A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.
This review is sponsored by Leadsgate.com
Payday loans is one of the most lucrative niches and one that affiliate marketers target due to its high return on investment. This is also the reason why affiliate networks for payday loans sprout everywhere. But just like most profitable niches, most of them are just too good to be true and in this review, we will find out if LeadsGate happens to fall under that category.
[Read more…] about LeadsGate Review — Payday Loan Affiliate Program
I am not a traveler. Aside from the fact that it costs to travel, I always feel like it’s not for me. As a person who stays pretty much in front of the computer most of the time, I always think of traveling as a waste of time. Maybe not, but something that one should do like once in a year or even two years. The past couple of years have allowed me to experience it and somewhat change my heart about it.
We knew it was only a matter of time before Google finally (completely) kills the ever famous toolbar pagerank and it seems to have been validated by a Google employee.
The toolbar PageRank is basically the “Google PageRank” of a page that appears when you have a toolbar or use a tool that shows it. Ranging from 0-10, this metric demonstrates how powerful a page is search-wise. Most websites have a pagerank of 0 to 2 while the big ones like Adobe, Yahoo and Google themselves have a PR of 7 to 9.
This is a paid post and is written by Rick Mullenix of 48hourslogo.com
48hourslogo.com offers affordable online logo design for small businesses. There is no bigger detractor from businesses than a poor presentation. Everyone not only wants their business to look good, but look professional. This is why logos are so vital – they’re usually the first representation of your business someone will see. First impressions count, and you need to make sure the logo representing you speaks clearly your vision and goals to the viewer. It’s not only true for brick and mortar businesses, but so much more for online businesses.
Logo123.com (a sister site of 48hourslogo) can make sure you get a high quality logo by working with a professional. I’m guessing you’re thinking that it can be pricey, and you’re right. But it doesn’t have to be. You’re probably aware of different ways to get designs online. They have their pros and cons, each doing business a different way. For overall quality, value, and timeliness, I recommend checking out this site.
Started in 2010 by a group of freelance designers, they had tried and seen the emerging crowdsourcing model with its benefits and flaws. With this new website, they improved upon the model with some unique twists, enabling budding entrepreneurs to better connect with experienced graphic designers. The way they handle crowdsourcing logo designs attracted designers from all over the world. To date, over fifteen thousand small business owners and entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this logo design service.
When starting a project, you will fill out a brief form and create a business owner account. The form has room for you to be thorough or brief, sharing information about your business name and nature, styles you are interested in, your audience, ideas and concepts you have, and any sample images you would like to reference. After that there are options to set your contest prize amount (minimum $99), making your contest Private or Featured, and adding some Participation Pay to reward participants (it adds a little incentive).
Once that is all decided, set your time (minimum 48 hours) and your contest will be live! Within hours you will begin to receive submission to consider. Rate designs and give feedback on changes you would like to see. Once the time is up, you can select Finalists to further tweak the designs, or select a winner. Once the contest is complete and the Logo Package confirmed, you completely own the rights to your new design.
There are three major benefits I would like to mention. First, if you are hesitant to try them out, a contest can be started for just $29 down. This will allow you to see what submissions will come in and decide if you would like to finish the contest and pay the prize money. We are that confident that you will be impressed with our Design Community.
Which brings me to my second point: our Design Community is hand picked. We don’t allow just anyone with vector editing software to join. They are proven creatives, so you are ensured to receive more high quality logo designs to your contest.
Finally, our logo contests are all blind. This means that during the first stage, before you select any Finalists, the logo designers cannot see one another’s work. The result is that you will get more original ideas to consider, not copies and variations of your top ranked picks.
If you are small business needing a logo, I encourage you to come try out what thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide have discovered. Quality logo design doesn’t have to be expensive. You can find original and creative ideas for your business through 48hourslogo.com.
I don’t usually cook as most men do. My parents rarely rarely let me cook and I don’t have any interest either. Sure I can fry eggs, bacon, cook packed noodles, even cook rice but other than those, I can’t afford to claim any pride on cooking because I know close to nothing about it.
This is a guest post by Charlie Brown.
Any sensible entrepreneur wants to squeeze a dollar out a dime because after all, you are out there to make money, right? You need to be able to get the best quality of products and services for your business at the lowest possible price in order to make any kind of profit.
While that is good business sense, it can sometimes be taken too far. There are areas where quality can be compromised because of cost (not recommended but understood) and there are other areas where you money should not be an object. One of these areas is web design.
Your website, in fact, every one of your web pages is the face of your business to the world. Potential investors and clients will get a feel for who you are and what you are about from how your website looks and functions, and of course the content it has. So you really must put your best foot forward here and spend as much as you can on good quality web design.
There are certain irreducible minimums when it comes to the elements on your website and these are the things that you should concentrate on when requesting for web development. That way, you don’t go over budget but still get great quality work done.
The first thing you need to do is ensure that your website has good hosting. You do not need to be on a server that has anything less than 99% uptime. In addition, the company should have great technical support and customer service to help you navigate around technical issues efficiently. Make sure to compare prices here as well and ask around for a recommendation before you settle on one. Your web designer should also have some ideas on a good hosting site.
Next is to have a beautiful home page. This is the face of your business and should be made to look perfect for your kind of business and target demographic. Your home page’s design and function will go a long way in building your reputation for professionalism, relevance, excellence and a host of other factors, so make it count. The same level of quality should be reflected on the rest of the web pages as well.
You should ensure that your website is user-friendly. This refers both to you and to your visitors. It should be designed in an organized manner and be easy to navigate so that the visitors can be led through the site to the product or service desired and eventually make a decision on it. Don’t make it cluttered or complicated; just clear and simple. You should also be able to make necessary changes and updates without calling your web developer all the time so ask for a good content management system with your website.
It is also important to have a clear call to action on all your pages. Make sure each page directs the visitors to doing something regarding what they have just read and seen. This simple function will ensure that your website is successful and that your business will also be successful.
About the Author
There are few things that people look for in a good website and once you have them, you will be well on your way to success without breaking the bank. For more information on how you can get an affordable website design for your brand or business, visit our site by clicking on the link.
I like writing update type of posts because it’s very casual to write and I can finish it in one sitting. It’s also very spontaneous so there’s not much effort needed here especially if you’re feeling lazy like me. 🙂 Without further ado, here we go.
I wrote about a blog design update post some months ago but still I haven’t finalized everything yet. It’s getting closer though as I have finished putting widgets and modifying some pages. There are some minor kinks in this theme that I’m hoping to fix soon.
The logo isn’t still there but I do hope I can have it before the month ends. Also, this theme has a wide header below the main content area and I wanted to customize so it looks really good. I haven’t decided yet on what to put but I have so far experimented with putting some of the pictures I’ve taken myself as a filler. I want to have an image header that is as personal as possible but I don’t want to be too vain by showing pictures of myself. 🙂
Nevertheless, I searched for sites that are using the same theme and found this blog. Let’s say I want my header graphic to be kind of the same as hers.
I didn’t really waste time since I wrote my thoughts on storing photos online. The commenter Jem has corrected me in that Flickr actually allows 1 TB worth of photo which is more than adequate for my needs. They don’t seem to be reducing the resolution of my photos as well.
So I went with Flickr and started uploading photos again. Feel free to check out my Flickr account if you feel interested.
This is kinda offtopic and offline but I started a project for redesigning and reorganizing my room. This will be very hard to do because a). my room is very small to begin with, b). I need to spend lots of money to make it better.
The second reason is related to me living in my parents house. What that means is most of the schemes, colors and whatnot are standard for our whole house and there’s not much that I can change here. Well changing our house too much is not feasible at all either.
I’m still in my early 20’s (well 24 to be exact) but I should perhaps start having a plan for moving out and live on my own.
There are a couple of local companies that have contacted me for a mini collaboration. It is my hope that the mini collaboration is the start for something bigger down the road. 🙂
The first is PricePanda which is a service that compares the best prices for each products. I’ve used them plenty of times before and I discovered through actually just Googling the actual products. Check them out as they’re a heck of a useful website for finding and buying stuff online
They’ve done a great guest post on the Evolution of Smartphones so make sure to read the article in case you haven’t done it yet. They also have a banner ad on the sidebar that I gave to them.
The second one is Zalora Philippines which is some kind of an online service for shopping clothes, shoes, accessories and anything that is related to looking good and fashionable. I also have used them before and even suggested them to my friends.
Zalora was kind enough to give me a gift certificate in exchange for our mini collaboration. The lady I’m in contact with was very kind and accommodating. But it was the service that is really impressive.
I ordered stuff from them through the certificate that they gave me and the orders arrived in less than 24 hours which was amazing. Throughout the process their staff have been helpful to all my inquiries and nagging questions. 🙂
Look out for more future collaborations between this blog and Zalora. 🙂
During my hiatus, it was the guest posts that kept this blog alive and now I would like to announce that I’m accepting them again. But for a difference, I’ll be more strict this time. The article obviously has to be top-notch but at the same time I am only allowing up to 3 links and the links have to be relevant otherwise, they would only be placed on the poster’s signature and nowhere else.
I tried the model where users would register and do their own guest posts from the WordPress backend. That didn’t work too well as I was overwhelmed with spammy guest content from users. So instead you can submit your guest posts the old fashioned way which is through the contact form.
So that’s it for the updates! 😉