How To Make Money Online

Yahoo Shutting Down GeoCities

Garry Conn — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:06:24 +0000

Ten Years Later and After Wasting Over Three Billion, Yahoo! Decides to Pull The Plug on One of The Largest Living Archives of The Internet

Yahoo! announced earlier this year that they were closing GeoCities down (#1, #2, #3, #4). I was reminded of this fact, yet again, after receiving a reminder email from them today, letting me know, once again, of the planned death in store for the one of the most profound and original areas of the Internet, called GeoCities.

Strangely, this event won’t shed too much emotion, as the era of GeoCities lives within only a small percentage of users online today. Many people simply won’t understand the detrimental effect of having GeoCities wiped out and closed down. Consider this. What would life be like if all of our history books were burned and destroyed?

The virtual world we once called the “Information Superhighway” is about to have one of the original roads destroyed and removed from the map! So what exactly is going to happen to GeoCities? Yahoo, provides this answer:

“If you do not download your files and images before October 26, 2009, you will no longer be able to access that data. After October 26, your GeoCities files will be deleted from our servers, and will not be recoverable.”

- http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-03.html

I can understand Yahoo!’s decision on closing GeoCities and preventing new accounts from being created. But, what I can’t understand is why Yahoo! will be deleting the data from their servers. If Alexa.com can support WayBack Machine, then how come Yahoo! or another company can’t step forward and preserve one of the largest sections of the early Internet era? As it stands, there is a group that is currently trying to do that.

Here is a copy of the email I received from Yahoo!:

I hope that GeoCities can be preserved in some way. Even though the Internet has evolved into social networks and blogs, every once in awhile when I do a search in Google, I find the information I am looking for on an old GeoCities page. I can’t begin to calculate the combined endless amount of hours it took for the community of only ten years ago to build this virtual world. Unfortunately, I can calculate how long it would take to erase it. With that said, I will be very sad to see GeoCities go, and any and all remaining respect and trust I have in Yahoo! will soon disappear with it.

How To Make Money Online on eBay Selling a Bogus Product

Garry Conn — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:50:06 +0000

Learn how to make money online with eBay using a method that no one would have dreamed of doing.

When you think of eBay, you think of selling your old television or dusty VCR that has been sitting in your closet for the last ten years. And it is true, thousands of people make money online selling on eBay. But that isn’t what I am going to show you here. It’s all about selling fake and bogus products, right? Well, not exactly… do read on!

I want to show you a really cool way to make money online using eBay. This method is probably unlike any method you have heard of before. And guess what? This method is hot! But before I get into the details, I want to talk to you about online advertising.

Let’s assume for a moment that you want to make money online selling web hosting accounts for HostGator.com. In case you don’t know, HostGator.com has an affiliate program that pays up to $125 per sale. As crazy as it sounds, their program is even free to join. HostGator is more than willing to pay you good money if you can make sales for them. But make no mistake, the business is cut throat and very competitive.

With that said, consider how much money it would cost to get a sponsored listing in Google for the search term, “Cheap Web Hosting“. Not sure about the cost? No problem, let me show you some screen shots. And by the way, you can kiss good bye the dream of ranking organically for this keyword phrase. It’s damn near impossible.

As you can see, this search term is super competitive in the organic ranks and packed full of sponsored links. Now, to answer your question about how much it would cost to have your own sponsored link on this page, check out the next screen shot.

According to Google AdWords Keyword Tool, the estimated average cost per click to have one top three sponsored link positions in Google for the search term, “cheap web hosting” is $11.17. Now, I don’t know how you feel about this, but, in my opinion, paying $11.17 per click is expensive and quite a bit risky. Now, with that said, take a look at the next screen shot.

The above screen shot is a capture of the final page prior to listing an auction on eBay. In all fairness, the cost of this auction should have been around $2.00, but for some reason, I was eligible to list my item for free. Now, I realize at this point I may have lost you here. Please bear with me.

So far, I have talked about HostGator.com’s affiliate program, how expensive sponsored links cost in Google, and how it would be impossible to rank organically for good keywords in Google. All this leads up to the conclusion that making money online with web hosting affiliate programs, such as HostGator’s, might be a challenge.

As you know, it takes traffic to generate money, and unfortunately, it takes a lot of money to generate the traffic needed to make money, thus why I said purchasing sponsored links in Google was, in my opinion, risky.

So, now at this point, you may be wondering, “What does eBay have to do with this?” and, “What does an auction for a .99c website template have to do with anything?”. Well, the answer is simple. Prior to explaining this, would you think I was nuts if I told you that I could potentially LOSE money if my item sold quickly? Think about it for a minute.

The reason why I could potentially lose money if my item sold quickly is because I really don’t have any interest in selling my item at all. The .99c website template that I am offering to sell is actually a decoy to keep my affiliate link alive.

I have paid $2.00 (or in my case, FREE!) to have my affiliate link exposed to a number of targeted people. The people that view my auction are fairly likely to purchase web hosting simply because we know they are already looking for website templates.

If I get only 1 click on my affiliate link, and fail to convert a sale, I still come out ahead $9.00. Remember, Google AdWords Advertisers are bidding over $11.00 dollars per click. I am paying $2.00 to potentially have my same link exposed to targeted traffic for 7 days!

As the subtitle suggests, this is how you can make money online with eBay using a method that no one would have dreamed of doing. This method will work for any kind of affiliate product in addition to selling web hosting. I hope you enjoyed this post, and by the way… if you want to purchase a really cheap Flower and Garden website template, click here. LOL!!!

How To Make Money Online With CafePress.com

Garry Conn — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:44:05 +0000

CafePress.com is a place where you can make money online by creating, promoting, and selling your own T-Shirts and clothing.

Take a moment to consider how much it would cost to start your own clothing store at the mall. Some of the things you’d have to factor in would be the cost of rent, payroll, inventory, and various other expenses such as, insurance and utilities. That all adds up quickly. And all that makes the dream of owning your own clothing store something far from becoming a reality. But what if you could make this dream become true. What if you could start your own clothing store.Now you can, with the help of CafePress.com.

CafePress.com is one of the largest user-generated commerce sites online today. They have a community of over 6.5 million users who come to create, buy, and sell clothing online. With CafePress.com, that dream of owning that clothing store soon can become a reality. In fact, making money online with CafePress.com is so simple, you can literally have an online store up and running in a matter of minutes.

With that said, here are some thoughts about how you can start your own successful CafePress.com store and tie it into your blog. CafePress.com is very simple. They give you all the tools needed to run your own clothing store. CafePress.com serves as a graphic design shop, a clothing manufacturer, and a distribution center. The only thing you need to bring is your creativity and motivation to create products.

As you know, there are many different things that people write about on their blog. Some people cover the topic of weight-loss, while others cover the topic of making money online. No matter what your niche is, there is a business for creating and selling clothing based on your niche. If gas stations can successfully sell over-priced T-Shirts, then there is no reason why you can’t do the same thing on your blog.

How often do you run across a funny T-Shirt being sold in the mall that simply strikes your funny bone? How often do you run across a key chain that has some kind of wacky slogan that you just know your brother would totally get a kick out of it? This happens every day. And one of the great thing about you and your blog is the fact that you have something very in common with your readers. Your Topic.

Because you write about the things you do, you have already captured the attention of people who share the same interests. As a blogger, you already have a certain level of creativity; otherwise, you wouldn’t be a blogger. Creating crafty and trendy T-Shirts and other clothing items that cater to your readership should totally be a snap. CafePress.com gives you everything you need to do that.

At CafePress.com, you digitally create and design the product, set the price, and then market the product. CafePress.com automatically calculates their cost to manufacture the product your create and adjust the total. You can tweak your price to control your level of profit. If you have played the popular online game, Lemonade Tycoon, then using CafePress.com might remind you of that.

The higher you price and try to sell your product, then less chance you have at selling it. But, if you price your product too low, you lose your chance of earning a decent profit. It is your job to test the waters with your readership. The two challenges at hand are to create products that appeal to your readership, and then come up with a balanced price that yields the highest percent of sales and profit combined. Once again, think Lemonade Tycoon.

Give CafePress.com a try and spin off a few T-Shirts and promote them on your blog. I am sure that you’ll spend quite a few hours making fun designs in PhotoShop and importing them into your CafePress.com account. Believe me, it’s very addictive and fun. And isn’t that what making money online is all about?

GarryConn.com Will Longer Accept Article Comments

Garry Conn — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:18:10 +0000

I have put a lot of thought behind this decision and I have determined that it is more beneficial for me to no longer accept reader comments on the articles I publish on GarryConn.com.

Since the beginning of this year, I have been evaluating how I invest my time throughout the work day. Quickly, I recognized that one of my most time consuming tasks was tending to email. This was tied with instant messaging. I have concluded that my third most time consuming task is tending to comments here on GarryConn.com.

Moderating comments takes a lot of time. I literally have to read every comment that automatically posts on my blog. Not only that, but I need to read them very quickly, for fear that something obscene has posted live on the blog. That means, I have to completely stop what I am doing to read comments as they get submitted in.

The second element is that I have to constantly clear out my spam comment pool. Often, I have to manually search the comment spam pool for legitimate comments that – for whatever reason – didn’t make the cut and approve them. The last part is lately, I have been very dissatisfied with the quality of the comments being left on my articles. Many of the comments left on the articles are clearly published for the purpose of self-promotion. Others are totally hateful and offend me, and I suspect offend others who read them too.

My goal is to provide high quality information that will help people. I aim to really step up the quality of my content and increase my readership. So far in 2009, GarryConn.com has seemed to plateau in growth. There are many reasons for this; however, it is something that I have recognized, and have now started applying action steps towards correcting. And choosing to disallow commenting on GarryConn.com is one of those steps.

Feedback is always appreciated. Soon, I will be removing the comment form and replacing it with a contact form which will give you the ability to send me a direct email. You will be able to use this form to voice your opinion, ask questions, and provide your feedback. With that said, I want to thank you for being a reader and subscriber of GarryConn.com. I look forward to continuing to shifting in a positive direction knowing that I have you as a reader. In the future I may reconsider accepting comments, but in the mean time, I want to invest my time growing the blog.

CSS Tutorial – Lesson One: Cascading Style Sheets and Fonts

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:13:29 +0000

Using CSS is a lot of fun, especially for bloggers. In this CSS Tutorial, you will learn how to work with fonts on your blog or website.

This CSS tutorial is based off using WordPress; however, the coding itself can be used on any website. One of the great things about learning how to customize HTML and CSS is that your knowledge can be used universally on all publishing platforms (i.e. Drupal, Front Page, Dreamweaver, WordPress).

I have read many CSS Tutorials online and I quite a few books that offer the same information. One thing that I don’t like about most tutorials is that the lesson always seems to drag on. I am not very patient and I always want to get into the meat of the lesson. With the CSS Tutorial Lessons I will be covered here on my blog, you can expect to get your feet wet right away. With that said, let’s begin our first CSS Tutorial.

Introduction – What Is CSS:

Working with fonts is very fun. Using CSS you have the ability to change things such as the font family, size, weight, style, and color. Below I will offer you some examples of using CSS to customize your fonts on your blog or website.

First let’s identify some of the basic things you can do to control how your fonts appear.

font-family, font-size, font-weight, font-style, color

The font family gives you the option to choose different fonts such as Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman. The font size allows you to specify the size of the fonts on the page. The weight allows you to control things such as making your fonts bold. The style allows you to control things such as making your fonts italic. The color, obviously allows you to control the color of your fonts. Of course, working with fonts is only a fraction of the things you can do with CSS. But, starting to learn how to customize your fonts using CSS is an excellent way to get started with becoming a CSS Guru. So that is where we’ll begin with this tutorial.

Section One – Cascading Style Sheets:

Now before we roll through a few examples, I must explain about the three common ways of using CSS. The way I look at it is how well do you want your code to appear in the source code. What I mean by this is this. All three ways of using CSS work fine. One way is very sloppy but quick, then next way is not so sloppy and not so quick, and the last way is beautiful but takes more time.

The three common forms of writing CSS are called: Inline, Internal, and External. The proper name is called Cascading Style Sheets. WordPress commonly use an External Cascading Style Sheet. If you are familiar with the anatomy of a WordPress theme, then you know about a file called style.css. The style.css file contains all of your CSS code which formats and styles your fonts, colors, and many other things. Blogger commonly uses an Internal Cascading Style Sheet. With blogger, all the CSS CODE is found at the very top of the template file within the tag. Inline Cascading Style Sheets are done on the fly within the HTML code itself.

Now that I have explained about Cascading Style Sheets, let’s put together a few examples of how you can customize your fonts and then let’s give you examples of how the CSS code would appear in each of the three types of style sheets. In the next three sections will take the same CSS code and apply it to all three Cascading Style Sheets. Doing this will show you how to apply the code easier to WordPress, Blogger, and on the fly within HTML.

Section Two – Creating an External Cascading Style Sheet:

In this section, section three, and section four, the examples are going to assume that we would like our paragraph text to normal 16 pixel size Georgia fonts in black. This current section will show you how you apply these customizations in an External Cascading Style Sheet.

p {
font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, San-Serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
color: #000;
}

The above example could be inserted into an external stylesheet such as a WordPress theme style.css file. With that said, the above code controls ALL paragraphs in your HTML file. You may want certain paragraphs on your HTML file to look different. An example would be your sidebar. What if you wanted your paragraphs on your sidebar to be white in color and smaller in size and also an italic Arial style, while maintaining your original or MASTER paragraph customizations?

If you take a close look at your WordPress sidebar.php file, you’ll see a line of code that looks like, or similar to this:

If you cross reference this in your style.css file, you’ll see a line of code that looks like, or similar to this:

#sidebar {
}

The above is a

tag. The

is a block or box that visually isolates a section of a document on the page from other specified format customizations. So in the case of the

, we are able to isolate any HTML code within that block and create our own separate customizations that are unique to that block.

So in the above example, we want all paragraphs to use black size 16px Georgia fonts unless specified differently in various

blocks, such as the case with the sidebar

block, where we want to use white smaller italic Arial fonts. Let’s assume that the sidebar has a darker background color, such as BLACK. A white font color would be ideal. We could then create this customization using this code in our External Cascading Stylesheet:

p {
font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, San-Serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
color: #000;
}
#sidebar p {
font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, San-Serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: italic;
color: #000;
}

Somethings I would like to point out before moving on to the next section. First, you’ll see that there is more than one font family listed, and separated by commas in the CSS code. The reason for this is because not all computers have the same fonts installed. Your computer will read left to right and choose the first font family applicable. In the case of the normal paragraph customization. Your computer will see if Georgia is installed. If not, then it will check to see if Times New Roman is installed and so forth.

Second, you may notice the quotes around Times New Roman. This does not mean that Times New Roman is the primary choice. It is proper code to put quotes around font families with multiple words such as ‘Times New Roman’, ‘Arial Narrow’, or ‘Arial Black’.

The last thing I want to point out is that an Cascading Style Sheet can get really very cluttered and full of customizations. It may be a good idea for you to make reference notes directly on the stylesheet. You can do this using comment out hashes.

/* This is an example of a comment out hash */

Here is an example of the above code using comment out references:

/* BEGIN PARAGRAPH CUSTOMIZATIONS */
p {
font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, San-Serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
color: #000;
}
/*END PARAGRAPH CUSTOMIZATIONS */

/* BEGIN SIDEBAR PARAGRAPH CUSTOMIZATIONS */
#sidebar p {
font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, San-Serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: italic;
color: #000;
}
/* END SIDEBAR PARAGRAPH CUSTOMIZATIONS */

Section Two – Creating an Internal Cascading Style Sheet:

Creating an Internal Cascading Style Sheet is very similar to creating an external one. The main difference is that the CSS Code will appear directly on the HTML file you’re working on, rather than being stored on a separate file. The advantage to this style is speed. Making changes to your CSS customizations can be done much quicker compared to toggling between two files. The disadvantage is that the CSS code adds to the size of the HTML file. Some would consider this to be less than optimal if you’re coding pages to be SEO’ed (Search Engine Optimized). As you know, an External Cascading Style Sheet goes into a separate file, such as with WordPress, the style.css. Within the tag a line of code would need to be added to call on the external file.

- TO BE CONTINUED. BE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG SO THAT YOU CAN GET UPDATES TO THIS TUTORIAL.

MarlboroCigaretteCoupons.com For Sale

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:50:50 +0000

Up for sale is the domain name Marlboro Cigarette Coupons .com, registered with NameCheap.com. This domain name should be used towards building a niche site that targets the keyword phrase, “Marlboro Cigarette Coupons”.

According to various sources such as Google AdWords Keyword Tool, WordTracker, and Micro Niche Finder, the keyword phrase, “Marlboro Cigarette Coupons“, receives over 3,000 daily searches in Google and is seated in a very low SERP with less than 39,000 broad match results and 14,000 exact phrase matches.

Zoo Coupons

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:10:22 +0000

With over 22,200 searches in June and over 3,000 searches a day in July, the keyword phrase “Zoo Coupons” is hot!

Want to make money online? Learning how to find profitable keywords to target is one of the most important elements in this business. Zoo Coupons is a very excellent keyword phrase to target. According to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, the exact phrase received over 22,000 searches in June and is averaging over 3,000 daily searches so far in July. Similar results are seen in Yahoo and MSN as well.

Once you have a keyword phrase in mind that you want to target, the second part to your effort is to see what kind of domain names are available. In this case, the scenario is beautiful because the domain name ZooCoupons.net is available. Ideally, it would have been best if ZooCoupons.com was available; however, going with the .Net domain name will serve just as well.

The only difference between the .Com and .Net is the potential re-sell value in the domain itself. Here is a screen shot on NameCheap.com showing the .Net was available at the time of writing this post. If you’re quick enough, you may be able to register it.

If you want to make money online, you have to learn how to find profitable keywords that you can use towards building niche sites. Take a look around your house and think about super obvious things around you that you can write about. You’d be surprised to discover how much traffic you’ll get after writing about things around you and in your house, or things that you and your family may do.

Lowes 10% Off Coupon

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:43:44 +0000

Are you looking to get the best deals at Lowes? Get the Lowes 10% off coupon here and save money shopping at Lowes.

Lowes is one of my favorite places to shop. They are much better than Home Depot and their prices are cheaper too. Every time I visit Lowes, I am always greeted by the employees with smiles on their faces and knowledgeable information available.

Now you can save money shopping at Lowes when you use their 10% off Coupon. This special coupon has been rumored all over the Internet and it happens to be quite tricky to find. Here is the direct link to the Lowes 10% off Coupon. Below is a screen shot of what the page looks like.

The MacBook Pro 13 Inch

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:09:51 +0000

Find out why you should purchase a MacBook Pro 13 Inch and why after you do, you’ll never purchase a PC ever again!

First off, I have never been a fan of PC. Quite honestly, my issue is that I am pretty darn cheap. I don’t just blow money and buy things unless it is absolutely necessary. So, the reason why I haven’t owned an Apple all these years isn’t because I had trouble coming to terms with PC’s being crappy. I know this! I am NOT a PC Fan, I have been too much of a tight ass to spend money on a new computer.

The problem - I guess - is the fact that I am computer software / hardware savvy. In other words, keeping my existing laptops alive and in good working order comes natural to me. Despite the fact that Windows Vista is the biggest piece of dog crap with a over exaggerated price tag, I was still able to keep the memory hog of an operating system somewhat operational. As far as hardware goes, well… I always do maintenance on my computers, keep them clean, and upgraded when applicable.

After many years of wanting an Apple computer, I finally have one. I am the proud owner of a MacBook Pro. And let me tell you, this computer is very nice! I absolutely love it. With much careful consideration, I decided to go with the brand new MacBook Pro 13 Inch. My worst fear was that the computer would be too small. I realized, though, that I have been seeking small for a long time. For a few months, I have been wanting to use my iPhone to replace many daily tasks performed on my laptop.

This doesn’t always work out very well, but I can’t stand having the weight of a bigger laptop. The MacBook Pro 13 Inch gives me the best of both worlds. I get a very functional computer packed into a very beautiful aluminum shell that weighs less than 5 LBS. And let me tell you, this computer out performs any PC computer I have ever used.

As perfect as the MacBook may sound, I guess nothing in life is completely perfect. For whatever the reason may be, when I use my MacBook, from time to time, it bogs down. The stalling of the computer is different than a Windows based PC because typically when a Windows machine bogs down, programs start to crash and then the OS may fail. That doesn’t happen with the Mac. Instead, the computer simply becomes inoperable for a few moments.

Needless to say, this is quite annoying, but it sure beats having the computer crash. I am not a complete computer guru, but I believe that a simple memory upgrade would correct this problem. My MacBook Pro came with 2 Gigs of memory installed. The motherboard accepts up to 8 Gigs of memory. In due time, I will eventually upgrade the memory.

All in all, the MacBook Pro 13 Inch is the best computer I have ever owned. I was a little nervous about switching from PC to Apple because the operation of the computer is much different. However, it didn’t take long at all to totally erase my memory of ever owning a PC. Everything flows very nice with Mac OS X. Your next computer purchase should be an Apple. Once again, I chose the 13 Inch design because I felt like the cost was most justifiable. At one point in time, I considered purchasing the MacBook 13 Inch, but then Apple released the MacBook Pro 13 Inch and the cost wasn’t much different.

July 2009 NameCheap.com Coupon Code: FIREWORKS

Garry Conn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:27:09 +0000

Just a quick post to let everyone know what the NameCheap.com coupon code is for July 2009.

This month the coupon code is FIREWORKS. I am starting to find this entertaining because each month I try to guess what the code is prior to researching it.

Anyway, I like using NameCheap.com and I am quickly getting a pretty decent inventory of domains over there. I use to use GoDaddy.com, but as I have said quite a few times, I don’t like them anymore because they try too hard to up-sell me and their site is way too slow and complicated.

NameCheap.com is very simple and to the point. The cost of a domain name is $9.69 USD. Using the coupon code drops the price down to $8.81. Believe me, this might not seem like a lot of money per domain, but if you buy domains on a regular basis, such as myself, then it will save you a ton of money. If you purchase 100 domains over the course of time, you’d save $88 dollars.