the top right corner.
• Visit Google Analytics Website profile where you want to enable search tracking.
• Click on Profile Settings tab of your site.
  
• Scroll to the end and enable the Site Search Option with Do track Site Search radio button.
  

If you are using Google Search on your website, your query parameter will be q. If you are using WordPress internal search, your search parameter will be s.

If you are not using Google search or WordPress, you can find your query parameter by making a search on your site. When I search for the term “shabbir” here at IMTips, the URL in the address bar is http://www.imtips.co/?s=shabbir. Take note of the Query Parameter (?s=shabbir). For your search results page, identify the searched query parameter. If you are not sure, post in comments below and I will try to help you find your searched query parameter.

Once you have the query parameter, Apply the changes and you are all set to tracking what your visitors are searching on your site.

How To Analyze Google Analytics Site Search Report?

If you just have enabled Google Analytics Site Search tracking, you will need some time for data to start accumulating. If you don’t have enough visitors that are actively doing searches on your site, it can take even longer. Let us take a look at my Site Search Report for Go4Expert and try to understand. Click on the image to enlarge.

Go4Expert Site Search Report

The term that is searched most often on my site is “Facebook” and when they do that search, they don’t find what they are looking for and so 80% of people leave. Approximately 4% of people refine the search to add few more terms to the keyword Facebook.

Conclusion: Need more content related to keyword Facebook. Similar conclusion can also be drawn for the term hacking. Obviously, people are searching go4Expert for information on Hacking Facebook but there are very few articles to actually hacking Facebook and most of them are threads asking how to do that. .

The next search term on my site is “C”. Fortunately, Go4Expert has a lot of content related to C Programming and so only 47% of people who do that search leave the site, and 18% of the people refine search to find more content on the site.

Final Thoughts

Google Search along with Google Analytics Site Search provides valuable information about what your site audience is looking for. This data provides two action items. The first is obvious which is making more content that people are searching for. Secondly, making search box much more prominent on websites. The more visitors use search, more you know what people are looking for.

Have you set up the Site Search reporting capabilities in Google Analytics? If so, how are you using the information? Share your thoughts in comments below.

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2. How to Link Multiple Adwords Account in Google Analytics?
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Few months back I experimented with ibibo ads on my MBA Forum. I got an email from them today that reminded me of the experiment and so here I am with yet another review of Indian ad network – ibibo ads.

Positives

Accepts Indian Traffic

There are very few ad networks that accept sites that have major Indian traffic but ibibo ads being Indian ad network they accept Indian traffic.

100% Paid Ads

When they don’t have any ads to fill, they fill in house ads that are paid on cost per lead or CPL basis.

Negatives

Uses OpenX

They manage their publishers and advertisers through OpenX self hosted ad platform which is very basic ad management software and don’t offer advance ad targeting options like Interest based which means they do not offer such options to their advertisers. I assume OpenX does not offer these because OpenX is not part of NAI.

Apart from that as a publisher, I expect one ad code for my ad zone and the campaigns would be targeted using OpenX interface that suits my site audience but they don’t do it this way. They email each campaign ad codes to the publisher and publisher needs to rotate banners and campaigns. Yes you read it right. Even the banners of one campaign needs to be rotated by publishers. So if a campaign has five banners, they will email you all the five codes and you have to rotate them and see which one works better on your site. Something I would not prefer.

Horrible Payment Process

As far as I remember they had Net 90 as payment terms and though they have sent me an email asking for invoices for the month of October,

They actually missed my September payment.

Apart from that my understanding was they needed soft copy of the invoices but as per an email today I see that they need hard copy of the invoice.

Mostly CPL Campaigns

OpenX has very limited audience and geo targeting options they can only offer CPL or CPA type of campaigns to publishers and advertisers. The same thing is reflected on their websites

CPL campaigns rely too much on the third party implementation of tracking code. See the screenshot below where you can see I had very good conversion for ibibo campaigns but not as good conversions for other campaigns and this could be a tracking glitch as well. You never know.

Low CTR

I had very good conversion ratio which made my eCPM decent but the ads were not getting very good CTR. Comparing the same with Adsense at the same position and size has few times higher CTR.

Final Thoughts

If you are ready to take the pain of rotating your banners and campaigns, I think you can experiment with ibibo ads on your site for a month or two.

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1. Infolinks Review – A Better Alternative to Kontera
2. Ozone Media Ad Network Review
3. Bidvertiser Review

November 2011 is when I shared my first income statement publicly and it has been more than a year now and so I thought I will share my income statement once again and see how the progress has been so far and share some very important aspect to understanding online money making game in 2012. How the equation is changing and what to expect in future?

In the Month of December 2011 my total income online was $6853.82. The breakup of my income is as follows.

Comparing the above data with October 2010 numbers there are some key differences.

Understanding the Advertising Business Model

You may have already read in public forums that AdSense does not work any more. From the above chart you may draw the conclusion that AdSense is working for me and yes it is working for me in 2011, you need to understand how to make it work.

So let us look at some numbers.

In October 2010 AdSense was 37% of my total online income. In December 2011 it is 22% of my total income. Though I am not allowed to share specific figures as per AdSense TOS but based on gross numbers, you can see there is an overall decline in AdSense income where as the traffic to my sites is at all time high. (See here). This means AdSense is either paying less or I am not sending as much impressions to AdSense as I was sending previously.

The reality is, as AdSense revenue is not increasing in accordance with traffic, I am sending fewer impressions to AdSense.

Coming back to public forums, there are webmasters who do not see growth in revenue despite growth in traffic and then they post such comments like AdSense does not work anymore or death of AdSense but now you know the REAL reason for such comments. I do agree that those comments are true but not the complete truth.

You can combine AdSense with other Ad networks to make AdSense work for you. Combine AdSense and CPM Advertising from the above chart and you will see a growth in revenue pretty much inline with my traffic growth.

If you rely too much only on one Ad network like AdSense, you will not see much growth in revenue. Look for other methods to monetize your sites as you grow your site.

Things that worked well for me in 2011

Content Links

Webmaster’s should always experiment and my experiment of moving from Kontera to Vibrant Media increased my content links income from 2% to 5% of my total income.

Affiliates / Products

I had my doubts when writing my eBook for Indian audience but this was yet another experiment that has worked really well for me in 2011. My Technical Analysis eBook has contributed lot to my affiliates and products part of my total income.

Freelancing

December was yet another month where I had lot of consultation work coming my way and so it becomes considerable chunk of my total income for yet another month in 2011.

Things to Focus on in 2012

• Partnerships are one thing where I had very little focus in 2011 and the highest priority in 2012 will be to focus more on partnerships.
• Product and Affiliate incomes are growing faster than my expectations and this will be yet another area of focus for me in 2012.
• I have not added much to my direct advertising sales in last one year and thus it remains roughly the same. Thanks to my long-term advertisers but this also means I need to focus more on getting more direct advertisers.

Final Thoughts

In 2012 I will be focusing less on freelancing, consulting and more on partnerships where I can form teams / companies to make more and more money online for my team and me. If you want me to be part of your online venture, do let me know here.

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As I read this article about Google’s new ad format on Techcrunch I got really excited about it. Google says

We’re currently running a small experiment of a new ad format that helps users sign up more easily for email subscriptions or other free newsletters. This new ad format contains a box within the ad that displays a user’s Google email address (if logged in). If a user chooses to click ‘Subscribe to newsletter’ then the email address is sent to the advertiser directly, which is clearly disclosed within the ad itself.

See the ads in Action. Images credit TechCrunch.

And when you are subscribed you see

Thank you Google, what a great way to start The New Year! I am really excited to get those ads rolled out to my Adwords account. I think you should also start using AWeber now for your blog.

For those who are not aware about what AWeber can do for your blog, read my AWeber review

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Let me share some of the most read, shared and commented articles IMTips.co written in 2011.

January

• How to Optimize vBulletin for Less Server Load & Better User Experience - Started 2011 with an Epic article on vBulletin server Optimization.
• Step By Step Guide to Start Selling With Clickbank - Launched my first ebook product through Clickbank and shared very detailed step by step guide on how to get started selling with Clickbank.
• iPage Review – Why I moved to Bluehost - My iPage experience.
• RBI Instruct Indian Freelancer’s not to use PayPal Balance - 2011 was year of regulations in India by RBI.

February

• Entrepreneurship Challenges - An Indian’s perspective to entrepreneurship in India.
• What to Write in Blog’s About Page - How you can add value to your blog with and About Page.

March

• Clickbank Check In India - My First ever check from Clickbank mainly for my ebook I launched in January.
• How to Find Relevant Sites For Generating Backlinks - A special Google trick to finding site to generate backlinks is one of the most talked article.

April

• WordPress SEO Tips - How to SEO for WordPress.
• How to REALLY Make Money From Forum - The mystery of how to making money from forum, Demystified.
• 3 Blogging Lessons I Learned from Sachin Tendulkar - Do I need to say anything more about Sachin Tendulkar.

May

• Top 5 Ways to Turbo Charge Your Freelancing Career - Best Guest post ever on IMTips by Ian Ippolito, CEO and founder of vWorker.com
• Job Crusher Review - Internet Marketing Course for Beginners Reviewed with my experience and facts.
• Why I don’t Recommend vBulletin 4 - Why my favorite forum CMS is not favorite anymore.

June

• Why Google +1 Will Fail in Google SERPs - My views on Google +1.
• Link Building – The Ultimate Guide - The last guide you would need for building links to your site.

July

• FREE Google Adwords Coupons - We just nailed $75 free Google Adwords coupon.

August

• Snaps of My New Flat - Moved to new flat.
• How to Get Adsense BlueDart Tracking Number in Advance - Indian Adsense publishers get the Blue Dart Tracking number in Adsense interface after the check is returned to the Adsense but not any more.
• XenForo Like User Avatars For vBulletin 3.7+ - My plugin for vBulletin.

September

• IMTips Moved To New Server - Moved to an upgraded server.

October

• Which is Better – Blogger or WordPress? - Why I prefer WordPress.
• Blogging Risks Demystified - Why I think blogging is the most risk free business online.
• Digha Photos - My trip to Digha.

November

• Freelancing in India - Freelancing as a career option in India
• MGinger Review - How you can work for hours and not get pennies.

December

• Macbook Pro – My First Mac Machine - Finally moved to MAC.

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1. Happy New Year 2010 – My Goals and Tools
2. Clickbank Multiple Sales Page
3. Best of 2010 at IMTips.co

My Interview in Mint. Click on the image to read the Offline version.

Or you can read online at LiveMint

Icing on the cake is, it’s published on my Birthday.

More Related Posts:

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Wishing everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Image Credit: WebSpades Inc..

Enjoy !!!

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Most webmasters think advertising as the only moneymaking option from websites. Advertising is definitely the better option to monetize your content-based site but remember it is not the only option. I have seen many bloggers and webmasters who have advertising as monetization strategy in mind, misses out on the other monetization option to multiply income streams. I am going to share what other income streams you can have along with advertisement for your content site or blog to multiply your income.

#1 Consult to Increase Income

If you have a good content site, you’re already helping your readers. If you provide them for more option like a personal one on one consultation, they will be more than happy to hire you for a fee because they already know you are an expert in the domain. On my Technical Analysis Blog, I share my views on Indian market and though I don’t have any consultation services option on my blog, there are readers who have hired me to get a personal consultation from me adding one more income stream to my blog.

#2 Affiliate Programs to Increase Income

Do you often recommend products or services on your site? Why not earn a commission from those recommendations? I use lot of products for my websites. I share my experience with those products or services and I recommend the same here on IMTips and some of those products earn me a commission.

Note that I don’t recommend products only for commission but I recommend products that I use which I think will be useful to my readers and some (not all) of them earn me commission.

#3 Referral Programs to Increase Income

Consider creating a referral program and reward your existing customers for sending new customers to you. I used to follow this a lot when I was new in freelancing. Remember one of my client responded that I don’t sell my friends for cash and yes you will see such responses but it is then when I decided to give my existing clients discount for sending new clients my way.

#4 Add Services to Increase Income

Another way to boost your income is to expand your services. If you are providing web designing, you can think about adding web development, or even web hosting service.

I use to provide vBulletin services when I started and I added few extra services like server management for large sites or forums and as I added more services, I was overbooked with lot more work than I can actually handle.

#5 Membership Programs to Increase Income

A membership program provides you with a consistent monthly income. It helps you make more money each month. If you have a product where you are charging your client a one-time fee, you can look about expanding your product to add some membership type program where you can make lot more monthly consistently over the period of time.

Apart from advertising, what other income streams you use on your sites? Share your income streams in comments below.

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2011 has been game changer for SEO where I have seen sites loose 80 to 90 percent of Google traffic. So let me share what I think will be best SEO strategy in 2012 but before that let me review my site traffic in 2011.

Go4Expert traffic from Google is near its all time high.

MBAGuys has lost some of its traffic but the changes done to the site has actually allowed it to remain where it is now.

SEO Strategy in 2012

According to me Google bot is trying to be as HUMAN as possible. +1 currently has very little impact on Google SERP’s but I expect the impact of Google+ and +1 to go higher in 2012. This means focus more on getting more people to your site and let them get engaged with your site content (read make them click on +1 button).

Links always has been the dominating aspect for Google SERP’s but I think it will be diminishing in value to +1 when ranking pages soon.

Unlike twitter, Google is making sure Google+ and +1′s are not spammed. According to me twitter is more of spam and automated posts than real human posting.

So my one SEO in 2012 will be to focus more on getting people engaged. what you think would be the right SEO strategy in 2012? Share your views in comments below.

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I read somewhere that Apple people knows how to creates great gadgets and now I know why.

share your views in comments below.

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Comments on my vWorker Review had to be closed because the arguments were not leading to anything fruitful. But then I thought that maybe a few developers did not like to disclose their identity in comments because they still wanted to use vWorker for earning money doing freelancing.  Perhaps they felt they had done hard work and felt the arbitration team did not support them. I asked Ian Ippolito (CEO and founder of vWorker.com) why not have an article where we can clarify common issues that come up with the workers and I am really thankful to him and his team for this wonderful article about how to become vWorker Arbitration Champion.

vWorker has also released (may be it was always there but I just found now) list of workers who has won each and every arbitration they initiated and I am in that list as well . Search for CoderShabbir if you want to see my name in the list.

Over to Ian and his team Ajay Bathija, Jim Coutu, Rafeek Kulkarni and Tim Yates

On a recent blog posting on this site, a few workers claimed they had lost vWorker arbitrations because the site always rules against workers. In truth, many workers win arbitrations every day (such as those on this list). And some workers are even more successful. Like undefeated sports champs, these workers win each and every arbitration they initiate (click here for the list).

So what’s the difference between the constant winners and the constant losers? And how do you make sure you’re one of the “champs” in arbitration and not one of the “chumps”? Fortunately it’s very easy, with the following tips.

Part 1 of this article talks about how the best ways to do work before the arbitration even begins. Part 2 discusses how to conduct yourself once arbitration begins.

Part 1. Pre Arbitration

80% of arbitrations are decided based on something that happened before the arbitration itself ever started. So the most important thing you can do to win an arbitration is to work professionally and competently with the employer. This might seem obvious, yet we see the same mistakes being made over and over again. Here’s how to avoid making them.

Clarify vague contract terms

• Ask questions: If you don’t understand something in the contract – Ask. Ideally, you should ask before you place a bid on the project. If a contract term is vague and you have already accepted the project, you are putting yourself at risk. That vague requirement could get clarified to be a lot of work, which you did not anticipate. Also, asking questions is a great way to show employers that you have read their requirements and want to meet their needs.
• Pros and Cons: If there are multiple possible implementations for the requirement, then inform the employer about the pros and cons of each. Don’t just pick one (such as the easiest, cheapest or the one you’re most familiar with). If you do then you take a big risk. If your choice causes problems for the employer, you will be responsible in arbitration. You may have to redo your work, or could even lose the arbitration. The employer is the one paying for the project, so make sure you give them the choice they are entitled to.
• Don’t underbid:The more you clarify the requirements, the better you can accurately estimate the time and effort the project will take. And that is the only way to accurate estimate how much to charge. Don’t get in a situation of underbidding just to win the project. Workers who do this often get demotivated because they are working for too little money, and don’t do their best. If you do this and get into arbitration, the arbitrator won’t accept it as an excuse for sloppy work or not delivering to the contract. You are responsible for estimating and bidding properly. If you have a continual problem estimating, then consider switching to pay-for-time projects so you can avoid this situation.

Explain copyright when using 3^rd party or open source materials

Disclose it

If you use 3^rd party components of any kind (or in the case of graphics projects – third party images) it is your responsibility to explain:

• What in your deliverables will be 3^rd party.
• What are the copyright consequences to the employer of what you intend to do
• Get the employer to agree to it (onsite).

If you do those things, you will be covered.

If you don’t, you will lose the arbitration. Why? Employers expect to own full copyright to what you produce (and the standard legal wording gives them that). If you skip doing one of the above steps, they are not getting what you promised to. Worse, perhaps they are going to resell the work. They can end up getting sued for your actions, and not even realize it.

So that’s why doing the above is important. It’s also why you can lose your account if you don’t do it.

Example

Let’s say you want to use open source libraries. So you inform the employer: “I am using the 123 graphics library, which uses the GNU Lesser General Public License. I’ve included a copy of the license.txt file in case you have questions. Please let me know if this is acceptable.” If you do this, you are covered on all three steps and fully protected.

However, if you just say “I am using the 123 graphics library” or “I am using open source”, there will be many employers who don’t realize that this action has legal/copyright implications. You are the one selling the product, and are responsible for informing them of this. So make sure to follow all three steps to fairly inform them, as well as to protect yourself.

Handling employer requests for additional work

If an employer asks for additional work that is not in the contract, you have several choices:

• Accept the additional work: You can do it for free, or ask for more money. Remember that when you agree to implement something for free, you have amended the contract. That new thing is now a part of it, and you must complete it. And if the deadline comes and you haven’t delivered it, then you are just as responsible for it, as if it were a paid item that you missed. So don’t agree to something for free, unless you really intend to finish it on time.
• Decline the additional work: Inform the employer politely that this is additional work and you would need either additional time and/or additional money to complete this task. If the employer won’t accept it, then vWorker will step in on your behalf to clarify the scope of the contract. Place the project into arbitration for “contract clarification” and we will help determine if it is or not.
• Do nothing: This isn’t a good choice, but unfortunately some people do this. If you are not going to do it, then say it explicitly on site. If you ignore it, your silence may come across to a competent person as implicitly accepting it. And if so, it will become part of the contract and you will be responsible for it. For example, let’s say your project is to design a logo and no mention is made of where to put the log. While you are working, the employer says, “Oh, I need you need to place the logo on all my web pages too, because I don’t know how”. If you just respond with “Everything is going great and I’ll let you know when everything is done”, then a competent person would believe you were implicitly accepting the new term. You then become responsible for it. To avoid this, make sure you explicitly reject anything that you disagree with it.

Manage your deadlines properly

When the employer stops you from meeting a deadline:If you are waiting on the employer for an answer to a question and the deadline is approaching, notify the employer that they are preventing you from completing the work (and what they need to do to correct this). If you do this, you are covered and not responsible for the deadline. But if you don’t do this, then you become the one at fault for the missed deadline…not the employer. Always give the employer a reasonable amount of time to respond to your requests.

Upload, upload, upload the deliverables: As a good customer service habit, you should be uploading the deliverables regularly to the vWorker site regularly (at least once a week). But you absolutely MUST upload 100% of them to the site before each deadline/milestone.

We cannot emphasize this strongly enough! If you don’t upload work, then you have no proof that you delivered to the contract. We can’t let you upload later, because a cheating worker could use the extra time to do additional work. So you will lose the arbitration.

We send out numerous informational messages about this and alerts as well, and yet still see this problem over and over again. Don’t make a dumb mistake that unnecessarily costs you money. Upload your deliverables.

Non uploadables: Please note that if you work directly on your employer’s server, that does not mean you can skip uploading to the vWorker site. A cheating worker might miss a deadline and then use the extra time in arbitration to fix something on the employer’s server that was broken before. So even if you work direct…upload to vWorker too. Otherwise you will lose arbitration unnecessarily.

If you are doing something (such as a server configuration) where there are no deliverables, then tell the employer to switch it to pay-for-time instead (where we take screenshots of what you are doing and you don’t have to prove delivery to get paid).

Respond Promptly to employer questions and provide status updates

Communicating with the employer can really prevent a lot of bad situations. For example: Let’s say you know you are going to miss the deadline for a personal reason. If you tell the employer 4 weeks in advance, this gives them plenty of notice. They have time to adjust the expectations of their customers and many are willing to work around the issue and extend the deadline. However if you say nothing (or wait until the last minute to tell them), they are going to be caught in a bind. Most are not likely to give you an extension.

Part 2. In Arbitration

In second part of this article, we will discuss how to handle the remaining 20% of situations that happen during arbitration.

We discussed how to work professionally and competent with your employer. Once you’ve done that, you’re usually in very good shape to win your arbitration. However there are still some important things you need to do to make sure you don’t “blow it”. By following the below tips, you can make sure you an arbitration “champion” and not an arbitration “chump”.

Upload all work files at the start

Upload 100% immediately:As described in part 1: You need to uploaded 100% of your deliverables onsite before the deadline/milestone arrives.However, let’s say there was no deadline…or it has not arrived yet. How do you protect yourself in arbitration in that case? In that situation, you need to upload 100% of your deliverables to date to the site once you start the arbitration (or get a notification of it).

We send out an email reminder telling people to do this, but many people ignore it. That’s a big mistake. If we need to look at the deliverables, you will lose the arbitration. Again it’s a simple thing to do. So just do it!

Upload it all: Make sure you upload everything needed to verify you met the contract. If you are working on a graphics projects, the source files need to be uploaded as well.

Insult

You may be very upset at the other party when the arbitration starts. That’s normal and okay. But it’s not acceptable to express that upset by insulting the other party or threatening them (or do this to your arbitrator). Doing this is the fastest way to lose your arbitration. You will also probably forfeit your entire account. Would you want to be verbally abused by someone else? Of course not. No one wants to talk with someone who can’t behave professionally. So don’t be that person.

Some people think they can get around this rule by disguising insults as an opinion. For example, they might say “In my opinion, the other party is the lowest kind of liar in existence”. This is not fooling anyone. Expressing this kind of opinion is a fast way to lose the arbitration. So don’t do it.

Provide accurate information

Lying in arbitration

You would think this wouldn’t need explaining. But unfortunately some people think that the best way to win is by lying in arbitration. If you tell a lie, you are just delaying the inevitable. If you say “I did the work” and you didn’t, we are going to test it and find out that you didn’t. Then instead of getting a 3 rating, you’ll receive a -3 for failing testing and have a great chance of forfeiting your account.

Everyone makes mistakes. If you messed up, just be gracious and admit it. Not only is this the right thing to do, but you make it easier on yourself. Lying only makes it harder on yourself.

Answer the flaw list accurately

If the project goes for 100% completion testing, the employer will be filling out a flaw list. You will be given a list of possible responses to each one. For example, you might have a choice of: Yes, it is a cosmetic flaw or No, you will not see this flaw in the deliverables.Choose the most appropriate option from the flawlist wizard.

This seems obvious to most people.  However, there are some workers who always choose Other (none of the above apply)so they can write the text response that comes with it. Perhaps they feel they are so persuasive, it will better improve their chances. Regardless…picking the wrong choice just so you can write text about it, shows that you cannot follow instructions (which is already a strike against you). It will also cause you more work, because the arbitration will then make you do it all over again correctly and choose the correct answers. It also delays the arbitration unnecessarily and doing so more than once can result in forfeiture for that.

So answer it accurately

Answer direct questions with direct answers

If the arbitrator asks you a “yes” or “no” question like is “Is the work 100% complete as per the contract, or not” then respond with “Yes” or “No”. If you have to respond with Responding with “Yes, but…” or “Yes, except….” forces the arbitrator to assume what you are trying to say.

Respond in a timely manner

Employers and workers are given three business days to respond to questions. If responses are not received in that time, you are given a one-time, three day exception. If another response does not come within the 3 business day deadline, you will forfeit the arbitration. So respond on time to avoid an unnecessary loss.

Don’t continue to argue after you’ve already lost the point.

Continuing to argue, not following arbitrator instructions and other inappropriate behavior may result in being forfeited from the arbitration. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep your emotions in check. When that happens, just ask yourself, “Would I do or say this if the person were a co-worker and standing right in front of me”? If the answer is “no” then you should think twice about it.

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3. Top 5 Ways to Turbo Charge Your Freelancing Career

Alok asked a question in comments here which I think is a question of many newbie webmasters i.e. how to approach direct advertisers?

In the reply to his comments I told that, I don’t approach direct now and even when I started because I made it very easy for advertiser’s to actually contact me.

With the help of Wayback Machine I could recreate the view Go4Expert looked in 2007-2008.

Notice few things about the ads.

• Only one banner above the fold.
• The banner surrounded by image to indicate it is an ad and an option to become forum sponsor.

You can argue that having Adsense banner that way may not have performed well but who cared. I was not focusing on earning few cents more by optimizing Adsense placement but was more focusing on building a community.

Coming back to the topic of approaching direct advertisers, I never focused on making more from the site and so it was never a priority for me. Apart from that I have always been approached by many premium Ad networks to do that job of getting high paying advertisers to my site.

A secret Trick to Approaching Direct Advertisers

Once you have a Cost per Click Ad network like Adsense or even InText Ad networks like Infolinks, Kontera, VibrantMedia, Watch for the ads that are more frequent on your site and then try to become direct affiliate of those sites or approach them directly to advertise on your site or even sponsor section of your site.

If you see advertiser’s like Dell or Lenovo, they may not be interested in advertising directly on your small site but that does not mean you cannot become an affiliate of them (may be through Amazon or CJ) and then add banners to their advertised product on your site using your direct affiliate links.

Note of caution: Some Ad networks may not allow you to be doing this and so make sure you read the TOS of your respective CPC network before approaching the advertisers directly.

More Related Posts:

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2. CJ Direct Deposit to India and 38 Other Countries
3. What Advertisers Want?

Thesis, Genesis or WooThemes, all are premium WordPress themes. I use Thesis theme for my blog but the most popular option for new bloggers is to use free WordPress themes. Actually there are thousands of free WordPress themes available and this can make newbie bloggers think they don’t need a premium WordPress theme at all.

According to me, you can use the free WordPress themes for personal leisure blogs. All other type of blogs definitely need a premium WordPress theme unless you can do all of the following yourself.

1. Customization

Most free WordPress themes, do not allow very high level of customization without editing the theme PHP files. If you are looking for high level of flexibility with widgets, columns – Premium themes is the right choice. Almost all premium themes provide lots of customization to suite your personal needs.

Thesis theme offers hundreds of Design and Site Options to choose from including how many columns you want in your blog, what font you prefer, how you want the Navigation at the top, What is the preferred width for your sidebars, how you want to display posts on the homepage … etc … etc …

2. Search Engine Optimization

Free WordPress themes are done with SEO in mind but the prime objective of those themes is not SEO. In some free themes, the HTML coding may not be completely SEO-friendly which means you are taking a huge risk at the cost of a premium theme.

Check out my article on How to Make WordPress More SEO Friendly.

3. Professionalism

Many free themes don’t allow you to edit (not remove) footer link or text. Normally this is done by encrypting the content of footer.php in the themes file and if you edit the file, themes becomes unusable. Because free themes fear the removal of the developer links from footer, they don’t allow editing footer part of the theme which can make your entire blog design look unprofessional.

My Thesis license does not compel me to have a link to Thesis in footer yet I have copyright notice because I could edit the link as per my needs aka IMTips.co Runs on Thesis WordPress Theme.

Do you use a premium WordPress theme or prefer the free one? What is the best thing you like about your theme? Share your views in comments below.

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3. Free WordPress Installation Service