Blog

Most Blog Fail at This, Marketing!

by Melvin · Feb 7, 2010

Ever wonder why 90% of the blogs just can’t get off the ground? Simple, they suck at marketing!

Because of the nature of blogging and what it really is, a lot of people doing blogging just couldn’t really make it. Blogging is defined originally as a hobby, something that’s like a personal diary where you can enjoy doing it without needing to spend that much of time. So up until now this is the stumbling block that most newbie bloggers and even intermediate ones face.

Almost always, the case is that bloggers don’t want to learn marketing at all. Selling sucks isn’t it? And besides you never dreamed to be a sales person throwing up stupid sales pitches to your audience. That being said, it‘s safe to conclude that bloggers don‘t think marketing is essential for the success of their blogs.

If you‘ve been reading this blog for quite some time, you always hear me say that blogging is internet marketing. That is true and your success depends on how competent you are with marketing. Some people who want to learn it even pay for those expensive internet marketing courses and programs while others simply just try to learn it themselves.

In blogging, however you really don’t need to know each and every stuff about internet marketing, you only need a few of them to get started. Coupled with building relationships, good marketing can really skyrocket your blog/brand/profile w/c would get you more traffic and obviously the end result is income.

Blog Marketing for Fame

So for the last 2 and half months or so, I took some time in creating this guide w/c would help an average blogger grow their blog on a quick rate. Nope this isn’t a make money eBook or a crappy PLR product. This is a simple info product w/c is targeted to bloggers who like to explode their blog traffic, get their brand known and simply just slay it in the blogosphere. Whether you’re a newbie blogger or an intermediate one, I would like to hope that this product is one that can be very valuable to you. It contains tips on how you can grow your blog quickly in less than one month (or whatever pace you want to). And by saying growing your blog, it’s not just about increase daily hits or huge unique, it’s about building a real brand with real community that will be with you for the long haul.

Edit: This book has been rebranded and updated as ‘Blog Marketing Guide‘

Subscribe now & Get Immediate Access

After signing-up to my blog’s newsletter you will immediately be able to download your copy of the Blog Marketing for Fame eBook. On top of that you’ll also receive my exclusive tips and tricks to market your blog (stuff that is not published anywhere else), insider’s information about my upcoming projects and so on. The newsletter is totally free and if you think the content you’re receiving is crap, you can cancel anytime.

You can subscribe to the newsletter by going here.

Head to Head 6, Asian Money Bloggers

by Melvin · Feb 4, 2010

So welcome back to the 6th edition of the ever so popular Bloggers Head to Head. So far we’ve had matched up several good blogs here and the response I was getting was really fantastic. Now for 2010, I would try to do this for at least once per month.

And for today’s flavor I am featuring two asian make money online bloggers (I know they’d disagree that they are mmo bloggers). They are not just the usual mmo bloggers that suck, instead they are too good and quality bloggers who have quite built a good following for their blog. Let’s now match Ajith from DollarShower.com against Shanker Bakshi or ShankerBakshi.com.

Questions	Ajith	Shanker
Describe yourself in less than 5 words?	90% Programmer and 10% Blogger	Self proclaimed dot Com Guru
What is your favorite breakfast?	What I like the most for breakfast is Idli – Sambar which is simple a South Indian breakfast dish. I also take one or two eggs upto four days a week. A cup of strong tea is a must for me for breakfast.	Gobi ka Parantha (Thats Chapati stuffed with cauliflower for you in English)
In a brief explanation, you are blogging about?	Well, what I write about is probably the most boring combo of SEO – Blogging Tips – Make Money Online that you get to see on every other blog these days 🙂 However, I try to do justice to my job by writing some unique posts at least one in five.	I usually write about how to Make Money Online and other technical facet of web 2.0, I am a fun loving guy, a kind hearted man who loves to help other.
Any story behind choosing that domain name?	I was after domain names related to money as I intended to write about make money online stuff alone at that time. When I was searching for the available domain names that included words like ‘money’, ‘cash’ etc I did not see anything good for two-worded names. Then I switched to ‘dollar’ and found this expired domain name quite accidentally. To be frank, I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was an expired domain name at that time.	More than anything else I want to see my name written on clouds, it can’t be better then Shanker Bakshi dot Com
How many uniques are you getting monthly?	Google Analytics shows that it’s about 5000 visitors per month though according to my host stats, it’s more than 30000 human visits (discounting bots, pings etc).	Sad to say but I am seeing a declining trend in traffic in recent time, I should give some more time everyday to my blog. It misses me a lot these days
What is your average blog income?	It is consistently above $400 in the last six to seven months and I already had four figure income three times during last one year. However, as a policy, I give away majority of what I earn as discounts and rebates to my referrals. This is because of the fact that blogging is only a part time activity for me.	Can’t say a fix amount it varies dramatically every month, I usually try to sell affiliate products through my Make Money Online blog so some time I made good sales and sometimes no sale at all. But it will be making me a wealthy stuff one day, that’s for sure.
How many hours do you spend on blogging?	Purely for blogging activities (publishing, link building, moderation etc) I spend about one to 1.5 hrs a day. However, I also do one or two hours of reading and research in addition. Initially I used to spend up to 7-8 hrs a day on blogging and promoting my blog but I found that it’s not worth to spend time like that at the expense of one’s health.	Two hours per day, actually I am in full time job which sucks 12 hours of my previous day time that’s too for full six days in a week
What do you think is the difference of being an Asian blogger?	If you carefully analyze you will see that majority of the BIG bloggers are from pure English speaking countries with USA and Australia leading the pack. My personal opinion is that, a big bulk of the second-rung bloggers are from Asia – predominantly from colonial, commonwealth nations. However, most Asian bloggers settle for short term mini ambitions and do not really try to make it big. This is the main difference from big time bloggers in the west vs Asian bloggers. In Asia, we have the unique advantage of understanding/speaking decent English and also we get resources pretty cheap (e.g. To get articles written on a daily basis via multiple bloggers, paid comments, theme designs/customizing etc). I would like to see the next Engadget or Tech Crunch coming out of Asian countries	Asian are doing good in the every sphere, we are making waves, we are no more helpless creature of the third world now. It’s good to see people give respect and follow religiously to Asian bloggers.
What’s your biggest goal for your blog?	Nothing! I know it’s bad but I would love to take life as it comes with respect to blogging. Two years ago, though, when I started DollarShower, I had some huge ambitious goals which were never achievable for a part time blogger.	I want to see my blog No. 1 blog in make money online niche in India and in the world
Pitch people why your blog is of a good read	I am a bad marketer (one reason why I am still with a development group) and hence never really did a good campaign for my blog. As a policy, I never ask people to subscribe or link to my blog for any favors received or even as prerequisites for contests that I am running. If people find any good consumable information there in, let them come back again – that’s my thinking!	This is the only blog in the world which teaches about how to make money online in simple plain English. Lots of people befitted by following my blog and doing well in online business, this is the best part, and I love to see when people email me about how helpful they find shanker Bakshi dot Com. Wish me Luck Malvin for my quest to glory
Give me a blog you admire and why?	I like Brian Clark of CopyBlogger because I thought his writing tips are pretty unique and not really repetitive. However, I hate him over-promoting the thesis theme. (Did you notice that I have imitated his theme styling?))	John Chow dot Com, He is the inspiration and role model for me, I follow him and sometime try to imitate him (evil me). I have learned a lot from him, I am lucky that he is always available to me over IM whenever I need to discuss anything about blogging and other stuff with him.

Questions	Ajith	Shanker
Describe yourself in less than 5 words?	90% Programmer and 10% Blogger	Self proclaimed dot Com Guru
What is your favorite breakfast?	What I like the most for breakfast is Idli – Sambar which is simple a South Indian breakfast dish. I also take one or two eggs upto four days a week. A cup of strong tea is a must for me for breakfast.	Gobi ka Parantha (Thats Chapati stuffed with cauliflower for you in English)
In a brief explanation, you are blogging about?	Well, what I write about is probably the most boring combo of SEO – Blogging Tips – Make Money Online that you get to see on every other blog these days 🙂 However, I try to do justice to my job by writing some unique posts at least one in five.	I usually write about how to Make Money Online and other technical facet of web 2.0, I am a fun loving guy, a kind hearted man who loves to help other.
Any story behind choosing that domain name?	I was after domain names related to money as I intended to write about make money online stuff alone at that time. When I was searching for the available domain names that included words like ‘money’, ‘cash’ etc I did not see anything good for two-worded names. Then I switched to ‘dollar’ and found this expired domain name quite accidentally. To be frank, I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was an expired domain name at that time.	More than anything else I want to see my name written on clouds, it can’t be better then Shanker Bakshi dot Com
How many uniques are you getting monthly?	Google Analytics shows that it’s about 5000 visitors per month though according to my host stats, it’s more than 30000 human visits (discounting bots, pings etc).	Sad to say but I am seeing a declining trend in traffic in recent time, I should give some more time everyday to my blog. It misses me a lot these days
What is your average blog income?	It is consistently above $400 in the last six to seven months and I already had four figure income three times during last one year. However, as a policy, I give away majority of what I earn as discounts and rebates to my referrals. This is because of the fact that blogging is only a part time activity for me.	Can’t say a fix amount it varies dramatically every month, I usually try to sell affiliate products through my Make Money Online blog so some time I made good sales and sometimes no sale at all. But it will be making me a wealthy stuff one day, that’s for sure.
How many hours do you spend on blogging?	Purely for blogging activities (publishing, link building, moderation etc) I spend about one to 1.5 hrs a day. However, I also do one or two hours of reading and research in addition. Initially I used to spend up to 7-8 hrs a day on blogging and promoting my blog but I found that it’s not worth to spend time like that at the expense of one’s health.	Two hours per day, actually I am in full time job which sucks 12 hours of my previous day time that’s too for full six days in a week
What do you think is the difference of being an Asian blogger?	If you carefully analyze you will see that majority of the BIG bloggers are from pure English speaking countries with USA and Australia leading the pack. My personal opinion is that, a big bulk of the second-rung bloggers are from Asia – predominantly from colonial, commonwealth nations. However, most Asian bloggers settle for short term mini ambitions and do not really try to make it big. This is the main difference from big time bloggers in the west vs Asian bloggers. In Asia, we have the unique advantage of understanding/speaking decent English and also we get resources pretty cheap (e.g. To get articles written on a daily basis via multiple bloggers, paid comments, theme designs/customizing etc). I would like to see the next Engadget or Tech Crunch coming out of Asian countries	Asian are doing good in the every sphere, we are making waves, we are no more helpless creature of the third world now. It’s good to see people give respect and follow religiously to Asian bloggers.
What’s your biggest goal for your blog?	Nothing! I know it’s bad but I would love to take life as it comes with respect to blogging. Two years ago, though, when I started DollarShower, I had some huge ambitious goals which were never achievable for a part time blogger.	I want to see my blog No. 1 blog in make money online niche in India and in the world
Pitch people why your blog is of a good read	I am a bad marketer (one reason why I am still with a development group) and hence never really did a good campaign for my blog. As a policy, I never ask people to subscribe or link to my blog for any favors received or even as prerequisites for contests that I am running. If people find any good consumable information there in, let them come back again – that’s my thinking!	This is the only blog in the world which teaches about how to make money online in simple plain English. Lots of people befitted by following my blog and doing well in online business, this is the best part, and I love to see when people email me about how helpful they find shanker Bakshi dot Com. Wish me Luck Malvin for my quest to glory
Give me a blog you admire and why?	I like Brian Clark of CopyBlogger because I thought his writing tips are pretty unique and not really repetitive. However, I hate him over-promoting the thesis theme. (Did you notice that I have imitated his theme styling?))	John Chow dot Com, He is the inspiration and role model for me, I follow him and sometime try to imitate him (evil me). I have learned a lot from him, I am lucky that he is always available to me over IM whenever I need to discuss anything about blogging and other stuff with him.

Paste, Share, Earn – PasteWeb.com Review

by Melvin · Feb 2, 2010

This is a paid post sponsored by PasteWeb.com

I will be honest with you guys, when I was contacted to do this review I was a bit hesitant. But ultimately I decided I can accept this review and share to you what this program is really all about.

Paste Web is a website that allows you to earn by just pasting stuffs and letting people know of what you pasted. To be more detailed, you start things off by pasting literally anything. Then after that you will be given a link where you can share what you’ve pasted to your friends. How are you gonna earn then?

You are going to earn $0.5 per 1000 visitors that see your paste. If you’re going to ask me that’s a small amount since most CPM companies pay people a dollar and above per thousand impressions. Their minimum payout is $20 and its paid out every week as long as you meet the minimum.

Navigating and testing through their site, I found out that the system is easily gameable. The number of impressions goes up even if you just refresh your own paste over and over again. I don’t think the system detects hits from same IP address and stuffs. Obviously that is one thing that they need to fix or prepare to be gamed.

They also have a unique referral system where you get 10% of the earnings of the person you referred. And the best thing according to them is that its forever so as long as your referrals are earning, you are getting paid as well. So if you don’t like the site, all you could do is refer as much active users as you can and then have them making you the money. Again don’t expect that much money since it’s not really going to make the bank

Design

Site wise I cannot really review them that much as they are sporting that very simple, oldish look. It reminds me of old sites who use tables primarily for their design and stuffs. If being simple means more profitable for them, then they’re heading the right way design-wise. Here’s a quick look of the site:

I feel the site is lacking a lot. They should’ve had a FAQ page so that it can answer the basic questions about the site. They should also have that about us page so for people to understand they’re for real and etc. There were also some instances wherein the client area is not working properly. Overall I think they need some sort kind of a redesign both for aesthetics and usability

Conclusion

I would speak frankly about it. If you’re into building real online business I don’t see the reason for you using this service. After all it’s no different from get-paid to click, and survey sites which I always deem as a waste of time. You could very much benefit more by exerting your effort in building real sites with real income potential.

Second, I really cannot speak so much if the site really pays or is just another scam site. After all, its new and doing some research I really haven’t found anyone yet using this site. I also question the business model as a whole. How can they pay that money? What are they getting in return to be able to have that fund to pay out a lot of people?

As a whole, it looks a pretty decent site. Knowing majority of my readers, I know this may not really suit you. Comparing to building a more reliable business model, the only advantage that PasteWeb.com offers is that it can give you that small startup income that you can definitely use to jumpstart your business. And yes, you always hear me emphasize the importance of startup income.

What do you think guys? Has anyone here ever tried that site yet? If not, then please check them out at PasteWeb.com

What is Problogging & A Look at Some Pro Bloggers

by Melvin · Jan 29, 2010

Problogging is a word that’s not new. If it sounds new to you, then probably you are living under the cave. Pro blogging simply stands for professional blogging and today I would like to talk about it more from my own perspective. No worries as I’ll assure you that this is no generic article.

Each and everyone of us bloggers want to be called as professional bloggers but in reality we’re not. Professional bloggers are simply the ones who do blogging as a business, more specifically as a primary business. They usually allot 6+ hours per day with their blogs, mostly dealing with content and marketing. That being said even though I am spending a lot of time blogging, I cannot still call myself as a problogger because I am student.

It’s also a big misconception that you can look like a professional one by blogging with perfect grammar and great fluency. Again its a total misconception. Although I don’t want to imply the mentality of speaking like a moron/douchebag, you cannot just focus too much on how formal your way of speaking is. At the end it’s all about gaining popularity and capitalizing on it, not boasting your English degree.

So Im going to take a look at some probloggers today. Obviously, just earning a big amount of money doesn’t mean you’re a pro blogger. Anyhow, here are the great examples of bloggers who do professional blogging.

Darren Rowse – is the pioneer of professional blogging. I probably have never seen a guy who is as dedicated as Darren in this world. He blogs at ProBlogger.com and some other many sites. What’s amazing with this guy is that you can take a look at all his blogs and easily notice that they are all established in whatever niche they are. Although he’s a bit conservative in terms of making money, I still believe he makes a heck of cash with all of his assets in the internet
Yaro Starak – Yaro is my favorite blogger. Although he’s not the earliest person to do blogging, he probably is the first guy to leverage his audience best by offering a membership site called Blog Mastermind. Since then it really exploded his expertise on the subject matter where he gained a lot of reputation and trust. Look at Yaro as a blogger who got interested in internet marketing, studied it and mixed it with blogging superbly to achieve who he is today now.
John Chow – Ok it took me 5 minutes to decide whether I should include Chow in this list. After all he’s like Shoemoney. The only difference though is that Chow has no other big business aside from blogging w/c is why he’s in this list. John is the best example of a pro blogger who doesn’t need to have perfect way of expressing things in word.
David Risley – It was only last year when I stumbled upon him and his blog. Some of you may not even know him yet. If not it’s your best chance to know him @ DavidRisley.com. He connects with his readers well by just blogging spontaneously. David is a problogger even before the term existed but he just started building his expertise couple of years back. If you’re looking to build a blogging business, then head on and grab his six figure blogger blueprint (Don’t just get afraid of his large voice!)

Okie dokie. As always I’d love to hear your opinions on this and your thoughts about problogging. Also do you have any other suggestions out there for professional bloggers? Or do you think someone in that list doesn’t deserve being included?

Crazy Dog T-Shirt Review – Cool Shirts to Promote Your Site

by Melvin · Jan 26, 2010

This is a paid review sponsored by Crazy Dog Shirts

If you’re blogging for quite some time, you would easily notice that one of the most underrated ways of promoting a blog is by sending out tshirts to other bloggers in the same space. T-shirt marketing falls under the category of guerilla marketing and as we all know this type of marketing is the most inexpensive type yet it almost brings the same result.

Back to shirts, today I would like to introduce to you Crazy Dog Shirts, a clothing company that aims to provide low-cost but high quality shirts. The shirt starts at $7 all the way up to $20+. As I was browsing the site, I have noticed that there is no scarcity in Categories w/c for me is a good idea. If you’re old school there’s the 80’s shirts for you, if you are part of this generation, you may like the modern shirts. But if you’re like me, you would definitely love the Offensive Shirts designs.

If nothing there suits your taste and you want a custom one, they’re offering custom designs too. I checked the price and it’s up for just a little under $15 which is cheap if you ask me. We, as a bloggers totally know the importance of having a unique brand to spread. This year I’m planning to use t-shirt marketing as a way of promoting my blog. And too stand out, we have to be unique in choosing the design that will represent our brand.

Crazy Dog Shirts also ships it to anywhere in the world I believe (obviously I can’t speak much because I don’t live in Africa) and they are charging a fairly cheap shipping fee w/c is above 3 bucks. Overall I like the site, I think they are unique in terms of getting their site out in the blogosphere (you probably noticed some reviews already). And to add the price is cheap compared to other t-shirt companies out there.

Have you had any experience with Crazy Dog Shirts before? Share it with me! If you haven’t checked them out yet, please do so now by clicking here

Demand & Supply – Understanding Blogging Economy

by Melvin · Jan 23, 2010

Currently Blogging is one of the greatest Internet Marketing Model. While many people use blogging for personal purposes, some use it as an Internet Marketing tool. The few people who use blogging as Internet Marketing tool are the ones who want to earn money, reputation and fame. But only a very few percentage of them succeed.

One of the reason of success of these successful bloggers (whom we call pro bloggers) is the understanding of Blogging Economy. The understand how to utilize their resources, where to invest and how to balance Demand and Supply. Demand and Supply is core of any kind of Economy. The relationship between demand and Supply underlines the forces behind the allocation of your blogging resources in the most efficient ways. It also decides the price (may not be a monetary value) of your content in the Blogging Community.

Before we proceed any further let us define Demand and Supply.

Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by consumer. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price.

Supply represents how much the market/producer can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price.

How does Demand and Supply work for Blogging?

In blogging, a blogger is not always selling. So two cases arises, one when a blogger is selling his content (posting article/post) for free and other when a blogger is selling a product or service for a price.

CASE I: Blogger provides free information through an article/blog post

Here the commodity (information) is free to everyone, so money is not a factor. When something is free, it means the supply is theoretically infinite. The demand of the content decrease and so does its value. Now to increase the value of your content, we need to increase the demand. And since our commodity is free, its not that simple. There are two different ways to increase the demand.

First is decreasing the supply. But practically it is not possible to just decrease the supply. In case of a blog post once posted is available to everyone. One way to decrease the supply will be to password protect the whole/part of post. You may also consider having a free members area where selected few have access to the content. This way you virtually decrease the supply. This will only work if your content had high demand before.
Second is allocation of resources. Allocation of resources in blogging means investing more time (if required money) to research the topic you are about to write. Write the post in a unique way or better with a whole new perspective.

CASE II: Blogger is selling some product or service

Here the commodity is not free and those who want it or need it have to pay some price. When you are selling something, the price is decided by the demand and supply in the market (here blogging community).

When money is involved, it becomes easier to understand the market. Price decreases with higher supply and increases with increase in demand. So if the product/service you are selling is available elsewhere in plenty (may be lower price) you will have to decrease your price too. But if the demand is high and supply is low (only a few more sellers are there), you can increase the price as well.

There are some more factors which decide the price as well. One of these factor is customer awareness. Think of the condition when a certain product eg. Blogging Guide is available in plenty but the customer is aware of only your guide. The customer will buy yours. You can set higher price. This is a case of Virtual Demand (a imaginary high demand and low supply condition).

Whatever I have mentioned above are only few of the theories of Demand and Supply in Blogging. To succeed you need to understand them and apply these theory practically. For example, I told you about how demand and supply control the price. You can use it to decide the at what price you should sell your product/service, so that people buy it. How to make them buy your product and service at a ceratin price.

If you have any questions, just leave a comment and I will answer them.

PS: The most important thing to note about Demand and Supply is that how impractical (it is mostly theory) it may seem, it governs the market. You can think of cases where the theory may not apply, but in most cases Demand and Supply theory works with a high efficiency.

Editor of Agent Deepak – A student at IIT, Kharagpur. He has 3 years of experience in Blogging and also have 1 year experience in SEO, Graphics design and Web design. He is tweeting @AgentDeepak. If you are on Facebook you can also befriend him @AgentDeepak

Photo Credit from Chief Ingredient

Your Guest Post was Rejected, What’s Next?

by Melvin · Jan 20, 2010

By now you probably already have learned that guest posting is a powerful way to drive crazy high quality traffic to your site. I’m not just talking about the hits here, I’m talking about traffic that could easily become one of your subscribers, more importantly your customers. Guest Posting really is going to do the job for your blog in terms of getting more publicity.

So because a lot of people already knew it and learned it’s benefits, it seems that every blogger in every corner is sitting, focusing and writing a guest post for the big blogs in their niche. But the question is, are they getting success by actually getting their post/s qualified? Or is it the owner of the other blog think their guest post suck?

Ok I will talk from experience here. Probably you have seen me and my blog on some other blogs having a guest post so it’s pretty obvious guest posting is my blog project since late last year. But I am going to confess that for every 5 guest posts I write, less than 50% gets accepted. For every 10, it’s just 4 and yeah it’s painful especially thinking about the time I spent writing and writing only for the author to say it has not met the qualifications. *sucks*

So that was my experience early this year when I was just totally new to guest posting. Obviously I have improved a lot but the question is what to do next when you get rejected? (ok, no list in this post guys!)

The answer is just keep on going. I know other people would say try to analyze, learn and improve but I think it’s just all about keeping on writing. I’d tell you’d be surprised on how just writing alone could unknowingly improve your way of writing. I love reading my old posts and it always amazes me how many stupid mistakes I have done before even though I (think) have a good english grammar (for someone who lives outside the US).

It’s ok to feel bad but that should never keep you from trying. Bloggers have different styles, so they also have different requirements, different take on whether the article is good or crap. If you’re guest posts got rejected then go ahead and submit it others. If its still discarded then don’t delete it from your hard drive. Even if it piles up there it’s still going to do you wonder by letting you become a better writer.

What do you think guys? I would really love to get your opinion about this topic.