Internet Babel

I decided to tell my mom that I have blog. “What?”, she said. “A blog.”, I said. Wait a minute I’m gonna put this into a dialog. It’s way more cooler:

Me: It’s a kind of website that it’s updated regularly. The correct word is weblog.

Mom: I still don’t understand.

Me: It’s like a website.. On the Internet.

Mom: That’s wasting time.

Me: No way! In fact I’m earning some money.

Mom: There he is… Thinking that he will become rich and famous…

Me: Maybe… This kind of business is very popular nowadays and if well managed it has lots of potential.

Mom: Really?! Then show me where you work.

Me: I only need a computer and an Internet connection. I have no store or office.

Mom: That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you: your business doesn’t exist!

Me: No?! Really?! Then these $100 bills don’t exist, right? No problem, I’m gonna buy some stuffs with this “money that doesn’t exist”.

This post was guest blogged by Jorge, one of the minds behind 2 Magic Minds. There, he writes about money, beautiful women and humour.

Blogs are great. We all know this, that is why we do it. We love them because we can express ourselves easily, search engines love them because they are updated frequently, readers love them because they provide more than just news or stories, they provide opinion. Blogs started off quite simply as online journals but have evolved into so much more.

There are such a huge variety of types of blog but originally they could generally be split into personal blogs or business blogs. Personal blogs are as mentioned already, a type of online journal, or outlet for someone. A business blog will communicate the current goings on in a business. It is a way of making businesses seem more human. What happens though now people are creating blogs as a way of making money.

Lifestyle businesses are nothing new. This type of business is set up as a way to make money from doing what you love. The appeal is obvious. The drawbacks are typically that the opportunity for making money is somewhat limited. The kind of lifestyle is a big factor in this. Some people have a hobby such as music or painting. Here they can either sell their music or paintings, or teach others how to play or paint. Pretty simple.

If your passion is travel, it is more complex. It is going to be tough to find someone to pay you to simply travel. This is where blogging can help. It just so happens that a great number of people love travel making yours a very desirable lifestyle. Already you will have people interested. Assuming you have the ability to write well enough, you could create a popular blog. Regular updates of exotic places, filled with detailed accounts of the places you visit together with interesting stories and photos could prove very popular. This alone will not create you any money.

Making your passion pay is no simple task. You need many key things to fall into place. Continuing with the travel example we used already, so far we have a blog, with interesting content and photos. I am not even going to mention the likes of Adsense, as this is not likely to cover any type of travel expenses anytime fast. It may be worth testing it out though. Travel is a competitive niche so there are likely to be many advertisers. A better way of capitalizing on this fact is to contact advertisers directly, and sell your own ad space. This way keeping all the profits. Whilst on the road though, you are unlikely to have much time to keep on top of this. Ideally you want a solution that you can implement easily and receive a constant stream of income from for a long time to come.

Affiliate marketing is quite simply selling another persons products. How does this relate to your blog? Well it is quite simple really. If you have been in Thailand, and you are telling your readers about what an amazing place it is, listing all the things you did, what you recommend and what to avoid, the chances are, a bunch of your readers will really want to visit Thailand. You have sold them on a trip to Thailand. If you have done this much, it is only fair that you get a commission for it. Luckily enough there are affiliate programs which will pay you a commission for any sales you make by directing your interested readers to the travel company running the program. If done right, with a big enough readership, this can work out to be immensely profitable, allowing you to continue your lifestyle.

Most of us have hobbies, and have considered running businesses that involve these passions of ours. Unfortunately not all hobbies are easy to monetize. A little creativity can go a long way though. If there are no products you can easily sell, how about creating your own. Instructional guides in either video or ebook format can do very well. If there are no obvious products, even in small niches, there is often a market. If anyone is looking for a niche product, online is the first place they will look. Being the first to do something can be very profitable in the long run so do not be afraid if you can not see anything similar. It might not work, but then most successful people have more failures than successes under their belt.

The internet is probably going to be the best opportunity you have to help you make a living from what you love. Give it a shot.

Since yesterday I’ve been having seriously bad headaches / migraines. I mean, unbelievably painful. So I may be needing some guest posters for a little while.

If you would like to write a guest post, simply sign up as a contributor here.

I managed to get self proclaimed Super Affiliate Zac Johnson for an interview. Enjoy…

Zac, why do you believe you’re a super affiliate and what do you believe makes someone a super affiliate?
Zac: I would consider myself a super affiliate because I have been doing this for over 10 years and started at the age of 15. I never had a job outside of making money online and have been able to bring in earnings of seven figures a year, while still being a one man company. Many people define “super affiliate” differently. From a company/business stand point, I would consider anyone doing the majority of business for a company, to be their super affiliate. As an individual, I would say anyone producing seven figures a year on their own can also claim the title.

How long did it take before your dreams turned into cold hard cash?
Zac: During my first few years of making money online, it was really exciting. When I think back on it now, it seems like it all went so fast, but I’m sure it wasn’t. I made my first dollar by making 468×60 graphics for people in the AOL WebDiner. I then learned about affiliate marketing and things just kept getting bigger from there on. Since I was only 15-16 when I started to make some good money, it was all appreciated and exciting to me. I started out with zero advertising dollars and turned it into what I have today.

I’m not all that experienced with affiliate marketing but know it can be a big earner. Do you think it’s as good as direct advertising?
Zac: I’ve focused mainly on affiliate marketing over the years, and a bit of direct advertising now. I think direct advertising has a lot more branding power associated to it, while you can start up in affiliate marketing with almost nothing, or a brand new web site. My recent success in blogging has done well with direct/private advertising. It’s great to experience both sides and be able to share my knowledge in the process.

In what niche have you had most success?
Zac: In the beginning I had a ton of success in the freebie/contest niche area. I must have spent 3-4 years in this area and it was really great. This was during 1999-2002, so the market was so unsaturated and there wasn’t a ton of the same offers floating around. I’ve also had great success in the social networking area. I wouldn’t have done as well in the social networking area, if I didn’t have such a great background in the freebie/contest area first.

Personally, I feel a lot more people than they think can make money not only online but by themselves in general. They just don’t because they think it won’t work for them. Do you believe anyone can make money online with enough practice?
Zac: In most cases, anyone can do anything if they have a passion for it and put the work forth. I believe that you are born with entrepreneurship, and it can be taught or learned… but some people are just born with it. Other people want to make lots of money, but have no interest or passion at all to make money online. When people see others making money online, they think we sit around and do nothing and just make money. I’ve been seeing and hearing that for 10 years now. If it was so easy… everyone would be doing it.

Now, we all know. Your blog isn’t your biggest source of income… would you be willing to share a few of your other sites, that really put the cash in your back pocket?
Zac: As mentioned on my blog in the past, I did well in the social networking area. MySpaceNow.com was one of my best performing sites, pulling in $800k profit within a four month period. I also have a network of entertainment and shopping/information sites I’ve compiled over the years.

Shoemoney or John Chow?
Zac: I’m good friends with both… how about ChowMoney. In all seriousness… both of these guys are great and have really fueled the blogging and make money niches online.

What’s the biggest way of building subscribers to a blog, in your opinion?
Zac: Quality content. You can advertise as much as you want, but people won’t come back or subscribe. Or, you can write quality posts that others write about, which will greatly expand the knowledge of your blog.

More and more Internet marketing blogs are being churned out day by day, minute by minute. Everybody pretty much seems to be saying the same stuff, it’s only the small few that say it in a different way that make it out alive. How long do you think it’ll take before the whole niche just gets sick of itself and dies on it’s ass?
Zac: It’s already happening and the good are already being weeded out from the bad. This can be related to TV. There are already so many shows on TV, but how many are actually hits, that the majority are watching. If no one is watching, the next season will be canceled. The same can be said for a blog or web site… readers will stay in it for the quality. If the quality isn’t there, neither will the readers.

What do you feel that you do differently, that other bloggers and Internet marketers don’t do?
Zac: I’ve been making money online for over 10 years now… so I have a vast experience and knowledge about affiliate, Internet marketing and what it takes to succeed. While sharing my information, I’m also telling it like it is and doing it for free. So many other bloggers and marketers out there are trying to sell ebooks, stuff with the same garbage everyone has been recycling for years. I’m trying to do things a bit different, and I get emails everyday thanking me for it.

Thanks again to Zac Johnson for this detailed little interview!

This is a paid review but the fact that it’s paid for in no way distorts, changes or shapes my opinions. All reviews are of my own viewpoints regardless of the fact they may be payed for.

About the site

Retireat21.com is a site some, or most of you might be familiar with or at least heard of. Being that it’s been around the review blocks a few times. It’s certainly growing.

RA21 (sorry for the tacky abbreviation) is a site dedicated to the passion of the ‘young entrepreneur’ making money online and given that I’m one myself. I like that fact.

If I was more sure of exactly what I wanted to achieve everytime I built a site, I may have built a site similar to this at some point and wish I had done.

This site seems to focus a lot on interviews and the ‘A-Star’ line-up of Internet marketers is certainly there. Take for example the interview with SEO obsessive Aaron Wall – known for his infamously good book on the subject called… SEO Book.

So what else is here other than interviews with well known Internet gurus. Well, you have; a Forum, a Blog, a Young Richlist and some nice independent articles such as the one teaching the basics of Creating A Website. With some nicely slipped in affiliate links

Free ebook anyone? How many Make Money Online ebooks do we need. Seen enough! I haven’t had the time to read this free ebook yet but at least it’s free. So I might have a gander soon. Personally, I’m never going to bother writing an ebook on the subject as it’s so saturated that Internet marketers seem to shrug any new ones off as they assume that they’re mostly recycled information and I agree. But I’m not going to pass opinion on this one yet as I haven’t read it. So, you can grab the free ebook from Retire @ 21 dot com by signing up to their newsletter. The form is on the homepage.

About the author

Michael Dunlop is the creator of the site. He’s from Sussex, UK.

You can read Michael’s full story on his very own site – here.

Design

So, the design. I… quite like the design to be honest. It’s simple, to the point, not too flashy and does the job. It may not be amazingly impressive graphic wise but is nice and web 2.0 and is very easy on the eye.

I quite like the simple web 2.0 low graphic approach. You’ll notice it’s often a big success factor of many of the big sites. Digg, Google, Facebook, MySpace… they all have simple, sharp logos, basic colors and white backgrounds. I think Facebook took over from MySpace because of a better model of simplicity to be honest.

But anyway, back to the site

Layout and Ads

The layout of this site is nice and organized. A lot of sites usually suffer definity early on because the owners are finding their feet with the site in the early stages. I know what that’s like, it can be hard to place everything right first time, it can take a lot of constant tweaking.

But at the moment… Everything seems to be placed conveniently on the site.

This site does have quite a lot of advertising. To be expected. But it’s placed quite nicely.

I think the BLOG could benefit from less ads as they still only have 249 subscribers so some of the large affiliate banners / links could be driving away potential return visitors. Which are so valuable on a smallish, growing blog within a saturated niche. It’s hard enough getting people to come back as it is, throw ads into the mix too early and you’re making it harder.

Affiliates on posts / interviews are at the bottom so not much harm done there I doubt but I would lose the one on the homepage. This should be the hook to the site not the thing that takes visitors elsewhere.

Content

A lot of the content on Retire @ 21 is made up of interviews and lists. Like a lot Make Money Online blogs or sites to be honest. But I do think the site could benefit from more home grown content.

Personally I don’t like the name. It’s a nice motto and good punchline / hook / brand-ability factor for the site but I just don’t like numbers in domain names.

But, leaving aside the name. I think with the motto that the name drives forward and the intended passion of young entrepreneurial spirit the site tries to shout out, it really could benefit from content focusing absolutely on very specific areas of making cash online. But more importantly, written in such a way that truly defines it to the site. The name is brandable so I think the content really needs to be as well.

The forum seems to be pretty lively but I think the blog could do with some life.

Conclusion

In closing… I think Retireat21.com is a solid site with some nice spirit and atmosphere surrounding it’s design and motto but I think it definitely needs some work with some better, more definitive content being made. And possibly some more media to wider spread the name as a brand.

This is a paid review but the fact that it’s paid for in no way distorts, changes or shapes my opinions. All reviews are of my own viewpoints regardless of the fact they may be payed for.

Affiliate much? This site is a creation dedicated to teaching you the ‘do’s and dont’s’ of affiliating with poker.

I know the guy who owns this site, he is also the creator of some other useful poker sites such as ThePokerBank and StudenPokerPro.

Quality Content

NewPokerAffiliate is full of quality content. Tons of articles packed with information guiding you in the right direction when it comes to site creation aimed at making cash with poker affiliates.

Apart from giving you an inside view on the benefit of poker affiliating, the articles on this site are also useful to the Internet marketing wannabe with some need of coaching.

Just check out these articles to see what I mean. Whether you do or do not use poker affiliates, I’d recommend you check out this site purely for the quality content and the benefit you may get from reading it.

Affiliate Ratings

Apart from tons of quality content, NPA also gives you a helping hand in knowing and deciding which affiliates to go with. All common poker affiliates are given an overall rating out of 10 based on their payout and support amongst other things.

Any site which gives you ratings such as these are always useful as not too many people speak out on what’s good and what’s not these days. Every market, especially the affiliate market is in need of some healthy direction.

Authority rating sites can also help shape better affiliates as companies can sometimes work harder to get the acceptance of sites with a voice. Any influential voicing can help bring them more users and revenue, so it’s all good.

Look and Feel

In terms of the look and feel of the site, it’s nice and friendly. The colors and design factors are all nice and web 2.0 and coherent with today’s standards.

More could be done to the structure and graphics to add character but on generic terms, the site has a nice theme going.

The site is on a WordPress installation and customized to feel less like a blog and more like an all rounder, but it still benefits from using WP with comments and easy article integration.

Conclusion

On first site NPA doesn’t look all that impressive but once you actually dive into the site and read some of the content, it’s apparent that it’s built with quality in mind.

The Internet really could use more content packed sites like this aimed at a very specific niche with the intention of guidance and value.

Michael Dunlop from Retireat21.com has made a list of the top 30 young bloggers under 21.

I’m ranked #10.

The list has had 24 Diggs already. Front page material? Come on guys, help us hit the front! You know you want to

Here’s the link to the post, just incase you thought I wasn’t going to link to the post. Wow, this is a very long link isn’t it? Surely you’ve clicked it by now…

I gained over 100 subscribers from my last competition and wish I had put more effort in consistently now. Too little, too late. Although I did come in 2nd with a valiant effort with my 5 years free hosting, The University Kid took the gold fair and square.

I’ve still only ever run a few competitions on this blog. Competitions are by far the biggest traffic buzz you can get, if done right. I sort of messed up my last one, picking hosting wasn’t the best idea for prizes to be honest.

Anyway, here’s some crucial steps to planning your competition:

Decide what you want to achieve from the competition
Obviously the most desired result from a competition would surely be a big subscriber increase. But not always. Some people don’t care so much about subscriber increase and the competition is really more of a marketing test and intention to send a buzz through the blogesphere for increased brand awareness. Inevitably though I think the primary goal or, core goal is always to increase readership. And it should be.

Think of a basic marketing scheme for the competition
This is not essential but some people like to be obsessive with everything and write everything down in neat little steps. To be honest, just putting the competition out there, seeing what happens and acting accordingly is the best way in my opinion.

As apposed to having a 100% set plan and budget that you will stick to no matter what. Some may like this method but it’s not for me. People are or can be, unpredictable. Not often, but it happens. You can never really predict the course of anything, you can assume, presume and guess but don’t take anything for granted.

Put your competition out there without spending a penny. See what happens, you never know. Sometimes, for bizarre reasons – certain things naturally spread like wildfire even if you can’t understand why it’s so viral. It’s the nature of the Internet.

I would say, give yourself a max budget, very basic structure and bag of ideas of what you will do to market your competition. But ultimately; observe, think, act.

Set the rules in advance
Make sure you set the rules in advance. Seriously. I made this mistake with the last competition and just sort of put stuff up then made the rules up as I went. This can be fun but potentially dangerous as it could make the competition look a shambles causing it to be a complete flop. Be careful and make sure you at least have a skeleton plan of what will happen and when.

Most competitions online are embarrassingly simple. Entry rules such as: Subscribe. Done. But entry rules like this are super effective, because people like to be lazy when given the opportunity. So the chance to win free stuff by doing nothing more than literally clicking a few buttons… why would people NOT enter.

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That concludes part 1. Throughout this series of posts I’ll be covering prizes, marketing (in detail) and more. Stay tuned

Good news managed to get my Gmail account back as well as my AdSense account which was also compromised with the evil takeover of my main Gmail account!

I’m also nearly done with my ‘project’ I’ve been working on a while. I don’t want to release it, until it’s how I want it. But I’m sure it’ll most likely be… Friday or next week sometime.

Anyway, my project and Gmail takeover have kept me from posting as avidly as I sometimes like to but I’m back in business now so will start writing up to hopefully my usual good standards as apposed to the little rant / announcement posts I’ve been doing lately.

Good news people looking for a cheap review!

I’ll be knocking 50% off my normal review price from now until the end of this month.

I normally charge $40 for a review through myself, so I’ll now be charging $20.

A few people have been asking about the traffic situation for this blog. They are as follows…

Uniques – 2,400 + a month.

Pageviews – 30,000 + a month.

Again, this is only until the 31st of March, so if you want this deal then click here to order your review. Simply select ‘Paid Review’ from the purchase type, then continue and fill out details etc.