Make Money Online With A 13-Year Old

Archive for October, 2007

Avoid The Pitfalls And Problems Of Making Money Online – xFep Review

By Carl On October 31, 2007 1 Comment

If you're new here, you really should subscribe to my blog's Full RSS feed for FREE! You don't want to miss informative posts! Thanks!

Post sponsored by David of eXtra For Every Publisher

I’ve made a whole bunch of slumps when I started this blog, count the pitfalls that I’ve fallen too. We all make mistakes at first, but what if we were able to prevent them? What if we didn’t work on something that isn’t actually working, if we haven’t joined another pyramiding site? We could’ve achieved more, more at where we are right now.

eXtra For Every Publisher

With that on mind, let me introduce to you eXtra For Every Publisher or for short ‘xFep’ a blog that to help you avoid the pitfalls and potential problems on the way to making your living online.

xFep is owned and managed by David Peralty. David’s blog has made some noise in the blogosphere lately, not only being featured at Problogger but even gets lots of link loves with his spiffy podcasts that cover stories from the top 100 make money online blogs.

But, with that professionalism, can you imagine that this blog only started this mid July? Now that’s what I call eXtreme!

Who is David Peralty

Well, David didn’t really started from scratch, he’s a director at Bloggy Network and has been working for them for more than two years. David just blogs himself off on his free time (Wow, am I seeing the next Darren Rowse here)

If you want to know more about David, you can check out his about page in his personal blog. It’s completely unique and detailed – From his job to a lovely Xbox 360!

Design

One word – ‘clean’ I mean look at it, the content is just popping out. You’ll clearly see that it’s a blog about blogging and making money online.

The only thing that I got for xFep is its dull header. A bright and powerful logo would greatly add to the user-experience and first impression of the blog.

Monetization

The site isn’t heavily monetized at all. The only thing I can see in the frontpage right now is the 125 x 125 square ads that are placed prominently on the top left section of the sidebar and the puny little AdSense ads below the post entry. David also does sponsored reviews like this and I’m very impressed at how honest he is when writing one.

At this point of time, I can see that xFep is NOT a blog where David cashes in. He’s a director of bloggy network anyway.

The Good and The Bad

So let’s sum up the review!

The Good

• Clean and easy to the eyes design
• Quality articles
• You can clearly see the professionalism of the site
• Non obscure ads
• Don’t forget the spiffy podcasts!

The Bad

• Dull header that makes me like to go away
• The email updates form needs a little push up
• There’s almost nothing bad about the blog, I love it!

Bookmarked and Subscribed!

There’s nothing better than learning from an experienced Problogger – And working in a blog network adds up the value. Go check out xFep right now and subscribe to his… wait a second, it’s not in full David?

I guess he’ll turn that full feed RSS soon enough. Better subscribe now as he’s changing something BIG in the first days of November, you don’t want to miss BIG things!

UPDATE: I’ve just chatted with David and it seems like the feed just cuts because of the more tag, he’ll be adding a plugin soon to enable full feed RSS. So better subscribe now!

Making High Profile Bloggers Reply To Your Emails – With Example Inside!

By Carl On October 29, 2007 17 Comments

Getting a reply from an A-lister is certainly not most of us can get, although we can’t sue them for that because, even I at this stage gets around 15 emails a day so how much more for them? But of course, there’s always a solution for every problem.Adnan of Blogtreprenuer commented on the Best Blog Tip of Seth Godin that gave me an idea for this post. If you’re too lazy to click the link, here’s what he said:

Awesome quote – and I would expect nothing less from Seth, especially after reading Purple Cow. Really motivational – well done on getting that Carl.

Actually I didn’t expect a reply from Seth when I emailed him because I dropped it directly through his standard email where loads of people contact him (No contact forms, etc.). But after 20 minutes, there goes the tip. Quick reply much?

That made me think, I mean almost 70% of the emails I send to high profile bloggers get replies. I could be doing right things here… And yes, I did.

Here are some of them, take these as a guide and always apply them to every blogger you know:

Emailing Them At The Right Time

I emailed Seth around 10+ PM here and that’s currently around morning in the US (We’re at +8 GMT). If you email a high profile person in the evening, the times were most likely he won’t open his inbox, your message will go down and gets bumped by other people’s messages.

Try sending them in the mornings (in their time of course!) and hit the time where they get up and check their inbox. I’d suggest observe first what time they post on their blog. An hour or two before that time is the best moment to send your email because he probably checks his inbox before he posts. Like what most of us do!

Stand Out Like A Sore Purple Cow

Ok, the sore was just an exaggeration, be unique as possible. It would be better if you could find a way to send your email with a headline as you can play and experiment what works and what sucks.

Convert the “I have a question” subject to something more challenging in their part because people/experts like to be challenged i.e. “A Question You Can Never Answer” then just explain why you used the headline. Haha!

Use Other Contact Options

As I stated above, I emailed Seth directly in his main email address. That gives me a lesser chance to get a reply. That address I bet gets hoard of emails everyday.

Try other options, like their MySpace or Facebook profile that only few people can see, Less messages and higher chance for a reply.

Don’t Hit Them Right To The Point

I hate it when people ask me “Read this article and link to it, it’s very useful” It’s too hard for me to even click the link they gave me.

Hit them in a softer way. Introduce yourself, flatter them. Give something in return.

Be Personal, He’s Your Friend

One thing I’ve observed about the people who email me is that they treat me like I’m an A-lister, bigger & better than them.

There’s nothing wrong with that but why not make it more personal? Stop using Sir’s, use their name. Crack them up on something. Talk like he’s your friend, because they’re still ordinary people.

There’s Nothing Better Than A Live Example

You can’t learn basketball reading, neither Karate nor Baseball. That applies to almost everything too, so here’s one for your email:

Subject: From A Laughing Fan – You Nailed Me

Hey A-lister,

How’s life doing there, I found your post about the dog who ate the cat, and man was that funny! My dog once bit my leg but ate a cat?!

Great work on your blog, you’ve been my number one inspiration from the start. Keep the great bites, err pots coming.

And by the way, I have a cat here that needs to be fed, can you help me with this?

Thanks for the time,

Cheers,
Carl Ocab

Be Creative

For the last tip, and probably the best one. Be creative, that differentiates us humans from computers. We have the special ‘touch’ perse. Don’t limit yourself.

Oh Geesh, So You Think You’ll Win TLA?

By Carl On October 27, 2007 15 Comments

The other day when I posted my hypothesis on why websites’ pagerank dropped, I left TLA an email asking will they ever put the nofollow tag in their ads so I can continue to use them. Surprisingly they replied like a man under a rock, here’s the transcript of our emails:

ME: “Will you ever consider putting the “nofollow” attribute in your text links so I can continue using TLA? I am worried about Google penalizing me for selling links that pass pagerank and link juice”

TLA: “No, we will not. Nofollow is for comment spam, not for advertisements.”

ME: “How about this:
http://searchengineland.com/071007-173841.php”

TLA: “Carl,

Searchengineland is not Google. They are not the authority on the matter.”

ME: “Sure,

here’s google:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/”

TLA: “Carl,

Maybe you missed his disclaimer.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/disclaimer

“This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer.”

ME: “Ok, here’s some more:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/
answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736″

TLA: “Carl,

That makes Google a bit of a hypocrite now, doesn’t it.”

ME: “Haha. You cracked me up there dude.

I guess you should do your homework now and tell Patrick
what’s happening ;-)”

What were they thinking? I’ve got proof and there’s no way you can clog me up.

At least that man made my day :razz:

Oh btw, I don’t hate TLA. It’s just that if they don’t put the nofollow tag on the ads I’ll stop using their service, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop using feedvertising and their affiliate!

Dropped? A Detailed Hypothesis Of Why Google Dropped Our Pagerank

By Carl On October 25, 2007 24 Comments

First of all, I have to be honest with you that I don’t totally care about Pagerank. I did a few months ago but when I realized that it was nothing but a number between 1 to 10, it stopped my obsession.

Think about a world without pagerank. No spamming, no blackhat guys, no linktrains, no linkbuying, no linkfarming and no stupid threads on DP people asking when the next pagerank update is. Well then here it is your long awaited pagerank update. It’s not what you expected, didn’t you?

It happened yesterday, October 24 when Google shattered the blogosphere. It was all around. Someone even made a comic strip about it.

Questions have been roaming around lately on what really happened and why did all these sites’ PR dropped. No one really knows, but here are my theories about it:

Text Links

It has been confirmed, yet people just tend to ignore it – and I’m one of those so here I am with PR 3 blog (from PR 4)

I understand why Google doesn’t let people buy and sell links, it’s for better results anyway. Just imagine if you search for something you really need and all you get are spammy sites plastered with ads and with no useful content, that would be hell.

So about an hour ago, I sent all my text link advertisers a confirmation email if it was ok for them that I add the nofollow attribute on their links. Although I don’t really sell link juice because all my ads are for traffic purposes only, it will be essential to put the “nofollow” tag in their links to be sure that Google won’t have a second thought on my site.

Blog Network Interlinking

Engadget’s PR drop down from 7 to 5, Autoblog’s was from 6 to 4, Problogger’s and Copyblogger’s dropped down from 6 to 4 too. Yes, they don’t sell links but in this instance what do they have in common?

Problogger and Copyblogger are all part of the b5media and for your info, b5media blogs are interlinked with each other. Though Problogger and Copyblogger don’t link to any of them but the whole network does. Same anchor text, links and etc. I bet they’re not doing it to game Google but who knows what Google thinks. Same with Engadget and Autoblog, it’s worse on their side because they link with each other. Meaning they’re giving reciprocal links which can be considered as a link farm.

Widget Bucks?

Shoemoney has a post about this. It started when a high profile blogger told him that one of the causes of PR drop on some blogs was the widget bucks. Due to the fact that you are not allowed to remove the Widget Bucks’s link on the widget, you’re considered linking to them – and they’re currently penalized (give their name a search and they’re nowhere to be seen in the SERP)

I guess they really pissed off Google about their TOS that says you’re not allowed to remove the backlink to their site on their widget

Back-links placed by Mpire in the HTML code must not be removed.

Haha… good one

Contests with Links

This could be one possibility. Launching contests especially if you have big prizes like what Darren recently did can attract hundreds of links. Google, as a robot will immediately flag you for that. You can be deflagged but it would be better if you inform them before you launch so no harm will be done.

Linkloves

In the Google webmaster guidelines, there’s a statement there which says that a single webpage’s reasonable number of active links is just below 100. Link loves, linktrains and group writing projects can be a little harmful if not moderated or posted with care.

Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Google just hates us

Almost all of the “make money online” blogs’ PR dropped from the recent update, is it possible that Google just hates us? Nahh… Be optimistic. At least all of the blogs in your niche has low PR’s, nothing changed. It’s all equal :twisted:

My Best Blog Tip EVER Series – Seth Godin

By Carl On October 24, 2007 20 Comments

Today is one of the most exciting and honorable day of the “My Best Blog Tip” series.

For today’s guest is a very very special person. A demigod in the internet according to Forbes, the author of 9 best selling books and one of the most popular ebook in the internet “The Idea Virus” Founder of Yoyodyne which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998 and the remarkable Squidoo where anyone can become a lensmaster and make a webpage for free.

Please welcome our guest to give his best blog tip EVER – Seth Godin

His Best Blog Tip EVER:

Be patient. Do good work, keep doing good work and then do more good work. That’ll pay off.

I know, we know it’s obvious. My parents have told me that LOADS of times and I bet their parents also told that to them too. We tend to overlook things which are right in front of us. We think that these tips are old fashioned that might not work anymore because we think that we’re in the internet age where all things are advanced and techie. These are timeless principles, it will never be changed. It’s the law of nature. It’s the golden rule. It’ll work work work.

And one last thing, I honestly expected a long one from this guy because he’s the guru of the gurus. When I read his tip at first I was like very disappointed, but when I reread it several times. It was like yeah that’s right, I get it. It’s one of the best blog tip EVER.

Offices Suck, Home is Cool! – A WhyDoWork Review

By Carl On October 21, 2007 4 Comments

Post sponsored by The Rivards of WhyDoWork (WDW)

If you haven’t made enough money in your own online business (i.e. your own website, your own blog, etc.) and hate the timeless traffic on the road to work, why not get an online job? It’s work, it’s a job but the BIG difference is, you don’t get up early, you don’t pay the gas and best of all you don’t get frustrated with the never ending traffic!

Ok, I guess I got you now because that deal above is pretty sweet, but for a nobrainer guy where would you start?

Voila! Meet WhyDoWork

WhyDoWork is a community driven website where you can find companies offering work at home jobs, telecommuting stuff and the like. If you want to be the next Perez Hilton then just give them a search, or maybe ghostwrite some articles. It’s up to you.

The Telecommuting Job Search Engine

With just one click of a button, WhyDoWork will help you find a work at home job. Although I have observed that their search engine just pulls job offers from craigslist. That means the actual company didn’t post from their site. Well at least their site looks better than craigslist!

Don’t Forget The Forums

WhyDoWork also offers an ACTIVE forum. With over 27,000 members and a whopping 55,371 posts, you’ll get replies in no time. If you think of it again, 50k posts from 27k members isn’t really a good ratio. On average that’s just 2 posts per member which means that many members are not participating in the forums, some are just there to look around and read some stuff.

The WDW forum concentrates on topics like freelancing, affiliate marketing, get paid to ___ programs, etc.

Featured On Google and Yahoo News, Reader’s Digest And More!

Yep, that’s right they’ve been featured on quite a good number of magazines and news sites.

So that’s the reason of the big spikes in their Alexa ranking.

Another iPod On The Fly?!

Just to celebrate the spookiness of Halloween, WDW is giving away a brand new, video playing iPod nano (any color you like).

All you have to do is, subscribe to their blog’s feed to gain 1 point and to blog about it to gain 5 points.

So does this count as an entry? :razz:

The Good and The Bad

The Good

• Cool design
• Non obtrusive ad placements
• Quick and easy job search
• Great homepage featuring other parts of the site
• It’s Holloween there!

The Bad

• The job search is fine, but it would be cool if they can get their own job posting site so companies can also post if they’re looking for other proffesions.
• The sidebar wrecks the whole art

Conclusion

WhyDoWork, an all in one site concentrating about “work at home”, with a search engine, forum, blog, product reviews and a huge list of Work At Home Employers – What could be better?!

It’s worth a search err try.