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Wednesday, 16 April 2008

3. HP Colorado

I've had a break for a few weeks - I've been in the USA on training courses for my day job (I can forget about when I'm rich) lol.
My main thing is IT, I've been in the Hewlett Packard Labs updating my knowledge.

So what have I done while I was away? Well I did sign up as an affiliate for ladbrokes.com before I left.

On Grand National day, I told a load of my friends about it, so they signed up through my link. I get a cut of all money they gamble :)
Not sure how much I'm due yet, as the statements come at the end of the month. As far as I know, I'm due £30, so my total takings since I started this blog are $63.32. Still a long way to go yet but I've paid for my webhosting & alias web address. Now everything I earn is profit.

I also read a book on the art of persuasion - really worthwhile. I have an engineering background, and even though I'm told I have the gift of the gab, I don't have any MAJOR sales experience - on a day to day basis I mean.

So now I'm back - what's next?

I'm finishing my ebook website. It's very close to completion and as soon as it's finished, it'll be time to start advertising. This is where my blog should start picking up speed...

Website news > affliliates, advertising & content coming soon...

Saturday, 29 March 2008

2. Web page creation & blog advertise

I'm not sure what angle to write about in my second blog post... I've been a busy bunny over the last two days.

Ok, here goes. I've looked into blog & ping to expose your blog. Blog & Ping means a signal (PING) is sent out to other blog sites when your blog is updated. People who are visiting sites with pinging services will see your blog advertised as “newly updated.” Pinging services include Yahoo’s blogs, weblogs.com and Google Blog search.

I've downloaded a Blog & Ping tutorial ebook to my new site: www.buymyebooks.co.uk
I originally created this site last week (to sell ebooks), but I figured I would generate more traffic giving them away for free and hope the advertising revenue would be sufficient.
The ebook is found under the blogs section of the download page.

I built my website last week using streamline.net>
Streamline.Net - 100,000 sites hosted, join the revolution! - The home of good value web hosting

The total price for one year including domain name was about £20. One error on my part though, I need to change the domain name. I doubt anyone will trust that a site called "buy my ebooks" is giving them away for free? I'm going to transfer the domain name on Monday. I'll let you know how easy/difficult it was and how much it cost.

I still feel like I'm at square one... Low hits on both blog & web pages + low revenue. I need to advertise this blog page to increase traffic flow. I tried using google adwords to advertise this blog but they will only verify real webpages (where you can edit the index page). Google Adwords (www.google.co.uk/adwords) is the site you need to use to be ranked in google searches. It can be costly depending on the words used and the ranking you're looking for. I have vouchers from streamline to advertise my web page on google, plus you can set a limit of how much you want to spend per month on advertising.

Oh, by the way, now I have created a link for my new site (above), then I can use blog and ping so google indexes (picks up) the link. My adsense takings for the week are currently $3.22, so still a long way to go... Only another $1,999,996.8 until I'm a millionaire in GBP £££.

Two other things I've been looking at I'll be documenting shortly. I've been following a couple of ebooks in texas holdem tips and tricks, I'll let you know how it's going. I've also advertised ads (other than google adsense) on my page.

Not sure if you've missed the boat with this one or not, but for some reason the McDonalds monopoly game cards have been selling well on ebay. Could make you a few bob... Espec if you don't open them. I've seen some sell for up to £50!!!!!

Wednesday, 26 March 2008

Trial 1 - New blog page & Google adsense

I bought an ebook from ebay, it described how I would make thousands from creating my own blog page for free.
If I wrote a blog page and published it, I could attract the crowds. If the crowds visited my page, then they could click on my the google adverts and I get paid - simple! Er, not quite...

There is a lot more to it than simply creating the page. I've been running this for the last few weeks now and I've read literally 20 ebooks to get to my current point.
First step is create a page/blog http://www.blogger.com/ - It's free. It's what I'm using and you may already have a page? If not, create a new account, and follow the easy step by step instructions to build your page. You don't need any skills in web page building or graphical design. All you really need to do is enter text.

The page name is pretty important for web searches, so try to make it something bold and relevant.

Ok, opening a google adsense account is def a good start (www.google.co.uk/adsense). Adsense creates an advert for another company, everytime someone clicks on the link/advert from your page, you get paid. The amount you are paid varies on how well your site is doing (so far I'm not sure how to monitor this, but I'm happy with any amount coming in). You are paid by cheque, it's sent in the post, providing you have earned over $10.

Writing a good blog page isn't as easy as it sounds. This is my third page and my previous two haven't had very good results. Third time lucky I think they say...

Content and subject are very important to create an inviting blog AND the more visitors to your site; the more money you can make via advertising. In my opinion, the page content should be about something you enjoy. It makes the page more personal and has a warming effect - although what do I know, this is new territory to me. It's how I'm basing this page though.

I'm happy with this page's layout and content - so what's the next step? Google adsense.
You will probably see I've added one google adsense advert to my page. I'll keep you posted on how much it's making on a weekly basis.

Google adsense is very easy to install with blogger.com. There is an area on the page layout tab, that allows you to add content. You will see one of the options are to create adsense. With this, you can choose both size & colour of the google add.

So now you have a page with content and google adverts BUT if nobody visits the page, then who is going to click on the adverts? You guessed it - nobody.

I need to make people aware of the page. I'm new to this, but I've been reading on a thing called indexing. It's when sites such as google & yahoo search for changes or updates within web pages on the net.

The key to get visitors onto the page is ranking in google. You can pay an amount for this but I've heard there is a free way of doing it - it's called blog & ping.

I'm spending all my free time on ideas for this page at the moment. Last night I read an ebook on selling ebooks and an ebook on texas holdem... Both blogs will be with you shortly... As will the blog & ping results.

Til next time...

Ewan

The beginning

Ok, here goes...

A bit about me to start us off.

I'm 26 years old and I've had side businesses as well as a steady 9-5 job since I was 16. I didn't do any GCSE's or A-levels. I preferred money, so decided to make it!

It probably won't surprise you that I've dabbled with ebay and other schemes I thought might make me rich. I suppose this blog could be one, but I'm having fun writing this, it's a subject I know a lot about and I hope it's my niche most don't have. I honestly hope it helps you too, I'd like to hear of any success stories derrived from info I've shared. Stick with me on this one - I think you have a page worth keeping an eye on.

Niche - it's the key, it's the area once you find, you pounce on. Too many people including I talk about it but never carry it through. I'm going to share a lot of my business ideas I haven't started that may well be of use to you - you may want to start them yourself (as I'm not going to).

What got me started?

I'm competative, I see other people with nice things and I want them too - there is no reason why I can't compete to be on their level. This applies to you too!
The thought of the nice things keeps my daydreams going - I'm a big daydreamer, especially when big houses and fast cars are involved.
The other thing which isn't on the surface but may be the main reason. I want to take care of my family. Before I get married and have kids, I want the wealth to do it without having to scrape by. The same applies with my parents, when they get to a stage of needing looked after, I want the best for them, I don't want to worry about costs.