MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

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Happy Easter, What Have You Accomplished This Holy Week?

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Many people would flame me maybe for not posting for almost a long time. I’m not really busy but few things just happened that made me not able to even look at the admin page of the blog. As I’ve mentioned last week I was terribly sick and I had to take a rest and so on. Then the internet connection went crappy making “online” an impossible for me. Then the holy week.

First I would like to greet all folks Happy Easter. Most people do sacrifice and fasting every holy week and my family isn’t different. For the first time, I completed a week w/o eating meat or any pork etc. I am really used in eating meat for almost everyday and I think passing for it for the whole week is a great accomplishment. Another is staying away from the internet. Of course we all know, we are internet geeks and it always seems that we couldn’t carry on living without getting a glimpse of the online world for a day. I never had an internet for almost the entire week and I think it makes me more productive with other stuffs in life.

The past week I also started my “fitness program”. Jogging every morning, working out, then eating as much as I can to make sure I wouldn’t lose more weight. My main goal in doing this is just to be physically fit. I mean of course gaining weight, and building muscles, having a greater looking body is in it, but basically it’s just trying to be fit.

I am planning on putting more posts on this blog for the next weeks as school closes. I was looking at the stats right now and it’s not a surprise that a lot have dropped. Uniques, pageviews per day, rss subscribers, Alexa Rank and total online visibility. I guess that is what really going to happen when you abandon a blog for almost 2 weeks. What do you think?

5 Things I Wish They Had Taught In School

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(This is a guest post from Buzz Marketer, speaker and entrepreneur Dean Hunt)

When I think of all the pointless crap I was taught in school, it seems such
a waste.

The REAL life skills are not taught in schools, simply because the vast
majority of people (including teachers) don’t know about them.

So here are the 5 things I wish I had been taught in school.

1. The 80/20 rule is a lifesaver.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way…

The rule states that 80% of your value in work and life will come from 20%
of your actions and activities.

This means that a lot of what you think is important…. Isn’t

By using the 80/20 rule you can spend more time and energy on the stuff that
you love… hobbies, sports, dating, making money etc…

2. You have to GIVE Value before you can Receive it.

Most people get this the wrong way around. You see, to get money, love
,kindness etc… you must give it first, and then you will receive it.

The more you give, the more you will get.

3. Make SxxT Happen!

Most people are reactive people, this means that they wait for stuff to
happen before taking action.
If you want to save time, get more done and be respected more, then you
should work on becoming a PRO-active person.

So take control, no matter what, you are the boss.

4. Mistakes are Good

I only learned this rule when I moved to a foreign country and tried to
learn a new language.

One day, after a large meal, instead of saying that my stomach was full, I
said that I was pregnant.

The whole table laughed, and I felt like I was going to die of shame.

But guess what?

I never made that mistake again.

If you fail enough times, you will be successful. So try and look forward to
your failures, it just means you are one step closer to success.

5. 90%+ of What You Fear Doesn’t Exist

Not only will the vast majority of the things you fear and worry about never
happen, but if they did happen, they would be nowhere near as bad as you
imagine.

Look back to when you were a child, what did you fear? Now look at how many
of those things actually happened or mattered.

Summary

Schools are designed to teach us how to pass exams, in the big wide world,
they serve only as rough, out of date guidelines.

You now have 5 tips that I learned the hard way… and I have had all 5
verified from hugely successful entrepreneurs.

Life is a game, there is no ebook we can read for guaranteed success, there
is no second chance, so let’s live it to the full.

All the best.

Dean Hunt

Note: Dean has a free 7-day program on kick-starting ANY
website with ethical mind control, killer bunnies, and by legal traffic
theft.
Get all these tips and more direct to your inbox by visiting: Max Traffic 7-Day
Program
Also, Dean writes a popular buzz marketing
blog and at the exclusive, members-only BuzzProfits.com

No Updates for A While, Where Am I?

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Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t been posting lately and some dudes have hit me through my IM on whether I am busy with something or what. Well to tell you, I am not busy with other money making stuffs and other projects, in fact I was sick. I’ve been suffering from influenza for the past three days or so and I’ve been having terrible headaches every morning. I haven’t been into doctor yet but now I’m feeling better.

Another reason is because I don’t have an internet connection for the past 2 days as well and since I’m sick I cannot go anywhere. With almost 10 days of hiatus in this blog, you can see my Rss numbers dropped as well as the Alexa rank. Don’t worry I wouldn’t be out for long. Hopefully I could be able to get back to my old ways before the holy week starts and have this blog back in the crowd again.

Meanwhile, just stay tuned. 😉 Buzz Marketing Expert Dean Hunt has a guest post here soon and I have a lot of great surprises for this month of April. How about you, what are you doin’ lately?

Sell A Blog for $9500 and Get 9500 Spams!

Sell A Blog for $9500 and Get 9500 Spams!

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Sly Blanco, the famous dude who sold his blog for $9500 has been having his new blog beaten, swallowed, shove in the ass, destroyed, bludgeoned, attacked by spambots. Look:

spambots

And John has been his loyal reader commentator. 🙂

topcomments

I am pretty much sure Sly’s really taking his time with the huge chunk of almost $10,000 that he got from his previous blog. So as the spams, taking their sweet time turning his blog to a splog.

Site Flipping Or Affiliate Marketing

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A lot of people in the blogging community usually want to learn either how to make money with affiliate marketing or how to start earning through flipping websites/blogs. Although its not your usual mano-a mano type of matchup, it still makes sense to tackle both.  So today I thought its interesting to tackle both and get your opinion about it.

Affiliate Marketing

Everyone in the building knows how much I love affiliate marketing. Not because I  make hundreds to thousands (most of the times, I’m even losing more than profiting 🙂 ), but because I just enjoy the whole process. I love the landing page thing, the PPC manipulation marketing stuff and the affiliate promotion overall. Although I haven’t been active with affiliate marketing this year (because of college), its still something I see myself doing in the future.

I’m not going to detail how aff.marketing works but basically its like promoting an offer and getting paid for driving leads/sales. Most affiliate marketing asshoes in the industry can be found on the bloody wickedfire forum and some of them are making five figures from affiliate marketing. If done properly, I can say affiliate marketing is the one and only business model that can go on autopilot (yes, money while sleeping!)

Site Flipping

Site flipping is something I haven’t done. Although through the years we’ve sold some really good websites, we really never considered it as site flipping. Flipping Blog and websites is easier than affiliate marketing in my opinion but the niche is as saturated as the latter. Some people really do good in it, and some people are happy to do it as a hobby.

What is site flipping? It’s simple as making a website or blog and then selling it. The idea here is creating a unique something and convincing the marketplace that, that “something” has a high potential and could yield income if marketed properly. Although, its not as automated as affiliate marketing, flipping people websites is a lot easier to do than the former. Another fact is that there is low risk and low cost in it. If the site doesn’t sell, you still have a lot of options with it.

Your Choice?

For the first time in this blog I will hold a poll. And its a poll about the two stuffs discussed above. What do you think is better overall? Affiliate Marketing Or Buying (or creating) And Selling Websites? Or maybe you can share your thoughts and add something to what has been discussed.

Income Diary Review – How Pros Make Their Money

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This is a paid review sponsored by Michael Dunlop

Income Diary is a blog owned by a fellow young entrepreneur Michael Dunlop. Michael is famous more specifically because of his interviews So what is Income Diary? As what the name suggests, it’s actually a blog about making income on the internet. The blog boasts interviews from prominent persons in the industry such as Aaron Wall, John Chow and Chris Garret. Interviews are something that Michael has done a lot in the past and even in Retire @ 21 he has done a lot of it.

Income Diary uses a premium Wootheme and obviously it is customized. I liked the way images are used especially with interviews, the big pictures fit very well in the content of his blog. The sidebar of his blog, unlike most blogs in this niche, isn’t cluttered with paid advertising or whatsoever. Instead, it contains  pictures on how one can set up a blog step by step. Another noticeable thing in his blog is the Top Earning Blogs Part. I’m not sure if anyone has done it before but I think it’s another great part of the blog and I can actually see it becoming famous in the future just like other lists.

Although most content in the blog are interviews, Michael also runs a newsletter. He gives away a 7 day course for free about making money by blogging for subscribing to him.

To sum it all up IncomeDiary is a blog worth-following. With myriads of blogs related to blogging and internet marketing springing each day, creating another one doesn’t seem to be a good move. But with the way I see how IncomeDiary.com is starting to grow, I know Michael knows what he is doing. As I’ve said it’s a great site and by saying great, I mean it adds value. Maybe a little more content and walkthrough articles outside the interviews wouldn’t harm.

What do you think?

Paid Promotion Is The Key

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A lot of bloggers in the industry mostly talk about getting traffic flowing into blogs by doing the traditional things. Blog commenting, forum and article marketing, social media, even offline interaction. These free ways, while it has been used a lot and is certainly a great way to target visitors to your site, it’s not the only ones!

Most people don’t bother to talk about paid promotions because not a lot of people are interested  spending dimes with it. But the truth is it’s actually a powerful way to drive traffic to your blog. I have used some of them here and some of them in other blogs and so far it’s really doing good. Without further ado, here they are:

  1. PPC Marketing – Who said PPC is just for affiliate offers? After about 1 1/2 month my blog has started, I spent some $50 each in Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. I am getting dead cheap clicks for every long tail keyword and I can say it really did well. The tip is that you need to make the users understand that the ad directs them to a blog of that certain topic. Use a landing page as well! Here I have a welcome page as a landing page so that new users can explore the content of my blog more and figure out how it can benefit them. Believe me folks, it converts the curious dudes into readers/subscribers.
  2. Paid Review – While there are tons of ways on doing advertising on a blog, paid review obviously is the best. Why? Paid review targets the audience well, gives permanent backlinks, and guess what, adds kudos to your blog easily.  Let’s face it, bloggers are paid to review. And I have never seen a negative review, believe me! Most of the times the blogger just recommends the site and that alone can sum it all up against other paid advertising options on blogs.
  3. Paid Social Media – The social media days are getting more saturated. Before it’s like you can put a humor content and get tons of great responses. Now it’s different! Ok, so the idea here is to post some really nice content. Then buy 100 diggs/stumbles/reddit/propells or whatsoever. These diggs wouldn’t get you in the front page but at least they can get you traction. You are getting noticed now. If you’re submitted content is liked, then prepare your server for truckloads of traffic.
  4. Press Release – PR (not to be confused with page rank) is something that I haven’t really utilized for my blogs. Some people however do have some success with it. A release usually costs $100 and up and it’s a high risk, high reward form of promotion. It is gonna either flop so bad or do good. Problem is that most people are tired reading a release stating “this guy started a blog about making money online”. If you’re into the IM niche, Im not sure you should use this as an option.
  5. Sponsor a Contest – Seriously a contest can give you a lot. The quality of traffic that can come back to you depends on what you sponsor. Most users are curious on why this dude gave this prize away so if you sponsored something really nice then more likely people will pay you a visit or even a comment. Look who looks better, one who sponsored an Ipod or one who sponsored an Internet Marketing Book? 😉

There are tons of paid options but basically these are what I think the most effective. If you have some $100 to spend or a credit card, then why not try to invest in it. Quality of Traffic and targeting is what the paid advertising gives that most free promotion tactics don’t.  What do you think?