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

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…

Yodle Review!

max — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:53:09 +0000

As promised, Yodle did give my plumber friend Josh 2 months free after the first month failed miserably. It turns out that Yodle isn’t too bad at all if you keep working with them and keep trying. In other words, you still need to keep working with Yodle to get results, you can’t just throw money at Yodle and expect it to work.

In our first 30 days, that’s what we did, we just threw money at Yodle expecting to get lots of calls and e-mail leads. On the 2 month free trial, my friend Josh worked directly with Yodle (instead of me being the middleman who works for free) and kept changing keywords until the calls started coming. Josh and Yodle tried different things like targetting for cheaper keywords/jobs until a balance between revenue and clicks/leads were stable. On our first month, we were only targeting the high-paying jobs, thus leading to fewer calls and no conversions.

For the 2 month trial, Josh averaged 185 clicks and more than 70 calls/emails per month, a lot better than what we experienced in the beginning 1 call and 2 e-mails.

What impressed me the most about Yodle isn’t their results but they accepted my challenge and gave it their best. I think that says a lot about their customer service.

Another fact you might worry is that CPC (Cost Per Click) could be high with Yodle. Well, that’s not something to worry about rather how many conversions you make regardless of how much you spend.

For Josh, he made an average of $4000 for $800/month advertising with Yodle, that’s about 500% ROI in our 2-month testing. Josh plans on keeping Yodle to keep his campaigns going now and Yodle has been making money for his plumbing business while Valley Yellow Pages have been taking his money and running. (and that, we might have to blog about soon, why you shouldn’t advertise with Yellow Pages because they are dead. Seriously, when’s the last time you used YellowPages over Google? Probably never.)

After all of that, I think it’s safe to say you can go with Yodle for PPC advertising. Just make sure you keep changing things if you don’t get calls/leads in the first week and work with your Yodle contact so your campaign doesn’t stay stale. But once you got it set on getting a good number of calls and conversions, I think you have an unlimited potential for growing your business.

Thanks again to Court Cunningham, the CEO of Yodle, Victor Dolavale, and Joel Laffer for making this happen, you guys rock! (and I didn’t lose my face)

Also, one more thing, make sure you tell Yodle “Max Lee” sent you and they will get your campaign right.

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

Yodle Review!

Is Your Online Revenue Down Near Christmas/New Years?

max — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:14:45 +0000

Is your online revenue down near the Christmas holidays?

If it is, there’s nothing to worry as it’s a “natural” result of the Christmas holidays. A lot of people take long vacations and some companies shut down completely for 2 weeks near Christmas and the New Years.

Last year, I was a bit worried but noticed that Google had a history of decline just near the end of every year.

Especially, the days after Christmas and before the New Years where people will simply be enjoying the holidays more, spending less time online. (Also take a look at this chart)

So what?

Don’t fret, the holidays are really for you to enjoy, perhaps it’s time for you to take a good 2 week break off the computer.

Of course, revenue starts going up rapidly around January 2nd so that’s what you should be aiming for, a fresh, new start in 2010.

Anyways, I will probably not post anything for this blog itself as I too, have to go on a last-minute Christmas shopping spree.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Of course, don’t forget to enjoy some Christmas Light Shows!

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

Is Your Online Revenue Down Near Christmas/New Years?

Stay On Schedule! [My Most Effective Schedule]

max — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:27:24 +0000

As a person who has no one to report to and work at home most of the time (or at local cafes), staying on schedule is the single most important driving force behind “staying alive”.

I don’t know how I even started my work schedule but once I did, the more efficient I became while relaxing myself. (meaning I got a lot of things done without stressing myself out)

So, what is this schedule?

Well, first of all, I make sure to take advantage of my most effective hour everyday. Whether it’s a Monday, a Saturday, Thanksgiving, or any day of the year, you will see me working during my most effective hour. (There’s one day I do take off, Christmas because I don’t want to be haunted by Christmas ghosts, seriously!)

As a person working from home, the terms “weekends” and “weekdays” are irrelevant to me. I even like to do the complete opposite so I can avoid traffic during the weekends, that is to take my weekends when everyone else is working.

And yes, for a long time I used to go crazy on Fridays because either I got off school or work but boy, am I glad I am out of “that” hellish schedule.

Anyways, staying on schedule means that you practically do the same things everyday. Not only will this keep you consistent, you will get a lot more done than randomly sailing along your life. (Just like they taught you in school as a 1st grader.)

Here’s what my schedule looks like:

8 or 9AM Get Up

9 to 12PM – My most effective hours – Blogging

12PM – Quick 10 minute power lunch (I feel that people waste a lot of time during lunch, taking elaborate lunches that they really don’t need. Of course, if you are with a client that’s fine but for the other days, you might be more efficient to take a quick, power-lunch.) I usually gobble down a big sandwich at lunch with a LOT of Tabasco sauce and a full cup of milk. (Yes, milk is good for you, drink like 3 cups a day like me!)

12:10PM – 4PM More Blogging plus sweating the small stuff. (Perhaps also work out if it’s my work out day; I work out every other day)

4PM – 7PM Everyday tasks such as going to get groceries and dinner – I force myself to quit working early otherwise I will be too excited and not able to sleep. I realize long hours in front of the computer results in insomnia.

7PM – 9PM Go Hit Balls at the Driving range. – By this time I have drank at least 3 cups of coffee, I seriously need to do some kind of exercise to calm me down, otherwise I won’t be able to fall asleep around midnight. So I got hit golf balls for an hour or two at my local driving range. I used to drink a lot of beer in the past but now I have substituted a healthier addiction, golf. If you drink too much beer on a daily basis, perhaps it’s time for you to find a new hobby. I might add some blog posts here and there there depending on how I feel.

9PM – Midnight – Relaxing, once again trying to relieve my head from work so I can fall asleep on time. My favorite TV shows are King of the Hills and Family Guys, these 2 cartoon shows help me get away from work and get myself totally relaxed. I think the couple hours before your sleep hour, you need to NOT work, so you can re-energize and work hard the next morning.

My schedule might not look like I work (blog) much but I definitely do since most of my work is done during my most effective hour and the other hours are really “optional” and I have been substituting for my new profession, that of becoming a photographer/film director/pro golfer.

If you look at my schedule, you will notice I save almost hour at lunch time plus I don’t have to get up as early as people who commute to work since my office is at arms-length from where I sleep.

I used to get up super-early like 5 or 6AM but I stopped doing that because I would end up in a vicious-cycle of getting to sleep late and getting up way too early. After couple days of this, my body would be completely exhausted and drained! I realized that wasn’ natural and probably bad for me especially since I am turning 30 soon.

Now, my schedule consists of getting full 8 to 9 hours of sleep, my most effective hour, hitting golf balls, and watching some TV.

For years, I haven’t watched TV for 3 years but I found that “dumbing” myself out in front of the TV for couple hours really helps me to relax. (Plus, it gets my blogging better, no more blogger’s writer block, I get a ton of funny ideas from Family Guy.)

All this schedule for what?

My schedule is optimized so I can blog as effectively and creatively as I can everyday I wake up. If I worked too long hours, my mind would burn out and there’s no way you can be an effective blogger like that. Blogging is essentially creative writing and it takes a whole lot of effort for you to optimize your schedule so that you will always be relaxed and ready to write.

Think of it this way, when I am relaxed, I can write 5000 words no problem with interesting stories to add. If I am stressed, I can write 100 words with boring, repetitive phrases.

For a blogger, being in the right state of mind is everything. There are times I can literally write about something all day, passionately.

Well, just one thought to leave you with no matter what you are trying to accomplish in life,

Stay on Schedule!

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

Stay On Schedule! [My Most Effective Schedule]

The Most Effective Hour!

max — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:57:10 +0000

For me, there’s an hour of my day called, “the most effective hour”. This is the hour about an hour after I get up, usually around 9 or 10AM.

During that hour, I can do almost 10 times more work than I can because I am totally focused on the job at hand, that of blogging and nothing more.

I turn off my cellphone, I turn off every distraction I can. Sometimes, I even head out to the local McDonalds away from my family, just so I can concentrate fully for an hour.

Of course, the other hours during the day, I am simply not as effective because my mind is wondering all over the place.

It really doesn’t matter when you set your “most effective hour” but it helps to have an hour to yourself with zero distractions.

If you are at work in the office, try putting your earphones on with your favorite music for an hour. If you have a door to your office, leave it closed for an hour. Whatever is causing the distractions, you need to get away from just an hour a day.

If I took every phone call, read every e-mail, and talked to my co-workers in the morning, my most effective hour of the day goes wasted and I spend the rest of the day doing what I could have done during my most effective hour.

Do you remember the last time you spent time doing EVERYTHING and accomplished NOTHING? And of course, you might remember the times where you spent time doing 1 little thing and accomplished everything for the day. That is what I am talking about, turning that Facebook page off or even twittering just for a short period of time.

Of course, this most effective hour sometimes can be a little bit shorter than an hour or even 2 to 3 hours, it’s just a point of reference.

The point is, if you can really focus on a single thing that of getting things done, you can do it much faster. Well, I gotta go now, my most effective hour is over as of now.

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

The Most Effective Hour!

Do A Little Bit More, Accomplish a Whole Lot More!

max — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:01:09 +0000

Sorry for the lack of blog posts but let me share you something I have been doing lately, which has kept me too busy.

I have been guilty of doing a little bit more on a daily basis and accomplishing a whole lot more.

What did I do exactly?

Well, I worked over the Thanksgiving weekend when everyone else was enjoying turkey. I did have some brief turkey moments of course but for most of Thanksgiving weekend, I was working hard, doing a little bit more.

Why?

It isn’t because I slacked before that, it’s just that I want to accomplish a whole lot more by doing a little bit more than others.

If you want to accomplish more things in your life, the answer is simple, you just need to try a little bit harder than everyone else.

Here’s one of my new mottos, “if you do things like everyone else, you are no better.”

So, if you “really” want something, you might want to just try a little bit harder than anyone you know, just do it!

Doing a little bit more under times of stress and when you just want to quit could potentially be a game-changer.

Of course, don’t forget to rest though and relax while you do a little bit more. Doing more doesn’t mean you stress out but you simply have longevity when you do things.

Well, just the thought, try a little bit harder, go a little bit longer and in the end, you will reap the benefits of not only success but the fact that you can actually focus on the task at hand longer than anyone else you know.

I know Thanksgiving and any holidays can be tempting to take a long break from work but trust me, if you want to someday run your own business, these are the times you will need to step on keep going.

As for me, I have redefined my weekends and holidays, I like to rest when everyone else is working and vice-versa when everyone else is resting. This way, I stay clear free from traffic, stop polluting the environment by not adding to traffic on road, plus I don’t like traffic that much other than web traffic. I do everything in my power to not be on the highway during the weekdays from 7-10am and 3-7pm.

Well, I might be going a bit far here but seriously, you can re-define and re-program everything society has taught you and take control over your time and life as I did.

Become the master of your life by making your own holidays.

Happy Holidays!

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

Do A Little Bit More, Accomplish a Whole Lot More!

Beware of Chinese Domain Spammers!

max — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:55:01 +0000

Every once in awhile, I will get e-mails from some Chinese people in Hong Kong claiming that they are trying to protect my intellectual property rights.

Here’s an example e-mail:

Dear CEO & Principal

We are a domain name registration and dispute organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration and internet Intellectual property right protection in Asia. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.

On Nov 1st,2009, we received an application formally. One company named “XXX company” wanted to applied for the Internet Keyword XXX” and some domain names through our body.

Now we are handling with the registration of these domain names and find that these domain names and Internet Keyword is identical with your company’s. So we have to confirm with you at two points:
1. If your company consign XXX company to register these domain names and Internet Keyword, we will send application form to them and help them finish the registration at once.
2. If your company have nothing to do with XXX company, they maybe have other purposes to register these domain names and Internet Keyword.

I want to confirm that are you the corporate representative of this company? If you do, I will feedback some problems to you; if you do not, please send my words to your company’s cororate representative or lawyer. We need your answer of force adeffect. In order to deal with this issue better, please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

BlahBlah

When you ask them what this is about, you will get an e-mail that you should buy all these .cn and .hk Asian domain names you DON’T NEED. It’s all bullshit where they say that there’s actually a company trying to get your trademark, it’s ALL MADE UP! Certainly, not very important.

I get hundreds of these per year and simply mark them “spam” as they are simply trying to profit off you buying domain names you don’t need.

They are probably making pretty good money spamming the hell out of companies out there and I hope you don’t buy into these scammer companies.

FU** the Chinese Domain Spammers/Scammers! I hate people like this who spam me and then try to make profit off hard, innocent working people. I hope they go bankrupt soon.

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

Beware of Chinese Domain Spammers!

White House on Protecting Freedom of Speech!

max — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:22:38 +0000

Recently, White House CTO Andrew McLaughlin has issued remarks on the fact that many ISPs such as AT&T and Comcast are threatening freedom of speech on the internet and they are going to set some new rules to protect the internet citizens.

The telecom giant responded forcefully this week to remarks by White House deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin, who said that free speech and network neutrality are “intrinsically linked.” Net neutrality rules are being crafted by federal regulators that would restrict Internet service providers such as AT&T from blocking or prioritizing content on the Web.

Plus, Andrew McLaughlin compares the ISPs to China, where a lot of content are simply banned from the citizens.

“If it bothers you that the China government does it, it should bother you when your cable company does it,” McLaughlin said at the policy conference. The administration has made net neutrality a cornerstone of its technology agenda.

I have to agree that part of the reason why our current internet speeds are about decade behind the rest of the world is that ISPs are making enough money being lazy and not making technological advances. (plus the fact that they have a tight control over the internet)

I hope these new rules make the ISP market more competitive and not monopolized by a few ISPs and flourish the market so my internet can be faster.

AT&T’s Jim Cicconi responds in anger that they shouldn’t be compared to China’s censorship but then again, where are our super high-speed internet speeds? Monopoly has clearly detered the ISPs from providing faster internet and lower rates for consumers. For them, there’s no reason to improve things faster when they are already making a ton of money sitting on their arses. Mind you, I am fair though, if our internet was a little bit faster, perhaps rank at least in Top 3 in the world, I wouldn’t complain.

Those comments did not sit well with AT&T’s chief lobbyist, Jim Cicconi, who issued an angry response. He said it was “ill-considered and inflammatory” to connect censorship in China to the practices of American ISPs, whom he said do not threaten free speech.

The issue here is censorship but I highly believe it’s also tied closely with our slow internet speeds here in the U.S. It is highly disturing when one of the largest ISPs speak out against correcting their past mistakes, nevermind doing nothing about it.

And with that, GO WHITE HOUSE!

via washingtonpost

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

White House on Protecting Freedom of Speech!

Think “Outside The Box” Chair!

max — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:06:43 +0000

Loving this outside the box chair…

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

Think “Outside The Box” Chair!

Power of Blogging!

max — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:49:12 +0000

I still clearly remember the day I was so helpless against this ink cartridge company, that was about 6 years ago when I worked as an IT manager.

I tried to save the company money by buying no-brand laser catridges for the company’s color printers. What happened after I install those laser cartridges was beyond nightmare. The cartridges caused some kind of havoc on the color laser printer, causing prints to come out weird and in the end I even sent the ink cartridge company photos of what their faulty cartridges caused.

Even after I replaced with original HP cartridges, the prints were still lacking, somehow it had clearly damaged the laser printer.

The worst part was the company’s customer service person told me that they would refund money for the cartridges, they never did even after I sent them back the bad toners.

I got furiously mad and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was also too late to fight through my credit card companies.

I am sure many many other people experienced the same things and wonder why that business is still in business, more of a scam to me than anything.

So what?

Well, these days companies pay close attention to bloggers and if something like that happens, I just blog it. I don’t have to cuss at the customer service people, I just blog it all so everyone in the world will know about it.

The great thing about blogging is that it’s not about your problems, it’s also about others who are experiencing the same things.

If you think about how many people actually “read” your blog post over a period of a year, you would be surprised what kind of effect a blog post by someone can have. It can potentially be devastating for the company’s revenue and perhaps even close them down for good.

I think bloggers in general help consumers get attention if they are not treated right.

Blog posts can also be mis-used by the wrong people who “make up” stories. That is also leveraged by other bloggers if the topic is important enough.

In the end, bloggers are only the “voice” of consumers and regular Joes/Janes like you and me, a typical person who lives through life. That’s why I love blogging.

I’ve personally seen death of many corporations, simply by bloggers blogging truth about them. If companies want to play childish games with their customers and provide no real value, I think they deserve to die.

A lot of times, companies don’t treat everyone the same, perhaps give priority to people with more hard cold cash to throw at them. Those are the companies usually in risk of getting blown by bloggers and that’s what a lot of bloggers CAN do although not often.

In essence, bloggers don’t have power really but people who are reading those blog posts. You never know who’s reading a blog review of your company, it could be your next customer, your client, or even investor.

Even companies can leverage their own blog to fight back myths or misleading truths about their companies, it’s fair and square.

In all, bloggers still have the power to spread the word, whether positive or negative, it’s something that could potentially make your company live or die.

Blogging isn’t anything new though by the way, it’s simply another form of publication like TV and radio, except ANYONE can blog. If you company pursues bad practices, it’s going to get publicized by someone no matter what.

In the end, if you provide excellent service/products to your customers, you have nothing to worry about except counting money.

So the moral of the story?

Just do it “right”, it’s that simple. And of course, if you don’t have a blog yet, please go make one today.

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

Power of Blogging!

It’s all about Focus!

max — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:17:16 +0000

(Playing with focus on my new Canon 7D Camera Lens)

Focus is probably one thing you need in this hectic days of our modern lives. I am sure many of you have a ton of things to do but really, do you “focus” on things that matter to you most?

Perhaps it’s time to start saying “no” to new projects you really don’t have time for. Or perhaps it’s time to say “no” to things that simply waste your time.

Whatever your “focus” is, you might help yourself to get more stuff done while doing less if you simply focus on things that are most important to you and ditch the rest, whatever they might be.

Personally, I’ve started only focusing on my blog projects that generate most revenue for me. I get a ton of calls from friends and colleagues everyday asking me to do something for them. Before, I would help them freely but as my life got busier with me focusing on my blog projects, I’ve began to learn that saying no isn’t going to be the end of the world, there’s many other people who could do the job for me. I want to help my friends and family but it seems that in the end, I really need to focus on my own work if I am going to be happy at the end of the year.

Of course, if I had all the time in the world, I would be glad to help others but that’s simply not the case, I have to reach certain goals in my life whether that’s making money or making it to the PGA Tour. Recently, I’ve realized that the more I focus on my goals, the closer I am getting to them.

Selfish?

No, I think it’s more like spending your life doing EXACTLY what you want to do. Everyone has a choice, to either live the life they want or they don’t want.

Plus, I am spending more time that will allow me to relax or have fun. It’s not human nature to work 24/7, even if it’s not work for you. By creatively splitting my time between work and relaxation such as hitting golf balls or playing around with my new DSLR camera, I found that I have more “room” to develop my skills.

Sometimes, it may be a smart thing to shut the rest of the world off and live your own life. (or FOCUS!) Friends are great but as @Shitmydadsays says on Twitter:

“I don’t need more friends. You got friends and all they do is ask you to help them move. Fuck that. I’m old. I’m through moving shit.”

In other words, if it’s not something only YOU can do, perhaps it’s fine asking your friends to hire someone else to do it. Your time is priceless, there’s no price tag on that really.

You only live once so make sure you die happily doing things you want to do, not being micro-managed by someone else.

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

It’s all about Focus!

Future of YouTube!

max — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:19:46 +0000

As you probably well know, YouTube has just bypassed a gazillion views and it’s really starting to grow. I see the future of YouTube where people can watch all types of videos streamed via 1080P HD connected to their HDTVs. I know some people are doing this already but there’s still a lot of room to grow, especially when you consider the fact that still majority of YouTube videos are in low resolution.

With invent of consumer-usable digital DSLRs like Canon 7D (which I just bought) that can take movie-like 1080P videos, I think you will definitely see a big surge of HD content.

So what and how can you take advantage of this?

Start now and start uploading HD videos to YouTube. Whatever is on YouTube right now not in HD is going to slowly fade away over time. Of course, there’s are things that can’t be in HD such as videos from way past but for everything else, there’s no reason why you should fiddle with old technology.

I love being on the edge of technology and this is what I saw couple years back when I started my blogging business, that it’s going to be mainstream. Now, you see blogs literally everywhere and it’s mainstream enough to be mentioned everywhere such as CNN, ESPN, E!, and more…

Just so you know, YouTube probably just turned 1, barely a toddler. I am sure it will take over mainstream HDTV one day where YouTube offers live broadcasts of literally EVERYTHING. Take a look at how GoogleMaps started small and now is threatening to bankrupt traditional map makers such as Garmin, TeleAtlas, etc…etc…

As far as I can see, YouTube isn’t so far away, better start using it for your marketing more!

P.S. One of my new sites gets about 1,000 uniques from YouTube daily and makes up about 80% of its total web traffic. THAT is cool!

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

Future of YouTube!

Kicking Yourself in the Butt!

max — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:19:40 +0000

I tend to get a bit off focus as I work usually and once in awhile, I will literally kick myself in the butt.

I think this can help you to “focus” on things that need to be done instead of trying new things.

I personally find this is what happens, I work on too many new projects and I end up not caring for the core projects that have been a large part of the revenue pie.

Anyways, just reminding myself to keep blogging, especially on this one, I suggest you to try it to some time!

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

Kicking Yourself in the Butt!

New Business Cards!

max — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:53:09 +0000

I got tired of people asking me what websites I run so I decided to list some of them on the back of my new business cards. Well, these look pretty good I think, I might order 500 more for CES 2010.

Btw, I got these from OverNightPrints.com, they have the best deals and you can get glossy, rounded-edges like mine.

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

New Business Cards!

BingoCameras.com – SCAM?

max — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:37:37 +0000

Well, while trying to make my new purchase on a Canon 7D DSLR, I came upon BingoCameras.com, which advertised the same camera for 1/2 the price at about $1000 instead of $1899 on Amazon.

I almost purchased the camera at BingoCameras… then a lightbulb struck me, GOOGLE!

I googled “BingoCameras scam” (as I always do before buying something too good to be true and came upon this blog post where the author says BingoCameras.com is a Bait and Switch company, meaning they are on the borderline of scam. (Well, I think they are scammers really.)

Just check out some of the comments from that blog post where customers never got their products for the advertised price.

yep. same thing happened to me. I put in an order for a canon 5d body at a great price, got a call where they tried HARD to sell me the 50D instead, saying it was a much better camera. i refused and they told me the 5D was out of stock and wouldnt arrive for 4-6 weeks. I surprised them by telling them that was fine. so he puts me on hold (for about the 3rd time that call) except he obviously forgot to press the button. So i heard him talking to his “manager” saying stuff like “I can’t get this bitch to take the sale” I held on till he came back and told me he talked to his manager and, surprise surprise, the 5d now won’t be in for 2-4 MONTHS. I told the guy to cancel my order. he got very snippy and practically hung up on me.

Clearly a scam, I don’t know why they are still in business. If you got scammed from this company, make sure to file a complaint with ICC.

We have to work as a group to put these scammy companies out of business, they don’t deserve a single penny of our money earned through real hard work, not scamming.

*Note – BingoCameras, if you want to get off my ShitList, please stop advertising false prices with no intention of delivering the actual product. Companies like you disgust me, if you are going to do business online, DO IT RIGHT.

More evidence suggesting BingoCameras are not running a legitimate business:

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

BingoCameras.com – SCAM?

How to Make Money from Telemarketers!

max — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:24:25 +0000

Well, it seems like the telemarketers got the best of me calling me on now several new phone numbers including 877-624-0262 AND 786-358-5510.

I just stumbled onto this great video showing you how to SUE them and make money from telemarketers!

The U.S. law gives you about $500 each time telemarketers answer your questions wrong such as “please put me on your do-not-call list”. Record this and also record the conversation if they keep calling again. Keep doing this until you have racked about $20,000 of fees then take it to your lawyer’s office. You should be able to get a good settlement before it even gets to court. If enough people do this, the telemarketers will eventually go bankrupt and NEVER call you again.

Watch the video:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

One of YouTube users commented that it works well and he bought a free laptop for $700 compensation money he got for it:

OMG…this actually worked..but i used it not in the same fashion, i decided to just use the do-not-call list idea, then they called me again, i took the name of their company and recorded the call, sent it in to my nearest law office, and got 700 dollars in compensation for staying out of court, which is how i brought a new laptop

Also, you can report any numbers to FCC and put yourself on do-not-call registry, which makes it illegal for telemarketers to ever call you again. If they do, record the conversation, phone numbers and SUE them for free money!

FU** YOU TELEMARKETERS! HAHAHA! YOU GUYS SUCK, THE LOWEST SCUMBAGS ON EARTH, PROBABLY LOWER THAN DRUG DEALERS! GET A REAL JOB, GET A F***IN LIFE!

Boy, I love just blasting it out there, let’s all get these telemarketers and shut them down for good.

P.S. I feel like a citizen who keeps fighting for our RIGHTS! oh well…

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

How to Make Money from Telemarketers!

How to Write Better Adwords Ads!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:27:20 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Google has just released a new video that shows you how to write better Adwords ads. Who’s better listen to than Google themselves? You can also see the summary here.

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

How to Write Better Adwords Ads!

2153835600 STOP CALLING ME!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:36:30 +0000

Last time I mentioned 6169801367, bunch of telemarketers who keep calling. Well, I don’t know if it’s the same company but it seems like it and they keep calling me even when I am sleeping! I will be filing an FCC complaint so I hope these guys get shut down from their illegal telemarketing activities. (If this is happening to you, you can do so also here at FCC, just couple questions to fill out.)

And by the way, I guess FCC shut the other number down (6169801367), no more calls after about a week!

FCC complaints WORK! Yey! Go FCC, get those scammer telemarketing companies!

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

2153835600 STOP CALLING ME!

Accidental Millionaire Review!

max — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:12:18 +0000

I tend to read a lot of business books and on my last trip to my local Borders bookstore, I noticed a new book called “The Accidental Millionaire”. Of course, I always enjoy books that are written by the actual entrepreneur and skip those writing about someone else.

Anyways, this is one of the best books I have read on business and life. The renowned photographer/inventor/entrepreur Gary Fong, the author of the book, goes into details of his life and how he came to be a millionaire through “accidents” in his life.

I can really relate to him in that sense that most of things I’ve achieve in life are by “accident” also.

In the book, Gary goes into depth of how he grew up with his Korean mother and Chinese father in Southern California. (and also goes into depth about his mother’s wig business in the ghetto of Compton where they witness killings of their neighbors by thugs)

The part I enjoy the most is the fact that Gary shares his marketing wisdom along with biography of his real life. I really like how refers to “zen” on how the less he tried to do, the more he accomplished, perhaps a good thought for anyone who’s been struggling to succeed.

I started reading the book 2 days ago and couldn’t really put it down but I did finish it in just 2 days, it’s really that good.

Also, I have been learning a lot about photography lately and “accidentally” came upon this book at Borders.

I won’t spoil you though with much more information though other than this is a great book and very inspirational if you are thinking about starting a new business (especially in photography).

Get your copy on Amazon here

or Amazon Kindle here

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

Accidental Millionaire Review!

How to Manage Your Time Creatively!

max — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:03:22 +0000

Managing time has always been a challenge for me growing up and being taught how to make schedules using a schedule book in school. (or using MS Outlook/scheduling software for modern days)

Because I am a creative person, I don’t really think too logically, (although I am very good at math) and developed my own system for managing time.

It’s simple, effective, and I don’t need to check my list of to-dos or schedules.

I actually got this through dish washing. Whenever I do dishes, I don’t do them all at once. I will do a little bit at a time when I am in the kitchen. So, let’s say I go get some snacks from my fridge, I will do 2-3 dishes. And I keep repeating this all day long until all the dishes are gone. Also, I make sure to do the “big dishes” first, because they tend to clog up my sink if I leave them there and do the small ones first.

Like washing dishes, I apply the same technique in my blogging work. I do like 2-3 blog posts every couple hours while juggling between reading books and browsing other people’s blogs. Also, I try to make sure to prioritize things like appointments or stuff that need to be done sooner than others.

My line of work is sorta like a big mess of network cables that can never really look clean because I have to blog on so many blogs but this is the most effective way I can blog as efficiently as possible on multiple blogs without wearing myself out. (or killing myself)

By using this method, I no longer have to “trip out” or “stress out” that I am not getting things done. I simply keep working continuously (even on weekends) until all of my work is done.

Of course, my dishes/work will never get done because there will always be new ones to take care of. But this way, I don’t need a separate scheduling book or whatnot.

This might not work for everyone but for my line of work, I don’t really have to answer my phone all that much and the hardest part is really maximizing the efficiency of my time.

If I worked 12 hours straight all day long, I will easily get burned out or will stress out, something I don’t want to do to myself.

Anyways, this method might work for you, think of it as round-robin scheduling in computer engineering terms or just a creative way to manage your time.

Well, the real point is that you need to make your own method of effectively managing time whether that’s a Blackberry or drawing doodles on your whiteboard. Whatever it is, you need to find something that works and you don’t need to stress about your work. (to live a long life that is…)

“Think out of the box, don’t use everything they taught you in school.”

(Image Credit)

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

How to Manage Your Time Creatively!

How to Make Time and Get Things Done When You Don’t Even Have Time to Go Watch Movies!

max — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:04:32 +0000

Today’s subject is on how to make more time to get things done when you don’t even have time to go watch movies. This is because I haven’t had the time to go watch movies in the theater for the last 2 years, mostly because I have been busy.

But, today I will show you how to make time for your dreams and whatnot even if you think you have no time for it.

First of all, I want you to write down your goals. I tend to just blog them all and ramble to you but again, writing down your goals in life on paper (or a blog) would probably make you “subconsciously” make time to accomplish those.

The reason I am writing this blog post is because recently, I’ve set new goals in my life, that is to make it to the PGA Tour. Since I’ve made that goal, amazingly, I’ve been seen golfing more. I’ve hit about 10,000 golf balls and 1,000 practice putts since I set the goal about 2 weeks ago. Before that, I hardly even hit a golf ball because I got “lazy” and didn’t really make my goals clear. On top of all this, my blog work productivity shot up about 10 times because I have to make time for my new goals in life.

It’s interesting to me that when you are limited by time and resources, you brain automatically adjusts to that.

So, what?

If you have a goal in your life such as one day owning your own restaurant business or whatever, the time to start taking action is NOW. Once you procrastinate and don’t start doing something about it NOW, 10 years will go past by you and you will regret that you waste that valuable time tweeting to your friends or even poking around Facebook. Not that those services are bad or anything but can you think of how much time you waste per day on doing things that are not productive?

Once you start making clear goals of what you want to accomplish, your brain will adjust accordingly and somehow make it happen.

Well, I still have no time to go watch movies but at least I am on my way to playing on the PGA Tour. (perhaps occasionally, I actually don’t want to play as my sole profession but I just want to simply prove the point that I can make it to the PGA Tour if I tried hard enough.)

Wish me luck and I wish you luck in whatever goals you have set (or are setting) today. Most importantly, take action like “right now” that will get you one step nearer your goals and dreams.

“Life without goals is like driving around town without a destination.”

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

How to Make Time and Get Things Done When You Don’t Even Have Time to Go Watch Movies!

Efficiency and Logistics in South Korea

max — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:31:14 +0000

I grew up South Korea until I was 9 years old and also I went back for a year in year 2004 and boy South Korea probably has one of the best efficient logistics in the world.

South Korea is about 2/3 size of the State of California. Compared to the UPS/FedEx 1-day service we get here, since labor is much cheaper in Korea, they can ship good within literally matter of hours.

Especially if you live in Seoul, the capital, you can expect to go shopping at the mall and have your goods bought shipped within 30 minutes using Quick Delivery Service(퀵서비스), which is a form of delivery using motorcycles.

They have a similar service to eBay, an auction site. Well, before I came back to the States, I sold literally everything I owned in South Korea with that auction service. Average delivery time for most goods? No more than 2 hours and in return I got my money transferred straight to my bank account within minutes of the buyer receiving my goods.

Of course, the cost of labor in the U.S. makes efficient logistics like that nearly impossible and also the high-cost of insurance makes motorcycle delivery even more so.

(Image Credit)

One thing apart from lower cost of labor, one thing I see that we could be doing in the U.S. is the fact that there’s literally thousands of different delivery companies in South Korea, meaning they are all competing for your business.

For you to ship something from Seoul to Pusan (which is about 6 hours drive, about the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles), it costs you almost nothing, maybe $2-3.

In the meanwhile, in the U.S., UPS and FedEx has monopolized logistics in a way. I know there’s some other small companies who deliver locally but they are too, more expensive than the national delivery companies.

So what?

I am just saying, UPS (pronounced “OOPs” if they miss your package) and FedEx could do a little better here if they had more competition. There’s clearly more ground to cover for packages going over multiple States but clearly, there’s no reason why UPS and FedEx cannot do same day shipping for in-state deliveries. Even if they did already, we shouldn’t have to pay more for that.

I just wish we could somehow push UPS and FedEx to come up with new innovative ways to ship goods like their tracking systems. Recently, I’ve noticed nothing new from them other than sitting on their vans and collecting money. - Keep innovating, never stop, you can never be the best in the world.

Well, just sayin’, we don’t have the most efficient “local” logistics in the world, it could be a LOT better and cheaper, even with high labor costs.

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

Efficiency and Logistics in South Korea

Sales Tip – Don’t Just Fry the Big Fish, Fry Small Fish Too!

max — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:56:27 +0000

A lot of times, sales people focus on one thing, that of frying big fish and forget to focus on the rest. Gladly, I’ve never been a salesman of any kind but as a person outside the salesman box, I can see why those salesmen who only focus on frying big fish never get ahead nor ever become anything better.

I know a ton of these types of salesmen, I deal with them on a daily basis. As soon as I tell them I make money online with blogs, they think I am small fish and start treating me like a kid. Perhaps they are right, my company isn’t probably the most biggest of fish out there but heck, that’s not the right way to treat your customer. (and I am still working for myself while these salesmen are obviously not in control of their life and wonder why)

No matter how small or big your customer’s business is, customer is always right and if you don’t get that, you will lose a LOT of customers.

For example, I KNOW a lot of big fishes I can refer to if sales people start treating me right. A lot of times, these wrong salesmen never even get to that point nor get my business. I actually BLOG about how bad their sales tactics are afterwards, that’s my way of treating people like that. Well, I am trying to stop though, no need to fill my mind with the “real” small fishes in life. In fact, today it happened, that’s why I am blogging but I decided to keep the ignorant salesmen anonymous. I rather focus on my golf game.

Anyways, whether you are a car salesman or work for Fortune 500 company, just realize you never know when that small fish business works with thousands of other small fishes or even big fishes. The point is, you want to create a “buzz” for your company by providing equally “satisfactory” service to every one of your customers.

My advice for business and life when dealing with people, “don’t discriminate based on size of business” just like you wouldn’t discriminate if someone was black, white, or asian. There’s nothing to it.

Those who do this, I have seen, succeed at far higher levels than those who don’t and end up working for someone else rest of their life.

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

Sales Tip – Don’t Just Fry the Big Fish, Fry Small Fish Too!

How to Add a Little “Competition” to Your Work!

max — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:05:53 +0000

I have to admit, I am probably one of the most competitive people in the world. Partly because I used to play a lot of competitive golf and partly because I grew up in Seoul as a kid where fighting was part of daily life.

This “competition”, I think can actually help you grow faster, stronger, and ultimately help you succeed.

I remember when I first got my job, there was a time sheet for people to sign in when they got to work. The company even had a weird rule that if you were late to work, you would have to show up on Saturday to work, otherwise you’d be fired.

Well, the first couple weeks I got up late couple times. I had to go to work on Saturday for the next whole month, it was frustrating.

Eventually, I got real competitive. The first guy that showed up at the company usually signed in at 6AM. I started showing up at 4:30AM. Basically I came to work earlier than this #1 guy and went home after this guy.

WHY?

Well, like I said, I am competitive, I don’t like losing at anything. But through that process, I got a LOT of work done, I probably did work of 3 people per day.

Now, I don’t suggest you to go out and do this as you probably will tire yourself out quickly and there’s really no point of showing up to work at 4:30AM.

This is just an example that a little competition in your life can make you more productive rather than having none.

Whatever you do, put something on the line so you can “win”, even if that means just in your head.

For example, when I play golf with pro golfer friends, we ALWAYS bet some money, even a dollar a hole makes some great competition. This is something one of my pro golfer friends taught me, to always have something on the line. It’s not just for the money, it’s so you focus on the game of winning.

Let’s say your boss asks you and your co-worker to make a presentation. Start a bet between you and your co-worker, something like $10 for whoever finishes their part of the presentation first. (and right)

Now, I don’t really go to an office, I have to make these imaginary situations at home. For example, if I can finish 30 blog posts in the morning, I reward myself by going to the driving range and hitting golf balls in the afternoon. If I didn’t have something on the line, I would work slow, inefficient, and waste valuable time in my life.

Whatever you do, make it count by putting yourself in the hole first. Your goal of course is to try to get out.

One of the most fun exercises I did (or I had to) was having absolutely no cash in the bank but I had to survive. When I was put to the test, I survived because I would do anything to survive.

Perhaps you still live with your parents, don’t keep living with your parents because it won’t help you in the long run. Force yourself to learn new skills and survive in the real world by moving out. Once you move out and have to pay for everything yourself, that’s when your real skills will appear in your life. (yes, automatically!)

For me, I HAD to move out of my parents place after college, I simply realized how lazy I was getting. Even though it’s great when your mom does your laundry living in your parent’s pad, the worst thing is that you begin to take it for granted and become lazy at everything you do. Perhaps not but in my case, moving out was the only choice.

Remember, put yourself in a position to succeed, that is to put yourself in a big hole or a challenge that you MUST do something about.

Well, there goes me rambling again but I hope these stories help you, especially if you are struggling at work or life in general.

P.S. It also helps to have a close friend who is on the same level as you are, he/she will subconsciously help you by adding “competition”. And always, try to make friends who are better at something than you are so you can learn something new.

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

How to Add a Little “Competition” to Your Work!

I “broke in” my IKEA Chair in after 2+ Years!

max — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:52:18 +0000

(right side of the chair)

(left side of the chair close-up)

I bought this IKEA chair 2+ years ago when I moved into my 12th floor apartment looking over the Pacific Ocean here in San Francisco. Well, I just realized that the sides of my chair has worn out to a point that there exists a small bump both on the left and right side of my chair.

It’s actually rather comfortable as my elbows have a place to sit and they don’t slip like they used to when I first got my chair.

I must be blogging too much, well, let me try to cut down a bit.

Will I get a new chair?

Heck no, it took me 2 and a half years to break it in.

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

I “broke in” my IKEA Chair in after 2+ Years!

What You Can Learn From Teenager Make-up Artists on YouTube!

max — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:46:42 +0000

I don’t know if you have noticed but teenager make-up artists have taken over the HOWTO section on YouTube, plus a lot of them are ranked Top 10 YouTubers.

What can you learn from these teenagers who can rack up more views on YouTube than companies literally spending millions to rack up the same amount of page views?

First, it’s not luck that these teenagers are becoming more popular on YouTube. By nature, the topic of “make-up” can appeal to most women in the world as it’s something that practically all women do, make up their face.

Heck, I wish I knew how to do make up, I would be racking up million views in couple days like some of these teenagers.

What they have found is a “great niche” and a niche that a large number of our population can relate/associate to.

Of course, I remember about just 2 years ago when the YouTube HOWTO section wasn’t filled with make-up artists but rather with electronic HOWTOs. Those days are gone, technology geeks no longer rule YouTube HOWTO section.

Perhaps, there’s still other hidden “niches” that hasn’t been explored on YouTube.

By the way, contrary to what some people believe, YouTube has really just hit the tip of the iceberg, YouTube I think will be the next “search” market. Even Google is just “starting” to roll out video search ads.

In 2-3 years, I believe this market will become very competitive sorta like how Google Adwords/Adsense is right now. So, what are you waiting for!

Find a niche that has not been exploited by other teenagers and go make videos and UPLOAD!

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

What You Can Learn From Teenager Make-up Artists on YouTube!

Blogging DIY – How to “Recycle” Your Blog Posts!

max — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:26:35 +0000

One of the most important skills for a pro-blogger to have is the ability to “recycle” your blog posts.

How do you Recycle Blog Posts?

It’s rather simple, you simply bring up a lot of your older blog posts on your recent blog posts by linking on relevant sections.

For example, I did a new blog post on Top 30 LED Projects here. Basically I am “recycling” all of my old LED project blog posts.

There’s many other ways to do it, just keep that thought of “recycling blog posts” while you write any blog posts.

If you have hard time finding one of your blog posts, simply do a Google search for, “site:mysite.com oldblogpostkeywordhere”. This should let you find that old blog post easily and you can link to it from your new blog post.

Also, if you want to learn how to do this better, I suggest reading some of the mainstream blogs like Gizmodo, Engadget, Boingboing, or your favorite as they do this consistently on a daily basis.

You can also recycle blog posts on multiple blogs if you have multiple blogs.

For example, I have a blog about eco-friendly and green. Sometimes I will do a blog post on my tech blog featuring an eco-friendly gadget. If there’s relevant information I can link from my eco-friendly blog, I will do that and “recycle” a blog post by referring to it.

Why recycle blog posts?

This is a great way for you to mention older blog posts that might be simply getting old and not getting enough attention. Remember, a blog post is never dead.

Another point is that there’s some SEO benefits when you link back to one of your older blog posts. Perhaps your older blog posts are losing SEO with time (which most blog posts do if the blog is updated often), you might want to “refreshen” that SEO for the older blog posts every once in awhile.

Recycling blog posts is probably one of the overrated skills of a blogger. I don’t even know if there’s a definition for that, perhaps interlinking might be the closest thing to it. Simply put it, it’s referencing your own sources if you have any.

Well, I hope you start recycling more blog posts, great for your visitors and SEO.

Happy bloggin~

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

Blogging DIY – How to “Recycle” Your Blog Posts!

Why I never follow Rules or Directions!

max — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:36:31 +0000

I have to admit, I am one of the most stubborn people in the world. I do things because I want to. if I don’t like something, I simply don’t do it. In other words, I like being who I am, having my clear opinions on everything in life.

Why?

Because this is my life, no one else should be blamed for suggesting I do it any other way.

Even through school, I ALWAYS had problems with teachers and professors because I never saw the concrete line between me as a student and them, the teachers/professors. Because of this, I usually pissed off most of my teachers/professors. And they would be pissed off usually because I was pretty smart and got As on most of my tests but when it came down to personal evaluations of me, they’d grade me harshly for my attitude.

Of course, a good attitude is essential to learning new things, you can never become smart and you can never know EVERYTHING.

In the end, I learned all these things and rules about how I should live my life. Well, in the very end, I threw ALL of them out the window. (and forgot about them permanently)

Why?

Well, this also goes back to my professional golfing experiences. I used to watch one of the best junior golfers (he was actually the #1 junior golfer in the world at the time) on the practice green all the time. He used to get all the balls off the green if he missed a shot and started over. I didn’t know why he kept doing that but I tried his practicing method and it helped me greatly to hit better shots on the course.

The reason for that is because when you start with nothing, you have all the room to try new things and create great memories of what you are doing well, essential skill to thinking positively and succeeding. An empty mind can sometimes be more valuable than a mind filled with junk.

Same thing in life, sometimes you need to throw out every ideal/theory/rule in your life and simply start over.

Think of it as a painting. You can never make a bad painting look better by putting more paint on it. Instead, you start over on a empty canvas. Then you might be able to make a great painting.

Likewise, in life, if something is not working for you, I want you to really throw that away, whatever you are doing and simply start over. Don’t let the “rules” you have ingrained over the years interfere.

For example, you started a bakery business but for some reason, your bread doesn’t taste good and you have no customers who want to buy it. (AND you have been trying new baking methods for the last 5 years)

Don’t keep on trying until you succeed, start over from scratch. It’s obvious you are not good at baking, try something new.

Well, just my 2 cents that sometimes you need to forget everything and start life anew.

And I know, I am crazy but I am right.

I’ve thrown away the most valuable things in my life and have gained FREEDOM of my life. Everyday I wake up, I feel free as that bird on the roof I see everyday from my 12th floor 1 bedroom apartment. Really, I want to go skydiving soon, I know I will enjoy it.

“Don’t let the system run your life, MAKE YOUR NEW RULES IN THE SYSTEM!” Even better, graffiiti your new rules in the system!

I remember at the first day of my job, the company’s rule said you can’t listen to music or any MP3 devices. I broke that rule on the first day and people started copying me. After couple months, my boss CHANGED the company rules so everyone can listen to music while working because EVERYONE was listening to music including my boss who said, “wow, it does help me work more relaxed while listening to music.”

Remember, only YOU can CHANGE the WORLD!

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

Why I never follow Rules or Directions!

How to Build a Rhythm and Consistency in Your Life and Business!

max — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:25:05 +0000

As a pro golfer who has played in countless pressure-packed tournaments for 20+ years, I know rhythm and consistency is one of the most valuable assets to a player.

Of course, the same applies to life and business. In order for you to succeed and get ahead in life, you need to a consistent “rhythm” in your life focusing on your strengths.

In business, when something goes wrong, you will need to inevitably rely on your “bread-and-butter” to survive. Of course, innovation can come thereafter but it’s always your bread-and-butter skills that lets you keep going enough to come up with a new innovation.

So, how to develop a rhythm and consistency?

Simply, do the same things that’s helping you to succeed on a daily basis. But, DO IT EVERY SINGLE DAY, even on the weekends.

For me, those things are simply blogging everyday. The moment I stop blogging is the moment I start getting lazy and eventually lead to blog-less days, weeks, and sometimes even months!

Blogging itself is the core of my business and without blogging, I could probably never survive. Of course, this may be different for you, perhaps you run a bakery, you need to make bread everyday to sell to customers.

The most important skill you must assess in order to accomplish is to actually not do things consistently but to know when you are slacking.

Two days ago, I slacked too much and got MAD at myself for not blogging on Saturday. I got so mad, I started blogging a LOT on Sunday and kept it going till today.

This is a passionate energy you need to acquire within you. It’s not that hard to succeed in ANYTHING if you can keep doing it consistently everyday.

My dad used to tell me, “Son, you don’t have to take over the world today, just do it a little bit each day and you will get there.” Well, not taking over the world but something along those lines.

Do a little bit everyday and accomplish big things over the next couple years. Don’t try to do a LOT everyday and accomplish big things in 1 year. You will probably get stressed out and give up on your dream in just couple months.

Get a good “rhythm” going in your life, your mind/body will thank you for it. P)

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

How to Build a Rhythm and Consistency in Your Life and Business!

Radical Business – How to Burn Bridges in Business!

max — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:22:17 +0000

Believe it or not, knowing how to burn bridges is one of the most essential skills to running a business. Sometimes, you simply need to focus more on business instead of chit-chatting with someone you know.

Why?

You need to be more efficient, get more things done. By keeping all your networking connections unlimited you are bound to get unnecessary sales calls, e-mails, and whatnot. If those connections help you, that’s great but if they don’t, it’s time to BURN BRIDGES.

So how do you go about solving this inefficiency?

Not always but there are times where you must burn the bridge, put a TNT there and blow it up so no one can ever cross it again. Recently I did this with a company I was working with. They were pissing me off, playing me around like a hockey puck, I FIRED a bazooka at their company. No longer do I wish to waste my time with unprofessional dicks.

Of course, don’t worry that you ever burned a bridge, there’s also ways to “rebuild” a bridge. But for our purposes of getting things done (TODAY), you need to learn to burn bridges. It’s a hard skill to learn because you need to directly at the person/company and tell them to FUCK OFF. As a boss/owner of business, you need to do it because this skill will ultimately help you weed out the inefficiencies in your business.

And I bet you, you are probably doing this all the time in regular life anyways, you just haven’t realized you are burning bridges when you walk away from people without telling them WHY. (and yes, don’t even waste time telling them WHY, just burn the bridge and move on.)

Sometimes, life is simple, keep it simply by focusing on what you do best.

As for me, I enjoy burning bridges to get more things done. Most people who never burn bridges never find out their full potential because they don’t have the guts to say NO, FUCK OFF, etc…etc…

When it comes to push and shove, you will always get a big NO-NO from me.

I’ve fired my web hosting companies about a dozen times, I’ve wrote blog posts detailing a company’s faults, I go after scammers like it was my number one enemy. These are all examples of burning bridges mostly because I don’t have time to chit-chat with them, I need problems solved last month, not me being stuck on their technical support line or calling my credit card company because I got scammed.

Burning bridges can also be very fun and save you a ton of time. Making friends is probably a good thing but I’ve had enough hardships in my life that I KNOW friendships don’t pay your rent, smart thinking does.

You must remember one rule in business, “THERE’S NO ONE ELSE TO BLAME FOR FAILURE BUT YOU.” If someone is not helping you get ahead in your business, you better damn do something about it, don’t just sit there and smile. (pretending nothing bad is happening.) NOTHING is the worst thing you can do, DO SOMETHING ALWAYS!

Just think of business as a video game like Super Mario Brothers where you must keep going forward and get those 1-up life mushrooms while burning those bridges so the enemies can’t get to you. Well, you need to have the skills to evaluate quickly who is going to help you and who is not.

On a side note, burning bridges doesn’t mean you hate someone, it simply means you need to shut off that part of your life (perhaps temporarily) as it’s not helping you in anyway or simply wasting a lot of your time.

I tend to get very loose sometimes and let a lot of people into my personal life. If I get to that point, I will realize that and start burning bridges until I can get back on track. As a busy business person, I simply don’t have more than 3 sentences to spare, even to best of my friends. I am very busy like that nursery rhyme, “My name is Busee because I am always busy.”

Next time, I will show you how to get a “rhythm” going for your life and business, another crucial skill you will need to run your own business. Getting things done consistently means you are working in “rhythm” and when you get a rhythm going, there’s nothing that can stop you from success. (except God)

I just hope you get one thing from this blog post, think of just ONE person/company you are currently working with right now that is most time-consuming yet makes you NOTHING of real value. Now, please burn the bridges with that person/company for the next 3 months. I assure you, you will get much more done over the next 3 months, plus that person/company might be willing to offer you better terms/conditions in the long run.

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

Radical Business – How to Burn Bridges in Business!

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

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