Friday 6 November 2009

Bonfire night.

Bonfire night has been and gone
But thoughts of it still linger.
I held a banger in my hand
Has anyone seen my finger.

 Yes bonfire night has been and gone with a bit of a washout.
A lot of people braved the cold rainy weather to go watch a pile of rubbish burning and send a few hundred quid up in smoke through their fireworks.

Many left it until tonight or tomorrow to light their bonfires waiting for the weekend and hoping the weather turns.
Not a chance.
I hate being near an unorganised bonfire or fireworks display, I am not scrooge but have seen incidents around unorganised displays.

If your wanting to see a bonfire and fireworks display pay a few quid to go to an organised one and stay safe.

Not only will it reduce the chance of an injury you can save loads of money on fireworks.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Looking for backlinks ?

 I spend a certain amount of time each day hunting down backlinks.
A lot of these backlinks comes from blogs.

Why chase these backlinks when you can get them coming to you.
I just found Blogclicker which is like a surfer site exclusively for bloggers.

As well as earning credits for looking through blogs I get to find plenty of blogs relating to one of the niches for my websites.
I actually get surfing credits for something I do anyway.
The credits I earn are used to get visitors to my blogs.

Searching for blogs to post comments on and gain backlinks has never been so easy.

Friday 16 October 2009

Trekpay Genius or Scam ?

I came across Trekpay while looking around the internet. After having a little look around I decided to check it out and see what it could do.

They have 2 sides to them, the first a Paid to click site the second is an advertising network.

The advertising is rather expensive. They have 2 options available, the first being a standard visitor. Unlike most online advertising your website is shown as a full site and not within a frame. The disadvantage of this is the visitors can load your page and close it within seconds whereas most traffic generators have a 20-30 second timer. This works out at $0.02 per visitor, most are about $0.01 per visitor.
The second advertising is for people who have third party advertising like adsense. Each visitor is expected to click a third party link on your website. This brings the cost up to $0.06 per visitor.
This sounds great but in reality as your website is opened without a frame there is no way to monitor the visitors or their actions.

I tried this out on a small investment of 100 visitors for $6.
Most advertising will pay a lot more than $0.06 per click so this seems fantastic.
Unfortunately 100 visitors yielded 11% actually clicking ads on my site, 11 clicks for $6 is not a great click through rate.
This was a small investment to calculate the amount of revenue that could be earned/lost on this program.

I also looked at the Paid to click program, at $0.02 per visitor as standard and $0.06 per visitor clicking on third party ads you would expect a good PTC payout.
They work slightly differently than most PTC, you get points for each click you make then your points gets changed to cash each week.
Each standard visitor is worth 1 point and a third party advertiser is worth 3 points.
After the first week I had over 200 points gathered, at a 50 % payout that should be at least $2 in my account. I actually recieved $0.40 for my week of clicking.

I know they pay on a downline but for the many who do not have a downline they are earning a fortune. I earned $0.40 and they earned $3.60 which is a good earner.

I am not saying they are a scam but they need a revision on both their payouts and their advertising. Especially their advertising for third parties where I only had a 11% clickthrough rate.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Wordpress blog gone again.

 Just over a week ago my wordpress blog was hijacked, it was a total pain having to reinstall it all and get it back up and running.
Well I woke up this morning and bang it's gone again.
I had no access to to my control panel either.
After tirelessly trying to get into my control panel to get my site up and running I decided to wipe it out through my hosting account and totally do away with wordpress.

Now I have to rebuild my site and all it's content from scratch.
As I am now doing this through a standard website rather than wordpress it's going to take me a while.
This means all the backlinking and promotion I have done to help increase my google and alexa ranking has been useless. My website will be losing it's credibility until I have time to build it and get it back online.

I am never using wordpress again, I will concentrate my efforts on building websites instead.

Monday 12 October 2009

Domain Parking, Is it worth it ?

 As I have a few websites I began looking into the possibility domain parking.
It does sound like a set it and forget it system but I never believe all I read.
After some research I found various reasons why not to leave my domains in the hands of the domain parking companies.

Unless you have tons of traffic to your site they are virtually useless. You are not really allowed to generate visitors through normal standards, the visitors must be generic either through directly typing in your URL or through a google search.
The problem is as the parked site only contains some ads it's not likely to stay at the top of the search engines for long. There is also the fact that click through rates tends to be really low.
If you think about it when you do a search and click on a web link if a list of ads appeared in front of you what would you do ?
Press the back button and click on the next link related to my search.

If you have thousands of domains all making you a couple of dollars a month then you can be making good money. But before you go registering thousands of websites and parking them remember it actually costs $10 to $15 per site per year.

Your best off putting in a little work yourself and build your own websites.
A simple wordpress blog is simple to build and monetize, you don't even have to add that many posts yourself you can plug it into a program like Free Traffic System 
This system will add blogs to your post on autopilot.
If you set up a blog about anything and give it numerous categories you should have blog postings on a constant basis. You can set the main page as a sticky post which means this is the main page people will see when they enter your website.

Monetization of this website is easy, you can add affiliate links anywhere you like.
You can even place ads in the sidebar, theres plenty of companies available.
Adsense is googles cost per click service, place their ads on your site and get paid every time one of the ads is clicked.
Bidvertiser is an alternative to google.
Adbrite gives you both cost per click ads as well as cost per thousand banners and ads. You can get paid for all your visitors by adding their ads to your site.
Etology is an ad site where you can set your advertising revenue. If you have a site with a large volume of traffic then you can set a price for ads to appear for daily or weekly.
I also use PayDotCom which is similar to Clickbank

You will build a much bigger revenue by building and promoting your own website.
Once you have one set up and running you can quite easily set up a second and third and as many as you want. Plug them into the Free Traffic System and you will give the search engines all the juice they need to rank your website and send that traffic to you free of charge.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Bux To Nowhere.

A couple of years ago when I was reasonably new to affiliate marketing and building an online income I came across an article. This article explained how to build an income using PTC sites.
The article was convincing, all I had to do was sign up view some ads and build a downline.
$0.01 per click plus $0.005 per referral click, does not sound much but if you have a large number of referrals it adds up well.

Out comes the calculator. If there are 30 ads per day then I recieve $0.15 per referral. If I have 100 referrals then I earn $15 per a day. What about 200 referrals or even 500. Then I just repeat the process with another PTC site.

Sounds like easy money to me.
I did join a few Bux To sites (why are they all called BUX ?) and surfed each day. I built a downline, most of who clicked no ads at all.
Finally I reached a $10 payout level and requested payout, I waited and waited for the payout to happen but nothing.

OK I am a lot wiser when it comes to online affiliate marketing these days. I have made a lot of mistakes which have lost me money, I learnt from these mistakes till eventually realising the easiest ways to earn money online.

A few days ago I saw a banner ad on a website advertising the Bux site I had requested a payout from. Out of curiosity I decided to log in and see.
My payment is still pending audit after almost 2 years

There is no such thing as easy money, no matter how easy an ofer seems there is always a catch. Do not waste your time or money on income opportunities that lead to nowhere.
If it sounds too good to be true then it is.
These days I stick to income plans that are solid and reliable.
My website Affiliate Genius Has some good programs and guides to help you build your income.
Don't fall for a load of hype get into a system that works.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Wordpress Blog Hijacked.

 Woke up this morning with the idea of tidying up my websites and gaining a few more backlinks.
What I ended up doing was totally rebuilding my wordpress website due to an attack.

I was not really happy with my wordpress theme, It did not really match my site content so I went in search of a suitable theme. After not really getting anywhere through wordpress designs I decided to do a google search and found a few suitable replacements.
I loaded one up and tweaked it to suit my layout and design, when I was happy with all the changes off I went to do a bit more backlinking.

A couple of hours later I went to log into my site and nothing, I could not even get logged in to my admin panel to disable the theme.

I ended up having to go through my hosting's C-panel and delete my whole website.
Then I reinstalled wordpress and settled for a theme that was suitable, not the one I really wanted but I had no option due to the lack of trust in alternative themes.

The majority of wordpress themes out there are totally honest and all they want is thelink back to their website. Unfortunately there are a few unscrupulous developers using the lure of free themes to hack your website.

Be very careful when installing any free template or theme as it does not take long for your website to be taken over by these web thieves.

Now I have my site back up why not give me your comment on design, layout etc. Remember this was redesigned during what was supposed to be a lazy Sunday afternnon.
Art Deco Antiques
Please keep your comments open and honest, greatly appreciated, Thankyou.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Google is King

Love it or hate it Google is king.

Google is either loved or hated, a bit like marmite.
There is no getting away from it you cannot live without it.
People say there are hundreds of search engines out their but any body who has a website checks their google page ranking.

No matter if you are number 1 in MSN or Yahoo the making of any website is it's position in google.
The google business applications like analytics, reader and keyword tools mean you need not pay for programs who offer similar services. Some of these services can cost $50 to $150 so getting them for free is a big bonus.

We all hate googles quick decisions to ban websites it thinks are not playing by the rules. It's choices seem somewhat random and it's as tight as hell. Even a simple sniff that your doing something wrong your out, no second chances.
Even the adwords part of google bans you at the drop of a hat. We all think so what there's plenty of advertising programs out there but once you start using them you realise that the PPC you recieve from adwords is probably about 3 times as much as from any other program.

If your setting up a website then just check googles terms and conditions to ensure you do not violate any of them. If you do your delisted and your website is just a name with no value whatsoever.

Friday 2 October 2009

The 13 year old Devil.

 The number 13 has long been known as the number of the devil.

When your child hits 13 you soon realize the truth, They are no longer your child but the son of satan.
With boys it starts with the nod and the grunt, girls just argue about everything you say.

We have a boy just turned 13 and suddenly no matter what we say we are wrong.
Good Morning tends to get a grunt.

Suddenly bedtime is for babies he should be allowe to stay up till he feels like it.
His clothes are not good enough, he wants a new wardrobe worth thousands.
The term "Everybody Else" suddenly comes into every sentence.
When you say to be in by nine he suddenly wants to be in by ten "cause everybody else is"

Slamming doors and shouting "it's not fair" is their favourite past time.

The only saviour during the next 10 years is when they want something.
This is your time to enjoy peace and tranquility.

Once they reach about 25 they become amicable once again, conversations can become normal once again.

If your about to start a family then enjoy the first 12 years beyond them is hell on earth.

Thursday 1 October 2009

We like it Free.

 On my travels around the internet I often find free advice, downloads, E-books etc.
Most of this stuff is not free, simply because you are giving your email address for the information you recieve. I have several email accounts just for this purpose, if I am downloading anything that says free then I use a gmail, yahoo or hotmail account. Unfortunately hotmail tends not to like mail from a lot of these companies so gmail tends to be my preferred choice.
Here are a few free products I have come across that you may find useful.

Online Business Kit
This is a nice informative kit that shows you some basics about earning money online. The kit is courtesy of internet millionaire Shawn Casey. In the kit he shows you some of the secrets that made him an online millionaire.

I have a gift for you
This is a free 46 minute audio guide  which guides you through the ways to harness the power of the internet. Just for downloading and listening to this audio message you can also enter their free prize draw to win a laptop computer. Worth a look.

Free access to wholesale products
This site gives you free access to wholesale suppliers. If your looking to earn an income from ebay or other online auction sites then take a look. You can find some pretty useful products for sale at wholesale prices.

Zwinky
This is a fun free tool available to the US.
Download the toolbar for free and turn yourself into a 3D cartoon.
This is great for adding to your profiles on blogs or social network sites.

Free is good but remember nothing is FREE. You will recieve E-mails trying to sell you other products or updates to the original program. Use an alternative Email to your main one for any website offer you sign up for.

Wednesday 30 September 2009

More making cash with Twitter.

 A few days ago I posted a blog about making cash using Twitter.
Since then I have been doing a lot of research, as an affiliate marketer I am looking at automating processes to save me time and money. At the same time I do not want to be spending a load of money on products, I will however pay for a product that has value to me.

One thing to remember about making money with twitter is that the more followers you have the more money your likely to make.
After going through a lot of different websites and strategies I decided to post a couple of things I found out through my research.

First I found GF Faster  which I joined as a free member, the basics of this are similar to viral marketing where you refer 4 who refer 4 etc. It is totally free to join so just sign up and and promote your link and pretty soon your followeres begin to grow virally.
The great thing about this website is the free bonuses you get, they are supposedly valued at about $10,000.
They are actually quite good, unlike most sites that regurgetate crappy ebooks. The bonus materials are actually a massive list of downloadable webinars on every aspect of affiliate marketing.

These are some awesome bonuses for free, I have listened to a few of them as the list is big it will take a long time to get through them. Just start by picking the most appropriate titles.

www.tweetadder.com  , This system gives you a free download where you can start to build your twitter followers and much more direct from your desktop. The free version allows you 250 followers most of who will return the favour and follow you back. It's worth downloading just for the quick turnaround of 250 followers.
If you want to upgrade it's going to cost you, $55 for a single user licence. If you have more than one Twitter account you can buy more licences at discount rates.

Use a Twitter account to earn money, simply use the tactics above to build your followers.
Then go to my other blog Simple Income Builder  to find programs that pay you to tweet their ads to your followers.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

The Smoking Ban.

 I am a smoker and have been for years despite this I do partly agree with the smoking ban.
Unfortunately the whole affair has been handled extremely badly.

As a parent I agree any area where children go like restaurants and public houses should be smoke free. On the other hand if there is a seperate room where smokers can go smoking should be allowed.

My main problem with the smoking ban is that whenever I take my kids anywhere we have to fight through a group of smokers huddled around the door area to get to our destination.
This is obviously more harmful to my children than a pub having a smoking room.
The ban should include no smoking in the entrance way to a building so we no longer have to fight our way through the smoke.
Once the government stops treating smokers like lepers the better, yes I know they end up spending more on medical expenses of smokers. Where do you think that money comes from ? Exactly we pay a lot of taxes on cigs. If everyone was to stop smoking where would all that money be claimed from ? You would end up paying more taxes to compensate.

While I am on the subject of treating smokers like lepers. Why ?
If I was a drug addict or alcaholic the government would gladly give me extra money. What do these people give back ?
The goverment should think before it acts.

Sunday 27 September 2009

Is Tube Feeding a Sin ?

 I have a 4 year old girl who is fed through a nasogastric tube.
A Nasogastric tube is a tube inserted through the nose which goes down through the esophegus and into the stomach. This tube is her lifeline, all the nutrients she needs is given to her via this tube.

We try to treat the family with a sense of normality and do everything a normal family do, the tube is not something that holds us back. We go out for meals like any normal family and take our girls feed with us, yes she has her feed as we have our dinner.

The looks we get during our dinner can sometimes be hilarious, people trying not to look or appearing to try not to look. I know it can look funny and peopledo not understand what the tube is for but I would just prefer people to ask than just stare.

As our daughter has medical needs we began cruising as our holiday, this makes it easier for us as the amount of medication and feeding apparatus it is impossible for us to fly. We alsoneed to ensure that all the feeding and medical apparatus needs to be carried on as we cannot trust anyone with this equipment just in case.
As we cruise regularly my wife often looks at forums on different cruises, she was appalled by a comment left on one forum where a userleft this comment " We arranged for an early seating for lunch, when we arrived the first evening we were embarased when a child was fed via a tube through their nose. We were lucky enough to rearrange our seating time to the later sitting to avoid any further embarrassment"

Although this was not our child being talked about it brought a shiver to our spine. Our child is now an embarrassment just for having medical needs ?

We are used to the strange looks but to have a child called an embarrassment is totally annoying.
Our child is normal, she needs special care and attention but this does not make her an embarrassment. She is a beautiful girl who brings countless joy to our life.
If you cannot handle this then YOU are the embarrassment.

If you see a family with a child who has special needs no matter what they are then either go on your merry way without staring or speak to the parents/child. They will usually be happy to explain the problem and chat to you.
If you are embarrassed by anyone who has special needs then it is you who has a problem not them.

Simple income builder.

 As you may know I like things that are easy, especially when it comes to making money.
I have been a user of twitter for a while but just found a website that pays you to tweet.
If you have a twitter account then make money from it, It does need to be 4 months old with a minimum of 200 followers but again that is quite easy to achieve.

Firstly join www.tweetpenguin.com  this is a simple follow me follow you type program that is free.
Once you reach 200 followers sign up at these websites, all are free.
www.sponsoredtweets.com
www.twittad.com
www.revtwt.com


Advertisers are looking to pay you to tweet their products to all your followers.
Best bit is you get to automate it so after sign up you virtually sit back and wait for advertisers to tweet their own products through your account.
I like the easy life.

2 valuable pieces of software.

I am always looking for ways to simplify my business building.
Recently I started using www.freetrafficsystem.com  as I mentioned in an earlier post. This system helps build one way backlinks for me with just a little effort.

Recently I found 2 new pieces of software to help build my backlinks.
Both are from www.glocksoft.com  and both have free versions available for you to try out.

The first is Fast Directory Submitter, this software asks you for some information like name, web address, email etc. Once you have input that its a simple matter of pressing submit then all you have to do is type in the captcha code for each directory. They are not just a bunch of FFA directories around 10 to 20 % of them have a PR ranking. The free version offers listings in 150 directories the paid version has 2882 directories available. This software will build your backlinks in no time at all.

The second piece of software is the Fast Blog Finder. This software lets you put in a keyword, hit search and the free version brings back 50 blogs. These will all be listed with PR rankings as well as if the blog has nofollow tags. All you have to do is click on the blog you want and add a comment.

These two pieces of software will help build your backlinks in no time at all. Beats spending hours searching the internet for backlinking opportunities.
Try the free versions now at www.glocksoft.com

Friday 25 September 2009

Big issue for Big issue.

 As I walk up the main street in the city centre I hear the familiar sound " big issue please"
The sound of one of the local big issue sellers is probably a familiar sound in most city centre's these days.
As I walk past I look at them and say " No thankyou" , I am greeted with a smile and a "thankyou" as I walk by.

The thing is that big issue sellers are PEOPLE, they have suffered in their lives through a variety of problems. Yes alcahol and drugs are often a contribution but also child abuse and neglect are a major factor of people living on the streets.
Big Issue sellers are these people realising their lives need to be changed and reaching out for help, your help.

They are rarely more annoying than that shop assistant who walks up to you saying "can I help you with anything".
So why is it that the majority of people treat them like scum.
I have seen people cross the road to avoid them, WHY. The big issue sellers are polite and all you need to say is "no thankyou" and your guaranteed a "thankyou" in reply.

Lets just offer a little bit of respect to people who are trying to get their lives back in order, you don't have to buy their wares just speak to them like a person not something stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

Thursday 24 September 2009

Careful in Italy

 When in Italy earlier this year I was dumbfounded by some of the laws out there.
Me and my family decided to take a trip to the leaning tower of Pisa.
We booked a tour as we were not familiar with the area and thought that having a tour guide would give us some good information about the history of the area and the tower itself.

As we alighted the coach we were bombarded with street sellers trying to ply their wares on the unsuspecting tourists. Fake sunglasses, watches and handbags were among the main items we were trying to be sold.
Luckily we had been informed of one of the most ridiculous laws on the planet.

It was perfectly legal for a street seller to sell us a fake Gucci handbag for around 100 Euros.
But it was illegal for us to actually buy one.

If you are found buying one of these handbags you stand to get a fine of around 1000 Euros.
So you end up paying 1100 Euros for a fake handbag that you could probably have bought an original for around 650 Euros.

Don't get caught out when travelling abroad, check out the local laws.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Annoying Utility Reps.

 Door to door salesmen are annoying, they always seem to turn up when your doing something.

I had some utility reps around the other night trying to promote how great their company is and how much money they can save me.
Of course I like to sve money where I can but one thing I do hold dear is the level of service I recieve from any company I purchase from.
I will namedrop here, I use Virgin Media and have done for 6 years. They have given a good service with almost no problems with any of their services and I believe they are competitively priced.
When a problem has occurred they have ensured the situation was put right in a friendly manner and have kept their promises.

I explained this to the reps who arrived at the door and explained as I was happy with my present company I was uninterested in switching. "But we can save you £200 a year" a statement I presumed not to be entirely true, they always go off on some stupid algorythm that I don't even think they understand to show you how you can save.
Again I said " No thanks my present company offered value and service I am completely happy with"

Then comes what I consider an insult, seeing my little girl playing in the room the next line of so called salesmanship comes.
" Surely you would prefer to spend all the money you save on the kids, you can buy a lot with £200 "
F*** O**,   Sorry but how annoying. Do it look like my child is starving ?   Does it look like she has nothing to play with ?  Do we look like we are living in squallow ?

With that the door is closed, ready and waiting for the next rep to offer me hundreds of pounds in savings.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

6 Months of Christmas.

Yes it's that time again, the countdown has begun.
Really it starts on boxing day with the hamper companies offering a way of saving money for next christmas.

But the real countdown starts around June with signs going up around pubs and restaraunts, Book now for christmas.
Then of course once fathers day is over the card shops have nothing else to display so along come shelves full of christmas cards.

The supermarkets want their piece of the action so take it one step further and all the christmas decorations are on show for all to see, and the cheap advent calendars take up a whole isle.

Toy shops quickly getting on board with their displays and offers "SHOP EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS" or the ever popular "£20 DOWN AND RECIEVE IT IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS".

When will it end ?
Christmas is one day of the year and people are acting as though the shops are going to run out of christmas cards.
It's not a drought where we have to stock up on water, it's cheap tacky christmas cards that go directly into the bin as soon as christmas is over.

The commercialisation of christmas lessens the enjoyment for me, it's about my kids having a good time.

Do me a favour, stop buying all the cheap crap. Tell your friends and family your not sending cards this year, tell your kids that the useless little piece of chocolate they recieve for 25 days will be replaced by a nice big bar on the 25th day.
Once you have done this work out how much you have saved and pass it on to your local childrens charity, or a charity that means something to you.

Ask all your friends to do this as well and feel good in the knowledge you really have given the gift of life to so many sick people who really need your support.

I am an avid supporter of  http://www.barnardos.org.uk/  and  http://www.foreverangels.org/ 
Give the gift of life this christmas.

Sunday 20 September 2009

Calculating you PR

If you never heard of PR ranking then you need to.
Google have some sort of special algorythm to work out your PR ranking.

It is however not quite as easy as 2+2.
Just when you think you have got it figured out WHAM somethings changed.
One wrong move and your gone.

I have seen plenty of basic definitions of how google calculate page ranking, and tried to follow them but they are all flawed.

Basically it seems the on site and off site factors should propel you to number 1, however when checking through one of my programs I found a website for a particular keyword ranking ninth in google.
The site in question had a PR of 1 with barely any backlinks and according to my program the last time google indexed it's pages was 46 days ago.
My site has morebacklinks from PR rated sites for exactly the same keyword.

I checked the backlinks of this website and added my website to exactly the same sites so let's wait and see, according to my calculations I should be way above this site but hey I am a simple man just hoping that fair play eventually rules.

If your hoping to get to number one in the search engines for specific keywords then it seems it's a matter of luck (or money) that get's you there.
Keep your chin up and hope your fighting a fair fight, if you are then you have every chance of getting that coveted number 1 slot.

Saturday 19 September 2009

Bus rides from hell.

I don't catch the bus that often but it seems every time I do catch a bus I end up with the bus ride from hell.
First is the obese person who sits next to you and seems to want to sit on your seat as well as theirs leaving you pinned against the window.
Next comes the person who wants to just talk to you for the full journey, why the hell I need to know about a strangers life is beyond me.
Then theres the heavy breathers, it's just damn annoying.
The hummer or whistler is even more annoying, I feel like just shouting at them "SHUT UP".

The worst of them all is the one who seems not to had a bath for years, they sit next to you and the stench is unbearable. This situation has led me to get off a bus and wait for the next one.

Is it just me that the crazies sit next to or have you had similar experiences ?

Wednesday 16 September 2009

$15 an hour ?

 This website claims to pay out up to $15 an hour.
AdFlasher.net

If your like me then you would just laugh and move on to the next site.
The thing is my friend recommended this site to me and vouched for it. He has had a payment of $60 and still has $60 in his account.

As an affiliate marketer I make my money through building websites and blogs, I use them to advertise my affiliate products as well as having advertising revenue.
MLM, Matrix systems and PTC Have too many scams involved in them or take too much effort. I am not saying they are all scams just that there are a lot of scams out there.
Because this site came recommended I decided to give it a go.
After joining I was required to pay $15 for an ad viewer package. After warning my friend he would be paying me back if this was a scam I paid the $15.
Apparently the payment is due to the fact their advertisers want to know customers have the ability to pay cash online and are not just after the money.
This adviewer package consisted of 100 adflasher views, each one worth $0.30.
100 X $0.30 = $30.00, 100 views is supposed to take an hour, I would estimate more like an hour and half so that knocks it down to $10 an hour. Or if their server is busy it slows down real bad and you could expect to spend up to 3 hours.
So your $15 has just doubled.

After waiting 2 days for the funds to go from pending to balance (something to do with security checks) I had $30, you can use this to purchase more ad viewer pakages so I bought another 2 packages, took me a while to get through these as the system slowed massively.

$60 in my account I decided to see if they pay out so I put a claim in for $30 and used the other $30 to rebuy packages.
2 days later the $30 was in my alertpay account, this is one of their preferred method of payment.
Ok seems great $10 an hour soon builds up and the sums were going through my head, imagine what you could earn.
Alas this question was soon answered with an email advising that only 100 adflasher views were allowed per day, so $15 a day is the max you can earn.

Still if you were to earn $15 a day it's still around $420 a month added to my account.
Don't expect an exciting ride it's actually very boring to sit there for an hour and half viewing the ads.
If $15 a day sounds good to you then take a look.
AdFlasher.net

P.S
You can use your account funds to get advertising for your own site.

PPS
This company has reorganized and changed all the rules.
They are still paying but a third of what they were and you are now totally restricted to the amount af ad views you are allowed.Too many consumers and not enough advertisers.
If you got in early and managed to earn before the change well done.
Bit of a waste of time now though you will be lucky to make $5 a week.

Sunday 13 September 2009

Affiliate marketing tools.

If your into affiliate marketing you need some tools to help you along the way. Heres one that is a fantastic tool to help earn or boost your online income.
http://www.marketsamurai.com/
The cost of this little treasure is $150, yes I know an high price to pay. You can however take the 12 day free trial and judge for yourself how useful it is.

What can it do for you ?
http://www.marketsamurai.com/ takes all the guesswork out of keyword research and allows you to research keywords that will get you to number 1 in google. It also gives you the ability to check your competitors stats.
This means no more guesswork, it's all there in front of you.

If you input a keyword you would like to build a website around it will analyse that keyword and suggest variations. You can view each keywords stats and determine how many times that word is searched for, how many clicks it would have at number 1 in google and how many other websites you will be competing with for that keyword.

The SEO competition tool brings you all the data on the top ten sites from google based on your keyword. Here you can see all the stats of your competitors and whether it's worth pursuing your keyword.

The Rank tracker lets you input a domain, URL's and keywords once you have built your site or if you want to look at the stats of any other site. It will look at positioning in the major 3 search engines for both phrase match and broad match of the keyword. It also shows how many backlinks are listed for each site or keyword.

There are other features available I have just outlined the main ones.
What this tool can do is identify a keyword which gets a reasonable amount of traffic with minimum competition, this allows you to build a site knowing that it will be easy to get to number 1 in google.

Give it a try with the free 12 day trial,
Hope it helps.

Friday 11 September 2009

Choosing your ads.

If you have a website or blog you probably monetize it using ads. These are either ads from your affiliate program or a cpc/cpm account.
Most people use google as a cpc program but is it right for you and your website ?

The problem with google is your banned for breathing too heavy these days. Maybe you need to look at some alternatives.
Here are some good alternatives to google:

www.widgetbucks.com
These have some very savvy looking adverts for your website or blog, you can choose your layout, theme and even what ads are displayed. They also utilise google ads and switch between the two. You get the best of both worlds. Better than that you get paid cpm as well as cpc so even if you don't get that many clicks you still get paid.

http://www.adbrite.com
A mixture of ads including banner ads, full page ads, text ads and inline ads(where words in your blog or website turn into ad links)
You can also put adwords in so depending on which ad pays most that ad displays.

http://www.etology.com
Not sure about this site, seems a little bit too interested in porn. Once you have passed as an advertiser you can actually charge for an ad on your site. You can charge either by ppc or per day,week or month. If you have a lot of visitors it is worth a look.

These are just a few of the networks available to you as an alternative to google, plenty more are available through simple searches.
Whichever one you choose make sure your comfortable with the layout they have.

Wednesday 9 September 2009

The Importance of backlinks ?

Backlinks are the key to building any online business.
All the top search engine rate your website based on a number of onsite and offsite optimisation. Relevant backlinks are actually one of the biggest things they count.

As well as being relevant they also look at the PR rating of your website and the websites that link to you. If you have 5 backlinks on PR5 websites thst is more valuable than having 100 backlinks on websites without a PR rating.

The importance of this is if the search engines see your site as relevant and you have high PR backlinks you move up the search engine ranking. If you manage to get to number 1 in the search engines your website traffic will increase, this increase is important as this traffic is quality traffic that wants to view your site.
As you can see quality traffic counts, your sales will increase massively or if your looking for fast cash the value of a website at number 1 in the search engines is worth a lot of money.

The Free Traffic System is a fantastic new system that allows you to place your links on dozens of websites at once. These are all wordpress websites that are looking for quality articles to appear on their sites, all these articles hold your website link.

A simple process with full video guidance to help you along the way.
If your looking for potentially hundreds of one way links to your website then take a look at The Free Traffic System

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Hoodia weight loss, how does that work.

It,s a struggle keeping a healthy diet while juggling work and home life. I just tend to pick and by the time I get to sit down to a meal I am not really that hungry.
No matter how determined I get to go on a diet It always ends with the same old scenario, I get tired and irritated and go back to the old ways.

Sceptical about diet pills I decided to take the plunge, So many junk emails about them as well as other things I did a bit of research.
I reduced it down to 2,
Proactol was the first one I looked at, Fat binder is how they label it. It apparently blocks up to 28% of the fat from the food I ate. Good gimmick imagine eating a bar of chocolate and having 28% less fat.
I decided against it as I didn,t want something like this I wanted something to stop me picking ar a healthy choice of snack.

Unique Hoodia seemed perfect for me. Hoodia claims to be an active eating suppressant. They say that it tricks your brain into thinking your not hungry, to find out the full story check out their website.
I have used it for a month now and am amazed that it actually works.
As I am not massively overweight I didn't need a diet pill I just needed to eat a better diet. Unique Hoodia has helped me do this.

If your looking to reduce your weight or keep on a healthy diet and decide to look at pills as a way of helping you. Please ensure you check out various websites and claims that are used. I was always sceptical about these things and you should be too, there are a lot of scams out their I have heard of so you can never research too much. Don't rush into it.

Monday 7 September 2009

Getting paid to watch adverts ?

As an affiliate marketer I am always looking for safe, easy ways to earn money online.
The other day I found this website which pays you to Watch adverts
Intrigued I joined to see what it was about as the idea seemed simple.
Advertisers pay you $0.03 a minute to watch their adverts. Knowing that advertisers are more likely to pay for you to actually watch a one minute video rather than the crappy PTC sites.

Looking at it though I did the maths, If you spend 1 hour a day watching that works out at $1.80 a day. That is if they are able to get enough advertisers on board. Not a lot of money for my time.

If your an advertiser or have an affiliate website you want to advertise then it may be worth a look. Your site gets 1 minute views but I am not sure the quality of the site traffic would be that good. Just a bunch of people looking to earn $1.80 an hour.

You can take a look and see if it suits you Here

Saturday 5 September 2009

The 30 day challenge.

As an affiliate marketer I am always looking for new ways to increase my online income. While surfing one day I came across a site called www.thirtydaychallenge.com
The site had set up a process that went through how to build an online income, totally free of charge.
Best sales pitch I have seen online.

I began looking through the videos which are in depth and extremely easy to follow. The ideas were great and I saw this as a winner.
While following the videos it soon became apparent that the sales pitch was for numerous companies and programs to help build and promote your website.
First it was Hostgator where you registered your domain and hosting. This was a charge of $20 and then $10 a month.
Next came market samurai which holds a $150 price tag, you do get a 40 day free trial which I did and it is a fantastic aid in your search for niche website, promotion, SEO and monetization but $150 is a lot to pay out unless your income comes in fast.

Next was wordpress direct, again with a 40 day free trial. The tutorials I watched made it look easy to set up and publish your site adding various things to help build SEO techniques. The price tag for the bronze package works out at $50 a month. I opted out of this one and decided to use my knowledge to build my website as I did not want to set up a site during the free trial only to have it taken down if I did not want to pay.

Then traffic-bug,another 40 day free trial. $20 a month bought you submissions to search engines, directories and bookmarks. A good tool to help build vital backlinks to your website and get to the top of the search engine ranking.

Flippa was next, this is basically a site where you can sell your website if you do not think it's a hit. No initial charges but it costs $19 to list your website for sale then a further 5% of the sale price.

The whole idea behind the process is to get you to buy in to these programs. Simply by covering every aspect of how to build a website that will earn you money. Rather an genius idea as they know if your not making money you will not carry on a subscription after the free trial, then they catch you out by gaining on the sale of your domain through flippa.

It is a website that is definately worth checking out as the videos are all top quality and easy to follow. The processes are simple to follow and if nothing else give valuable insight into the world of making an online income.

Friday 4 September 2009

Who do I trust.

As an affiliate marketer I recently decided to become a webmaster and begin building my own websites to help build my online income.
I had previously sold affiliate products using a variety of advertising methods. Realising that building Niche websites to rank highly in google could help my campaigns.

Although I have a large amount of knowledge when it comes to computers I am not really into HTML and website building. Researching the ideas behind building a niche website and using search engine optomisation(SEO) helped me to build enough knowledge to get started.

My idea was to create a niche website around a certain product, using wordpress enabled me to quickly add content which helps SEO. This content mixed with some cleverly placed advertising from related content could quickly earn me a few dollars.
While researching all this I managed to find numerous programs to help me on my way. These consisted of both programs to help me build my site as well as promotion and SEO techniques.

With my site built I resisted the urge to automatically go for fast traffic techniques and decided to go with what I had learnt, get it to the top of google using SEO and this traffic is more likely to purchase products or click on affiliate links.

I began this process and using several different programs to do link building, SEO optimisation and website optimisation began to see my site grow.

As I use several different programs I was amazed with the contrasting data I began to recieve. Each program was suposed to give me information relating to my position in google, amount of backlinks, google ranking and alexa ranking.
One program reported my position in google as 276 on a phrase match I was actually at 190, I do not consider that bad for a website online for 4 days.
Other programs had me not listed at all. Same as backlinks where through 4 differnt programs I had anywhere between 0 and 29 backlinks.

If your serious about building any type of niche website I would suggest finding and sticking to one program to track your site statistics. This will save confusion over what your actual site statistics are.

Moral of this story is don't trust evrything you hear.
Knowing the contrasting difference between how different programs work and records data has helped me and saved me money by not trusting any of them and sticking to google analytics. Totally free, not brilliantly reliable and about 24 hours behind reality, then again it's free and simple to use.

Tuesday 1 September 2009

Electronic cigarettes

As a 40 a day smoker I find it hard to quit.
I went to a car boot sale the other week and found Smartsmoker an electronic cigarette.

I have seen electronic cigarettes around but have always been dubious about them.
After trying the electronic cig out I was amazed and decided to buy one.

They do take a little getting used to, especially the flavour but they are a great invention.
They work with a nicotene liquid which means the tar and other dangerous chemicals used in cigarettes are emitted. They use an atomizer to create a smoke and as this smoke is odourless and free from chemicals it is legal to use them where smoking bans are in force.

Cost wise they work out about a fifth of normal cigarettes which on top of the health benefits is fantastic.

I do still smoke (it's only been a few weeks) but have managed to cut down by 50%.
As I get more used to the electronic cigarette I am hoping to totally stop within the next few months.

The Smartsmoker is a fantastic device which I guarantee will save your health and money.

Thursday 27 August 2009

Free website traffic.

How many times have you heard tha phrase "Free website traffic"
Most MLM, Matrix schemes and E-Books tell you to join safelists or surfer sites and get free visitors to your website/affiliate link.
Being an affiliate marketer I have seen countless ads and links all claiming to get you guaranteed traffic.

How free is free traffic ?
That depends on the value you place on your time. If you have ever used these methods then you know that to get traffic you need to click other advertisers links. This can take a while if your a member of a few free traffic generators. So if you value your time at say $10 an hour and surf for 2 hours a day to get credits then you just spent $20.

Another problem is these sites are all geared towards affiliate marketers. These people are trying to sell you a product so it's rare they will buy yours.

The quality of this traffic is extremely low, I know I have tracked ads from these resources and received very little sales.
They really are not worth the time and effort put into them.

If your looking for quality traffic that is interested in your product then you need to start blogging and social networking.
If you can write some good reviews on a blog making it look like your an expert then you gain trust in your potential customer. Trust and expertise will equal more sales.

If you set up a blog or have a website then why not write some articles and get them published online. Theres plenty of article websites out there.
Each time you publish an article you can add your blog or website address at the end of it (usually you can not add an affiliate link).

If you take a look at Surefirewealth you can get a free one ear silver membership.
You can download tons of e-books and programs to help you totally free.
Most of them are crap to be honest, one I like is the article submitter which is totally free and will help you submit your article to hundreds of directories across the net.

Surfer sites or free safelists can leave you frustrated, start getting less traffic but higher quality by blogging and writing articles.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Norwegian Jade.

Me and my family decided to go on a cruise and after a thorough internet search booked a 2 week cruise on the med.
As this was our first cruise we had little idea what to expect.

My first shock was discovering the service charge, this was a charge of $12 per person per day. As a family of four this meant almost $50 a day, $700 for the 2 weeks. I also discovered that all bar bills had an automatic 15% gratuity added to them.
I am not a skinflint but I do prefer to tip after the service.
Working out the cover charge at $12 per person per day which went to the behind the scenes staff. There were 3000 people on the boat and 1000 members of staff, equating to $36 per member of staff per day.

After boarding the boat and seeing the jobs done by the staff in ensuring the boat was meticulously clean and all your needs are met I forgot about the service charge and just accepted it.

We looked through and checked all the reviews, as ever there is good and bad.
Most relating to either the cost of things on board the cruise, the cost of the cruises excursions or the amount of people taking over the areas around the pool.

The food:
There was food available 24/7 if you wanted, most of this was served in the garden cafe which operated a buffet of just about everything you could imagine. This area was always busy with people eating.
There was also a variety of speciality restaurants, we managed to try a few and found the food to be very good. We have a child with special needs and although the kids club were happy to have her she never stayed too long, we were lucky if she lasted 2 hours. This meant we were unable to book a restaraunt as we never knew when we would get a call.

The staff:
Every member of staff was there to ensure our needs were met.
We know when it comes to bar services or restaurants that they are looking for the tips, but wether it was a cleaner or chef they always had a smile.

The excursions:
The excursions were expensive compared to local transport.
The 2 things we liked about the excursions were if the excursion was late back the ship would wait, if you go it alone and are not back on time then bye bye. This did actually happen in a couple of ports and people were left.
The other thing we enjoyed was the information given by the tour guides, this was invaluable when alighting the bus and taking a walk around.
The knowledge the guides have is a great bonus when visiting foreign cities.

The Drinks:
The drinks were expensive but this was to be expected. If you did not want to pay then you could always go drink the free water or breakfast juices.
The bar staff and drink servers were all fantastic, when they had a little time they actually stopped and had a little chat.

The Cabins:
The cabin was bigger than we imagined, as a family of four it was a little tight but a couple or family of three would easily find them comfortable.
The cabin attendants had the room cleaned impeccably and were always ready to greet you. Of course they were looking for a nice tip at the end but that is how they make up their wages.
They even made our daughter some towel animals and left them on the bed for her. She loved it.

Pools and sun loungers:
The front of deck 12 and 13 was the pool and sun lounger area, to us this area was butlins on the sea. Not being a fan of the crowded areas with kids running around having fun and trying to find a sun lounger we usually went to the rear of deck 12. Although sometimes this area was crowded it was generally a quieter area where you could sit comfortably and enjoy a drink while watching the boat chug along.

Entertainment:
As with the restaraunts we were unable to attend these because of our little girl. We overheard others talking about it and it was a mixed review. I suppose it depends what you like.

Kids Club:
These were great like I mentioned before one of our children has special needs. They gave us a phone so they could call us whenever there was a problem. Our other child is 12 and loved going in there.

Overall we loved the cruise. If you are constantly worrying about money your gonna have a lousy holiday. I know we have got to be careful with our money these days but there is a difference between being careful and being stingy.
If your going on a cruise it's a time for relaxation so sit back relax and enjoy all the hospitalities a cruise has to offer.

Sunday 23 August 2009

Big businesses need to get a grip.

Recently my mother in law lost her husband after 53 years of marriage.
She is 74 and not in the best of health, especially mentally. Suffering from OCD (extremely annoying) she also needs things explaining to her a few times before she fully takes it in. This has obviously worsened during this tragedy. She is currently staying with us and we have been helping arrange all the funeral and paperwork needed.

Why do big businesses lack common sense and compassion during times like these ?

Let's take the insurance company, the insurance was not a huge amount. It was set up to cover funeral expenses. They were informed of the death through the correct claim forms. Why on earth did they send a letter two weeks later to a person who has died wishing them a happy birthday, and would you like to increase your premiums ?
Laughable aren't they ?
No internal communication whatsoever.

Next comes the bank.
A simple matter of changing a joint account into a single account. No it's not simple over half an hour and countless forms to fill in, oh well it's done now isn't it ?
3 days later 5 new cheque books arrived at her house, 4 of these had simply changed her husbands name to her name. She now holds a joint account with herself. The 5th cheque book was in her name alone, she now has to go back to the bank and cancel 4 cheque books.
What a waste of time and money.

And of course we have council tax, housing office etc.
My father in law recieved disability living allowance, this entitled them to reductions on housing, council tax etc. He also had a couple of personal small pensions, with all these in place they managed to live comfortably. Not rich but able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
With his death all these stopped and my mother in law was faced with the standard government pension. It was not long before the letters began rolling in saying that she needed to pay this that and the other. She sat down and worked it all out and basically could not afford to live. An income of £75 a week and outgoings of over £100 a week before food or any thing else.

She managed to get in touch with a very nice lady from the local housing office who helped her fill in all the forms she needed and explained fully what she could expect to recieve. This put her mind at rest except there was an 8 week backlog in their claims office so she would have to wait.

2 days later another letter arrived stating she must pay this that and the other. She phoned the number on the letter and explained what she had done and how she was waiting for a response from the form she filled in. Not good enough for the guy on the phone he wanted a whole load of different stuff. The conversation ended in stalemate with my mother in law saying she would go back to her local office and speak to the woman who helped her originally. Yet another waste of time and money.

The utility companies had no problem changing the name over. Then again they don't really care who's name it's in as long as they are getting paid.

Big companies seem to lack any communication skills between different departments. Seems to me they need a good shake up it would definately save time and a whole load of money. They could then pass all these savings back to us and make everybody happy.

Tons of useless forms and letters all cost and are completely unnecesary. Especially to a 74 year old woman who is grieving and has little ability to think clearly.
It is a good job she had the support of family to help her through, many don't get this help and struggle silently till at last they worry themselves to "DEATH".

Saturday 22 August 2009

50,000 Free visitors

 Your probably thinking the same as I did when i came across this headline. Yeah right 50,000 free visitors.
So I clicked through the link www.worldofprofit.com and entered my details (false phone number)

I was met with a live monitor and some bloke talking to me asking me to type hello so he knew I was a real person. I typed hello and he put me on a VIP list for some live seminar later on in the day then instructed me to click a button and watch a 20 minute video.
After watching the video I returned to the main screen where the bloke was offering me bonuses to sign up in the next 2 minutes.

Yeah right these guys want me to shell out $100 without even checking out their business.

I left the live monitor on where the CEO Dr Lant appeared and began talking to me and others in the room.
They claimed to be a member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) which when I checked it out they do have a A- rating with the BBB.

The business sounded good and there was a lot on offer for $100 a month but always the sceptic I wanted to get a full overview of the company before parting with a dime.
When the time came I watched the live broadcast and this was basically Dr Lant going over the business plan and what you get for your money.
After the broadcast I returned to the main screen and was given my 50,000 free visitors so I added my website.
24 hours later I have received about 50 hits.

I also received 1 credit for attending the live broadcast, this credit can be redeemed for an e-book or 20,000 credits at their sister site dragonsurf which is basically a safelist they run.
OK they lived up to their promise and I got 50,000 credits and a free e-book.

I also found another link (read-for-cash), this is a paid-to-click area of their website. I clicked on 104 links all worth $0.01 each. This cash can be redeemed at $50 to your paypal account or you can exchange them for credits to get your own site viewed on a 1 to 1 basis.
On the second day there was again over 100 links in the read-for-cash area.
I changed them all into credits for my own website so have no idea if they actually pay when you get to $50. I have no reason to doubt this as so far they have lived up to their promises.

The site is pretty full of areas to explore, I leave my sound on as I like to listen to the live operators although it does get a bit annoying after a while.
You do recieve extra credits each night you view the live broadcast and these credits can be redeemed for the E-books or credits etc in the goody bag area of the site.

As of writing this I have not joined www.worldofprofit.com
The reasons I decided not to join is the way the monitors spoke to their possible customers, especially Dr Lant he even spoke down to the other live monitors. Their spiel is rather dull with no real personal interaction, they are on a constant drone to get you to buy (to me this cries out desperation) if they interacted with customers more it would give me more assurance that I could trust them.

Also Dr Lant claims to be a self made millionaire, when he appears on screen he looks as though he's in a bedsit somewhere rather than an office or large home. They should really think about their surroundings when going live on the net for whoever to see.
The professionalism of the on screen monitors leaves a lot to be desired but the company has given me everything they promised.

Worth taking a look at to get your free visitors and other freebies, can also be humourous listening to the on screen monitors especially when they get a disgruntled customer.

The outline of the business is:
Pay $100 a month to join.
Get customers to visit the website and recieve %20 of sales(5 sales would equal your stake back)
Get a website promoting their company and countless number of E-books which you earn 80% of the profit.
A 7 step millionaire bootcamp training.
Numerous other bits and bats which they hype up to amazing values.

The business itself sounds reasonable but I can set up my own website and sell countless E-books for a lot less.

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