How To Make Money Blogging by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

CJU – Santa Barbara!

max — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:16:45 +0000

Well, it’s that time of the year folks, I need to go to Santa Barbara and hopefully network with a bunch of new, great people who can help my online business take off (more).

If you are gonna be there, don’t forget to hit me up!

I’ve got a TON of niche blogs waiting to hit the right affiliate product (as always) so don’t forget your hidden gold gem in your bag, THAT’S ME!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

CJU – Santa Barbara!

Do you Kill? You shouldn’t Kill stuff…

max — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:25:33 +0000

Todays subject is about killing and why you should not kill.

I used to kill bunch of bugs and didn’t really think about it much.

Nowadays I don’t kill things unless I absolutely must such as black widow spiders which contain enough poison to kill a human being. In fact, did you know that black widow spiders venom is 15 times more poisonous than garden rattlesnakes?

I am not religious or anything like that but I learned that monks in buddhism are taught to not kill things even mosquitos.

Well just saying, what goes around comes around. If you kill others you may be killed too.

Throughout my life I’ve always believed that science and philosophy met together when you say, “for every reaction there’s always an equal and opposite reaction” and it’s true.

Just remember it’s okay not to be like everyone else, only you can change the world.

That said do you know how many dangerous spiders I saved in the last month?

6, I saved 6 spiders and that’s important to me because I am also a webmaster. Hahaha.

I hope you stop killing whatever it may be, it could be hurting your life with out you knowing about it.

P.S. I actually wrote all this on my HTC Evo 4G last night using Swype. Yup, I blogged using a smartphone. yey, that’s a first for me.

And ironic isn’t it, President Obama announced that they would stop the killing of U.S. Army soldiers and people of Iraq today, and I wrote everything before this sentence last night. Yup, destiny, it’s true.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Do you Kill? You shouldn’t Kill stuff…

The REAL Secret to SEO!

max — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:03:04 +0000

There’s a lot that has been done about SEO, there’s even online courses for godsakes for SEO but as a blogger/internet marketer who has been blogging for over 4 years now (and making a living online for 2+ years and growing), let me tell you the “REAL” secret to SEO.

The REAL secret to SEO isn’t about links at all really, it’s about knowing why SEO exists and why search engines are useful.

Truthfully, search engines simply exist so humans can easily find information on the web as if they were asking another human being.

So, what is Google doing? They are making the best search engine that will give their users the best “human” experience.

Simply put it, I don’t give a shit about SEO, SEO only exists after the fact that search engine rankings are all about giving humans the best possible answer that Google “humanly” can.

There’s a ton of companies out there I know personally that are benefiting from gaming the system and you know what, that’s only going to go as far as how much they spend on buying links and whatnot.

I wouldn’t go there ever, that’s a bad area to be if you have to try that badly to get your company’s brand noticed.

The better way? Don’t be a cheater, be a human being, make a great product, blog about your great product, and let the rest follow.

How do I get great SEO rankings?

I just blog about everything, blogging is at the core of SEO because I truly and honestly blog about things as I see it, as a human being.

That’s the secret, if you can be honest to the world about your own feelings about something, you will always have a ton of SEO to follow. It’s not the other way around though.

So, if you are going to spend a million bucks on your next SEO campaign, don’t, spend it instead on building great products and on companies like me who blog about it. And yeah, I don’t charge you for it, you can contact me for your next social media campaign at zedomax [at] gmail dot com.

I do love free products though, and yeah, I have to disclose that too by the way if you are sending me free samples or even for products for review.

Man, I love life, blogging about everything and being open/honest about everything. That, my friend, will get you further with SEO than the next thousand dollars you spend with another (black hat) SEO company.

SEO companies can suck my big middle finger rolling up slowly, they don’t do much other than trying to game what is supposed to be for human beings to decide, you and me.

Remember this as an analogy, it doesn’t matter if you show up #1 on Google for “Best New York Restaurant” if your restaurant makes bad steaks and customer service sucks balls. But, it does matter if your restaurant is indeed the best restaurant in New York and you give the best customer service in the world because you will eventually end up #1 on Google. THAT, is how you slice SEO for your company’s brand.

Yup, that’s the secret sauce baby and you should thank me because I told you my secrets to SEO.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

The REAL Secret to SEO!

How Many Domain Names Should You Own?

max — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:48:10 +0000

Here’s a question that might come up often for those of you in online businesses,
“How Many Domain Names Should You Own?”

Since I do own a number of domains, let me tell you that number, right now I own about 400 to 500 domain names.

Over 50% of them I actually don’t use but I register all the .com, .net, and .org domain names to shut out my competition.

Why?

Most search engines these days rank .com, .net, and .org domain names very high while domain names ending in .biz, .info, and others are pretty much worthless. (Not completely but it’s still hard to compete with a .biz or .info domain name.)

I know it’s ironic because this blog is a .biz domain name but believe me because I wouldn’t have done the same if I knew before.

So, how many domain names should you own?

It all depends on your goals. If your goal is to protect your brand and also your online business, my rule of thumb is to buy the .com, .net, and .org domain names.

Also, I would buy plurals/singular domain names too. For example, if you were selling “dog collars” and you owned DogCollars.com, I would buy up DogCollars.com, DogCollars.net, DogCollars.org AND DogCollar.com, DogCollar.net, and DogCollar.org.

This is mainly because other companies (or competition) can easily rank as highly as you can buy buying domain names that are singular/plural.

In reality, it’s all about protecting your brand, your company. If you don’t buy up all the extraneous, possible domain names that could mean competition for the future.

One more tip, I even buy up all kinds of variations too, I will leave that up to you but don’t “think” that buying extra domain names is a waste of money, it’s also buying up a whole bunch of internet real estate you can own yourself for the next 5-10 years.

I don’t care if you make money by blogging, PPC, or whatever, the rule of thumb is that you need to buy up all the domains, UNLESS you are willing to deal with competition or other annoying species that want to take a pie of your profits/branding.

So, just remember, don’t be frugal when you buy domain names, just BUY ALL OF THEM!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How Many Domain Names Should You Own?

How to Take a Bite Out of the Market!

max — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:35:34 +0000

You know the best method to make money online or offline is to take a big bite out an existing market.

My father does this all the time. He sees an really old, traditional market, monopolized by a really, really old company that has been selling XY widgets for a billion decades.

He goes in there, introduces YZ widgets that are 10 times better yet 10 times cheaper and starts taking a BIG bite out of the market. After couple years of that, my father has a big share of that market and the lazy traditionals are PISSED!

Yet, that is capitalism, that is what “benefits” the end consumers.

So, my point is that you need to do that do make money online or offline.

TAKE A BIG BITE OFF THAT BIG PIE, YOU DESERVE IT.

Sometimes, that little stubborn attitude of yours that you want to win will win over many many millions of hearts and dollars.

That’s what I do, that’s how I make money online.

You fight the big boys, forget the tiny ones.

Win a big fight, then another one, then another one, eventually, you will become the big boy.

Anyways, keep bloggin’ hard baby, that’s how you get it done.

Of course, there’s always that “FREE” pie too, find that “blue ocean” and catch all that free fish.

Remember, there’s more than million ways to cut a fish, pie, market, or whatever, just learn how to cut it so you get the big cut.

And yeah, don’t forget to subscribe, I will be hinting on more tips.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Take a Bite Out of the Market!

How to Show Ads to your Regular Visitors/Readers Only!

max — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:00:07 +0000

Udegbunam Chukwudi from Strictlyonlinebiz.com asked me if I can extend my original code to show ads to “regular visitors” to their blog.

That’s pretty simple, first code is same but you just need to insert a second “else” statement to show ads for non-search/non-image traffic like this:

This added "else" statement will allow you to show ads to your regular visitors or when the cookie expires for first-time search visitors.
Replace myadcode goes here with your ad code and make sure to add slash(\) in front of any double quotes(") and the other slash(/).

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Show Ads to your Regular Visitors/Readers Only!

YouTube Viral Marketing!

max — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:22:24 +0000

Social media has been buzzing the world for last exactly 2 years, I think. Social media used to be called social networking back in 2006 when I started blogging. As more tweeples started twittering, there was more “social media” than you could ever imagine (perhaps because people have been tweeting about it!).

Anyways, for social media, YouTube is one thing you can not miss because it’s VIDEO and people love watching VIDEOS!

I know a lot of YouTube secrets and what they are worth, anyways, if you though I was going to tell you all the secrets today, you thought wrong.

But it’s okay, I am writing a new e-book called “YouTube Viral Marketing”. I’ve used my own YouTube viral marketing to achieve more things like bring web traffic to blogs, sell products over Amazon’s associate program, and a whole lot more.

You will be very interested.

Sorry, I cannot really give free copies for review but I will accept small donation of $20 (reg. $99) per “early” review copy and you will also get free updates as this social media and YouTube changes often.

If you’d like an “early”, never-disclosed secrets of YouTube, leave a comment with your e-mail and I will contact you when the first review copies are available.

Yup, I’ve even bought the domain name for that, it’s gonna be called YouTubeViralMarketing.com

Need a resume?

I’ve drove more than 2 million views to my YouTube videos within matter of 3 days for my last Android Tablet Prototype video in which it cost me zero dollars except for my time and video equipment. This video was posted on various different sites like CNet, Engadget, Gizmodo, Wired, IntoMobile, and ton of other blogs/websites.

That’s not all though, that’s just tip of iceburg. My new YouTube Viral Marketing e-book will teach you how to profit off YouTube channel time after time and also brand your business.

There’s a whole lot of communication on YouTube that most people miss out on, it’s like Twitter. Well, I don’t want to give out too many secrets now, do I?

And no, I don’t use ANY blackhat methods but using a simple but effective strategy and planning.

I upload videos all the time, check out my YouTube channel at YouTube.com/zedomax

Also, you can check out my previous blog posts on YouTube Viral Marketing.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

YouTube Viral Marketing!

Be Quick!

max — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:39:32 +0000

If you asked me what the secret was to success, I would have to tell you in 2 words, “be quick”.

Yes, it’s that simple, if you could do “everything” quickly, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be successful at anything. (well, except golf)

BE QUICK to realize where the future is headed, BE QUICK to make decisions that could affect the rest of your life, BE QUICK at what you gotta do.

Once when I was in high school, 17 years old, I used to deliver pizza at my local pizza hut. I am glad to say that I was the “quickest” delivery person.

Just sayin’, if you do everything quickly, you can beat life and time.

Remember time is your only enemy, if you can figure out how to stop time (perhaps build a time machine), you will be able to accomplish a lot more with a lot less effort.

How long it takes me to buy a new domain, install wordpress blog, setup the theme, and make couple blogs posts: 20 minutes.

I admit though I am a bit lazy, but I have picked up my speed again, being quick, quicker than Quicken, quicker than a cheetah, you get what I am saying.

Even if you work at McDonalds taking drive-through orders, you can be quick, or be slow.

If you want to get fired eventually and end up jobless, keep being lazy and slow, otherwise make my Large Regular Ice Coffee quick.

I know, because I’ve been at the bottom. Although I am not at the top yet, I know most successful people are very quick. Well, just sayin’, quicker the better.

You know why birds eat the worm? Because they are quick and they get up early. It’s as simple as that.

Be a bird, be early, be quick, and you will accomplish more.

But don’t drive quick, that will only make others swear at you.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Be Quick!

Think Of Something New…

max — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:35:01 +0000

One of the best ways to make money onlilne is to really think of something new OR, try to figure out what someone is doing and try to replicate it but make it better.

My dad used to do that all the time, he still does. He copies other people’s ideas then invents his own inventions and they sell like hotcakes. Not all the time but when he does get a “hit” (off that b***), he hits it real good.

Actually he has a new invention that will be introduced at Las Vegas Market in August, I will have updates on my tech blog on Zedomax.com so watch out for there. You will know when that hits but I am not going to tell you what it is.

Anyways, I’ve “finally” figured out how to make “more” money online. That is simply to think of something new.

All of us probably focus too much on what we are doing currently, which is good and you should never stop focusing on your current money-makers, your cash cows but what you must also do at the same time is to think of new ways to add “residual” income to your existing business, boosting it to another level.

So if your A blog is already giving you $2000/month, keep blogging but try to make a new blog with your spare time.

Too many of you focus on your old, old blog that makes good income but it’s NEVER going to get you to your goals, that of making maybe double/triple your current income.

Don’t become stale (like I did), time is your only enemy and the sooner you realize that, you will take action.

See what other bloggers are doing on the side to make even more money. For example, I know Al Carlton who runs CoolestGadgets.com is always making new blogs like FoolishGadgets.

The point is, you need to act right now and find some way to increase your “average earnings per minute”. That’s how I define my earnings, by looking at how much my Adsense/Affiliate ads are making by per minute.

And if you can increase those earnings consistently, you will make a lot more money in the long run.

Well, just rambling tonight, hope that was inspirational.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Think Of Something New…

How to Really Really Make Money Blogging!

max — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:47:08 +0000

For the last couple years, I have been doing pretty well, my “Zedomax” boat, has been sailing pretty well with some ups and downs but overall, it’s been sailing pretty good.

Now, it’s not anywhere near where I want to be, I wish the boat got to my destination quicker but then again, I guess the “fun” is getting there, not actually being there.

So, couple months back, I realized I have been sailing sorta leisurely, which is good for my psyche but it’s like *nothing* was driving my life!

I began to realize that I needed to do something to make more money so my boat sails faster towards my destination.

Not knowing what it took to do that, I started reading all kinds of “how to make money” books and also even spent $5000 on PPC campaigns that lost money.

I then realized that PPC was just too hard, and it was a very risky business. Unless you’ve already spent a lot of money or you were lucky, you aren’t going to make a dime with PPC.

My core business was about making a dollar out of a dime, not spending two dollars to make a dollar.

Ultimately, I had to revert back to my old ways, that of just blogging, blogging hard, blogging when I am shitting, blogging when I am in my kitchen getting drunk, blogging on my netbook, blogging on my Android smartphone, etc…etc…

But, all those things helped me realize another big secret about the interwebs, and that is what I am doing right now.

I seriously “think” I can easily make couple hundred thousand dollars in couple days or maybe even millions.

But that won’t be known until probably next year. Hopefully I will have an e-book or online course (that will cost like $10,000 a pop) that will teach you.

Maybe, if I succeed. But then I don’t know if I should let out industry secrets, that would just invite all the black hat spammers out there and I don’t like them because I work hard for my money and I am an honest guy.

Anyways, I’ve figured it out I think, it’s sorta simple but it’s something I know how to do.

All I can tell you right now is that it has something to do with blogging, making blogs, and blogging a LOT!

I used to blog 40-50 blog posts when I was struggling to make a living online but I am actually doing the same thing now.

One thing different is that I am a lot smarter, I am 30 now! I can’t believe how old I am, it feels like life is just flashing by my eyes. I remember when I started this blog I was like 24.

Well, I try to look at everything positively, let’s just say I am maturing.

So, I will let you in a secret though that has really kept me going lately.

Don’t make one blog, make a thousand blogs!

If you spent $5 million in VC funding and had this “great” business plan, hired 10 great bloggers, and you failed to profit your first year (and second), you’ve probably failed big time.

That’s a do-or-die strategy. If you are working with experienced people, that might have a good chance of making it big but it’s certainly a big risk you must take and if you fall, you will fall very hard.

My strategy is different. It’s like betting at BlackJack tables in Vegas. I don’t have to bet $5000 to make $5000. Sometimes you can bet $100 that can get you that $5000.

That is what I am talking about.

If you make a blog and it doesn’t work, make another one.

If that doesn’t work, make another one.

And keep repeating the process until you have a hit.

It’s that simple.

That’s my strategy, “trial and error”. I know it sucks but since I can make the blogs myself, design/code everything, I can keep my costs down for creating a new blog.

Since I do rent a bunch of heavy-duty servers already, hosting costs are really negligent so it costs me $10 per blog plus how ever much time I put in.

FYI, I made about 5 new blogs over the weekend, and actually some of them are already profiting well.

But I need to make about 100 new blogs over the next 6 months or so and I think I can reach my goals.

Well, just sayin’, if you really want to make money blogging, you can. I used to say you have to keep blogging and blogging.

That’s true but what’s different now is that you have to keep making new blogs and blogging on them all the time until you have a “hit”.

It’s a cost-effective, low-risk strategy for me that takes a lot of time, work, and my focus but in the end, profit is near 99%.

Anyways, enough about that, that’s how you really make money blogging. I am not here to prove to anyone, I just wanted to let you in on my thoughts.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Really Really Make Money Blogging!

Going ALL IN – Investing…

max — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 04:27:42 +0000

Yup, I am doin’ it again. In fact, I spent all my money on future investments. I spent so much money that I am probably 2 months behind in credit card payments.

But that doesn’t matter, going ALL IN is fun. It’s like poker, when you have a “chance” to go all in, you should, and especially if you are holding 3 aces in your hand.

I still remember when my online business was really struggling when I first tried to go independent couple years back. That was really hard because I was already in 40-50K in debt and I was trying to bet it all so I can do what I want, blog for a living.

At least now it’s not like that, I am going ALL IN so I can get to my next level.

Will I get there?

I sure hope so and I sure hope my “forecasts” are right.

I will try to keep this blog updated but been so busy with my new investments so. I should have a definite answer though my January.

Keep workin’ hard folks and remember, sometimes you gotta put 200% into whatever you want to achieve, even if that means selling your house, car, etc…etc… to achieve your dreams.

No, I still haven’t sold my house because I don’t own one and no, I am not going to sell my brand, new 2006 Suzuki GSX-R600 because that thing stands for my freedom. I don’t ride much maybe 4 times a year but boy when I ride that bike, it’s like I am in another world!

See you all again next year (or hopefully sooner if I have time) and don’t forget to hit me up @zedomax on Twitter!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Going ALL IN – Investing…

866-851-2010 US Census?

max — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:14:16 +0000

I got a call from 8668512010 US Census after couple weeks someone from US Census came by to do a questionnaire. It seems to be a lot of people are worried that the US Census is a scam. Well, if it’s the U.S. Census I guess it’s fine but it seems like they were asking too many personal questions such as my birthdate and whatnot.

Anyways, I am pretty sure it’s them but just sayin’, I don’t really like to give out my personal information, I’ve been through identity-fraud hell before. That sucks when other people claim bunch of bogus claims on your credit report.

Just sayin’, I wish U.S. Census could find a more efficient way to deal with the public, perhaps give us a better way to verify it.

I mean, it’s not too hard to fake numbers these days, there’s an app for that!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

866-851-2010 US Census?

Funny Rap YouTube Video about Makin’ It Online!

max — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:15:05 +0000

Here’s a video you should see about makin’ it online.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Funny Rap YouTube Video about Makin’ It Online!

How to “Really” Make Money Online!

max — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:06:26 +0000

Today marks my 3 and a half years since I’ve started my first blog. Of course, when I started, making money online wasn’t even on my agenda, nevermind that blogs would become such a big part of our online lives.

After 3 and a half years, I think I can tell you how to “really” make money online.

Whether you are trying to making a living online or you just need some extra cash at the end of the month, there’s a secret to making money online.

And yes, I am about to spill my brains to you so hold on.

First, I will tell you outright no matter how many “make money online” e-books and guides you buy, they won’t help you make money online.

I’ve read thousands of such “how to” guides. The problem with those guides is that you’ve got a million other people reading them, thus saturating your profit margins.

The real secret behind making money online is that you need to do something that no one else is doing.

For example, I am the only guy in the world who runs a tech blog, bed blog, bag blog, shopping blog, and other “niches” of blogs all together.

Of course, another factor is your “passion”. I’ve found over the years that the subject I am the most expert at and passionate about, I can garner more blog readers which in turn translates into higher revenues.

The fact of life and business is that you can’t really make money by trying something someone else has done or doing right now.

What you really need to do is find an “idea” that no one has ever done and really push through that route.

You also need to realize that you will FAIL most of the time but think of it this way, try to get 2 to 3 hits out of 10 swings.

Simply put it, you can’t succeed your first time then try to succeed your second time, third time, and so on until you are so tired of FAILING, then that’s when you will find your creativity and inspiration to accomplish the biggest.

Anyways, I hope you learn today that no matter what you do, if it ain’t different from your competition, you are not going to succeed.

Look at every business model in the world, Starbucks, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc…etc… They succeed because they’ve struck gold doing something someone else hasn’t been doing or took something and took it to another dimension.

Think about that. If you want to make money online, you better be doing something different.

And I assure you, I do something radically different than any other bloggers out there otherwise I wouldn’t be laughing my a** off right now at others who have failed because they were too stupid to be creative.

And yup, tomorrow is another day to try out my new ideas just like any other day.

Remember, the day you miss being creative and creating new business plans is the day you are going to be lagging behind your competition.

Don’t do that, START NOW, start doing something every second of your life.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to “Really” Make Money Online!

Why I Never Give Up! (Anymore…)

max — Fri, 28 May 2010 04:07:13 +0000

You know, I love playing/watching basketball. Not because I am good at it but I get a “thrill” out of hitting that 3-pointer or watching NBA teams battle it out to the last second at the NBA Finals.

The competition is exciting to watch, especially if it comes to the last few seconds.

The point is, in basketball, no one wins until the buzzer goes off and anything can happen in the last couple seconds.

Tonight, I was rooting for Suns to win (because they are the underdogs) and they actually did well, tying the game with 3.5 seconds left on the clock. And before that, they were losing the whole game.

In the 3.5 seconds left, the Lakers inbounded the ball to Kobe, who made an errant shot. But Ron Artest got the rebound and made the layup in time to win the game.

They did a slow motion afterwards and what I didn’t understand was that after Kobe shot his last shot, all the Sun’s players were just standing around to see if Kobe made it or not, INSTEAD of trying to get the rebound.

In fact, the only guy who was trying to get the rebound was Ron Artest, who had been making almost nothing the whole day.

The point is, Suns didn’t lose tonight because they sucked but because they didn’t go all out at the last 2 seconds.

Well, I am sure they won’t do that again but it was really fun watching the basketball game tonight.

Winning isn’t everything remember but if you don’t win because you didn’t try your best at the last second, that’s a FAILURE.

How can you apply this to your life?

No matter how hard your life is, keep trying your best.

Don’t just work hard but be creative and try new things.

And remember, NEVER GIVE UP until the priest has prayed for you at funeral. And yeah, don’t die either.

Your life’s defining moment is always when you are in the worst situations. if you can define that moment, you will forever relinquish the joy. If you don’t define that moment because you gave up at the last 0.1 seconds, you will regret it the rest of your life.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Why I Never Give Up! (Anymore…)

Competition Drives You!

max — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:02:52 +0000

Have you ever been up to a challenge or a little competition?

If you have, you know how it feels to be under the gun, to be under pressure, just to survive.

That’s exactly how I feel right now, in fact, honestly my blogging business hasn’t been doing awfully well lately. Everything has been falling, along with the U.S. economy, there goes Zedomax Network LLC, a company I created out of thin air with bunch of credit cards.

One thing I can tell you though, I never give up, that’s one thing I’ve learned to not do. Although I might be in the hardest position right now of just “surviving”, I can tell you that this “pressure” drives my life and I know it will only lead to success because that’s the only thing that drives me.

I’ve told you countless times that you can actually fly by jumping off a skyscraper but 99.99999% of people can’t because they simply don’t “believe”.

Well, I’ve got one of those right now, I simply have to really believe that I can “fly” otherwise I will hit the cement ground like a fly being squatted by a massive concrete block.

Anyways, compeitition or “a need to survive” will drive you to another level.

I have been a professional golfer half of my life and that’s why I love being a pro golfer, because the competition drives me. I simply love being mad at myself for not doing well and try harder than anyone I know, concentrate harder than anyone else, to the point of insanity.

Do you have that drive?

Don’t worry, even if you don’t, you simply gotta start. Your emotions are what drives you to be best at what you are. If you aren’t the best at what you do, maybe you should try harder.

Anyways, I hope this storm goes away, I’ve been trying really hard. And yeah, my new book will be out soon with all my YouTube marketing secrets, I am still hesitant to sell it though, it’s THAT GOOD!

Just remember one thing, if you aren’t the best, you should be tryin about 100 times harder to be the best.

Competition, it’s what drives life.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Competition Drives You!

This is why I love YouTube and It’s going to Take Over the World!

max — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:04:20 +0000

Did you know YouTube is bigger than 2 biggest prime time TV channels put together? (as of YouTube’s 5 year old birthday couple days ago)

Well, this is why I love YouTube:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Not that those girls are hot or nothing like that (they are actually) but the point is that “anyone” can broadcast themselves. There’s even a singer who got found by a record company on YouTube, then signed a contract.

This could never happen 10 years ago, now people are slowly starting to realize that it’s a revolution!

Btw, my new book will be called “YouTube Viral Marketing” where I show you how to make viral YouTube videos and drive traffic to your blog, Twitter, or anything you want.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

This is why I love YouTube and It’s going to Take Over the World!

Secrets to Viral Blog Marketing E-book Coming soon!

max — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:09:19 +0000

After couple years of making a living blogging and also outsourcing my blogging work to other bloggers around the world, I’ve decided to write an e-book called “Secrets to Viral Blog Marketing”.

Of course, I have no idea who’s gonna buy it nor have I wrote it but one thing for sure, I do have the secrets to viral blog marketing, which is the reason I am still here blogging for a living.

Rather than market it like crazy as a “make money online” theme, I am only going to sell a limited number of these e-books. (max 1000)

Why?

I love sharing (as you can tell by my free e-books) but the real truth (secrets), I don’t like to share because simply it creates more competition.

Anyways, I am willing to let some of my secrets to making money blogging, get your blog on the bleeding edge of viralness.

If you don’t believe in my abilities, you can take a look at my latest YouTube viral video, which made first page of YouTube Tech (#1 in fact for a day), here.

This new e-book will be helpful for those of you bloggers out there who are already blogging but want to get to the next level. Perhaps you are making couple thousand dollars a month from your blog but you want to make enough money to quit your day job or need that “bump” to get you to the next level.

In this new exciting e-book, I show you several ways I have diversified my blogging business to a new level with many creative ways of viral marketing.

If you are interested in a free review copy, leave your name and e-mail in the comments line before July 4th 2010. You will get to get a free copy of my new e-book that gives you insights into what I do in my blogging business that makes me excel.

Of course, I ain’t nowhere near other great bloggers but I show you the ways to beat the goliath by being a smart david.

Cheers everyone, I hope many of you are interested as I don’t really give out secrets all that often.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Secrets to Viral Blog Marketing E-book Coming soon!

What is Wrong With San Jose Airport!

max — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:27:00 +0000

Okay, seriously, I am right now sitting literally at San Jose Airport baggage claim area waiting for my parents to arrive from New York.

What the F is wrong with San Jose Airport?

Well, before I got here, I was so hungry I could eat a horse!

I found out that my parent’s flight got delayed 2 hours and worse, San Jose airport has NO food courts whatsoever unless you actually enter through the security area. (which you can only do if you have a plane ticket)

I guess this is actually the “NEW” San Jose airport. Whoever decided to not put a food court is an idiot. There’s one snack bar that sells over-priced beef jerky for $9 which I bought and still waiting.

One good thing though, WiFi is free at San Jose airport.

But good thing I don’t live in San Jose, I know San Francisco airport is much better. Actually, San Francisco airport’s chicken teriyaki (at the Japanese food bar) is the best I’ve had in the world. (*SERIOUSLY)

Anyways, AVOID San Jose airport at all costs if you have your friends or relatives waiting for you just in case your flight get delayed and get stuck HUNGRY like me, waiting.

P.S. They don’t even have tables here like SF airport….darn it.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

What is Wrong With San Jose Airport!

Discrimination at my Local Safeway for a Foodstamp Lady!

max — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:31:39 +0000

(image credit)

This isn’t the first time I waited behind a lady who used foodstamps at Safeway. In fact, it’s the SECOND time I stood behind the person who tried to use foodstamps at Safeway.

What the fu** is the problem?

Well, Safeway clerks have obviously been told by their supervisors to do things SLOWLY AS FU** when people start using foodstamps.

I can give a flying fu** about using a credit card, cash, or foodstamps. The bottom line is, GET THE FU**ING LINE MOVING!

Okay, so I am a bit peeved because this is the second time I had to wait over 15 minutes behind a person who was using foodstamps at my local Safeway in Daly City, CA.

My complaint?

I could careless about what the company policies are for Safeway on dealing with people who pay using foodstamps but I just don’t want to WAIT 15 minutes behind the fu**ing line!

So, here’s what really happened tonight when I was trying to get some stuff at my favorite local grocery.

First, I am waiting behind this woman with a cute child who’s checking out her groceries. For some reason, I guess her groceries are not acceptable by foodstamps she was trying to use. For that reason, the clerk calls other clerks to get the “right” stuff that the foodstamps allow.

Now this is perfectly fine but the worst part, the clerk keeps doing it again and again (when he could have done it in just one call), calling his partner to get the right item for the designated foodstamp item, each time taking like 5 minutes.

Overall, it takes exactly 15 minutes before the woman in front of me checks out. The worst of all, this woman and her child had to go through some bs like weird looks from the clerk and other discriminatory acts. (such as clerk suddenly becoming depressed and expressing it so obviously he doesn’t want this woman to check out for whatever the hell reason)

Once it’s my turn to checkout, I tell the clerk, “You know, you should tell your customers waiting in line that you are going to take long time and tell them to go to another line.”

He gets so pissed and tell me that’s “discriminating” and immediately calls his manager so I can talk to him about it although I never requested to. (why is this guy trying to waste my own time? What a douchebag, I waited 15 minutes because he worked so slow now he want another 5 minutes of my time? He should be paying me really by the minute.)

I tell him that’s okay that I just wanted to make a point that he was the actually “discriminating” against the woman and child in front of me and that he was deliberately doing things slowly in front of me.

He hands me a “comment” card where I can fill in my complaint and tells me I can write my complaint there.

Of course, I was just furiously mad at this point and there’s no point in me wasting any more time with the clerk because he was obviously trained to be “super duche” by Safeway management and “discriminate” against people with foodstamps AND customers behind her.

At that point I “felt” discrimination the clerk put on the people in front of me transferring into my body.

By the way, by the time it was my turn to check out, there was about 10 people forming a line behind me. This clerk made it obvious enough that the woman and her child in front of me was using foodstamps and obviously didn’t want her to keep using it, again by discriminating.

One thing that peeves me most, especially if it happens in America (where there’s supposed to be no discrimination), is when people are discriminated.

So, I decided to teach the clerk a lesson and when he asked me to pay for my items, I slowly and lazily (just like how he took care of the foodstamp woman in front of me) laid my dollar bills one by one as SLOW as I can. I just wish the clerk learns that he can be discriminated upon too.

The point of all this is that there’s still discrimination even if you abide by all the laws. Discrimination is also when you do things SLOWER THAN NORMAL, special treatments for special customers.

You see, the point here isn’t that Safeway needs to have “special” treatments for people with foodstamps but rather, they need to treat everyone the same.

In this instance and one other instance at San Francisco Safeway, I observed these clerks doing things deliberately slowly. all the while pissing off other customers in line, waiting, waiting, and waiting.

I just “wish” the Safeway clerks would be a bit human and understand that their whole business is about giving each customer (even with foodstamps) the best grocery shopping experience they can have.

If it was the first time this happened to me, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post but it’s the SECOND fucking time and I am fucking tired of Safeway executives making these decisions to lay out on their clerks.

There, I said it, Safeway is discriminate towards people who use foodstamps at their stores. It’s TRUE, I witnessed it at TWO different stores, one in San Francisco (an old man who worked there for a long time) and at Daly City (a young, bolding man).

Dear Safeway CEO,

I want you to change your store so it’s no longer discriminate and no longer hold unreasonable waiting lines behind someone with a foodstamp. If someone has a foodstamp, that person should be treated equally and fairly, perhaps given extra priority to be moved along even faster by deploying multiple employees if needed so the rest of your customers (who use CASH) don’t feel like they are being neglected.

You see, it’s a win-win situation if you treat everyone right and if you can get those customers with foodstamps through the line much faster. (not deliberately slower as I have seen)

I only write critical blog posts that can help a company catapult them to their next level. In this case, Safeway is overlooking their foodstamp customers. A customer is a customer is they walk out with something, just remember that folks.

And as for all Safeway clerks, please try stop being dipshits to people with foodstamps, you ain’t that much anyways, you are still a clerk. It reminds me of bouncers at clubs who tried to exercise every bit of their false sense of power, what a waste of lives.

Just sayin’, I witnessed clear “discrimination” against low-income people with foodstamps and the clerk told me he was trying not to. Looks like I ain’t the only one.

Safeway, stop your discriminate practices, it’s simple as that. I would hate to boycott my favorite grocer.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Discrimination at my Local Safeway for a Foodstamp Lady!

Doing What You Really Want to Do in Life!

max — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:00:37 +0000

One of the most important changes in my life I made during my 20s is deciding that I wanted to do everything “I” want to do in life.

This might seem simple yet most people in life are not doing this.

What do I mean?

For example, if you hate anything in your life, stop doing it.

If you don’t like being told by your boss, quit your job and do something else.

If you don’t like the service you are being given at your local restaurant, call up the manager and YELL AT HIM.

If you don’t like being taxed by your government, MOVE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY where you won’t get taxed.

If you don’t like working all the time, TAKE A VACATION.

In short, if you don’t like something in your life, CHANGE IT IMMEDIATELY!

At first, when you take these drastic measure in your life, you will suffer the consequences or pain but in the long term, it can only help you get where you “truly” want to.

I do these all the time. Sometimes I go to a restaurant and if the service is bad to begin with, I don’t even eat and just walk out. There’s no need to waste even a second of my life with people I don’t want to.

Am I being negative?

No, this is simply a way I can “filter” out the negative things in my life and completely become pure to what “I” want.

Is that selfish?

No, not at all, I am living “my” life, no one elses. My decisions are purely “mine” meaning I can be the only person to “blame” later. Therefore, whatever decisions I make in life, I make sure it’s something “I” want to do.

A lot of people have a lot of these “stuff” they don’t want to do yet they are stuck there because they “choose” to. No matter what, you have the ultimate choice to do what you want.

Just my advice today, if you don’t like doing something in your life, then stop doing it! (because you will be miserable for rest of your life that way)

There’s always another way if you try hard enough. Most people stop trying after one or two times.

Don’t give up your dreams just because you have a 2 and a 5-year old kids and wife to take care of. Don’t give up your dreams just because you have to get up 5AM in the morning and work your ass off flippin’ burgers until 10PM. Don’t give up your dreams just because you have “so much” things to do.

People who give up their dreams are the ones who are the most “miserable”.

For me? I have accomplished my dreams that I’ve set couple years back, of running my own online business and to be free from bosses and commuting to a cubicle.

It wouldn’t have come true unless I really “wanted” this, but I did, bad enough that I risked my life on a set of credit cards, bad credit for years, and chance of being evicted from my home. I almost went crazy while doing so, at one point it was so bad I wanted to jump out of my building. In the end, it was all worth it and I would do it again for the “thrill” of it.

Risk everything and gain everything while if you risk nothing, you will gain nothing.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Doing What You Really Want to Do in Life!

To Blog Or Not To Blog, That’s the Big Question!

max — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:49:40 +0000

One of the reasons I started blogging is because I found so many interesting things through the internet. I wanted to basically “bookmark” all the interesting things I’ve found online and also “share” them with the world (while making money in the process, which wasn’t actually one of the goals when I started though).

When you start blogging, each blog post you write, if you want to write a good blog post that people will be interested in, ask yourself the big question,

Should I blog this or not?

When you can say yes to that question, you will inevitably write something that’s interesting for others to read. Otherwise, you are probably better off picking your nose and killing time instead.

For example, there’s a lot of great writers in the world today, I don’t even come anywhere close to an “average” professional writer.

But one thing I can tell you, I can create a blog that will be full of interesting blog posts, stuff that people “want” to read. That is probably why a person like me who got Cs or worse in English all his life through high school and college making money “writing” online while others who got perfect 800s on their English SATs fail to realize any of their potential in life.

Seriously, I think earning a living online doesn’t come from just having the skills to write well, it also includes your ability to market yourself, having a business plan, and a little bit of everything.

The world is too full of “too smart” people and that’s good for some niche blogs but if you want to get your regular Joe who visits your blog interested in your blog post, you will need to focus on stuff that are simply interesting. (No one wants to read your recent court hearing while they might want to read that you got caught going 150MPH on the highway.)

Have a great headline!

Your headline (or title) of the blog post is probably the most important part of your blog post. I don’t care if you write even one sentence or 5 paragraphs, if your title isn’t going to be convincing, no one is going to want to read the rest. Other than that, having a great headline is also good for SEO because search engines are constantly striving to find more “human-relevant” title and content. If you have a great headline and great content to follow, SEO will take care of itself.

So, did I think I should have blogged about this or not?

I will give you a little hint, I was actually looking out my tiny window in my kitchen smoking a cigarette after cleaning all my dishes this morning, and suddenly it hit me this would be a good headline to write about,

To Blog Or Not To Blog?

Remember, if it ain’t worth it to write something (that ain’t worth remembering nor be helpful/funny to others), just go pick your nose instead until you do come up with something good.

Have fun!

Blogging is all about fun, making fun of things or even pathetic people you see. Don’t be afraid to make blogging fun and enjoyable. If you aren’t having fun blogging, maybe you should be flippin’ burgers instead or go slave away your life at a nice corporate cubicle 9 to 5.

P.S. Please don’t pick your nose literally, that’s just metaphoric, I find people who pick their nose in public disgusting. (and I have to tell my family/friends to STOP it all the time and yes I am a bit OCD.)

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

To Blog Or Not To Blog, That’s the Big Question!

How to Turn Disaster into Opportunity!

max — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:56:08 +0000

One of the ways a “smart” entrepreneur makes his/her business profit even in times of economic downturn is the ability to turn disaster into opportunity.

For example, I know once my dad, who runs an international trading business, got into trouble when one of the biggest companies in the U.S. sued him for $300 million. If that lawsuit was pursued, my dad probably lost his whole company and ended up on the streets.

Instead, my dad made an “opportunity” out of that disastrous situation. Instead of fighting the lawsuit, my dad went to the company and made a deal. In fact it was a $30 million deal for the Intellectual Property that was being sued upon.

In the end, he sold that Intellectual Property for $30 million and was able to make a disaster into opportunity.

I can’t really talk about the “details” but the lesson learned here is that no matter what hits you, there’s always a way to turn it into an “opportunity”.

Or in other words, “think out of the box”.

Let me give you another example. Every year, near the holidays, people stop searching/browsing the internet less and less. That means less money for web publishers like me who run content-oriented web sites.

Instead of making less money on the holidays, I actually tripled my profits by gearing my content towards the holidays. For example, during New Years, people tend to get un-digitized and use the internet WAY less. I usually then focus on New Years sales events, which will bring me even more web traffic because that’s what people are searching for the most.

Anyways, there’s a lot of opportunities in times of Disaster. Just look at Apple! They are selling these useless iPads like hotcakes when everyone’s practically broke and they are racking in all the CASH. Seriously though, I can see iPads are great gadgets to have around in addition to my laptops but they certainly aren’t the next generation computers as typing is hard (unless you use an external keyboard) and doesn’t multi-task.

But Apple has done well to “market” their products as they always have with everyone of their other products.

It’s probably true that the best “marketers” make the money while the really “smart” people eat the leftovers. I know a lot of patent companies who produce some of the best inventions in the world and a lot of companies who pay them 1% of royalty to get their ideas to production/consumers (and make millions).

Well, business is like that I guess, just having an idea can’t make you rich but somehow making it profitable will.

Here’s some ideas how you can profit from a disaster (literally!):

For one, you can start a business that helps rebuild communities after an earthquake. Or you could start a business selling disposable umbrellas for $1 that can also be recycled easily for rainy days. Well, I will let you do the thinking, I am running out of ideas myself.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Turn Disaster into Opportunity!

Living On The Edge!

max — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:49:43 +0000

Recently, I have read GaryVee’s CrushIt, which I highly recommend by the way. In his book, he talks about doing things you want to do and if you are doing exactly what you want to do “right now”, you should quit that or at least work very hard to do something else.

I have to admit I share the same life philosophies as GaryVee because I feel that you should be doing what you “really” want to do. Right now, I make a living from blogging and other online ventures because I ENJOY IT.

The thing I enjoy the most about blogging is that I don’t sell any “physical products”, need “employees” that I have to meet everyday (and baby-sit), and that your business is making money even if you take couple weeks off or off to sleep.

It has been a dream of mine actually since I was 9 years old, when I did sell some digital products online using my 9600-baud dial-up modem and Prodigy.

Most importantly, I happened to be at the right place at the right time, after the invention of internet and after the dot com boom. Had I been trying to start my blogging business back in 2000 or tried starting it now, the timing would have been off.

When I started blogging it was August of 2006. Blogging was well known around the internet but most people didn’t know even what “blog” meant. I would say that’s right before blogging sort of started taking off.

I saw the potential that blogging could bring over the next years and I took the chance to really “blog” it ALL.

Nowadays, virtually every company in the world have a blog if they want to have a visible online presence. And I still see a lot of room for growth as blogging has not “fully matured”.

The point of this blog post is that I like living on the edge. Even in real life, one of the favorite things I like to do is to go to the roof of a 90-story building and stand on the edge. Blogging is like that, even though it has matured a lot already, it’s one of those web technologies that’s on the bleeding edge of internet.

It’s a feeling of “thrill” and adrenaline pumping up from your toes to your brain. That’s what I call living your life and if you are not doing that every minute, perhaps you are not doing what you truly enjoy.

Of course, there are people who’s personality might be different and they enjoy being safe, having a stable job, and believing in what the masses say. I will tell you right now I am not one of them, I like being a bit off, odd, or even weird to some extent, all so I can be unique than anyone else in the world.

If you want to change your life now and start living on the edge, try GaryVee’s CrushIt, highly recommended for a drastic change in your life.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Living On The Edge!

Blogging For a Living, What Does it Really Mean?

max — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:08:14 +0000

For the last 3+ years I have been blogging (of the 2+ years which I have made a living out of), I’ve come to realize couple things in life. And that is, blogging is surely a great way to earn an income, whether that’s your main or secondary income.

It’s been a lot of fun meeting people like Guy Kawasaki, John Chow, Philip Torrone, Robert Scoble, and lots of other “famous” people.

My personal goals has never been to become famous as any of those guys nor do I want to make any money but one thing I do want to do in my life, make an impact on life of everyone’s life. That mainly consists of me fighting against big companies like Apple, AT&T, and others to make the world the way I see it. But that doesn’t always mean I am right, but I do highly believe my way of my life is the most down-to-earth, ideals that will satisfy the average Joe. I only fight for the average man because I am only an average man myself, nothing more.

That is my goal in my life, to satisfy the average Joe, not the billionaires/millionaires who have all the money. I don’t know why but I have never been greedy of too much money although I am highly of greedy of making sure every bit of my business is profitable. (It’s good to make lots of money but it’s not good to keep it for all yourself, especially if you “used” others to get ahead.)

For me, blogging has always been a measure of my self-worth, what I am really WORTH, not just the dollar factors. Seriously, when you die, do you think you will be able to carry all that money you earned you made to heaven? Thank God, you won’t. No matter how much you make, if you can’t spend it all before you die, it’s probably not worth your time. Rather, go enjoy the fine weather at the beach.

Hence my point, money can only get you to a certain level of happiness but that won’t fulfill your goals as a human being. My point, is that you can achieve everything you want if you are really “passionate” about what you do. You can have all the money in the world but that’s not going to make you happy truly if you are slaving 24 hours of a day to make that happen. If you don’t believe me look at Bill Gates, he was making Windows but now he’s making cures for malaria.

Perhaps it’s true most people are millionaires because not they are smart but ‘caz they are “lucky”. Look at Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, none of their skills would make them where they are unless they were exactly where they were at, in the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, and now. If Bill Gates was born 10 years earlier, there would be no Windows today. If Steve Jobs was born 10 years later, there would be no Apple today.

No matter how you slice the dice, I wouldn’t be even writing this blog post if I was born 10 years earlier than my birthday or even 10 years later.

Chances/destiny seemed to have an effect on my life, I am a witness to that I assure you.

My Point?

You can’t control anything nor your life, it’s something you cannot control. The more you control, the more you will lose control of. The more you let go, the more you will be able to grasp.

Blogging has been a “passion” for me, I just do it because it’s so much fun talking about myself and others who make the world better everyday. Whether it’s attacking one of the biggest companies that can affect their sales in the number of millions of dollar or just taking a poke at my competition for the helluvit, I do it because that’s the reason why I live, to fight for my rights. I love talking about the positive stuff in life but I don’t hesitate to talk loud about something that is simply wrong either.

If you want to make a million buck making hundreds of automated blogs that do nothing good for the world, go ahead and do it. I know how to do that too and I might as go start the biggest drug gang too and make 100 times more money than you do but I don’t for a simple reason, Karma.

It’s not hard to steal a bank you know, I could think of one of the world’s most sophisticated ways to rob a bank, but I don’t because I wouldn’t feel at home afterwards.

No matter what you do in this life, it’s going to be an everlasting still-shot of what did for the next century or more.

Life is simple, you get what you want. Right now, I want to build a stable blogging business that grows over a long term period and one that really hits the hearts of the people who really care. That is my end goal, to build a profitable online business that will benefit the majority of the people, not the minority.

I just gave out some change to the last homeless I saw, when is the last time you actually “gave” to some homeless people? That, is my problem.

Forget “what” homeless people would do with your “free” money, just know that you are actually helping someone and believe that will change someone’s life for once and for all… When you can’t do that, it results in vicious cycle of things you don’t want to happen.

Just listen, if you think you can jump off a 60-floor Manhattan building and fly, you can, it’s just 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999% can’t think that way, even myself. I hope you are one of the 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% that can, and those people make 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999% change in the world.

And yes, you don’t “literally” have to jump off a sky-rise building but you should be willing to take a chance with someone at least once in awhile and at the worst, take a chance with your own life.

*Disclosure – Author of this blog have had situations where it could be described as jumping off a building and he has succeeded in “flying” 100% of the time. Please take this “metaphorically”, the author does not suggest you to jump off a building.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Blogging For a Living, What Does it Really Mean?

YouTube Social Media – How to Make “REALLY” Viral YouTube Videos!

max — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:29:55 +0000

I’ve told you how to make viral YouTube videos and even bring more traffic to your blog with YouTube videos.

Well, it’s still “theory” but I think I have finally found how to make “really” viral YouTube videos, that is to “study” the most viral YouTube videos like NigaHiga:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

I’ve been a quite a fan of NigaHiga since couple months back when he made the video above. Well, recently, NigaHiga broke through over 2 MILLION subscribers on YouTube. (When I first saw him, he had like 500,000!)

It’s quite evident that funny YouTube videos can garner lots of YouTube pageviews and you can easily turn that into more subscribers to your blog.

What came to me is that it’s not the content but also a lot of it is in “editing” your videos. For example, you want a “fast-paced” conversation by mixing and adding scenes.

Well, I am studying but here’s my (poor) effort at a viral YouTube video, enjoy:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

By the way, power of YouTube is still probably the most under-used Social Media yet, probably more powerful than Twitter in my opinion. YouTube still hasn’t reached even 5% of its potential, you need to use it as seeding videos now will really benefit you later on. (And I will have future post on YouTube video seeding for viral YouTube videos also…)

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

YouTube Social Media – How to Make “REALLY” Viral YouTube Videos!

Guy Kawasaki’s Key Note at #Swagapalooza – Top 10 Tips for Tech Entrepreneurs!

max — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:41:03 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

I had the pleasure of attending #Swagapalooza yesterday, huge thanks to Alex Krupp for inviting me, and also met Guy Kawasaki for the first time. It was really random and anyways, good thing I brought my new Canon 7D camera to record his key note in 1080P HD.

Enjoy Top 10 Tips for tech entrepreneurs by Guy Kawasaki, some good tips for anyone starting a new business, my favorite is where he talks about “partners”.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Guy Kawasaki’s Key Note at #Swagapalooza – Top 10 Tips for Tech Entrepreneurs!

How to Make Residual Income with Instructional Blogs!

max — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:55:32 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Last year when Palm Pre the smartphone came out to the market, I happened to be one of the first to get it, also I registered PalmPre-Hacks.com. Well, for me, making blogs is fun but also it’s a way to make “residual income”.

Making money with blogs is hardly a new concept for me but while making the Palm Pre Hacks blog, I’ve begun to realize something, that is you can make very easy residual income with instructional blogs.

What I did basically with the Palm Pre Hacks blog is to write-up very detailed instructions on how to use your Palm Pre as a WiFi router by installing an aftermarket WiFi app.

But the instructions weren’t mine, I basically followed someone else’s instructions, which is also linked on my blog post with credits to the right people. What is different with my blog post versus the instructions I used to make the blog post is that I’ve added “step-by-step” directions so even a 4th grader can understand, plus I uploaded a bunch of videos outlining the highlights of the instructions. (You can also read up on viral YouTube videos, how to drive YouTube traffic to blogs, and see my viral Palm Pre Hacks video here.)

After making couple blog posts about the Palm Pre, the “viralness” was pretty amazing as people/bloggers linked to many of the blog posts I wrote, even Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress, linked to my post about how to install a Wordpress on your Palm Pre. That kind of links were unexpected but of course, I was exhilarated. The weirdest thing happened also, I actually met Matt for the first time couple months later by random at San Francisco airport!

Anyways, the point is that there’s a ton of instructional blogs you can make including about home loans, credit repair, home repair, plumbing, and a whole lot more.

The key is to write great “step-by-step” instructions that actually work and people can follow it.

If you can do that, you won’t have to worry so much about SEO. I find that somehow people find your content through Google and other search engines.

Another thing I’ve realized is that once you make this instructional blog with about a dozen great articles, you don’t need to keep making more blog post, the web traffic levels grow by themselves because you have so much (great) content. Plus, when you write such a “focused niche” articles, your Adsense earnings tend to be higher because your content is so targetted.

They key is that if you can make a bunch of these types of blogs, you could possibly making enough residual income to quit your job or earn extra money to buy a new car or a home.

I am sure everyone is an “expert” on something, I don’t care what it is, you should make some blogs and earn residual income on it. Of course, the point of this blog post is that even if you are not an “expert” on something, you can still make instructional blogs by actually learning something new yourself.

How can you apply this to Affiliate Marketing or Clickbank?

You can probably find a TON of items that you can use as affiliate links on your instructional blogs. For example, I put some Amazon widgets up on the Palm Pre blog, which converts amazingly well.

OR, you can write a instructional blog that teaches you how to get a second mortgage on your house. Then at the end, you can “refer” bunch of more great Clickbank Mortgage HOWTO E-books. (The main point is that you give out the information for free, don’t sell it. After that, you can refer other items that people can purchase. If people try your instructions and they like it, the viralness and word-of-mouth marketing is explosive than you can ever imagine, and why I am making a blog post about it now.

The possibilities are endless.

Recently, I have also made Nexus One Hacks Blog, which is similar to the Palm Pre Hacks blog. Not as successful as the Palm Pre blog but still growing by itself since day one.

No money is spent on SEO, PPC marketing, but just your time for writing-up a “dummie’s guide” on a topic is required.

I like these kind of projects because they are relatively low-risk. If you do well, it’s 99% profit, if you don’t do well, you can try another topic.

Even this blog itself, is probably instructional. I didn’t really give you step-by-steps though, maybe I will if enough people want it, leave comments!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Make Residual Income with Instructional Blogs!

How to Beat Blogger’s Writer’s Block!

max — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:26:22 +0000

You all know what a blogger’s writer’s block is right? That’s when you can’t find any good subjects to blog(write) about.

Well, I have given you some suggestions before but recently I’ve thought of even a better way to write more creatively and let your writing creativity loose from its dark chambers.

What I did is, recently, I wrote on the subject matter of Apple suing HTC. To me, this was a fairly big ordeal because I love open-source and what Google is doing while Apple has been doing a lot of things that piss off people like me.

Anyways, the point is that I got really passionate, so passionate, I got a 1200-word blog post out rather quickly.

But the best thing happened after. I got all these Apple fanboys and others commenting because I have fueled their intellect with words. Whether I am right or wrong isn’t the important thing here, it’s that I was able to make enough people mad to leave a comment.

Should you be making your readers mad?

Hell yes, you need to make great content that will really get your readers attention. If I look at all the blog posts I have wrote in the past, the ones that get most comments are the blog posts with controversial topics.

One time I did a post about circumcision and for like 3 months, I had the whole world of circumcision experts/pros leaving comments on my site.

In blogging, to generate some action, you don’t always have to write the facts but if you can write about something passionately, adding your opinions, and spark some intellectual discussions, that could result in more passionate creative writing.

After that blog post, I don’t know what happened to my writing but I just feel like writing even more. It’s exciting when you love to write and ideas seemed to just blast out of your brain.

Well, even this blog post is one of those blasts.

Try it, it might fix your writer’s block. Write a strong opinionated blog post about a trending topic and I bet you will get a crowd following.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Beat Blogger’s Writer’s Block!

How To Choose Highest Paying Affiliate Programs in 2010

max — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:47:30 +0000

*This is a guest blog post by Tomy from SelfTestEngine.com, you can send your guest blog posts to Zedomax [at] gmail.com too.

Internet has given us a lot of new opportunities for earning money and one among them are the very famous affiliate program. People who are involved in these affiliate programs earn a lot of money by affiliating themselves with famous online sites of the world. The idea is to advertise about a product or service of another company which in turn would get money on a percentage basis for the sale. As the affiliate program has gained a lot of fame over the years many companies and sites have introduced affiliation programs. But not all affiliate programs are very profitable; the trick of the trade lies in finding out the correct and high paying affiliate program.

Some of these affiliate programs even gives you a 50-60% of the earnings on a product or service, once you have attained a preset target. The affiliate program provide must have ethics in the organization, and there have been cases where the affiliation provider doesn’t pay the full commission amount and instead pays only a meager amount. They would make use of technology to take your links and take up your commission and one has to have an effective affiliate tracking program to stop this practice.

When choosing an affiliation, do look at the product that you are about to sell and look at its worth and determine whether the product could be sold to a consumer or if it is just a junk that no one would bother to buy. The health care field is an excellent field as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. This is because many people look at the net for getting solutions for their health care problems and by selling health care products more people would be attracted to your site and they would buy products from your site, thereby increasing your revenue.

About The Author:

Tomy is guest blogger and also IT Certification training professional currently providing Exams training via SelfTestEngine tool for exams like 70-290 and 70-291 for MCSE Certification.

People don’t know these days that how much money you can make via affiliate programs. Let me tell you that bloggers are not wasting their time but they are making thousands of dollars each month via affiliate ads. So, it is important to find out best and highest paying affiliate program related to your blog. In this article I tried to write a brief article about it.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How To Choose Highest Paying Affiliate Programs in 2010

Wordpress Hack – How to Insert Ads in the Middle of Your Content!

max — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:03:43 +0000

The other day I showed you my latest Adsense heat map that I have been working on for 3+ years. Mind you, that’s the only way I can give back to the community of bloggers. It’s not going to help me in the least bit because I will have more competition but I feel that it’s important to give back. Karma I call it.

Anyways, here’s how to insert ads after 1-3 sentences after your content. (Or you can change the $tcount>=1 values to something like $tcount>=3 if you want to show ads after more sentences.)

You can even show additional ads at the bottom of your content if your blog post is a long blog post versus short.

Here’s the code that will let you insert ads at different places in your content.

You need to replace in your single.php file (usually) with the following code:

See here for the code

The above code will print your first Adsense block after the first HTML tag p, which is usually a paragraph block or 1-3 sentences.

There’s also an option to print a second Adsense block after 4 ps for longer blog posts. This ad block won’t show unless your blog post is super long. I don’t really use the second Adsense block much. You can also change the $tcount>=4 to something like $count>=2 if you want your second Adsense block to show after the 2nd

block.

There’s also many ways to customize this code such as detecting images. For example, I used additional code to detect whether there’s an image in the very beginning of the post. If that’s the case, I will want to show the ads under the image because I think it looks better as far as web design/usability goes. I can have that code up too if more of you guys want it.

Here’s some additional div tips for styling your Adsense ads.

If you want to wrap to the right for 336×280 ads:


Replace this line with Adsense code here

If you want to wrap to the left for 336×280 ads:


Replace this line with Adsense code here

If you want to just display ads without wrap, with Adsense left aligned:



Replace this line with Adsense code here

If you want to just display ads without wrap, with Adsense center aligned:




Replace this line with Adsense code here

In general, I find that wrapping your Adsense around text can be good for CTR plus look great with your overall site design.

At other times, I find that Adsense aligned-left with no text wrapping (with white space on the right) gets a lot better CTR.

Just test the different locations to see what works best for your niche.

Instead of putting the ad after the content, it’s simply common sense they will perform better if you put it within the context of your content and higher up on your blog post.

The amount of CTR increase skyrockets plus why not?

Of course, just make sure the overall site design and user experience are still maintained, no one wants to read ad-plastered blogs, even though I am on the very edge.

Enjoy and don’t forget to share the code with other Wordpress bloggers out there!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Wordpress Hack – How to Insert Ads in the Middle of Your Content!

Greed Will Kill You!

max — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:07:56 +0000

There’s a saying in Korean that a fish cannot eat more than he can digest.

This is true of humans too. If you force yourself to eat more than you can digest, you can simply die.

In life and business, this is also true. Greed is one of human’s worst traits and flaws. But you can beat greed with your will power.

Here’s some thoughts on how to not be greedy:

Learn to “catch” yourself when you know something is too good to be true.
Don’t be shady. I know, as simple as it sounds, don’t be shady. No one likes shady people.
Money isn’t everything. Money is only result of your passions. Of course, money can come from greed too but it won’t last as long as money coming from your passions.
Be true and honest to yourself and resist temptations. I am not a philosopher nor am I religious but I have learned my ways to be true and honest to myself. When you can truly be honest to yourself, you will feel at total peace.
Be real, don’t be fake. Don’t pretend you are someone else and just be yourself.

Greed can come in many forms throughout one’s life such as school grades, winning at sports, girls, money, and more. Just remember that when you get too greedy and cheat or lie, you are really only cheating or lying to thyself.

Remember, happiness doesn’t come from money, it lives inside you. You can be happy anytime you want to be.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Greed Will Kill You!

Do you Believe in Karma? You Should!

max — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:03:48 +0000

One of the things I have learned in my lifetime is karma.

What exactly is karma?

Karma is very similar to science, like Newton’s law of motion.

Newton’s law says that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.

Same is true for karma, anything you do in your lifetime, I believe will have an equal and opposite reaction.

Now, this can be negative or positive. But whatever you do, it will come back to make you happy or haunt you.

I won’t mention what has happened to me recently other than one of the companies I have worked with for the past couple years have screwed me. Now, there’s no reason for me to sue these guys because I believe in karma. For whatever they screwed me on, they are gonna get screwed as much. I don’t know how that would happen but I have seen karma throughout all my life.

I will give you a real life example of karma. Back in college, one of my friends used to love to steal stuff. He would practically steal anything, from people’s cars, from 7/11, and etc…etc…

But the funniest thing was, he would have the worst luck of anyone I have ever seen. Either one day his car gets randomly broken into or he “loses” his wallet. I was there to witness what was happening and I can tell you, it wasn’t god, it was simply karma.

Karma is probably one of the strongest forces in the universe. I don’t know how it works but it works.

So, next time you try to steal someone’s stuff, whatever it is, don’t, as it will come back to haunt you.

There are many times in life when you are given a chance to succeed at the sacrifice of others. These are moments when you need to make an honest decision. If you don’t, it could potentially ruin you life later.

For example, you’ve heard of the story where people found millions of dollars that fell out of a money truck but returned it rightfully to the bank. Those our my heroes, people who make a difference in our society.

Think of all the people who won lottery, most of them end up bankrupt with a life worse than before!

Instead, just be an honest person. Being an honest person means that you are honest to yourself, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone else.

If you can learn what karma is, you will forever be granted by its rewards while those who don’t, will ultimately thrown to the bottom of society for wrongdoings.

Karma doesn’t care about your secrets, it knows your secrets.

For example, let’s say there’s a criminal who got away with 10 million dollars from various different bank accounts. No one could catch him. But you know who is going to catch up with him? That’s right, karma.

Let me tell you another story why I haven’t stole anything in my life since I was 7.

When I was 7 years old growing up in the city streets of South Korea, I used to steal toys from my local toy store and run home with my “buddies”. Well, I didn’t think twice about stealing because all my friends were doing it.

Something happened though after that. I started stealing some chump change from my dad’s work dress clothes when he was at work. One day, I tried to steal some money again from my dad but my dad caught me. He knew I had been doing it for weeks. And although it was like maybe just a couple dollars I stole, it was a lot of money for a 7 year old. My dad beat me really hard with some rather large wooden baseball bats, it hurt really bad. In Korea 20+ years back, there’s no laws on adults beating on their children, it was quite the norm.

But I look back now and I am really thankful to my dad for beating me up. Really, if he hadn’t done that, I would probably still be stealing. Of course, I don’t think hitting children is a right thing to do but I don’t blame my dad for that, I thank him.

My dad is one of the honest people I know and he has been a business leader for thousands of people over in Asia. Let’s just say he’s like leader of a Mafia and many people in Asia respect him for what he does, he has even been featured on Forbes and New York Times before.

I am not boasting my dad is this and that, I am just saying he is the most honest person I have ever met in my life and because of that, he’s always been someone I look up to and he has had a lot of luck and success due to his honest character. I find that the most honest people are the most successful people in business.

Of course, you need to be smart too, just being honest won’t you get anywhere.

Karma, learn it, use it, and always, stand up for your rights, let your voice be heard,

this is why I blog.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Do you Believe in Karma? You Should!

Android and iPhone Apps for Hootsuite Available Now!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:44:26 +0000

Finally, HootSuite, one of my favorite Twitter apps that I use mainly for scheduling some of my tweets, has their iPhone AND Android app available for free suddenly. I haven’t used it but it’s going to be exciting as my Seesmic on Nexus One currently doesn’t have all the cool features of HootSuite, which integrates click stats for shortened URLs plus much more.

Simple, elegant and powerful, HootSuite for Android and iPhone are available in full featured versions (allowing unlimted accounts and statistics tracking) and Lite versions at no cost – yes, gratis, put your checkbook away – free. We knew you’d like that. Visit the Android Market and Apple App Store to click your choice.

You can get the HootSuite for Android probably by searching in the Android market and similar for iPhones.

P.S. This is a really good news for me as I have been wondering why I couldn’t use Hootsuite on my smartphone, I am so glad they decided to launch both of them today!

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Android and iPhone Apps for Hootsuite Available Now!

How to Show Adsense Ads Only to Search Traffic! (and less annoying to your regular readers)

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:31:10 +0000

Over the years, I’ve realized showing ads to only search traffic is a pretty good idea, especially if you don’t want to bombard your regular readers with a whole bunch of ads.

You can also not show ads to image traffic as they don’t convert well most of the time.

But let me give you a simple javascript example that uses cookies to only show Adsense ads to your search engine visitors coming from either Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, or MSN. You can easily add more search engines if you want to by modifying the code.

Another thing I am doing is to show ads for about 60 seconds using cookies until they expire. (after visitors enter the site from a search engine) I think that is a good feature to implement. You don’t want to show ads just to the landing page to your search engine traffic, you want to keep showing it while they browse other parts of your site because search engine visitors are most likely to be interested/click on ads.

Now that we got the theory/concept out of the way, let me show you how to make your Adsense ads behave so they don’t annoy the hell out of their readers.

This can be great for either sites that are performing poorly (low CTRs, mostly image traffic) or quality sites you don’t want to bombard with ads. I don’t use this for my main site Zedomax.com but I use it for my other sites where my web traffic is high but my CTR is low. Using this code, I was able to bring the CTR up on those high-trafficked sites while improving regular user experience by showing ads only to search traffic visitors.

First Code

Put this code somewhere in your header file.

Second Code

Put this code where you are going to show the ad:

First Code Explained

Let me explain the code a bit. Basically the first part of the code will save a cookie to the user's computer if they come from image search or regular search. The cookie is set to expire in 60 seconds so that there's enough time for your Adsense ad exposure while search engine visitors are visiting your site and ads don't show after those 60 seconds to not annoy your new visitors so much. But you can change the value to shorter/longer if you want to.

This first code should be in your header file such as header.php so you can detect where your visitors are coming from, no matter which page they enter from.

Second Code Explained

The second code is the actual adsense code written in javascript, you will have to replace the google_ad_client and google_ad_slot value with yours. Change the pub-xxxxxxxxxx and yyyyyyyyy to the one you see when you generate your Adsense code. Don't touch the quote characters as that will mess it up, copy exactly and only change the variables I told you to change!

Does my code change the Adsense code and violate ToS?

No, my code doesn't change the Adsense code at all, it just translates it into javascript. The actual output code is exactly the same as code provided from Google. You can actually use PHP to do the same but the reason I use javascript is because my blogs use Wordpress Super Cache, which caches the PHP code. When PHP code is cached, it will cache the detection function also. In essence, PHP code used with Super Cache won't work because it will stay on the last PHP if statement.

In short, javascript works well along most platforms because it's processed in real-time by the browser. So that is why I used javascript here.

What you can get from this?

If you are reluctant to put more ads on your website, you can use this code to only show ads to search engine traffic. That way, you don't drive away your loyal readers.

For sites with low Adsense CTRs, it might be a good idea to show ads to only search traffic as your CTR will skyrocket if you do. Poor CTRs can be mostly from lack of content or image search traffic, both which don't convert well into overall revenue. Especially for those of you who get a lot of traffic, having low CTR can be bad, as it can lower your overall Adsense earnings due saturating overall CTRs.

Credits

I didn't create this code all myself, I built on top of the code created by Stephen Cronin over at Scratch99.com. Thanks for the code Stephen.

What I added is the additional cookie code plus expiration so your ads stay around for a minute before disappearing.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Show Adsense Ads Only to Search Traffic! (and less annoying to your regular readers)

Facebook Hack – How to Invite All Your Friends to your Fan Page in One Click!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:39:08 +0000

I just noticed John Chow has posted a great Facebook hack that can let you invite all your friends to your new fan page in just one single click using some javascript code.

Go to your page and click the “Suggest to friends” link.

You will get a popup box with a list of your friends that you need to select manually. Simply copy and paste the following javascript code onto your URL box and it will select all your friends.

javascript:elms=document.getElementById(‘friends’).getElementsByTagName(‘li’);for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === ‘object’){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}
Cool hack!

via johnchow

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Facebook Hack – How to Invite All Your Friends to your Fan Page in One Click!

Adsense CPC Optimized Placement Heat Map!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:59:15 +0000

For those of you who have trouble making any money with your Adsense revenues, you might want to try the above heat map. And to those who have been following my older Adsense heat maps from last year, you might want to update it with the one I am showing you here because through the years, I have gotten better at improving my Adsense revenues through better placements.

Now, this map can be seen on the single articles pages of my main blog Zedomax.com (such as this one).

Let me explain why I made this Adsense optimization heat map. It looks so simple yet there’s a lot of research and time I have put into this so please bear with me.

The best performing ads are (based on my 3+ years with Adsense and driving 30M pageviews) is the top left corner right after your blog post headline.

Why?

Because that’s where people’s eyes go first. Also, if you have a sidebar on the left side or you have sidebars on both sides of your website, that’s fine too. I have other blogs where sidebar is on the left side but people will still look for the content side, just make sure your ads are on the “left” side of the content side.

Also, you can embed your ads so they are integrated with the rest of your content but I usually don’t do that.

Why?

You want your readers to really focus on the ads first, just like TV ads. If you have content around your ads, this will cause ad blindness more often than not based on my testing. For some, it may work well, for longer articles.

So, have your ads clear of content. You can put your content above or below the ads. The main point is that you want to have focus.

If you think that will not look good for the design of your website, that’s fine too but just know that maximum revenues are achieved when you can make readers completely focused at the task at hand, that of reading ads first then content.

Why do I have no ads on this blog?

Ads are great for making money on sites with some good level of web traffic. If you aren’t getting at least 1000 unique users per day, you shouldn’t really aggressively advertise but rather work to get more web traffic and loyal readers.

Trust me, I don’t even like putting too many ads myself and if you put ads on blogs/websites that don’t even get 1000 unique visitors per day, you are mostly likely shooting yourself in the foot.

I know, I know, you want to make money right away but you still also need to focus on building a readership and web traffic to a level.

Plus, for example let’s say you put ads all over your website that gets 200 unique visitors per day, you aren’t gonna get that much clicks anyways plus your revenue will be a lot smaller because you have such small number of visitors.

I have found that having at least 1000 unique visitors per day is a good rule of thumb to go by before you even start putting ads. Of course, depending on your niche, this could be slightly lower, maybe 500.

This blog itself currently gets less than 1000 unique visitors per day, I will put ads on here someday but not until I reach the initial 1000.

Just use your common sense and don’t put ads on your site if you are not ready. Or at least start with ads after the content.

Now, let me go on with the Adsense map here. You will see that I have put a rectangle Adsense block, either of the sizes 336×280, 300×250, or 300×250. Try to use the biggest ad size that will fit as bigger sizes mean higher revenues.

You can also put “private” ads on the right side of the Adsense ad to “fill” the blank space if you want. But make sure you test and it doesn’t affect your Adsense CPC. Depending on your niche, this might differ. In my case, filling the space on the right sometimes will lower my CPCs or sometimes it will raise it. Just make sure to test both options and you will find the right combo.

Now, after the first Adsense rectangle block, I have content, perhaps 1-3 sentences. I have used custom code for my Wordpress theme to put another Adsense rectangle block after the 1-3 sentences.

Why?

Because if you want to achieve the highest CPCs and higher reader-attention for the ads, you want to place your ads as high as they can be. (if your goal is to make the maximum revenue)

After all the content, I use Google AdManager and Adsdaq to serve private affiliate ads or CPM ads. This is the worst performing spaces for Adsense so I put my private/CPM ads there. Don’t put more ads there because it will saturate your Adsense revenues. I try to stick with 2 big Adsense rectangles at most.

Don’t put Adsense rectangle ads on Sidebar

I don’t put any Adsense rectangle ads on the sidebar because simply they are the worst performers due to ad blindness. People can easily recognize that ads on the sidebar are ads and will simply ignore it. You can try testing it but I bet your results will be like what I said. One more thing, don’t put ads on your header either unless it performs much better than the first Adsense rectangle. I highly doubt it but you can always test it.

KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)

When it comes to user experience of actually browsing your site, you need to keep your ads to a minimum. Although I have a lot of ads on Zedomax.com, you will see that ads are “clearly” divided from my content. You need to make it easy for users to distinguish ads from real content while you place your ads where readers will pay attention most. This keeps your readers as happy as possible while letting you maximize your revenue potential.

So, that’s it, you just need two big square blocks for your main article pages. No need for any extra Adsense blocks because you want to place your ads where people will read the most. Otherwise you will saturate our own Adsense revenues because you are offering more ad spaces.

I used to have like a whole bunch of ads as seen in my very first Adsense heat map here but I am making more money now by having less ads but placing them higher on my blog.

Extra – Category Pages

Above heat map is for your article pages, where the actual contents are. Now, for category pages, you can place more ads and customize it.

For my Zedomax.com blog, I actually rearranged my blog theme to have 1 left side bar, 1 ad block, and 1 content block, which is 3 columns. You can see an example here.

Why a different layout for Category Pages?

I don’t want ad blindness so I have completely changed my theme so it looks “fresh”. Plus I have blended my ads so they are informational and offer more options for users since they are not trying to read just “one article” rather they are trying to find something. This means ads could potentially be more helpful if your readers don’t find the content they are looking for.

I won’t get into the details of how I did my category pages but it’s an example that you can make your website into different layouts for different sections. By having fresh look to your category pages, you can avoid ad blindness and also offer the readers more options to choose from.

You don’t have to copy my style but if your theme is same everywhere throughout your site, you might want to look into giving it a fresh look for certain pages such as the category page.

I can tell you that my category pages perform 2-3 times better than before, where it was the same as my article pages.

Should you use Chitika along with Adsense ads?

In my previous heat maps, I told you that Chitika was a great source of revenue. Based on years of testing, I have found out the opposite it true. You can easily saturate your own Adsense revenue when using both Adsense and Chitika because Chitika ads will sabotage your CPC. Just make sure to use 1 of them, either Adsense or Chitika but don’t mix them together as you will only be shooting yourself in the foot. You can read my full in-depth analysis of that here.

Well, good luck and if you are having trouble or you want me to review your ad placements, you can always e-mail me at zedomax[at]gmaildotcom, tweet me @zedomax, or leave a comment. I will be glad to help you as much as I can. (for free! hurray!)

Bonus – Show ad to search engine traffic only!

If you simply believe that above heat map will not make your website look good, here’s an alternative. Instead of putting ads where they “look good” but will worsen your Adsense revenues (such as the sidebar), just use the above map but only show ads to your search engine traffic so you don’t annoy your regular readers with ads, see more on that here.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Adsense CPC Optimized Placement Heat Map!

Twitter HOWTO – How to Add Hashtags to Your Blog RSS Feed Tweets using Feedburner!

max — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:00:57 +0000

Before I used services like TwitterFeed or Wordpress plugins to automatically update my Twitter account with new blog posts. Well, I have found out a better way since then, Google Feedburner lets you add hashtags to relevant title keywords and categories automatically. To do this, simply go to Publicize->Socialize on your Feedburner dashboard.

There’s more chance of your tweet being found if you use hashtags plus it will be archived on more Twitter sites that use hashtags to find new tweets.

Google has introduced a new “Socialize” section along with ability to add hash tags to your blog tweets. Not only that, there’s an “inline hash tag” mode which will automatically turn important keywords of your blog post title into hashtags.

via tweethacking

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Twitter HOWTO – How to Add Hashtags to Your Blog RSS Feed Tweets using Feedburner!

Chitika Review – Adding Chitika Can Only Increase Your Potential Ad Revenue is not 100% True!

max — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:08:35 +0000

Okay, it’s funny how Chitika is responding to my blog post earlier and I think they are actually getting desperate now, I have been seeing these Chitika ads with Darren Rowse posed as their posterboy all of the sudden.

Upon clicking on that ad, you will be directed to this page where you get a YouTube video like this:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Now, here’s a big lie that I cannot handle and Chitika has not responded back to me other than that they don’t have time to fix the issue with CPC sabotage:

So adding Chitika to your page can only increase your potential ad revenue.

What they forgot to address is that adding Chitika along with Adsense can potentially decrease your potential ad revenue simply because law of supply and demand.

The law of supply and demand says when you have more supply than demand, your earning will decrease.

This is exactly what can happen when you add Chitika to your “high-paying” keyworded websites.

As far as I can tell, advertisers pay much less money per click for Chitika ads than on Adwords. This means that Chitika ads are actually flooding the Adwords market. The more people use Chitika, the more of Adsense/Adwords market is flooded, meaning everyone will get paid less per click.

The reason why I am posting this is because Chitika is really now becoming an ad network degrades the Adsense network, provided you use Chitika with Adsense. This could possibly affect millions of website revenues out there because advertisers can get the same keywords for much less on Chitika.

Also see LiewCF’s blog post on how his test went by removing Chitika.

While this is great for advertisers, this will flood the Adsense market for all the honest, hard-working publishers out there.

If you don’t believe me, I want you to try this, take Chitika off for at least a month and see how your Adsense revenue looks. My Adsense revenue has literally exploded since taking out Chitika from all my websites. And this extra revenue could be over $100,000 for the last couple years I have used Chitika.

Why is Darren Rowse using/promoting Chitika?

I think partly because either Chitika is paying him to endorse them and/or Darren Rowse was given a special revenue-share for his famous blogger status. Whatever the case, I would really like to know because Darren Rowse should be disclosing that kind of information in his blog posts. I like Darren Rowse and he is a nice guy but I’ve e-mailed him about this Chitika incident and no replies yet. I am guessing that he doesn’t want to respond because Darren has responded to all of my past e-mails/questions.

Also some proof from back in 2005.

Seriously, Darren, I would like to know, this is very important for ALL web publishers/bloggers out there who are trying to make a dollar out of a penny. We all work hard as you do, we just don’t want to sabotage our own CPC markets. Besides that, the reason I started using Chitika was because Darren started using it. Now, I feel like a dumbass. I like Darren Rowse’s blogging business but this is certainly not fun to find out years later than I’ve been using a service that had degraded my ad network. I really hope Darren Rowse addresses this issue, otherwise I will have to part my ways with one of my online heroes. Disclosure is now actually part of FCC, bloggers need to disclose that they get paid from a company if they promote it on their blog posts or companies use them to promote themselves online.

What peeves now is that Chitika (again) has stopped responding to my requests but using their last, desperate measures to advertise their services with Darren Rowse as their posterboy. (or that’s what I assume because I have never seen Adsense Chitika ads before this week)

Look, I don’t hate anyone but I simply don’t want Chitika sending out false message that adding Chitika can “ONLY” increase your ad revenue. Simply thinking and law of supply and demand says Chitika can possibly add more revenue only if you are getting already bad revenues with Adsense. But for those of you getting pretty good revenue stream through Adsense, Chitika can only decrease your ad revenues unless Chitika offers you a super-high revenue-share and that is most unlikely as I have experienced myself.

As for search-query only ads? That is the highest-paying CPC revenues and Chitika is flooding your highest paying keywords.

How can Chitika Fix This for Everyone?

They need to find the right market value for every keyword. They need to build a system that’s going to be competitive with Adsense. Their CPC can still be much cheaper than Adsense since CTR is much higher on average but they need to work out a new system that won’t sabotage the existing CPC markets publishers are using such as Adsense.

When they can do that, I think Chitika would be a great alternative, until then, mark my words, you will most likely sabotage your own high-paying Adsense CPCs by adding Chitika along with it.

Chitika, stop goofing off and please fix the issue NOW.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Chitika Review – Adding Chitika Can Only Increase Your Potential Ad Revenue is not 100% True!

Facebook Pages now part of SEO, pages indexed by Google!

max — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:07:48 +0000

According to WebProNews, Facebook pages are now officially part of indexed pages by Google. This means that people who have been actively promoting/using Facebook, they will be rewarded.

Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature.

Apparently only updates from Facebook PAGES are indexed, and according to Danny Sullivan, that includes links, status updates, photos, videos shared by page owners (not comments made by the fans).

Of course, if you haven’t setup a fan page for Facebook, you should do it right away because time is your only enemy. It takes months to build up Facebook fan following and that could possibly be the best free word-of-mouth marketing online today. I have setup Facebook fan page for most of my blogs as of last week, probably will set up this one too soon. I will have a short DIY how-to article on that for those of you who are Facebook newbies so watch out for that.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Facebook Pages now part of SEO, pages indexed by Google!

SquadHelp – How to Get the Right Domain by Crowdsourcing!

max — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:04:38 +0000

I noticed that SquadHelp has spammed my Whiteboard Idea TRG blog post comments line. Upon closer inspection, I found out SquadHelp is actually a pretty good service for crowdsourcing domain name creating.

With SquadHelp, you can either make cool domain names for contests and win money or even hold your own contests to help your company make a better domain name.

You can actually browser their prizes page where people have been chosen winners. A quick look tells me this crowdsourcing method works rather well, I might try it myself soon for my new web projects. (and I suggest you to try it too.)

You know how hard making great domain names can be, nothing is better than if others do it for you, especially if the “crowd” does it. Of course, one more feature I would like added to SquadHelp is ability for users to vote on the domain names, that way you get great domains and market research all-in-one.

There, I just helped SquadHelp leap into even a better service, for FREE!

If you need suggestions for your business, I guess you can try spamming my comments line.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

SquadHelp – How to Get the Right Domain by Crowdsourcing!

Japan Tsunami Warning and LIVE Video of Kuji Harbor in Japan!

max — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:11:03 +0000

OMG! Tsunami will be hitting the shores of Japan within the next hour, watch the live video to see what happens and let us pray for the people of the world today who are going through earthquakes and tsunamis.

Tsunami is about to hit the shores of Japan, we have a special update with live video from Kuji harbor in Japan.
Experts predict 10-feet tsunamis to hit Japan real soon and as many as 50,000 people have been evacuated already.

Let us all pray that the tsunami isn’t going to be devastating. One thing for sure, many lives will be saved due to preparations but existing businesses and houses bordering the shoreline might be hard to save even at low estimate of 10-foot tsunamis.

Right now, we are hearing a lot of sea gulls making a lot of noise, perhaps an indication that tsunami is nearing soon.

Watch the video live right here on OnEarthTravel.com and let us pray together for Japan and people who have died in Chile.

via onearthtravel

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Japan Tsunami Warning and LIVE Video of Kuji Harbor in Japan!

Hawaii Tsunami Live Video!

max — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:01:07 +0000

What is Blogging? Why do People Blog EVERYTHING?

max — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:20:31 +0000

When I first started blogging, it was essentially an online “diary” where you can keep a journal of your personal experiences. And that’s exactly what I do.

When you write in your “diary”, whether online or offline, you need to couple things to consider like:

be truthful, write exactly what’s in your mind, don’t lie about anything. If you lie, you are only lying to yourself.
write everything, even that marijuana you smoked in high school but your parents don’t know about it
write everyday, only writing everyday will you be able to truly track your thoughts later down the road when you look back.

Well, that’s what blogging really is about, just writing a freakin’ diary for godsakes!

Of course, you might want to also setup a private, personal blog for stuff you don’t want to say in public. Thinking of which, I actually have a diary that I wrote when I was 9 years old on my old ass computer. Maybe I will get that out somewhere, might be an interesting read indeed.

Why am I a blogger?

My dad has been using a diary for most of his life, he has like 30 years worth of his life’s journeys, all written into physical diaries. My dad even bought me a diary book every couple years, this 3-inch thick book, and literally forced me to write my thoughts ever since I could write. (I think seven)

I still have those diaries and they are indeed very funny and interesting to read over after 20+ years.

Perhaps that is where my real blogging passion started, when my dad forced me to write my personal thoughts into my diary.

I even used to call my diary a name. Every diary post began with, “Dear Odie,” because my favorite cartoon was Garfield and my favorite character was the dog Odie.

Anyways, that’s what blogging is, an online version of what you would write in your diary. No one else is supposed to look at it but… oh well, I guess it makes money when it’s public! Haha, joking but you know the funniest story is?

All of my family members have a diary (that my dad bought for each of us) and we have all “secretly” read each others secrets in the diaries. And now, we really have no more secrets with each other and we simply laughed about it the other day when I confessed to my sister that I’ve been reading her diary all along while my mom has been doing my dad’s.

Blogging, I guess it’s been a family tradition while I never realized it. Keep a journal of everything you do and WHY?

Someday your kids will thank you for that and they will learn exactly how you “thought”.

How cool is that?

So, I want you to start writing an online diary (or blog), if you haven’t started yet.

Anyone can do it, and of course money can also come in the process I guess.

Happy bloggin’

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

What is Blogging? Why do People Blog EVERYTHING?

Crap, I changed my Blog Title!

max — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:09:03 +0000

Well, it’s like I made this blog about internet marketing and seems to go nowhere. All the time, I am either writing inspirational blog posts or complaining about a company.

So, I figured out a better title for my blog, it’s now officially, “Changing the World, One Blog Post at a Time”.

You might have noticed I actually did help change the world for the better by writing about Chinese domain spammers or even those Business Filings scammers.

Or, you might even be interested in my inspirational posts like “Don’t be afraid to Fail”.

Whatever the case, every blog post I now write seems to be super-positive or super-negative. That is really my life, either I am very happy or very upset at any given point in time. I am usually very happy though, I can’t be thankful enough to God for doing what I am doing for a living, blogging/creating websites for a living.

Anyways, I am gonna really try to focus more on more inspirational blog posts from now on and of course, anything that I can do to “change the world” with each blog post.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Crap, I changed my Blog Title!

Chitika CPC Sabotage – WHY I Stopped using Chitika!

max — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:54:21 +0000

Chitika has been one of my favorite ad platforms to make money with my blogs. Recently, I’ve realized that using both Adsense and Chitika on the same site/blog can be bad for your online revenues, and possibly sabotage your Adsense revenues.

Why?

The main problem lies in Chitika’s revenue share along with publishers. If you just have one website and you already get a good CPC/eCPM with Chitika, that’s fine but for me, I need a different CPC/eCPM for every blog I run since I manage about 30 different blogs and CPC/eCPM tend to vary a lot depending on the niche/topic of the blog.

I have e-mailed Chitika team countless times (since last year) asking them to explain to me why I am getting the exact same CPC on every one of my blogs regardless of the niche.

At best, my CPC will vary between 1-3 cents, which is like saying they are the same or fixed CPC.

I usually get a response that they will take a look at it next week or next month. I figure that either they have a bigger fish to fry or this is probably why they are making money.

Don’t get me wrong, I was one of the first to promote Chitika when it was starting out but sometimes I need to set the facts right and the only way I can do that is by blogging it about it when I can’t get a clear human response.

So, let me tell you an example why I am PEEVED. For example, average CPC for Adsense on one of my better blogs is near 1 dollar while the CPC on Adsense for one of my shittier blogs is around 20 cents.

According to that, I should be getting something between 10 cents and something 5 times more around 50 cents on Chitika (if my shittier blog was getting about 20 cents on Adsense). Even then, advertisers should have a good enough reason to keep using Chitika instead of Adsense to promote their products/services since CPC is cheaper on Chitika.

But no, Chitika gives me almost the exact same CPC for every blog that I have, that is around 12 cents on a really good niche and 8 cents on a crappy niche while Adsense can vary from a dollar to 20 cents. That’s about 2-10 times difference and that works out to be a lot of money in the course of a year.

It would be wise for me to just put my shittier blogs on Chitika but I like Chitika, I want to put more of their ads on my premium sites.

So WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?

Because if your CPC on Chitika is let’s say 5 times lower than on Adsense, it gives “incentives” for advertisers to advertise more on Chitika for the same website/blog. In return, this “sabotages” your own Adsense earnings because advertisers are now bidding for the same keywords on Chitika instead of Adsense for 5 times less. Of course, depending on the placement of your Adsense and Chitika, it can vary but because Chitika gets a higher CTR (shown only on search traffic), it might make sense for advertisers to advertise the same product/services on Chitika instead of Adsense if there were two options. Chitika ads target search traffic and U.S. traffic, which is where you get paid most on Adsense anyways.

I’ve actually done some testing and in about a month, I’ve lost about 20 to 30% of my Adsense revenues by having Chitika units along with Adsense units. Of course, this is only true if you place Chitika units in premium locations such as near the Adsense unit. If Chitika ads are already somewhere in the way-bottom of your website where no one sees/clicks, you probably are not sabotaging your Adsense revenues.

Stop the Adsense Sabotage!

To test it out, I did stop using Chitika on most of my blog for couple months on my premium blogs for a period of a month or so from December 2009 to January 2010.

The results were rather fantastic as my Adsense earning rose by more than 20-30%. I had the best Adsense earnings of my lifetime. The revenue I gained during this time on Adsense proved to be much more than revenue I would have earned if I used Adsense along with Chitika because Adsense pays you much more to begin with.

What can Chitika do now?

Chitika needs to be more open about how they do business, be more transparent. What us bloggers need to know is how exactly CPC is decided on Chitika and what kind of revenue share is offered.

And if revenue share is offered, publishers need to be paid the same percentage, not a flat CPC.

I know some top bloggers are using Chitika probably because they got a great revenue share but medium-to-small publishers like me can be “had” by being offered only a flat CPC that never changes. (Yes, it’s like you work so much harder and paid the same, like a communist country or you are a slave/dumbass.)

Every time I asked Chitika to raise my CPC for my niche blogs that I know for a fact that make more money per click, every time they have either delayed (it’s been almost a year since I started asking them) the response OR ignored my e-mails. (I have e-mails to prove it.)

When it comes to sensitive issues like me getting paid every month, things need to get resolved within days, not when-never.

So I am blogging it.

The Economics of Online Marketing

If you are already getting crappy numbers for your Adsense CPC/eCPM, you are probably not going to benefit from this blog post, perhaps work on getting more web traffic. But for those of you experiencing the same thing as I am, you need to be aware that simple economics of the online advertising marketing says you will be sabotaging your own Adsense earning in the long run by using Chitika with it.

PPC companies like Yodle, have an automated bidding system for all types of PPC program such as Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher, MSN, etc… etc… This means that if their automated bidding system finds a cheaper CPC for the same site/keyword, it’s going to bid there, not at your high-paying PPC programs.

I am sure there’s many other similar systems out there and if they are out there, you could be sabotaging your own Adsense revenues by adding Chitika or any other lower-paying ad networks.

Simple Math

Let’s say you offer the same hotdog at Wal-mart(e.g. Adsense) for $5 and at Target(e. g. Chitika) for $1, where will you buy your hotdog?

Same analogy here, either you need to negotiate a really good revenue-share (CPC) with Chitika or you might be sabotaging your own Adsense ads. If you can make up enough clicks with Chitika and get a good CPC from them, you might be better off Chitika. This is true of my shittier blogs while it’s the opposite for most of my premium blogs.

The only way Chitika will come out of this is to offer publishers “fair/better share” of their CPC rates. The greatest part about Google Adsense program is that it’s automatic, publisher can get paid anywhere from 10 cents to even 5 dollars per click, depending on the bidders and the market. Publishers are paid fairly for the niche on Adsense while on Chitika, they seem to be human-controlled, resulting in a flat/fixed CPC, not reflective of the actual bidding market.

As far as I can tell, every publisher on Chitika is getting paid a flat fee of 9 to 12 cents regardless of how much they are selling those clicks for to advertisers. That “flat fee” revenue sharing model is where the problem lies. Publishers can be driving a ton of more quality keywords/traffic and still get the same CPC.

Hey, if Chitika is indeed selling those clicks for super low prices, they can make more money by raising CPC of high-paying niches accordingly and also make more money for the publishers in the process. It’s a win-win situation.

Perhaps Chitika’s system isn’t set to do that right now and if it’s not, I am highly disappointed because all the years I’ve been using Chitika (almost 3 years), I have been losing thousands of dollars through CPC sabotage.

Chitika has been always been one of my favorite companies but if they can’t fix this problem , I don’t see how they can grow further.

Of course, it could also be that Chitika is already charging more for high-paying keywords (I don’t know because I’ve actually never advertised on Chitika) and taking most of the revenue share. And that, my friend, could be why I am not going to use Chitika on my blogs anymore because Chitika is taking all the money while publishers do all the work.

For a company to succeed in the long run, they need to realize that their customers are smart and they need to treat each one as one of their best customers. Chitika has been awfully great on new innovations such as customization of ads but the response for my CPC questions have been very deceptive.

But is this a deceptive practice?

Well, it kinda is because I’ve asked Chitika reps many times to clarify me on the topic but no one answers. My honest wish is to keep using Chitika and that Chitika treats their publishers fair and square, answer their questions promptly and honestly, just like how your mother treats you.

Chitika need to be transparent about how they do business, especially when it comes to money. Google might not be so transparent about how much revenue share they offer to their publishers but they are transparent about the fact that different keyword niches will pay lower or higher, and that isn’t 1 or 2 cents difference. You can see it on your Adsense dashboard in real-time.

I work very hard for my money.

I am sure many of you bloggers/website publishers work very very hard for your money. The reason I write this blog post is to let you know that your hard-worked money is well-earned and there should be no one in-between to sabotage your efforts.

The simple math of demand and supply I outlined in this blog post clearly says adding Chitika ads along with your Adsense ads will “sabotage” your Adsense earnings. It took me actually almost 3 years to realize this, I feel stupid.

I really hope Chitika team will look into this major problem of fixed CPCs and get their system straight. Otherwise, I will be removing them from the rest of my shittier blogs too. No hard feelings.

Don’t e-mail/call me again until you have fixed the problem, I know last time I got a call because I was testing this.

I just want you to know if you are one of those people and you are using Chitika along with Adsense, test out my theory and let me know what happened. (in the comments or at zedomax [at] gmail.com) If your revenue stays the same I guess that’s fine but if it rises a lot, you know where to send Christmas presents to.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Chitika CPC Sabotage – WHY I Stopped using Chitika!

How to Target Your Niche Market on Twitter!

max — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:19:48 +0000

Twitter can be a great way to increase your online exposure, especially due to its rising popularity among the celebrities and masses. In year 2015, Twitter might be used more often than e-mail.

I am sure a lot of you have questions on how to use Twitter to promote your business or even what the hell is Twitter?

Twitter is simply form of online conversations. To do well on Twitter, you simply need to be yourself and “engage” yourself in the real-time conversation.

When you first join Twitter, you probably have no idea what to do next.

Well, here’s a great way, you can use TwitLi.st to find people with similar interests as you do.

Whether you are looking for entrepreneurs Twitter List, people interested in handbags, or even your fellow pinoys on Twitter, Twitli.st is a great place to start.

Do you already have/found good Twitter list? Get free exposure and recommend them here at TwitLi.st.

Here’s a word of advice from my friend Josh:

Well looks like Twitter is here to stay and continues to grow albeit a little slower now than shooting straight to the moon. One of my biggest grips with the whole Twitter community is trying to find people you actually want to follow. If I were a hotel I’d want to follow travelers and other hoteliers before I follow news accounts, ya know what I mean? You can do all of the searching you want and really all you find is a bunch of user generated lists on blogs that have links to perhaps 50 of the top whatever according to them.

So, start twittering. If you are already, you should follow some more people with interests similar to your target niche.

Also, if you are a blogger, see this post on how to setup your Twitter social media marketing for blogs.

Disclosure: I am founder of TwitLi.st.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

How to Target Your Niche Market on Twitter!

Don’t Buy Fruit, Vegetables, and Raw Meat From Trader Joe’s!

max — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:27:50 +0000

One of my favorite places to shop for groceries is Trader Joe’s. There’s 2 of them within 5 minutes from my apartment here in San Francisco.

Most of the stuff at Trader Joe’s is pretty good except I had couple horrifying experiences in the last 3 months or so.

Tonight, I bought one of their “cooked” meat, which you can warm up in your oven or microwave. Without much thought, I cut up the pouch it was in so I could cook it in my oven. Well, it wasn’t “cooked” at all! Worst of all, the meat smelled like someone just puked! It was this disgusting, putrid smell.

I thought that could just be the seasoning and went ahead and cooked it in my oven. Oh my god, that was the worst ever, it stunk up my whole apartment like someone just puked everywhere.

I even took a bite of the steak, it tasted like some kind of rubber. Of course, that’s when I realized this meat must be bad and good thing I didn’t swallow the meat, it probably was full of worms.

If this was the first time such a thing happen to me, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post now. As a consumer who expects a certain degree of freshness from Trader Joe’s (and especially they are supposed to be about healthier foods than your regular grocers), this was the last time I was ever going to buy anything near raw from Trader Joe’s.

Don’t get me wrong, Trader Joe has a ton of great stuff that don’t go bad over time such as cheap wine and frozen salmon, both which I love. Something has gone downhill at Trader Joe’s as far as freshness, I’ve been noticing that they put a lot of “old” fruits and vegetables.

This isn’t the first time it has happened, let me tell you what happened 2 months ago. I bought some blackberries from Trader Joe’s. I was about to swallow one of them when I got back home but at the last second I noticed something very white around it. Upon careful inspection, it was MOLD! I kinda let it go because I am not one of those people who will go back to the store to get my refund. If it’s bad, it’s going in the garbage.

Of course, these two incidents could have been one in a million but I am pretty sure it has been happening to a lot of you. Never in my life did I buy two really bad fruit/meat from the same store.

The store that happened to me is the San Francisco Stonestown location. Every time I go since then, I’ve been trying to check the expiration date of everything I buy. I’ve also noticed that the Trader Joe employees “hide” the most fresh fruits in the back. And I’ve noticed a lot of fruits and vegetables are at least 2-3 days old.

For some fruits like apples and oranges, 2-3 days probably won’t matter but things like strawberries or any kind of berries, I think it can make a huge difference.

Who cares about money at this point, this is about my health and my life for godsakes!

So I am warning you to NOT BUY fruits/vegetables or any kind of raw meat from Trader Joe’s until they can start doing something about it.

Think about it, if I had poisoning from eating those things and I had to go to the emergency room, that’s a lot more money down the drain plus I would probably living on Vicodin for couple days.

No thanks. Perhaps it’s just my SF Stonestown location that’s bad but seriously, Trader Joe needs to do something about it.

Also take a look at some of these Yelp review that reports rotten fruit over in Washington D.C.:

What is up with the rotting fruit at Trader Joe’s? It seems like most of the fruit is rotting within a day of purchase, and sometimes it is even rotting in the store. On top of that you pay extra, since it is organic. Organic does not mean it should be rotting quickly, in fact Whole Foods’ organic fruit keeps quite long. People have been telling me that Trader Joe’s is good for Wine and Flowers, how about some freakin groceries, that’s what I need.

Obviously this is happening nationwide, perhaps Trader Joe’s management team decided they would make more money by keeping fruits, vegetables, and meat 1-2 days longer than they should.

Seriously, I am not asking much here, STOP SELLING ROTTEN FOOD! And FDA should really look into this if Trader Joe doesn’t do anything about it.

Next time you get food poisoning and you ate food you bought from Trader Joe’s,uh oh…

Btw, I will still go to Trader Joe’s because they have mini-carts for toddlers and toddler play area. I just won’t be buying any fruits, vegetables, or raw meat.

Oh yeah, I won’t be returning my meat because it STINKS! You can however send me $12 that I spent on the expensive, “cooked” meat if you’d like. (Oh yeah, don’t forget $4 I paid for rotten berries couple months back too.)

Well, it’s not money that’s important here but still, I spent money and it went all into my stinkin’ trash can. The worst part is that if I did get sick from eating those rotten stuff, I probably wouldn’t have known it came from Trader Joe’s. Thank GOD!

Am I whining here? You betcha I am. If someone doesn’t stop complaining about things, the world will never change. Subscribe to my blog so you can listen to all my “personal” experiences with consumer products and other business/blogging stuff I talk about. It’s mostly positive and some posts like this when it hits me hard.

I am just really stinkin’ tired of companies gone bad such as Trader Joe’s. As a consumer, this isn’t acceptable. However, if they DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, like YESTERDAY, I will be happy to write about that too.

Disclosure: I don’t get paid to complain nor do I hate companies, I just want to make this world a better place for everyone else.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Don’t Buy Fruit, Vegetables, and Raw Meat From Trader Joe’s!

The Power of “Will”!

max — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:37:15 +0000

One of the things that helped me breakthrough and make a living as an online entrepreneur in the past was learning the power of “will”.
I might not be making millions yet but I think there was a point in my life where I broke through. Actually, I was literally “broke” and had nowhere else to go but to the very bottom, that bottom at the bottom of a bottomless pit.
I stressed so much, I drank myself almost to death so I didn’t have to think about my financial worries.

But one of the truly amazing moments came out of that survival stage. That is, that I survived it and did better than anyone expected me to. Everyone around me thought I would eventually “get a job” and move along with my life. I just couldn’t face the horrors of 9-5 work again, thought of being in “legal slavery” under some bs corporation rules just would kill me the rest of my life.

With everything going completely “wrong” in my life, my will to survive (and survive on my blogging business) became stronger than ever.

What I realize now after surviving the worst times in my life is that your “power of will” is probably the most important skill to learn, more than money.

I won’t make this blog post long, I am just saying, “the power of will” is something you should learn.

Here’s some exercises that can help you do that.

1. You need to put yourself in a position where you MUST do something in order to get out. For example, you can take a bus ride to downtown with just enough money to get there but you need to find a way back somehow without using your wallet. (Better yet, please leave your wallet at home for this exercise.)

2. Play golf, golf is a great sport that teaches you “power of will”. Of course, you will need “power of will” and learn “visualization” before you start playing anywhere decent. Play a lot of golf and it can really help your life.

Well, that’s it for today folks. Remember, your power of will is stronger than anything money or muscles can buy/do.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

The Power of “Will”!

Bit of an Update…

max — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:32:04 +0000

Well, I’ve been chuggin’ along for months now w/o updating this blog itself mostly because “I HAVE BEEN BUSY!”

I know, I know, I should be updating more often but sometimes, I do need to deeply focus on projects at hand. Lately, I’ve been working on this HUGE Twitter app site. I just have a feeling deep down, THIS IS GOING TO BE HUGE!

Other than that, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with founder of Wordpress, Matt Mullenweg, over at San Francisco airport on the way to CES 2010. I think that was probably meant to be because I sat down at a random table and looked over, there he was! Anyways, CES 2010 was a lot of fun too, that kept me busy for about 2 weeks straight. It was my first time at CES so, I tried to take in as much as I can but I’ve never seen so many people interested in gadgets in one place. I will definitely be heading to Vegas every year from now on.

Well, anyways, it’s a funny story because when I started blogging back in Auguest 2006, I picked the best blogging software, Matt’s Wordpress.

One of the main reasons I picked Wordpress over other blogging softwares was because it was the only blogging platform with WYSIWYG support, which I like since I can “preview” my blog before posting. Plus, Wordpress was easy to use and had a ton of plugins to support it, which I liked.

It turns out that was the right choice, I still use Wordpress now not because everyone else uses it, I’ve been using it since August 2006 because it was the “best” based on my testing. Believe me, I tested all kinds of blogging platforms and Wordpress is the one I stuck with.

Now, everyone calls Wordpress the “best”, I just feel almighty and smart because I did that almost 4 years ago.

What’s up for next few years? My just-turned-30 year old brain tells me Twitter is going to be HUMONGOUS with an “H” over the next few years, I think it might actually surpass Google (in terms of web traffic) in the next 5 years or so. Mark my words, Google will always be Google and we will always google things but Twitter is going to become something else, it’s just getting started.

Back in 2006, I saw the same opportunities with blogging, I knew blogging would keep taking off until there’s a ton of bloggers making a living from it. (which is today)

I really don’t like to think ahead because I like to live day by day (and simply be happy with my life), but in year 2014, Twitter should really be that thang you shoulda/coulda made millions on.

Well, that’s all folks, I gotta go finish up my Twitter app, my heads been full of PHP/AJAX code for last 2 weeks. Honestly, I don’t know what hit me but when my site comes out, it will hit you hard. (I hope, crossing my hands)

C’ ya and follow me on Twitter @zedomax!

P.S. And thanks Matt for your personal card, that’s the only card I “personally” carry now in my new Gucci wallet my parents bought me for my 30th b-day.

Post from: I Make Money Online by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

Bit of an Update…

How To Make Money Blogging by Creating Free Content for the World with Blogs

CJU – Santa Barbara!

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