Aug/072
The Adverblog – Finally starting to make blogging pay
Some readers might remember a short flirtation I had with introducing advertising to this blog. It didn't go down well with the readers, and I tended to agree with them. I want this blog to remain a personal thing. But there are opportunities to earn money from blogging, and I've been experimenting with them recently. That's where the Adverblog comes in. It's a blog entirely dedicated to paid advertising.
So how does one make money from blogging? Well, it's all about SEO. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is what you do to make your site come up in search engines like google. The higher your site comes when people search, the more traffic you get to your website, and the more money you make from however you are trying to convert your visits. It's a numbers game, and one of the most important numbers in the equation is how many other sites on the Internet link to your website. It's not that simple, though. The links carry a weight. A link which is simply randomly placed on some site which google doesn't respect isn't worth much. But a link from a page with plenty of similar keywords in the title, URL and text from to the page you are trying to promote, especially from a site which google considers has gravitas is worth.... well, how much is it worth? Turns out a fair bit, and blogs are the perfect vehicle for this.
Blogs have been recognised as a powerful marketing tool for some time and this kind of professional blogging has been going on for a while. Google loves blogs, indexes them nicely and blogging software like wordpress is well set up to create an SEO friendly, categorised, fast growing and well indexed website very quickly. Banner advertising, even PPC contextual link advertising stuffed into content. It's all looking a bit dated. More and more expensive and less and less effective. The kind of advertising I'm talking about here; custom advertorial- is on the rise.
I've been experimenting with a website called Pay Per Post recently. They have a large number of advertisers who sign up and are willing to pay bloggers real money to create a post on their blog. PPP have thousands of bloggers signed up too. Each post earns the blogger $5-$20 US. The process of getting your blog approved takes a while, and not all blogs will be accepted, but once it is you are able to choose from hundreds of advertising 'opportunities'. These opportunities give you an idea of what the advertiser wants. How many words to write, the website to link to, any images, what category to put it in, all that. Once you've created the post, which generally takes a few minutes, it gets reviewed and if it meets all the criteria, you get paid by paypal. You can only accept 2 opportunities per blog per day, but it definitely makes it possible to make some money.
In the past few weeks I've averaged around $150 per week. It's not going to buy me a yacht, but that level of income will pay the costs of my office here in Chamonix. And it's a damn sight more than I've ever made from adsense.
Aug/070
Airhead
I found this video on monkeymag today, and I've just got to post it here. Too funny.
Aug/070
Using your phone for more than calling
There’s a technology which has been on the horizon for a while now. Something I’ve been very interested in. location based services. In a nutshell, your mobile phone signal can be triangulated to identify your actual location. This concept can seem slightly disturbing to some. It might have overtones of Orwellian big brother about it, but imagine this….
Emergency Number Service – say you’re in an accident and you call the Emergency services. Wouldn’t it be easier for them to find you and get help to you if they could read your exact location straight from your phone call?
Or in business. With the massive growth in delivery services due to shopping online, wouldn’t it be great to be able to monitor the location of all your delivery drivers and be able to redirect them to your customers more efficiently?
There are so many uses for this, it’s difficult to imagine that it won’t become one of the most important new technologies of the decade.
Aug/070
Backing it up
My dad doesn’t have much luck with computers. He’s always breaking them and loosing all his software and photos etc. He asked me what to do about it, so I did a little research and decided on the PC Magazine editors choice award winning Ibackup. It does everything he needs to back up his home PC, even though it’s really aimed at small businesses.
It’s an Online Backup service which supports open file backups, which is perfect for backing up things like Microsoft outlook and other ‘in use’ data. It’s the best of it’s kind I found, and at only $10 per month for 5GB of backup it’s a great solution for my own small business too.
Aug/070
New developments in credit cards
I have seen some great developments in the credit card industry recently which I would lie to share. Firstly pre-paid credit cards. Often times you can't use cash anymore, but not everyone can have a credit card. Especially useful for your kids as an emergency measure, these pre-paid credit cards are going to open up a whole new market.
Here are some useful links for you if you'd like to read about the subject further
credit cards - http://www.cardguide.co.uk/
compare credit cards - http://www.cardguide.co.uk/best_buys.html
Of course, the traditional credit card market is still incredibly strong. It's an easy way to borrow. It can be expensive in terms of paying back interest, but that's not how credit cards should really be used. The best thing to do is to use the credit and clear your balance every month.
Aug/070
A weird language thing
So this evening I was at the hole-in-the-wall DVD machine choosing a film when a family walked up beside me to check out the menu board of the restaurant I was stood next to. They were speaking to each other and for a moment I couldn't work out what language they were speaking. I tuned in and listened, but still couldn't work it out. I'd just decided that it must be Norwegian or something totally alien like that when I heard the mother say 'tartare sauce'. Suddenly it clicked that they were English. Mancs in fact. OK, so a thick manc accent is a bit difficult to understand at the best of times, but not even to recognise it as English? It freaked me out a bit. I would have understood them more if they were speaking French.
Aug/073
The power of blogging
Something amazing happened today. I posted yesterday about the possibility of going back to London for a while to do some work. Some past clients of mine still read this blog and got in touch. Turns out the magazine product I was working on is really taking off and there's lots of flash work to be done. They asked me if I was interested in working for them for a while and I can't describe my reaction as anything less than biting their hand off. The power of blogs.
I was flying back to UK on the 7th September anyway to see my mother for her birthday, so I'll just stay on in London for 2 months, work my backside off and get everything back on track. It's great. Not just the money. That's important, but as much as that I want to be with working in a dynamic team of hard-working people doing some fun work. A change of scene will do me the power of good too, coming back to the valley with fresh eyes, fresh inspiration, ready for the winter. Martin's leaving the farm in a week or so and needs somewhere temporary to lay his hat, so he can take on the office while I'm away which means I don't leave it empty. Suits us both very well.
Aug/070
Ms Merchant. Overseas payment processing
Operating a business which is considered by the merchant account providers as 'risky'; ie adult entertainment, online shopping, internet dating, travel agencies, legal gaming or online pharmacies, it can help to use an offshore international merchant account.
One of the leading companies that can help you with investigating the offshore processing option is Ms Merchant
Aug/070
Discount Click – Online Marketing Services
Discount Click are an affordable option for SMEs to increase the natural Search traffic to their business. For monthly fees as low as $50 a month, discount click offer you search engine marketing and promotion services which will help you achieve higher rankings in Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Inktomi and more.
Although you can expect it to take several months to achieve top 10 rankings for most search engines, you should start to see increase in rankings and traffic performance within 2-4 weeks.
Have a look at discount click - it could be the best marketing spend you make this month.
Aug/071
Time to look for a job?
I think it might be time to go contracting again. The coffers have been severely depleted this summer and I'm running on empty. It's time to look for a job. Assuming I haven't been out of the contracting market for too long and I'm still a viable candidate, I'm hoping to find a contract in London for 3 or 4 months and earn some real money to take me through the winter. It's a funny process, looking for a job. You have to be open to any opportunity. There are parameters of course.... it has to be a job I can actually do for a start. I came across a flash developer role in Dubai, and spoke to the recruiter in Prague about it. I don't know, though. It's permanent and although I could go over there for a year and make a lot of money, leaving after a year is still a bit rude. Plus it's Dubai, and what the hell do I know about Dubai? Apart from the salary would be tax free.
Anyway, a more realistic option is London. I've been in touch with some of my old recruitment contacts and it seems like there's a lot of work around. The rates have gone up too, and it suddenly makes a lot of sense to try to land a contract there. All I've got to do is pull myself together, land a job, get over there and get some serious work done. With a bit of luck I can be back in Chamonix for Christmas with some money in my pocket, some debts paid back and pick up where I left off.
Well, it certainly makes more sense than being a lumberjack or helicopter pilot :)