Archive

29. November 2007:

How Not To Make Money Online

Before tackling the posts on making money online, I decided to write briefly about things that don't work. If you've ever been tempted by any of these things, I strongly recommend you think again. This is not to say that they never work for anyone - there are exceptions to every rule - but please, don't be fooled by the hype.

I have lost count of the number of "programs" I have been pitched with over the years, all taking a similar line and baiting their hooks with the same visual and audio psychology. Each time I see a squeeze page with a picture of some tropical paradise (beat you to that one Mr or Mrs "marketer") a flash car, a big house or a combination of all three, I smile inside and walk rapidly away. I suggest you do the same - every time. If you really think something is too good to pass up, check it out thoroughly before you start spending your hard earned money - it usually doesn't take much searching to find some unfortunate people who didn't think and ended up paying the price. Contain your excitement and research it if you really must.

It is nice to believe that we could all sit at our computers for 30 minutes a day and never have to do anything more than check our bank balances every hour to see how many thousands have been deposited. Be realistic folks, this is a pitch, real life doesn't work that way. As a general rule of thumb, those that need to use words like "shocking", "hidden secrets revealed" and similar sensationalist copy, should really be avoided. 

If you want to see evidence of some of the things thousands of people (amazingly) put their faith in, all you need do is visit a few traffic exchanges. It's extremely educational and harsh evidence of how faith overrides common sense for literally thousands of people. As examples, here are just a fraction of things that you see being tried...

1) Set up some free blogger blogs, choose a 'niche' and publish two or three rehashed third party articles. Throw up some affiliate banners and PPC ads - surf traffic exchanges and watch the money roll in. Not going to happen!

2) Sign up for a free "online store", or similar, get your "own website" surf the traffic exchanges and watch the money roll in. Dream on. Remember, when most people want a drink they buy it from a store, usually when they are thirsty - I do - not many of us search online for the latest greatest health food supplement, energy drink etc etc, no matter how many millions might be spent on such products every year, if you really believe that "now it's your turn to profit from this huge global market", fair play and good luck to you.

3) Join Clickbank, grab your "hoplinks" indiscriminately and surf the traffic exchanges - you will soon see the money pouring in from all those 75% commissions. Erm....let's hope you learned that lesson a long time ago.

4) Sign up for every free "downline builder" "traffic generator" and as many "blasters" as you can. Before you know it you will have thousands of visitors all ready and willing to throw money your way. In actual fact, a quick check on any domain will usually tell you just how much traffic these peddlers of "massive website traffic" actually generate for themselves. This should tell you something, unless of course you believe that they're only concerned with getting visitors for you, you lucky devil, thank the Lord you found such an abundance of altruistic experts eh?

5) Join Agloco or similar......ha ha ha ha......

6) Join countless PTP, paid to read email, paid to click programs, surf the traffic exchanges promoting your "affiliate" pages and build huge downlines so that you can watch the cash flooding your bank account.........come on, you know better right?

7) Listen to the experts who tell you that squeeze pages and lead capture pages are the only way forward, that without them you are leaving thousands on the table. They will "sell you" a squeeze page and a year's hosting for that page.....blah blah. Use a splash page that redirects to.....erm, yeah, that generic, same as thousands of others free program - because this will make a REAL difference. Buy into all this, you'll soon be making.......nothing if not peanuts. One of the most common pitches on the traffic exchanges is for things that will help you be more successful with....you guessed it, traffic exchanges. Usually by the owners of traffic exchanges......odd.

8 If the free blog idea didn't work, grab a free hosting deal and slap up lots of banners and links to every useless program you ever joined and believe that this will somehow make those useless programs more attractive to others and people will flock to them, thus making you rich almost overnight.

9) Join a program where you pay for a "cookie cutter" website to promote more useless programs, opportunities and Clickbank products in the guise of "reviews" and watch the floods of cash....the excitement will be too much, trust me.

10) Increase the chances of all of the above ideas working by adding video and photographs of yourself. Don't forget that people believe what they see and if you use your webcam to film yourself flamboyantly opening FedEx packages full of money for example, there will be enough fools out there who will go to bed envious of your success and dreaming of the same. Some of them might even stump up hundreds of dollars in the vain hope that you are telling the truth as opposed to being a liar and a thief.

OK, ten will do for now, there are plenty more but hopefully you get the message. You might think, in light of the foregoing, that I don't think much of traffic exchanges, but, in actual fact, despite what many believe, they can be a useful avenue of free promotion. It all depends what you are offering, nothing more, nothing less. Before all the cheerleaders accuse me of being anti, I'll just say that I will talk more about that soon. I should also add that yes, people do make money with PTR, PTP and PTC programs - usually the program owners and the very early members who secure large numbers of signups.

For a series about making money online, this might seem a negative and useless post but what I'm asking you to remember is, there are no "magic bullets" and if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it really probably is......a duck. It's all been said before - YES, it has, but the fact is it can't be repeated often enough while thousands of internet users are being scammed or misled by the unscrupulous. In the next post I'm going to get more specific, but that's your warning shot across the bows! In the meantime, if you have personal experiences of any similar ventures, good or bad, why not share them with the rest of us? We've probably, if we're honest, all tried some hopeless things online so don't be shy. If you want to warn others about specific programs, go right ahead.

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23. November 2007:

Kiosk Hosting - Huge Thanksgiving Deal

Kiosk Hosting are offering an awesome hosting deal for Thanksgiving. However, there are only five and a half hours left for you to take advantage of this very special offer.

70 gigs of space, unlimited domains, unlimited CPanel accounts, massive bandwidth, unlimited databases and much more.

Already a market leader, this represents great value for money, so be quick. Just visit the following link.

Kiosk.ws Hosting Thanksgiving Blowout 



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23. November 2007:

Get Camtasia Studio Free

Here’s a great chance to get a full working copy of Camtasia Studio, the video software for free. This is not an affiliate link, and it’s not a restricted version of the program either.

This offer found its way into my inbox via another online marketer. I don’t know how long the company will be offering this free download and activation key, but even if you don’t need it right now, it’s worth downloading for future use. All you need to do is follow the links below to get your free copy. Enjoy.

Download Camtasia Studio Here

Get Your Free Activation Key Here

Technorati Tags: Camtasia Studio, Get Camtasia Free, Camtasia Free Download

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20. November 2007:

Facebook (Giving In To The Inevitable)

After being called out for not having a Facebook account the other day, I've finally decided to add my profile to the millions of others out there on the social networking platform. I've only had a very brief amount of time to dig around in its myriad of options but if anyone is interested, I've placed a link to my profile at the foot of the sidebar.

Whilst I have nothing against social networking sites, there are simply not enough hours in the day for me to give them all my attention, thus my reluctance to open up yet another account in a new virtual space. I have to say it looks pretty good though, even if rather forlorn and empty in my little corner, so I will be trying to squeeze it into my routines where possible. If you are a Facebooker already and want to add a Johnny Come Lately as a contact, please drop by and say hello :-)



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20. November 2007:

Making Money Online - Venturing Into The Jungle

Shortly after the brave announcement that I was going to write a mini series on the subject of making money online a lot of my brewing thoughts were echoed on a few other blogs that I read on a regular basis. Some of what has been said has perhaps made my own articles a little redundant, although I do have a fair few additional things to add and talk about, and I’m busy reworking a lot of content! In all probability, much of what I plan to write has already been said on one of the 100,000,000 blogs already out there, but it's all about getting you to think about the ideas and finding what works for you.

However, as I am currently running at full throttle on things elsewhere and finding precious little time to blog, I’m going to share a few of these excellent articles to add to your own resources and get you started. The ever entertaining and informative Rob Watts over at YackYack has published some great information about making money online and dealing with blogging and affiliate programs. I was also led to a well written and in depth post on the same subject by Yaro Starak at Entrepreneur’s Journey entitled The Secret To Big Profits Selling Affiliate Products From Your Blog.

Whilst some of what they discuss might seem obvious, they are all well worth a read. My own thoughts are ongoing and I will be talking more about affiliate programs myself, along with a steadily growing list of ideas that people have used, and are using, to make money online. One very significant piece of advice that is constantly repeated is this - get your own domain(s) and web hosting. Whilst it is possible to be financially successful online without this small investment, you are significantly restricting yourself if you continue to ignore its importance.

This is not a dig at those who blog on free platforms, but hosting opens up a world of possibilities that go far beyond blogging, and it will significantly increase your abilities to earn. Again, I’ll discuss this in more detail in future posts.

The point is, there are so many things you could be doing, but have maybe never even thought of. As a blogger it is all too easy to focus on nothing but your blog in your quest for income and end up wasting a lot of time on things that give very small returns. Blogs nowadays are littered with PPC ads and widgets that are probably earning them very little in the way of reliable income.

As an example, I actually have a reasonable downline in Widget Bucks, but it would appear that very few of those people are earning any money - the vast majority returning a full house of zeros every day. This type of PPC advertising is great for sites that are product focussed, (negative Widget Bucks press notwithstanding) but it’s doubtful that most people visiting a blog in the MMO niche are looking to by electrical goods or the like. WB is not a bad program, it pays well per click, but in the wrong place it will disappoint.

Luckily, it doesn’t all begin and end with low return PPC and paid advertising and I’m hoping to encourage you to think of new and exciting ways to put money in your pocket, but it’s going to take a bit of time to cover such a huge subject. In the meantime, if you haven’t done so already, you should consider adding the following well established blogs to your regular reading list/feed reader of choice, as they discuss regularly all aspects of making money online. Yes there are hundreds of others, some of whom will be mentioned in good time but we can’t possibly read all of them and being selective is the next best thing.

CashQuests and DoshDosh and, for making money blogging, Darren Rowse at ProBlogger is probably one of the leading lights. It has to be said however, that whilst a good read, all of them often advocate things that may well work well for them, but will not be suitable for your own blog(s). High traffic and large subscriber bases mean that many top bloggers can leverage their popularity into successes that just won’t translate for all of us, but as sources of ideas and inspiration they are still invaluable.

I'll end this brief bulletin with a little mantra  - Experiment, experiment, experiment........ 

TCH

Technorati Tags: Earning Money Online, Make Money Online

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18. November 2007:

Free SEO Help From Axandra

The makers of the excellent IBP software have just announced a short (five sections) course via email to show users how to get the best out of their free SEO and submission software suite. I've used IBP for several years and it is an excellent tool to have on your computer, providing a host of useful information and making submissions to search engines and directories a much easier task as well as making site optimization far easier. Probably one of the best free SEO programs out there in my opinion. 

If you would like to read more and find out what the software can do to help your sites, just pop your information in the boxes provided in my sidebar (under the heading "Get Top Search Ranking") and they will do the rest.

Don't worry, your information will never be shared with anyone and will only be used in connection with this offer.



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18. November 2007:

Cool Blog Widgets - OurStory.com

Blog widgets are everywhere these days, but OurStory.com caught my eye as being rather different and well worth a blog post. It’s something that will probably appeal to those with personal blogs rather than business oriented ones, but that’s not to say the concept is only of interest to bloggers. That is only part of the picture. This idea is going to appeal to a huge number of internet users who wish to capture, share and preserve stories of life.

ourstorycapture

So what is OurStory.com? Well, in the most basic of terms it’s a program that enables you to tell stories, to share them either publicly or just with family and friends. It’s a new concept in online journals if you prefer, a way for any number of people, to store and interact with one another, sharing a "timeline" organized collection of life stories. The applications for this are extremely wide ranging and there is a video on the site explaining exactly what can be done with the service, with examples of how many people are already using it to store and share everything from stories of their children’s lives, their parent’s lives, their own life experiences, their love stories, their travels, their family history and so much more.

The site enables people use multimedia, pictures, video and the written word to embellish and archive all that has been important to them - it’s almost like scrap booking but with all the bells and whistles of the digital age. I can see it being hugely popular among those who want to store and share nostalgic stories and important events in the lives of those around them and the interactivity, which is controllable by the owner of the OurStory.com timeline, is quite impressive.

The program owners have also enabled the option to integrate the whole thing with almost any website. You can embed any OurStory timeline into your MySpace Friendster, Blogger, TypePad, Xanga, Multiply or Wordpress sites and you can customize the size and design of the timeline to match the look and feel of your pages.

The service is free to use, and brings a whole new world for people to build life stories and share them with whoever they please, allowing contributions from others to build a database of information about their lives and the important moments in those lives. It allows users to make instant email notifications to their chosen audience, and in turn permits chosen people to add their own pictures or observations to the timeline. Staying in touch has now been made even more simple, comprehensive and interactive than ever before.

Technorati Tags: Scrapbooking, Genealogy, History, Life Stories, Love Stories, Wedding Albums, Births and Deaths, Family History, Sharing Stories, Digital Scrapbooks, Online Journals, Personal Journals

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14. November 2007:

Oh No...More About Making Money Online

Making Money Online - thousands are doing it, countless thousands more are trying to do it, and even thousands more would like to do it.

You’d think that in view of the numbers we’re talking here, and taking into account the amount of people giving advice on how to do it, it should be pretty simple right? The fact is, there are so many variables involved, that finding that elusive formula that works for you, is usually subject to so many outside influences that most people give up long before they come close to any real breakthroughs.

dollarbill

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ve decided to throw some thoughts together about the whole thing. I have no idea what order they will come in and some of it will just be thinking out loud, in the hope that some feedback will be forthcoming. I’ll publish links to the people and places who are far more qualified than me on a wide variety of subjects in the hope that by the end of it all, I will have published something useful for everyone who reads it. I plan to talk about things that don’t work, just as much as things that do, most based on personal experience, but some maybe not. I’ll give opinions that anyone is free to challenge in the hope that it adds to the whole subject. I’ll also try to ensure that it’s useful for people at every stage of the make money online journey. I’ll also talk about a lot of things that are just plain commonsense (I hope). A shall probably fall on my ass a few times too, so feel free to chuckle and comment on the howlers when they come!

I should add a small disclaimer at the outset - I do not make thousands of dollars a month online, and I don’t claim to have any magic answers for online hopefuls, but if I can save people time and trouble, water a few struggling seeds and say only one thing that helps, I guess it will be worth it :-)

That's it - no links today, just an introduction to the idea. 

(If posting is a little erratic over the next couple of weeks, I apologize in advance but we have a lot going on here at the moment!)

If you’re not already a subscriber, why not do it now and you won’t miss any of the upcoming series - go hit that big orange globe or click the email link, top right...yeah, that’s the one - go on, you know you want to! Subscribe, Subscribe, it makes sense even when nothing else does!!


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13. November 2007:

What Sucks and What Doesn't This Week

This is just a good old fashioned "roundup" of worthy links and information to start off the week.

Smorty have been much blogged about recently since launching a referral program. I’d been meaning to investigate their service for some time so I headed on over to their website and complete their publisher sign up process. Foolishly, I didn’t thoroughly read the terms before doing so. The following day I received notice that my blog was declined, not just for being c**p, just that they have a policy of only accepting blogs installed in a root domain. Now, had I read their terms I could have avoided the trouble, but it’s a rule that will certainly exclude a lot of decent blogs. What’s stranger though, is that blogs installed on a subdomain are fine. The reasons for these policies? Your guess is as good as mine.

So, maybe their program works fine for some bloggers but they don’t fit the bill for me. (There is no apparent way to delete the declined blog or the account as a whole, and I was unable to edit the URL to remove the ’/blog’). I’m not sure the site installed in my root here at TCH is suitable for Smorty, so I’ve decided not to bother. A shame, as I think I could have pulled in some good referral numbers. I’ll not say it sucks, but it has some sucky rules. So, what else can be considered suckworthy this week....

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12. November 2007:

Would You Buy a Phony Feed Count?

I hope your answer to that is no, and if it’s not you should read the recent post over at CashQuests about why paying to fake your RSS subscriber numbers is stupid.

I’d say that was pretty much common sense, but you can bet that some people will fall into the trap. Is that because their bad people? Misguided would be a kinder word, but the person who came up with this "service" is definitely more than a little misguided. As the article explains, faking a feed count is nothing new, but trying to charge people to do it takes the biscuit! If something can be gamed or cheated, someone will do it. Sometimes you have to grudgingly admire their inventiveness, but this isn’t one of those times.

Other than that, I don’t have much to add, but I thought the idea deserved as much negative publicity as possible. If you must do it, the advice at Internet Marketing Sucks is far more useful and keeps your dollars in your pocket!

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12. November 2007:

Five Questions About The CaymanHost Online

Getting tagged for a meme is not always welcomed, but if it is initiated by a good online friend, it seems churlish to refuse and this is one I'm happy to participate in. Josh Spaulding recently asked me to participate in a meme entitled "5 Questions About The Online You" which was born over at a WAHM blog, Home With Heather.

Coming as it did over a weekend when I was preoccupied with promoting a weekend hosting sale at my primary online affiliate business, it’s taken me a day or two to figure out my response, but, for what it’s worth, here are my considered answers to the five questions:-

(That’s my mugshot if you haven’t already seen my redneck persona before, the face behind the blog. Real name is Maurice, though I’m usually referred to as just "Mo" plus a variation of other unprintable names :-) depending on who you’re talking to.

1) How Long Have You Been Blogging?

It seems like a very long time! My current blog has only been around since May of this year however. I started a personal blog several years ago when Blogspot was first launched and like so many of the same ilk, it slowly died and has long since drifted quietly off to blog heaven (or probably hell). Blogging became an on and off thing for me over the years, although with The Cayman Host I am far more serious about it.

2) What Inspired You To Start A Blog and Who Are Your Mentors?

I’m not sure inspired is the right word in relation to my first attempts at blogging. It was just free and something new to do online at the time. Before blogs existed, my first attempts at building a website were inspired by a long recuperation from an operation and sheer boredom. I had the time so I built my first website about Advanced Motorcyling, teaching myself HTML and writing it all in Notepad. Remembering it now makes me smile at the awfulness of the design, but I was proud of it nonetheless. The first blog I ever took seriously was inspired by my wife and her artist’s passion. I guess you could say she has been an inspiration to me in more areas of my life than I can count, but that’s a whole book by itself :-) Since starting the current blog, she continues to be my biggest supporter and is ever encouraging and understanding of the time it takes out of our days.

3) Are You Trying To Make Money Online Or Just Doing It For Fun?

caymancowboy2

Both really! The blog was started as a way of promoting other online ventures, but by its very nature blogging becomes fun and addictive as well as sometimes being hugely frustrating. I don’t look at my blog as a primary source of revenue and it’s funded by money I make elsewhere really. It does produce a little money, but I know it could do a lot better. As a networking tool a blog is great, but I think a lot of people expect to slap up a few Adsense or other PPC blocks and start watching the money roll in. It doesn’t work that way 99% of the time. As the blog grows it is fun and hard work in equal measure. There are times I hate it, but blogging has become a part of everyday life too, and I do have fun most of the time and I love the interactivity of the blogging movement.

Interestingly, Josh doesn't consider himself successful yet (he does pretty good) and I certainly don't, but building income online is a slow process and I'm in it for the long haul. I know what's possible, and as each month goes by I'm managing to increase my earnings, so even though I couldn't yet live on what I make, the enouragement is always there for me. 

4) Tell Me Three Things You LOVE About Being Online

Love? Well, let’s see....

It’s a huge place and a resource for pretty much anything you care to name. Just being connected to the wider world that way is something we couldn’t have imagined a couple of decades ago. I love talking and debating with folks of different cultures and races, "meeting" people I never would have run across in my life if it were not for the web. Learning and teaching in equal measure, offering and accepting help.

I love knowing that people bother to read what I write. Being able to publish and inform can be immensely satisfying.

I love that I don’t have a regular job, no boss, and that I can work, as I’m doing now, on the front porch. That is a dream for so many, and although my online business doesn’t pay all the bills and hasn’t made me a rich man, it has enriched my life enormously. I love that I get to spend every day with the love of my life. As the song says......’Lord knows I’m a lucky man, God’s given me a pretty fair hand ,my old truck’s still runnin’ good, my ticker’s tickin’ like they say it should, got supper in the oven, a good woman’s lovin".......(Montgomery Gentry)

5) Tell Me Three Things You Struggle With In The Online World

Only three? Heck, I’m picking from a long list here!

Perseverance..........it’s so hard to not just go to the beach, fish and drink beer ’til I can’t see straight :-)

Technical Stuff......that’s a sweeping statement, but I feel that even after all these years I know so little about programming, design and anything Geeky.

Lack of Honesty and Integrity online......this one is a HUGE frustration. Seeing people still trying to make money online with the most useless ideas, their inevitable failures and resulting mistrust of the internet as a whole, makes the job of persuading people that there are genuine "opportunities" out there far more difficult than it should be. Fleecing of the vulnerable is far too common and the internet makes it so much easier sadly.

OK, who to tag? I’m going to mix it up a bit here. Some of these bloggers are new to me but I’m a subscriber and think they all have worthwhile things to say. If anyone wants to UnMeme me or can’t be bothered, that’s fine too.

Pat B Doyle Blogging and Internet Business Blog

Beth at Ramblings Of An Undisturbed Mind

Frank at the Optempo Blog

Joyce at Joyce Babu.com

Lin at Telling It Like It Is

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10. November 2007:

Blogger Blogs And Comment Policies

blogger

This is just a little tip for anyone blogging on the free Blogger platform. If you have the option for "no anonymous comments allowed" turned on, you might want to seriously reconsider. It’s a real annoyance for me and, no doubt, plenty of others.

Of all the blog readers and bloggers who might visit your blog, there are thousands who do not have a Google or Blogger account. If none of them can comment on your blog, you are depriving yourself of new readers and return visitors. You are suffocating your blog’s chance of success. So, unless you have a very good reason for only allowing Blogger users or to comment, you would be well advised to sign in and change your settings right away. This is particularly important if you are blogging about something that needs reader interaction to stimulate ideas and discussion, because you have effectively turned of commenting for a huge section of users, most of whom won’t bother to come back.

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09. November 2007:

Exchanging RSS Feeds To Inrease Subscriptions

AD - Still Blogging On A FREE  Platform? Want to move up to a hosted blog?  Visit Kiosk Now For A $1 Month's Trial.  

Here is a useful idea for bloggers wanting another method of increasing their RSS subscription numbers. That covers just about every blogger on the planet, but this tip won’t help all of them, so let’s set out the requirements before going any further.

1) You will need a Wordpress Blog

2) You will need a free publisher’s account at Text Link Ads

The reason for number 2 above is to give you access to their Feedvertiser technology. The reason for number 1 above is that Feedvertiser doesn’t yet work on any other platform. (Don’t worry if you’re uncomfortable about selling links on your blog, there is no requirement for you to do so in order to use Feedvertising). Here's how it works.....

Once you’ve satisfied the above requirements, you can start participating in this neat little idea to grow your subscriber base by exchanging feeds with other bloggers. Once you have set up Feedvertising on your blog (it’s quite simple to do, just follow the instructions in your TLA members area). you will be able to insert your own ads into your RSS feed - you could use affiliate programs or any other kind of ad, but here, we are looking at exchanging RSS feeds.

You find like minded feed owners, maybe bloggers you are already friends with or someone who has a blog on a similar subject. You place a link to that blogger’s feed at the end of each item in your own RSS feed. This helps people find other feeds they may be interested in and in return for promoting their feed, they recommend yours in the same way. Who you might choose to do this with is entirely up to you of course, but preferably an exchange with a complimentary site is the best way to go, and if you can find a blogger who fits the bill and has a similar number of subscribers, all the better. All you have to do then is place the ad in your feed, something like "JoeBloggs has a great feed about XYZ and you can subscribe to it here" (inserting the appropriate hyperlink to their feed).

Feedvertising allows you to rotate ads, so you have a reasonable amount of flexibility on the frequency that a given ad will appear which is helpful if the people partnering up have much higher/lower subscriber numbers than each other. So that’s it, get out there and start networking :-)

If you don’t blog on Wordpress, there may be alternatives for your blogging platform that will allow you to insert ads in your feeds. Sadly, Nucleus isn’t one of them so this blog cannot yet participate in feed exhanges with anyone. All I would add is this - don’t go mad with advertising in feeds, it really upsets some readers and they might unsubscribe if you bomb them with huge intrusive ads. A small and useful text link as we are suggesting here, shouldn’t upset anyone too much.

Technorati Tags: RSS Feeds, RSS Subscribers, RSS Tips, RSS Help, RSS Feed Exhanges, Promoting Your RSS Feed

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07. November 2007:

Build Mini Sites Fast

If you’ve ever wanted to make a quick mini site for a particular niche, you will be interested in Mark’s recent post over at 45n5.com where he offers an instructional video on how to build a mini site in ten minutes. (OK, it will probably take a little longer if you’re particular about content and layout).

He does however demonstrate in a video just how quickly building a mini site can be. If you have hosting space going begging, subdomains to use, or even feel like using free hosting to put up some niche mini sites, Mark shows you how and provides a link to the free software you can download and use just for the purpose.

No databases required, just a few minutes of your time and some content. I’m thinking of giving this a try myself, and if I do, I’ll come back and provide a link to my efforts. In the meantime, I've thrown up a very quick page showing a very basic idea of what you might want to do if you are an affiliate marketer. Obviously this is just a rough outline, but you can see the possibilities, bearing in mind this took a matter of minutes to put together. It's not SEo'd or anything, just an example, but, with some refinement, the possibilities are clear I think. Servers Online Affiliate Site 

If you are up to something a little more involved, Mark also shows how to build what he calls an Amazon Ebay YouTube affiliate mashup site. The idea is to generate affiliate commissions from all three companies. He even provides a free script and instructional video and there has been a lot of feedback on his post. You will need web hosting for this of course, but it’s eye opening stuff. Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Mini Sites, How to Build Mini Sites, Niche Mini Sites, Affiliates, Affiliate Marketing, How To Build Mini Web Sites

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07. November 2007:

My Blog Reviewed at Optempo

reviewshot

Having plucked up the courage to ask, The Cayman Host Blog review has been published by Frank Carr at the OpTempo Blog.

If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear your comments, either here, or at the review itself if you think he missed anything :-)

I’ve already implemented some quick and dirty fixes in response to some of the feedback. As I don’t blog on Wordpress, my choice of ready to go templates is far more restricted and although I would prefer a three column design, it’s not feasible at present. So, hopefully some improvements for my dear readers, let me know what you think.

Changes to date - a link to my profile at Stumbleupon to serve as an About page. Removal of WidgetBucks from individual post headers while I rethink placement, as original performance dropped off remarkably in recent weeks. Sidebar links to recent posts added and other navigational links re-arranged for more prominence. There is a link to my archives via a tab in the header which I’m not sure he picked up on. Removed the recently implemented IE nag - still considering its inclusion in a less intrusive way.

Thanks go to Frank for an honest review - he will do the same for you if you ask.

Technorati Tags: Free Blog Reviews, Optempo Blog, Blogging, Blog Design, Blog Feedback

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06. November 2007:

Awesome Artist, Awesome Wife

Dreams In Blue III

It’s not often that I go completely off topic here at the Cayman Host Blog, but this can’t go by without a mention.

As some readers will know, my wife, Nickola McCoy, is an artist and, I’m pleased to say, a successful one, but despite this, she has never put on a solo show here in her homeland on Grand Cayman. Whilst she is represented by a commercial gallery here and has exhibited in countless shows in Cayman and elsewhere around the world, this was something she was keen to rectify. When we returned to the island at the start of this year, we had talked at length about putting together a show and I am pleased to say that we are almost at the point of realizing that dream.

I’m pleased to offer an early glimpse of some of the paintings that will be on view when "See Me Ya - A Solo Art Show by Nickola McCoy opens later this month.

We decided that we would try to ensure that the show would benefit a good cause and chose the Cayman Islands Cancer Society as a primary charity. We have both lost people to the disease, people who were very young, too young to be taken from life and it was this that made our choice a logical and worthy one.

When we started putting together our plans, we had no idea just how much it would take over our lives for the past year. Nikki has worked tirelessly every day to make her dream a reality, and nobody could be more proud than me. Watching someone you love, overcoming obstacle after obstacle, comforting them through tears of frustration, bouts of self doubt and times of triumph is an amazing experience and binds you even closer. There are times we have fought over this show and times that we have prayed for it to come to fruition. Against all odds, we are now travelling the final few miles of an amazing journey.

At the outset, we sought sponsors for the event, and Nikki put together a superb portfolio which was mailed out to a large number of potential companies and individuals. Despite the work and money she put into the quest, the response was hugely disappointing, and there were moments when she just wanted to give up. We absorbed the costs ourselves and continued to do so month after month.

From a long list of sponsors, only two stepped up to the plate for her. Firstly, Mr Andreas Ugland, of Queensgate Bank and Trust who has been a loyal and generous sponsor and collector of Nikki’s work. His contribution was a huge factor in keeping the dream a realistic possibility. Secondly, Bodden Beverages also came through for her with the supply of drinks and water for the opening night and the "Meet The Artist" event, and again, we are extremely grateful for their participation. Everybody else declined her request, at least those who bothered to respond at all. This was despite the TV, radio, magazine and press exposure Nikki had worked tirelessly to secure. It was heartbreaking at times to see my wife despondent and low, but she is a fighter, passionate about art and even more passionate about the cause she wanted to contribute something to - in memory and celebration of her brother’s life that was cut short by stomach cancer.

Putting together this show has been hard on us both, it has been a financial burden we were ill equipped for, but it has been a hugely educational and motivational experience. For the uninitiated, producing original paintings is not cheap - the cost of materials is quite staggering by itself. Paint, canvas, sealants, wood for frames, labor costs for building those frames.....it’s a long list.

To fill an entire gallery with original artwork takes countless hours of painting, even if you can come up with original subject matter under such stressful deadlines. Artists suffer blocks just as we do as bloggers! Then you have all the ancillary expenses of printing invitations, a catalog, and mailing them all to invited guests and collectors. This sounds like a moan, but it really isn’t - I’m just pointing out all the things that viewers of art often fail to appreciate as they stand sipping a glass of wine and munching on a canape.

Sunset Tree And Me

A lot of work is involved in bringing just one original painting before the eyes of the general public. Original art is often expensive and that can bring with it a lot of negative criticism. If you’ve never seen a person cry after a harsh review of something they are passionate about, something into which they plough their heart and soul, all I can say is that you are fortunate. However people choose to break the hearts of others, it’s never pretty.

I’ve never been prouder of my wonderful wife than I am at this moment and I’ll be even prouder come opening night when I have the privilege of standing alongside her and seeing her shine - it’s her moment, a culmination of more than a year’s hard work, amazing creativity, and courage in the face of adversity and nobody deserves to bask in that glow of glory more than she does. She has produced paintings in a wide variety of styles and content even though she is primarily known for her abstract work, she is amazingly diverse in her painting.

I could not finish this piece without mentioning Geraldine Morgan and Steve Byars, the owners of the Morgan Gallery. I cannot thank them enough for demonstrating such faith in my wife’s talent and for showing us both such unyielding friendship and support. This solo show represents a great deal of belief in my wife’s work and they have worked tirelessly alongside her throughout.

So, on the 21st of this month the show, "See Me Ya" opens with a private viewing for Mr Ugland and his guests. I hope that readers around the world will look at this online preview and feel moved by art of Cayman Islands artist Nickola McCoy, my dearest friend and partner in the biggest journey of all.

Anyone interested in my wife's work can obtain full details from the Morgan Gallery. High quality Giclee prints of many paintings are available on paper and canvas and in varying sizes. Email to discuss your requirements - themorgangallery[at]candw[dot]ky The gallery ships artwork worldwide.  

Technorati Tags: Cayman Islands, Grand Cayman, Fine Art, Caribbean Art, Art Shows, Art Exhibitions, Fine Art Cayman, Original Paintings, Nickola McCoy, Cayman Artists, Art Collectors, Art Buyers, Buy Art Online, View Art Online

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06. November 2007:

Blogging Zoom First Submission Goes HOT

high_school

I mentioned BloggingZoom in a recent post and decided to add it to my growing list of membership sites. It’s not a place to spam your affiliate programs or self promote but it’s a good place to submit blog posts of others and give them a bit of exposure. With good friends you should find this reciprocated and thus gain some more visitors .

As I put my toe in the water only yesterday I was surprised to find that the post I submitted has gone "Hot" with 11 readers having voted it up. The post in question was something I came across on StumbleUpon entitled Is Your Blog Easy To Read?

It’s a fun little tool that others have been blogging about too

Here’s my score for this blog.....is that good or bad I wonder?

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05. November 2007:

SephyRoth's Blog - A Review

This is not something I do very often - it’s a blog review. I was roaming around the web this morning rather preoccupied with a variety of things when I came across a sponsored posting opportunity. To my surprise it was from a reader of my blog and someone who I often see around the various social blogging communities. It seemed a good chance to write a blog review, but in view of the fact that I already knew of the blogger in question it seemed more honest to just help out by giving my opinion with a quick review here on my pages. Is this altruism on the web I hear you ask? I suppose that depends on what I write about Sephy’s Platzish :-) and how he feels about it!

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04. November 2007:

Scratchback For Bloggers

Welcome To Scratchback

scratchback

OK, call me mercenary but I’ve decided that since I gave BlogRush the boot I’d try another little widget, this time from ScratchBack which I’ve given some prominent real estate above the fold. It’s a program still in beta and they’re paying out 90% at this stage. It’s simple, all you have to do is tip me and you get a nicle little text link in exchange - it should be made clear that nofollow applies for the links. Think my visitors would be interested in your blog or website? Have an affiliate link to promote? There are many ways to use this, be creative.

So what is it? Well, it’s a way for others to grab a little site wide link for the measly sum of a dollar. I’ve published five spots as any more seemed a little ambitious but I thought it would be fun to give it a go and I will expand the list if it proves popular. Would you pay a dollar or 80 cents CI or 50 pence in UK money for a link at the top of my sidebar? It’s a genuine bargain :-) that’s what it is.

If you’d like a Scratchback widget of your own, click on the link at the foot of the widget to find out more.

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04. November 2007:

Internet Explorer Nag Installed

After fighting every few weeks with Microsoft’s sucky browser, I’ve decided to implement a nag on this domain for any visitors still using it.

I am not a coder, just a blogger and I have been constantly frustrated by errors when viewing this blog in various releases of IE. Every time I make even a minor change, it seems I have to ensure that the site will still render properly in IE 6 or IE 7. Other browsers interpret my admittedly amateur efforts without difficulty 99% of the time, so why can’t Microsoft produce a decent browser capable of doing the same?

Fortunately a large percentage of my visitors are Firefox users but in second place comes Internet Explorer. If you visit this blog or the main TCH site using IE, you will now be presented with a discreet but prominent "nag" to upgrade to a proper browser. Anyone else will notice no changes, so if you want to see it in action you’ll need to visit with IE.

Thanks go to Blowshard.net for this little tip. If you feel the same way about IE, you can find the necessary code at http://blowshard.net/internetexplorer/ and nag your visitors to dump IE in favor of something less buggy, more tweakable and hopefully more secure.

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03. November 2007:

Noteworthy Blog Posts This Week

I don’t publish little link love posts as often as I should, so, I decided to catch up with some of the more interesting reads of the past week.

I promised to mention Snoskred’s plea for everyone to help out in her quest against the scammers, so if you can do anything by way of linking or posting or showing your support read her post on What You Can do To Stop Internet Scammers

There has been much talk about the recently launched Blogging Zoom and CashQuests says BloggingZoom is a good thing. while Jason Clark offers up a BloggingZoom vs. Digg comparison. I haven’t used it yet but if anyone has any useful feedback about it, give us your experiences. While going through their feed I was also interested to read about a handy little site wide Google PR checker which will list your sites pages along with the assigned PR for each one - if you still care of course!

Vlad has been away for a few days but has come back with his extreme response to Google penalties and is deserving of your comments. Is he joking? Well, he has promised to post more soon.

Josh has posted a few thoughts about ethical and honest marketing and Pearl has a great little piece about dipping her toes in the sponsored posting arena and her dilemma over paid reviews which ties in quite nicely. That in turn leads to RT’s post about blog snobbery at Untwisted Vortex (nice little rebuttal of holier than thou bloggers) and although I don’t like linking to this place you might be interested in the childish carrying on over PayPerPost from the king of whiners.

Then, if you’re an Adwords advertiser or Adwords publisher, or you just like to grin knowingly to yourself about double standards, Internet Marketing Sucks puts a Adsense and a certain publisher under the microscope (what was that Josh and RT were talking about?) Hmmm.

Some more interesting services for bloggers include Sratchback, Google Friendly Tipping for bloggers over at TextAdSearch and for those of you who occasionally struggle for content, like me, you might be interested to read about a service called Mochila which I’d never heard of until a couple of days ago. It might work for you, it might not, and I’m waiting to hear back from them myself so I’ll talk more about them at a later date.

Another great little tool, particularly if you are into SEO and SEM blogs is the SEO Daily Crawl - a slideshow of over 400 blogs on the subject. You might discover some new ones, you might even be in there yourself!

When you post to your blog you may or may not use a blog editor, and I’ve sung the praises of several in the past, but here is a comprehensive list of alternatives to your boring blog editor at Blogging Bits

OK, read and enjoy and get involved :-)

TCH

Web Hosting & Marketing Services

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Google Penalties, Ethical Marketing, Blogging Snobs, Adsense, Adwords, Google PR Checker, BloggongZoom, Blog Editors, Scratchback, Paid Posts, Mochila Content For Your Blog

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