Have you ever thought using affirmations for greating wealth. Have you heard about using affirmations?
SunlightFlavour.net has posted some simple and short affirmation videos. One is called: “Wealth Affirmations“.
Other interesting post is about favorite step-by-step, how-to make money blogging guides/resources. There is two of them and you can download them for free.
July 25th, 2007
This week, my mother came at home to stay here for 2 months.
She has 2 months of holydays. Yeap, she’s gonna spend that time at home.
Hurra. But, there is also a downside:
What she doesn’t know yet is that I am making my money on the internet.
She is cool and sleeps all the day lond, at least the first 2 days. My problem is,
she really is very authoritative and directive. And she wants me to do this and
that and this and that again… Oh. She’s at home because my sister is marrying on
saturday july 21th… And that’s very time consuming. We have to go left and right
having dinner or lunch all together, the family doesn’t stop coming, requesting
us to meet and have lunch again or dinner etc…
Hey! But what about my Internet Business? I cannot afford spending time left
and right will all those time consuming things! The marriage is great, tit’s my sister’s.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for her. But, it brings such a lot of dutys that let
me very little time to focus on my business building tasks. I mean daily tasks
as social bookmarking, research, posting new content, building links, online
socializing etc. All the building process stuff.
Well. So can my mother break my business? I think it’s a matter of adaptation
and organisation, I hope I will find the right balance beetwen everything. I have
2 months left before september, that day I will be returning to the faculty again,
and those 2 months I planned to build my Biz like crazy, but I didn’t put the family
in the equation. So, I ‘ve got to revise my strategy but I think I’ll get there. So here
the sacrifice and dedication thing is stronger than ever. Good luck to you all who know
how such situation is Grrrrr… difficult to deal with.
My business that I am building right now is www.blogadollar.com.
On Blogadollar.com, I’m telling the world how I make REAL money on the Internet.
Cheers.
Add comment July 16th, 2007
On the internet there are typically 3 real ways to make decent money: AdSense(through google), YPN (through yahoo), affiliate marketing (clickbank, commission junction, or azoogle ads), or creating your very own product.
1 - Pay Per Click:
Text ads such as Google Adsense, Yahoo!, Kontera, and so on are a great way to supplement your income stream from your website. If you have a large reading base, or tend to have massive amounts of traffic to your site, implementing Adsense, or Yahoo! Publishing may be a great source of income for you.
Although no one should bank on these as their main income stream. Google or Yahoo! can change their terms of service in a heart beat, and your revenue could plummet. So make sure you’re checking all of your options before you use this technique as your main source of income.
2 - Affiliate Marketing:
Another popular, and higher paying source of online income from your site is by becoming an affiliate and promoting other peoples’ products on your website. This is a great way to make a little extra money with your site, as you don’t have to put a lot of effort into creating a product.
Although, you must “pre-sell” the user on the product to make them click the affiliate link. Although this may seem difficult, there are many ways to do this with ease.
Two very popular affiliate programs are:
Clickbank
Commission Junction
There are others, so make sure you look around and find out what service best fits your needs.
3 - Product Creation:
Product creation is one of the most effective ways of building a revenue stream from your website. You keep 100% of the revenue, and you also have the fulfilling feeling of owning something. Here are my steps to creating your very first product.
You’ll want to develop a decent reader base to your blog/website. Once you have them, begin to poll them with a form from Aweber, capturing their name and email address. When you’ve gotten plenty of questions, and a lot of people (make sure you’re staying in touch with them, answering random questions and giving them good content), you’ll want to take the main questions and develop a product out of them.
Once the product is done, sell it to the newly acquired list!
Web Design and Site Templates
Baseball Umpires
Unblock MySpace
July 10th, 2007
Suddenly and out of the blue there are new sleek, thin speeding desktop computers, If you’re looking for a future looking computer filled up to the brim with power, well look no further Dell has the look!
Dell have now dropped the dimension computer desktop range and have now added the desktops to the inspiron range.
Dell Inspiron 530
Dell’s first desktops to carry the Inspiron name look good, inside and out. With a huge range of available components and two equally attractive cases, mainstream consumers ought to be able to find a config that meets their budget, tastes, and computing needs. If you require Bluetooth or Blu-ray, however, you’ll have to put your purchase plans on hold.
Dell has dropped its venerable Dimension dell desktop computer brand. Now, both its mainstream consumer desktops and laptops will carry the Inspiron name. Along with the name change, Dell’s new Inspiron 530 and 530s PCs usher in Intel’s latest G33 chipset (aka Bearlake), which features a speedy 1,333MHz frontside bus. The other two models in the lineup, the Inspiron 531 and 531s, feature AMD processors on Nvidia’s MCP 61 chipset. The 530s and 531s units feature a slim chassis akin to the Dimension C521’s. Each of the four models boasts a wide array of configuration options; prices start at a rock-bottom $349 and can quickly top $1,500 when you start adding upgrades. For a complete details, read our full review of the Dell Dimension 531, which won an Editors’ Choice.
The big range in price is due in large part to the wide array of CPU options. The Intel-based models offer both low-end Celeron and dual-core Core 2 Duo processors, while the AMD-based models offer both low-end Sempron and dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors. Memory ranges from 512MB to 4GB. All four major flavors of Vista are offered as well; no word on whether XP is an option for those less than enthralled with Microsoft’s latest OS effort.
Both the midtower and the slim chassis offer two hard drive bays (which you can populate with two 500GB drives for a 1TB of storage) and the option for a PCI Express graphics card (the half-height variety for the 530s and 531s units). Also available in all models but particularly useful in the slim models, which are likely candidates to be shoehorned into home theater racks, is an optional 802.11b/g (but sadly, not 802.11n) Wi-Fi card, which will save you from having to run an Ethernet cable through your living room. Integrated Bluetooth is another living-room-friendly technology, and Dell is bringing it to these Inspiron desktops shortly. Likewise, Dell will add Blu-ray drives as on option soon.
Aesthetically, the new Inspiron line extends the silver-and-white color scheme that you can find on late-model Dimensions. The last generation of Dimensions were sleek-looking, but the area around the optical drives was black, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the case. Now, the Inspiron cases feature drive-bay covers, lending a more unified design to the PCs.
The Inspiron line carries Dell’s standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty, but the company’s DataSafe backup has moved online. Dell offers you 3GB of online storage and won’t charge you for the first year.
Dell Inspiron 531
The good: Sleek new case design; overachieving application performance; finally has a Wi-Fi adapter option; integrated Bluetooth (shortly after launch); new, mostly useful support software.
The bad: Some higher-end configuration options are limited to Dell’s XPS line.
The bottom line: The last of the major desktop vendors to update this year’s desktops, Dell used that time to good advantage. On some tests, the Inspiron 531 is even faster than systems that cost $500 more. Keep your gaming and digital media ambitions modest, and this PC should deliver nearly everything you’d want in a mainstream system
The Dell Inspiron 531 (along with a handful of other new desktops) marks the introduction of a more streamlined Dell product family. For both laptops and desktops, the Inspiron line will represent its mainstream consumer PCs, with the XPS looping together the high-end products. In other words, so long Dimension, hello Inspiron, which makes a strong first impression with this new midtower system. Our $979 Inspiron 531 config is as fast or faster than others in its class and it also has a compelling set of features. Throw in its clean new looks, and this suddenly becomes the mainstream desktop we’d recommend first.
Consider the Inspiron 531 the spiritual successor to the Dimension E521. Both represent Dell’s mainstream consumer desktop offering, with configuration options that let you build a system in a price range roughly between $350 and $1,500, not including peripherals and optional software. The new Inspiron also continues the Dimension 531’s aesthetic update from the old Dimension 4000 series. While not quite as clean-lined as an Apple product, Dell’s new desktop design is attractive enough so that you shouldn’t feel embarrassed to keep it in public view.
Like the Dimension E521 we reviewed, our sample Inspiron 531 came with a 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ dual core processor. This new model has 2GB of faster 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, though, as well as a more recent 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600GT 3D card. The hard drive actually got a little smaller, down to roomy-enough 250GB from 320GB on the older Dell, but then the price of this system is actually about $50 less than the older system. We expect you’d be able to upgrade to a larger hard drive for about that price, giving the Inspiron a stronger config on balance.
Compare the Inspiron 531 to PCs from other vendors, though, and you’ll find that this system stands out in both features and performance. Two key updates bring the Inspiron 531 in line with and even beyond its competition. Finally, Dell offers 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi via a PCI card. And it won’t be available until “shortly after launch,” according to Dell, but our review unit also came with Bluetooth functionality built into the 13-in-1 media card reader. You can get Bluetooth in a few other systems if you purchase an expensive Bluetooth-connected mouse-and-keyboard set, but no other mainstream midtower PC that we’re aware of has an option for effectively integrated Bluetooth, as Dell has here.
We were also surprised by the Inspiron 531 on our performance tests. Most of the systems we’ve seen in the $1,000 to $1,500 category aim for speed on either basic applications or games. The Inspiron 531 is just as fast as it should be games-wise, giving you solid-enough Quake 4 performance as long as you keep the resolution reasonable. More exciting are its Cinebench and iTunes scores, which tied or outperformed the pricier Gateway DX430X. You can perform most any mainstream task with the Inspiron 531, and in some cases, much faster than we expected.
In addition to the speed and the various means of wireless connectivity, Dell rounds this system out with the standard optical drive combination of a DVD drive and a dual-layer DVD burner. We’re a bit surprised that Dell doesn’t even offer a Blu-ray drive as an option with this PC, but we suspect it’s keeping that feature exclusive to the higher-end XPS line. We’re at least glad to see one feature carry over to this system from more performance-minded systems–a new standard mouse that has two thumb-side buttons. Just know that once you go down the two-thumb-button road, you won’t want to veer off.
Dell’s service and support pulls more-or-less even with HP and Gateway with this new system by including a useful software front-end similar to HP’s Total Care and Gateway’s BigFix applications. Dell’s support center is as easy to use as HP’s software, and both include tools and how-to information to help you maintain your own PC. Dell’s support center links primarily to online resources, which could put you in a bind if your Internet connection becomes a source of trouble. Still, it’s handy to have all of that information presented in an easy-to-find manner.
In addition to its support center, Dell has also gotten a little more enterprising with its software and service offerings. A service called PC Tune-Up will, for “a small fee,” perform automated tasks like defragging your system, setting restore points, and cleaning your registry. To Dell’s credit, it also tells you how to do most of those things yourself via Windows’ built-in tools.
Dell has also moved DataSafe, its name for redundant RAID 1 hard drives, online, giving you 3GB of online storage for one year. After that you can extend the duration of your storage for an amount to be determined, or upgrade to up to 30GB for $40 a year. We wouldn’t exactly call that fee exorbitant, and it’s, of course, optional. Still, it’s hard for us to get too excited about it when you can get even more storage for free with no time limit through the creative use of various online e-mail providers.
In addition to the new software and the optional storage, Dell’s basic support offerings remain largely the same. You get one year of parts and labor warranty coverage, as well as 24-7 toll-free tech support. Online, you’ll find the same resources as outlined on Dell’s new software, and Dell also continues to offer its Dell Connect service, which, with your permission, gives Dell’s techs the option to take over your computer remotely to solve problems.
Dell Inspiron 530s
Dell’s first desktops to carry the Inspiron name look good, inside and out. With a huge range of available components and two equally attractive cases, mainstream consumers ought to be able to find a config that meets their budget, tastes, and computing needs. If you require Bluetooth or Blu-ray, however, you’ll have to put your purchase plans on hold.
Dell has dropped its venerable Dimension desktop brand. Now, both its mainstream consumer desktops and laptops will carry the Inspiron name. Along with the name change, Dell’s new Inspiron 530 and 530s PCs usher in Intel’s latest G33 chipset (aka Bearlake), which features a speedy 1,333MHz frontside bus. The other two models in the lineup, the Inspiron 531 and 531s, feature AMD processors on Nvidia’s MCP 61 chipset. The 530s and 531s units feature a slim chassis akin to the Dimension C521’s. Each of the four models boasts a wide array of configuration options; prices start at a rock-bottom $349 and can quickly top $1,500 when you start adding upgrades. For a complete details, read our full review of the Dell Dimension 531, which won an Editors’ Choice.
The big range in price is due in large part to the wide array of CPU options. The Intel-based models offer both low-end Celeron and dual-core Core 2 Duo processors, while the AMD-based models offer both low-end Sempron and dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors. Memory ranges from 512MB to 4GB. All four major flavors of Vista are offered as well; no word on whether XP is an option for those less than enthralled with Microsoft’s latest OS effort.
Both the midtower and the slim chassis offer two hard drive bays (which you can populate with two 500GB drives for a 1TB of storage) and the option for a PCI Express graphics card (the half-height variety for the 530s and 531s units). Also available in all models but particularly useful in the slim models, which are likely candidates to be shoehorned into home theater racks, is an optional 802.11b/g (but sadly, not 802.11n) Wi-Fi card, which will save you from having to run an Ethernet cable through your living room. Integrated Bluetooth is another living-room-friendly technology, and Dell is bringing it to these Inspiron desktops shortly. Likewise, Dell will add Blu-ray drives as on option soon.
Aesthetically, the new Inspiron line extends the silver-and-white color scheme that you can find on late-model Dimensions. The last generation of Dimensions were sleek-looking, but the area around the optical drives was black, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the case. Now, the Inspiron cases feature drive-bay covers, lending a more unified design to the PCs.
The Inspiron line carries Dell’s standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty, but the company’s DataSafe backup has moved online. Dell offers you 3GB of online storage and won’t charge you for the first year.
Secondly
Taking advantage of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo E6700 desktop CPU (Conroe) and paving the way for a new range of Vista Ready PC’s, the Dell Dimension 9200 looks stylish and is diverse in its application, but also employs some different design ideas to make this PC efficient and manageable.
Dell Dimension 9200
It’s got the look
From the outside you’ll immediately notice some abnormal design features. First, the mostly white case is starkly different to the usual blacks and greys, or waxy blue seen in previous Dell models. A large space, big enough to put your hand through, behind the mid-section of the front panel exposes a 120mm fan, drawing air into the case. A large lever in the top-rear releases the side panel revealing a BTX motherboard and a complex display of shrouding, fans and cables.
To BTX or not BTX
Dell was among the first to adopt the BTX (Balanced Technology eXtended) form factor and using it here gives this unit several advantages. Taking into account the 13-in-1 media card reader, the TV tuner and Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), it’s safe to assume that Dell hopes that people will use this PC as a media centre among other things. As a media centre, both power and silence are essential. Naturally, power generates heat and heat means fans, which in turn means noise. The BTX design places all the hottest components of the computer in the direct path of a front-to-rear air flow. In the case of the 9200, a 120mm fan draws air from the front of the case, which immediately passes over the long fins of a large passive heatsink on the CPU. Before exiting the case via a large vent at the rear, air also passes the system memory, chipset and most importantly the graphics card, providing them with some extra cooling as well.
Combine this quieter cooling system with the powerful, low wattage Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz CPU and you can expect plenty of power with minimal system noise. It’s actually the small fan on the graphics card that’s the main source of noise in the 9200 when everything is running at peak performance. The extra cooling from the BTX design should help keep the fan rotation down to a minimum, but there’s little that can be done during a hefty session of gaming. If you’re savvy when it comes to hardware, you might want to consider changing this over to a larger, quieter fan and heatsink combination — there’s plenty of space to do so.
Results
To see if this system, with its 1GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM and Core 2 Duo CPU was up to the job, we put it through WorldBench 5 (WB5) and a number of other tests. In WB5 it scored an impressive 123. This score seems close to normal based on our tests of similarly built systems and will be more than sufficient for any application, including Windows Vista. The 64-bit capabilities of the Core 2 Duo CPU will also allow you to run the inevitable 64-bit applications that will emerge when Vista is finally released.
The GeForce 7900GS is still considered one of the top performing graphics cards on the market. We ran 3DMark 2006, in which it scored 4341 — an expected result for the specifications and plenty of power for almost all of the latest games. We also ran the FEAR in-game benchmark, which averaged 55fps (frames per second) over the demo sequence on maximum quality settings, a comfortable playable rate.
Leave no cable behind
To maintain an uninterrupted airflow, the Dell 9200 has been meticulously wired to ensure that no cable gets in the way of the main thoroughfare. This involves an ornate series of cable ties, brackets and clips to run cables up against the edges of the case and hardware. This can often make hardware changes difficult, but Dell’s implementation leaves the most commonly interchanged components fairly accessible — though changing your power supply will involve some serious untangling. A variety of quick-release features in the case make upgrades and maintenance easy. A bracket holding all the PCI cards in place unclips and swings open on a hinge, while a sliding release gives you instant access to all forward removable drive bays by detaching part of the front panel.
Storage space
Storage is one thing that this PC is lacking — a serious oversight for a system with media centre aspirations. The $2527 price tag on our sample machine comes with only an 80GB (7200rpm) hard drive. A 160GB hard drive is the minimum you can select using Dell’s online shop, though it may affect the final price. That said, you may wish to make your initial purchase of a 9200 with a large hard drive, as this case only comes with two 3.5in internal drive bays, leaving only one spot left to add more storage on top of your standard drive. A maximum of one terabyte (2x 500GB) is available through Dell. The drive bays face sideways, giving you quick and easy access and are cooled by one small fan drawing air from a grill in the front panel and blowing over the top of the drives.
Connect away
Following the grand-plan design of BTX style systems, the Dimension 9200 provides no PS2 or serial ports, but instead supplies an abundance of USB 2.0 connections, starting with six USB 2.0 ports at the rear of the case. Take away two of these for the mouse and keyboard and you still have four to play with. For quick connections, like USB keys or MP3 players you can use one of two USB ports on the front panel. A headphone jack and microphone port have also been placed on the front panel for easy access. The motherboard uses integrated Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1 HD audio software, with the associated analog ports found at the rear of the case. The Dell TV tuner has S-Video and composite ports available, while the media card reader, located in the front panel of the case, supports a wide range of memory cards including CF I&II/SD/mini-SD/MMC/RS-MMC/MS/MS-Pro/Duo/SM/xD/MicroDrive. A Gigabit Ethernet adapter is available onboard and there’s also a 56Kbps modem installed.
Dell Inspiron 1420
The good: Newly redesigned Inspiron line adds Centrino Duo CPUs and color choices; highly configurable with plenty of networking options; discrete graphics option; excellent battery life.
The bad: Not as radically reengineered as Dell’s new XPS laptop; low starting price, but everything from the Webcam to Bluetooth costs extra.
The bottom line: Dell’s retooled Inspiron line introduces the new 14-inch Inspiron 1420 laptop, which benefits from an internal and external makeover. The wide-ranging configuration options mean that virtually any mainstream user can find a system to fit their budget.
With its latest Inspiron update, Dell adds some major improvements, both inside and outside, to its workhorse line of laptops. And in the case of the Inspiron 1420, Dell has introduced a new screen size–a spacious yet portable 14-inch widescreen. The 1420’s baseline price is a reasonable $819 and offers a host of upgrade options–everything from Blu-ray drives to Intel’s latest Centrino Duo processors–that make the Inspiron line one of the most flexible systems out there. Our review unit packed in a discrete graphics chip, a Centrino Duo CPU, and mobile broadband from Sprint, driving the price up to nearly $1,700. You can configure a well-equipped system for much closer to the baseline price, however, that would prove more than adequate for most mainstream users. The Inspiron 1420 isn’t nearly as attractive as Dell’s other new laptop, the higher-end XPS m1330, but it still improves on the last-generation Inspiron’s biggest flaw–its bulky, boxy chassis.
While Dell is offering similarly revamped version of its 15- and 17-inch Inspiron laptops, the 14-inch 1420 model is a new addition. We continue to see vendors–Lenovo with its ThinkPad T61, Gateway with its E-265M, and Sony with its VGN-CR190–redefining their mainstream laptops as 14 inches instead of 15 inches. We welcome this trend; after working with 14-inch laptops for a time, we find that they offer the optimal balance between portability and usability.
The new look for Inspiron is an evolution rather than a revolution, offering softer, rounded edges and a thinner lid while scrapping the two-tone, white-on-silver design that never looked particularly inspiring. Instead, you get your choice of eight different colors for the back of the lid. Our Ruby Red model, which looked an awful lot like the Crimson Red on the 13-inch XPS m1330, had an appealing satin finish that seemed to be virtually fingerprint-proof. If you fear colorful laptops, black and white are also options for the lid.
The basic Dell laptop keyboard remains unchanged and is comfy to type on, but we were pleased to see the old Inspiron’s excessively chunky mouse buttons reduced to a more manageable size, along with small square media control buttons replacing the older round ones, which were notoriously hard to hit. A 2.0-megapixel Webcam sits above the screen, or you could forgo it and save $30. Like the XPS m1330m, a small, credit-card-size remote control that pops into card slot on the side.
The 14.1-inch widescreen LCD display offers a 1,440×900 native resolution, which is a $50 upgrade Dell offers over the standard 1,280×800 screen (standard on both 14- and 15-inch laptops). For a screen this size, the difference is honestly negligible, but people working with digital photos, for example, may want the slightly higher resolution. Neither screen would be able to play back Blu-ray movies in full 1080p resolution.
Our review unit was tricked out with every networking option under the sun. While you can order the Inspiron 1420 with just a basic 802.11g Wi-Fi card, we had Draft N Wi-Fi , Bluetooth, and mobile broadband from Sprint (AT&T and Verizon are also available). The EV-DO cards are an extra $150, but all the major carriers offer some kind of rebate with a service plan.
While older, non-Santa Rosa CPUs are also available, they knock only $100 off the cheapest Centrino Duo option. We suggest choosing one of the three Core 2 Duo 7000-series chips that feature Centrino Duo’s faster 800MHz frontside bus. Trading the integrated graphics up to an Nvidia GeForce 8400 is likewise $100. Add in options such as Bluetooth ($20) and a second GB of RAM ($150), and the $819 starting price can easily climb.
Our Inspiron 1420 featured a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 CPU, and compared to other similarly configured systems, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 and the Gateway E-265M, the performance differences were negligible, especially in CNET Labs’ Photoshop CS2 and iTunes encoding tests, where less than 20 seconds separated these three 14-inch laptops. It’s a point we harp on, but any current Centrino Duo laptop will be able to easily handle the multiple simultaneous tasks (Web surfing, media playback, document editing, and so forth) that average users engage in on a regular basis, and the Dell Inspiron 1420 was no exception.
The only discrete graphics option available, the 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8400, isn’t going to turn this laptop into a gaming powerhouse, but we got a very playable 29.8 frames per second in Quake 4 at 1,024×768, even with high-end options such as antialiasing turned on.
The 1420 ran for three hours and 29 minutes on our DVD battery-drain test, using the included nine-cell battery (a $50 upgrade), making it the longest-lasting 14-inch laptop we’ve seen. A smaller six-cell battery is also available if you absolutely hate batteries that stick out from the back of the system. Our DVD battery-drain test is especially grueling, so you can expect longer life from casual Web surfing and office use. Going for integrated graphics instead of the aforementioned GeForce 8400 will likely result in better battery life as well.
Dell Computer includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. Upgrading to a three-year plan will cost an extra $250, which includes on-site service. Support is accessible through a 24-7 toll-free phone line, an online knowledge base, and driver downloads; Dell also included 3GB of online backup space free for the first year.
Computer Deals provides reviews and information on computers.
July 8th, 2007
We have now entered the world of blogs! Sounds kind of Harry Potterish, doesn’t it?
If you’re over 20 years old, you probably think this is some crazy sci-fi phenomenon, or I’ve simply lost my mind. Don’t fret, the vast majority of people don’t know what a blog is all about and more importantly, why it matters to them.
If you’re under 20 you can stop reading because you probably know all about blogs, and the value they have in sharing information. You’ve been trading game-breaking codes, South Park clips, and jokes through blogs for months now or maybe even years.
In a recent article, Johnson Ong quips “I have a blog. Doesn’t everyone? You mean you don’t? How uncool are you? According to Merriam-Webster, ‘blog’ was the word of the year last year. Not having your own blog is like not having your own Gmail account. What? You don’t have Gmail either? My God, what are you? A caveman!”
Over or under, cool or uncool, I want to address blogs from a business standpoint, and the tremendous value they can deliver to business. There are several reasons that developing a blog is a tremendous strategy for any business.
1) It will increase your web presence significantly the search engines love blogs!
2) It will allow your business to educate customers and prospects about certain subjects, and appear as experts
3) It will raise your business profile with your vendors and other strategic partners, if they are invited to contribute to your blog
4) Other blogs can, and will, take information from your blog, and you will increase your exposure to anyone that participates in the ‘taking’ blog
5) Blogs accept subscribers, and everyone that subscribes to your blog will be constantly updated (pinged) by you with current information
So What is It?
The full name for a blog is a weblog. It’s a repository for articles, newsletters, information, and discussion boards. It’s like a ‘what’s new’ page on the internet in whatever subject you choose. When people research any topics that you have on your blog, they may very well end up on your blog through their search. If you’ve done it right, your blog is of course, fully branded to your company, and linked to your main website.
If you keep current articles, and information on your blog, you will receive hits from people looking for information about those subjects. You will also receive hits from other blogs, and they will then distribute your information to their own audiences.
You will receive hits from contributors of articles or news items, as well as people looking for those particular contributors through a search engine.
Hopefully, you get the picture. Your web traffic should increase exponentially through the proper use of a blog.
Business Blogs
Business blogs have yet to sweep the business community, which presents a significant opportunity to adapt the technology to any business. It will allow you to share expertise and knowledge with a much larger audience, which should create a significant benefit.
There is specific blogging software, and you will have to learn how to create an effective and valuable blog. You will also have to learn how to acquire and produce current industry information to populate your blog with articles that will maintain interest and value. Yes, there is an element of work to it you didn’t think it was free, with no effort required, like the mumps did you?
As you add current information to your subject area, or to secondary subject areas that you may include in your blog, your chances of more hits are higher. If you continually contribute self-generated articles and news items to the appropriate subject areas, your chances also increase. In addition, there are sources that allow you to publish their materials, which can be used to increase the value of the blog, and therefore the likelihood of being found on the good old inter-web.
So How Does It Work?
If you still push the Pause/Break button in the upper right-hand corner of your keyboard to request permission from your boss for a visit to the bathroom, you can skip this part. Otherwise, it’s really not too hard to follow.
Without getting too technical, there are many web robots (bots), crawlers, and spiders, and similar technologies that have RSS Reader capability. That’s the stuff that is specific to blogs. They are basically looking for news, and blogs have that news.
If you do it right, these bots, crawlers, and spiders find your blog, and send information elsewhere, which is just what you want. Your blog is basically yelling at these web ‘beasts’ to “come on in and take this great stuff I’ve got.”
For example, these web ‘animals’ include yahooslurp, googlebot, feedstercrawler, pubsub, syndic8, msnbot, newsgator, CP30, & R2D2.
O.K., the last two were Luke Skywalker’s buddies, but the rest are real.
It will take 4 to 6 weeks for the search engines to adjust rankings but the ultimate result will be that you will progress up the ladder in the engines in the various topic areas that you feature. When people are searching for technologies or subjects that are being discussed in your blog, they will find you on the search engines.
That should be a hint that you should have content on your blog about the subjects that are most often searched.
When a subject is searched that is covered by one of your branded, self-generated articles, your fully branded information may be pulled to another blog, or to a specific person doing a search in that topic area. You can post that same article on your website, and it won’t go anywhere. However, on your blog it gets a shot of super juice, and may just get pushed through any number of doors.
Linking The Benefits Increase Your Brand
When website owners and bloggers (yeah, I’m now a blogger!) think of linking, they are usually referring to inbound links from external websites and blogs. For example, if you had a link to your website on the website of another business.
While adding more inbound links on external sites is important, there is also a sort of ‘reverse’ link strategy associated with blogs.
Your blog’s incoming links will provide another benefit when someone is referred to an article in your blog from another website. For example, through GooglePageRank, the receiving page (you) gets a boost up the search engine when that happens, which helps the blog overall by boosting the popularity of the blog, which in turn is what increases the search results, which in turn drives up the search engine rankings.
What!? I wrote it and I have to read it six times to really follow what I’m saying.
Basically, the more people that visit your blog when they come from other sources, the more likely it is for people to find you when searching for a whole myriad of topics. That type of benefit does not exist with normal website traffic, because those visits don’t effect web site rankings on the search engines. But blog traffic that is through a link from another site will drive you up the search engines. There that’s much more clear!? As clear as fog in a low-lying bog. Ouch!
Web designer Sue Studios says; “Blogs are highly strategic, here-to-stay desktop tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Think of the potential for your e-newsletter strategies:
1) Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation
2) You can offer a bi-directional forum to customers to get true, personal opinion on your products and services
3) Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.”
Well, it’s snowing out so I think I’ll go blogging! Wait, is that something you do in the snow, or is it something you do to stay out of the snow?!
Or is it a Celtic dance? Or should the Steelers have blogged that kick Sunday? I’m confused.
Dennis Schooley is the Founder of Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, a Professional Services Franchise Company. He writes for publication, as well as for schooleymitchell.blogging,com and franchises.blogging.com, in the subject areas of Franchising, and Technology for the Layman. http://www.schooleymitchell.com, 888-311-6477, dschooley@schooleymitchell.com.
June 24th, 2007
I am going to bet that you are not one of the richest people in the world. As a matter of fact, you are probably an average guy or gal who works 40+ hours a week (making money for someone else) and when all the bills are paid, you have very little left to show for it. How do I know this? This describes just about everyone who starts trying to make money online. Therefore, it goes without saying that you would probably be very excited if you had a way to start cashing in without any money down and with no start-up costs. One way to start doing exactly this is to start writing a blog.
Why Blogging Is A Good Idea
Writing a blog is one of the best ways you can get started making money online because you get two things that are very important in my opinion.
The best part about blogging is that there are so many blog sites out there that are free for anyone to use. In the same way that GeoCities gives out free webpages, there are many sites that are turning to giving out free blogs, such as Blogger.com. Using these free blogging services, you could easily have 40-50 money making pages for free.
Why Blogs Get More Traffic
One of the most difficult parts of making money online is actually getting people to visit your website. Lots of people have tried and failed but never learned how to get traffic to their website. The secret is actually very simple. You need to get listed in the search engines. The problem is that most search engines will favor listing you more if they find you on their own. So it quickly becomes a chicken vs. the egg situation. You need to get the search engines to visit you, but you can’t submit to them because of the potential penalties. The great thing about blogging sites is that they are already being crawled by the search engines so you will automatically get listed. Blogs using RSS feeds can be listed even quicker in most cases.
Your First Money Stream
One way to make money with blogs is to sign up for Google Adsense. This is a block of advertisements that you show for Google and they pay you every time someone clicks on one of the ads. The best part about this is that it often monetizes the visitors that weren’t going to buy anything through your site anyway.
The Power Of Reviews
One of the more popular ways to start earning a paycheck is to promote affiliate products. It is a well-known fact that products on the internet sell better not through advertisements, but by reviews and word of mouth. Just think back to the last time you bought a book from Amazon. Did you buy it because it had good reviews? You sure did. The nice thing about blogs is that they are all just opinions posted by ordinary people, and because of this, blogs can be an incredible selling machine just waiting to be released.
What Should You Write About?
I often get asked what is the best topic to write about in a blog. The answer is simple. You should only write about topics that you know something about, otherwise people will detect that you are not being sincere. Pick a topic that you know lots about, and start writing a little bit each day about your topic. The best format could be anything, but think about teaching something to your readers. Make your blog a series of lessons, presented one per day or one per week. This will keep your visitors coming back every, and every time they come back you’ve got another opportunity to make a sale to them.
An Army Of One
Have you ever heard the phrase “There’s power in numbers”? This is especially true for making money online. Most successful online marketers know that when you strike upon an idea that makes you $20 per day, if you do that idea 20 times, you should now be making $400 dollars per day. Therefore it goes without saying that if you have one blog that makes you money, you should make more of them. However, there is a certain way to do this successfully, and if you do it wrong your your blog will get banned by either the blogging site, or worse, by the search engines.
Rob Benwell’s Blogging to the Bank eBook shows you how to do it the right way which will save you the time, money and frustration of trying to figure it out on your own. I’ve got additional information on this eBook on my main website, listed below.
Your Possibilities Are Endless
Overall, there are many ways that you could make money on the internet, but many of them will take more time, energy and money than the average person has to spend on them. Blogs are definitely one of the newest and most effective ways to earn you some cash without taking more from you than it provides. Hopefully, I’ve opened your eyes to an easier, cheaper way for making money online.
Mark Mann has taken affiliate marketing to the max and is working from home on the strength of his 20+ websites. He is now showing the world his top ten list for making money online.
Among his many accomplishments are his eBook downloads site at http://www.cometdeals.com and his new information repository at http://www.factarea.com.
June 5th, 2007
How can a blog best compliment your current article marketing initiative? There are some quick answers, which I’ll break out first and foremost in this article. Secondly I’ll investigate how you should differentiate your blog posts from your articles.
4 Quick Tips for Integrating a Blog into Your Article Marketing Strategy
1) Put your blog directly on your main site. Put one of your business’s main keyword phrases into the title of your blog. Make the url for your blog the name of the blog itself. Frank’s Fish Shop’s blog url should look something like this, depending on how Frank architects his site: http://AquariumFishToday/FranksFishShop.com.
2) Link to your articles from your blog, even though they are on your site. Don’t publish your articles directly in your blog however. Write a little commentary about the article, why you wrote it, what inspired it, who it’s for (thx to SEM wiz bw).
3) Link to and mention those who publish your articles. Not the article directories, but rather the websites or newsletters or even other blogs that publish you. Especially if they are useful resources and if you have a decent relationship and or dialogue with the publisher.
4) Discuss responses to your article, whether good or bad in blog posts. Show the impact your articles have had on your readers. Show, more importantly, that you’re engaged with them.
Differentiating Your Blog Posting and Article Marketing Strategy
A blogging strategy differs significantly from an article marketing strategy, and positions its author differently.
Many writers/marketers simply post entire articles in their blogs. I do, on my article marketing blog, but that’s just because I’m not being particularly strategic at the moment. This is not the ideal method if you’re looking to maximize the benefit of your blogging and article writing efforts can have on your site’s conversions.
These are my opinions about blog posts:
In short, blogs are better for news, commentary and quick analysis while articles are better for establishing your expertise.
This is not entirely a hard and fast rule and should only be followed as a general guideline, especially for those who want to differentiate their blogging efforts from their article marketing efforts.
Executing Your Blogging and Article Marketing Strategy
A dual blogging/article writing strategy is best, as it enables the marketer to position himself as both an industry thought leader by writing great articles and as someone who follows closely the happenings in his industry.
The execution is up to you. Now get writing!
About the Author: Want to build links to your site and enhance your brand? Send custom media questions to GFrench@gmail.com for free media creation brainstorm, including article topic suggestions and key publisher identification for your industry. Visit the Article Marketing blog for article marketing ideas.
May 25th, 2007
One of the best things about the Internet is that it links
creative people to their audience, anywhere in the world. People
can post nearly anything they want online, and be as risqué as
they like. The Internet removes the need for printing,
distribution, and marketing, so a writer or musician can offer
their work to the world at little or no cost. Unsigned bands can
distribute their songs through so many web sites there is now a
website called simply, ‘a semi-comprehensive list of MP3 hosting
& music streaming sites that accept original music by
underground artists, as well as mainstream acts.’
(http://www.therecordindustry.com/record-mp3sitelisting.htm)
In addition to hundreds of fiction and fan fiction sites
offering free text fiction, there are also some brilliant online
comics. One I remain devoted to is ‘Freefall’
(http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00001.htm), which is both
amazing science fiction and incredibly fun, at least in my
opinion. Another one is ‘Sluggy’ by Pete Abrams
(http://www.sluggy.com/), probably the most linked-to comic
after Dilbert. Interestingly, people can pay for Sluggy if they
wish. True ‘Sluggites’ can become a ‘Defender of the Nifty’ and
support the site with a $30 donation. $25 yearly donations in
subsequent years will get ‘Defenders’ ad-free viewing. People
can also buy Sluggy books and merchandise. Or, devoted fans can
read Sluggy religiously for years, praise the comic to their
friends, and discuss it for hours, all without spending a dime.
Pete Abrams offers it purely as ‘Pay If You Want’.
Isn’t the Internet, and the generosity of creative people,
wonderful?
May 23rd, 2007
What is Blog and Ping?
Using Blog and Ping is still the way to go but why blog in the
first place?
I do not know about you but I struggle with all the technical
terms spouted out when people talk about SEO. One I have heard
for a while is Blog & Ping. I will be honest. I have yet to blog
anything. I have hundreds of websites but not one is a blog.
Why? Good question.
Ok Blog & Ping. This is not a perfect definition since I could
not get someone to explain it so I could understand it. The
funny thing is when I read all these forums, emails and sales
letters from these marketing guru’s who are all making a
gazillion dollars every day, I feel like I don’t even know how
to work a computer. I do web design and network maintenance for
a living but they make me feel like I don’t even know where the
power switch is. Sound familiar? Well this EZine is going to
stop that. No hype. No wording to make you feel left out. I just
feel many people leave out the basics on how to do things which
I will try to explain.
The setup of a blog program like wordpress is not hard but I
seem to have this weird aversion to blogs. I will do so many
other SEO type things like look for link exchanges, low cost ppc
words, site keyword tweaking but I won’t find the time to blog!
Maybe it is the constant updating I am afraid of? But I think I
better get on board with this now. And you should too.
Blog & Ping is a process where you have a blog setup, you make a
post and it communicates with these authority type sites to let
them know you have updated your blog. What happens then is these
sites are looked at by google and other search engines for fresh
content. These search engines are like a dog with rabies looking
for the next victim. They are in search of new content…fresh
content. The search engine users want new content. What better
way to give this to them by using newly created blog material.
So what does this mean for you? Get a blog setup today and start
writing. Anything you write yourself qualifies as fresh content
and the search engines will love it. Talk about your site’s
subject and anything related to it. I know it is not easy to sit
and think of something to write but in reality you can get a few
paragraphs out in 15 minutes. If you really hate to write, hire
someone through a service such as scriptlance.com or elance.com
to update your blog. You would be very surprised how cheap this
is. You must have unique fresh content to survive today. I hate
to write. But I am doing it. I am just trying to simplify this
crazy SEO world and break down things to do. Most things I
suggest are things I am doing myself or trying.
If you are very busy … try using a auto blog tool. I bought
one called AutoBlogBui
lder. I have tested it and the features seem perfect for
me as I cannot seem to keep things updated on a schedule. It has
many controls such as how often to update the blog, where the
content comes from and more. The best thing is to be able to use
these blogs which are updated several times a day and put
adsense ads on them! I would suggest you take a look at this
automated tool (which is very easy to setup click this, click
that). The developer even offers a money back guarantee if you
are not satisfied. This is rare as you know no off the shelf
software gives you this type of offer.
I will have more articles on blogging and SEO in the future…
May 20th, 2007
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