Make money online
Archive for March, 2008
Learn to be on a profit from the first day!
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
The first months of our new web business are crucial and in the end the hardest ones. We have all the paperwork prepared, we have the right to sign the papers, we are now our own boss and the world is our oyster. The moment we have the small web firm up we feel the need to conquer the world. Yes, been there, done that (not conquering the world though, we have some more work to do) 
You found out you have your own firm now, try to get from the hangover (I assume you celebrated) and prepare yourself for the life you’ll have as an entrepreneur. Your next steps are important: the way you know how to handle the budget will also result in your early bankruptcy or maybe having a profit from the first day.
Maybe my example won’t be the best one, but I hope some of the things I can present here might help you too. No, I am not rich from my web business, but I was on the “positives” from month 1. Here is how I did it all:
Just showing a car in your header won’t make you John Chow
Friday, March 28th, 2008
I have posted this article in the blogging section, but I assume it’s as valuable as advice for anything we do online (even in real life). I see way too many people try to mimic others, copy sites, copy articles, take an idea and use it too, just because they think their copycat site would be as successful as the original.
We talk about the car on the John Chow blog, even if this is just an example: we can refer here to many things, not just stealing a famous header idea. So the guy makes lots of bucks. OK, let’s find a prototype car, the most UFO like the better, put it in the header and see what else we can take. (more…)
Why do I exist online?
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
“Why do I exist online?” would be the question I like to ask myself from time to time. OK, I have a network of sites, I am a web designer, I am a content creator and also a forum manager, not to mention blogger. Am I here to make money online? To offer content and help others? Mix these two? Why do others exist? Do they really bring in something good to this world? Would the internet be less rich if their sites would cease existing? Would we all be thrilled to not see them again?
I visit tens of sites daily. Some I can’t live without, some I’d delete myself from the servers they occupy with no use to anyone, but the one who created the junk. I see people run scam sites, MFAs, splogs, who are just for some easy money. They don’t care about the fact they don’t help anyone, they just try to cheat the system. We have the copy-pasters who steal our work and pass it as theirs, the porn site managers who deal with something very tricky, we have the social media sites, the forum owners, we have the personal sites and blogs, we have them all.
From time to time I try to find out why I am here with my sites. What drives me daily in this online world: easy money, content, spam? What am I here for?
5 reasons for you to NOT start a blog
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
This idea came after I had a member in one of my webmaster forums asking me if he should start a blog. He admitted he’s considering this, but still he is now that sure he does want to open such a project. He asked us to give him reasons to start a blog and since I always liked twisted articles and ideas, here are some reasons for you to NOT START A BLOG
1. Because you need me to tell you “start a blog”.
It’s very simple: if you need me and my other members to convince you to start blogging, maybe it’s not the best idea to begin with. When I started blogging, I did it because I FELT THE NEED. Since I couldn’t care less about trends and the herds following them, I started a blog when I felt I want to share some of my ideas and not because it’s cool and few people make a fortune out of them.
I have seen way to many useless blogs in the last years and most of them shouldn’t exist. In a perfect world, where only useful and quality things would be “alive”, the internet would have 1% of the sites it has right now. We would rule out the spammers, MFA sites creators and all the junk we have to put up with daily.
A blog is a personal thing (when we talk about online diaries) and a project filled with good information presented by each of us as we can and understand to do so. It’s true that we all kinda use the same information, but we present it in our own way. Some are very serious, some are joking, others are plain cynical. We are who we are and this attracts people to our projects.
So, if you think you can come out to hundreds of potential visitors a day and present your ideas the best you can, then by all means do so. But if you’re thinking you’ll hit it big with a useless splog or you just don’t feel like blogging, then spare us the thrill of having to ignore yet another useless site.
Get something more from that crappy Entrecard traffic
Monday, March 24th, 2008
I know how you all hate Entrecard related posts, so I won’t chime in with yet another useless one to tell you how cool it is and how much traffic I am getting from it. I will though talk about HOW to make sure that traffic is less crappy as it should be in such a program.
If you want repeated QUALITY visitors and many comments, then just don’t go to Entrecard. Just like StumbleUpon, Digg and other schemes like these, Entrecard is a good way to get visitors, but the bounce rate is HORRIBLY HIGH. Yes, Entrecard traffic is crappy traffic, but it’s traffic in the end. It’s still good because you do get some visits (quite many if you are active there) and you might also discover some nice blogs to befriend with. Some of the biggest blogs are also present in the program, so maybe it’s not that bad anyway.
Let’s see now HOW to make sure some of this non-quality traffic turns into repeated visitors who are actually interested in what you write there, not just to drop that stupid card and be out of the blog before you can say “spam”.
1. You do get what you give.
So, you know about some scripts that can help you drop 300 cards in 3 minutes. Or less, or automate this process and earn as many credits as possible while not giving a damn about the blogs you visit? I think you have the big chance of getting the same result as the poeple you try to “fool” in this game.
Before you download that script think about this: “Would I like my visitors to use such scripts so that they don’t have to spend less than 1 second on my blog?”. Are you happy thinking you spent yet another hour writing that meaningful post 99% of your visitors won’t even bother reading, because they are interested in just dropping a card and be on their way?
In the end how DO YOU FEEL about this?
I can tell you with all sincerity that it saddens me, especially since I know how much I work for my articles and how useful some of these are. In the end I didn’t open my blog just to be ignored, I love it when people come and read and why not, even comment.
This is why I DO NOT use ANY automation script. I do visit each blog, even if it does take a while. And from hundreds of crappy blogs (yes, so many are just junk) I have found some excellent ones I also commented. And I am thrilled to be able to visit them daily and read some more of their great articles.
2. Search for relevant blogs.
