MelvinBlog

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

Blog

September 2008 Income From My Whole Life

by ·

Sorry for the crappy title. 🙂 The month of September is a busy month for me! I have to go full time in school and Pay Per Click campaigns! Anyway September is a nice month and I just thought I will do a roundup like what most people pretty much do. This is the first time I will do this one 😉

Rankings and Blah Blah…

  • Alexa down to 136,000
  • PR dropped to 0 for no reasons at all
  • Technorati in 50,000 now!
  • 12,000 Pageviews from last month
  • Top 130 in 45n5
  • Improved Google SERPS
  • What else

I have improved slightly overall even though I haven’t done much promotions. I have also not been posting anything related to making money and most post from this month don’t have the quality that most blogs offer. Still my readers are still visiting and have seen increase return visitors traffic. The number of comments per post is still great and I just think the best way to say is thank you for my readers! 🙂

So for the income of the blog this month

  • $25 from Paid Post
  • $55 for direct sponsorship

Believe it or not this is the highest paid advertisement I got in this blog. From June to August, it was just like $10 – $20 and last month was probably the best month. I also got a long term bookings and some really took advantage of my cheap rates (my advertise page is still not updated)!

Income from Affiliate Networks

The Copeac thing is doing great. You may remember me for posting the Pay Per Click Campaigns that I did with Copeac. $165 is damn impressive for me because I just kick started things off last September 20 until the last day. The $62 from PJN was actually $62 way before the 15th month, before I took all my camps down from them. Still a decent amount for me! Btw, PJN still pays new signups $10 for signing under my ass! $20 from Clickbooth is I don’t where it actually came from and the my smallest earnings that came from Comm. Junc. is great considering I even have forgotten my password with my account with them.

Basketball Betting

So Actually I and a great friend Raymille had this little bet on our teams, me w/Ateneo and him w/his LaSalle crap! Eventually LaSalle sucked that bad and was swept in the entire series.

Expenses

  • Adwords – $120
  • Food and Transpo for school – 500 PHP ($12)
  • Bills ($20)

So I really hate talking about expenses because it makes me feel I have earned nothing but lets face it everyone spends on something. The adwords cost for the entire month is just actually when I started running Copeac’s campaigns. I set up a very poor low budget campaigns. For the food and transportation, I have always been over what’s my money for school. My parents give me about $6-8 per day for my expenses and its like I was always $10 per day not because I have poor budgeting but because everything has skyrockted in terms of price.

So, that’s everything for the previous one. What should you expect from me this October? Literally none! 🙂 I will be trying to post some of my PPC tactics and some blogging tips that I have learned along the way as well as my ramblings and blah blah. I would also like to beg Market Leverage to accept me to their network because I think I was like rejected for about 20 million times and all I wanted is to get accepted to their program and hopefully dominate Tyler’s New Signups Affiliate Challenge! 😉

Why I Have The Potential To Be A Superstar

by ·

A lot of people here reading my blog probably know (like what I always said) that I am a guy who’s so much into basketball. Although I haven’t played it for about 6 months now, due to busy school scheds and some appointments, I always keep myself conditioned to it. I’m not just a player, I’m also an analyst by nature. That’s why their is a triviality of basketball blog!

Going back to me, I was never a star in basketball. It has been my disappointment since high school. I was just like always a part of the support crew that comes off the bench and relieves starters. People close to me always say that I have the potential and if and ifs blah blah… I really have, I stand close to 6’ft and it seems I fit into that sports so much. Here are why they (and I) think I can be a great one someday:

1. Long range dexterity – When I was in highschool early part, everything I know is shooting the ball. I have deadly hands from long range and medium range. Problem is that’s the only thing I know that time. I can’t defend, can’t drive/slash, can’t use my height and etc. Now, I have become more balanced. But my shooting is still one thing thats always noticeable. 😉

2. Great Leap – Being I am close to 6 ft and I am really lean, I was also blessed to have this nice leap! And the thing is I have improved it with the Air Alert training program that was done by a lot of amateur and professional players (not just in basketball). Can I dunk? You judge!

3. Smart! – When I was in college, people who were smaller and nonathletic than me always make me feel stupid. That’s it, they play smart, they don’t have the talent but they get in your head~ They always compensates for something that they’re not blessed with. Then they shared me their tips!

4. Reliable – There aren’t many players out there who have a fresh fully functioning legs! I have never been injured and my legs have never been battered or whatsover. Although I haven;t really played much ball these days, the fact that I always give my 190% into the game and me not getting bruised is something to look at! Would you rather have LeBron James for 3 years or Paul Pierce for 10 years? 😉

5. No Attitude Problem – Boy, I am a very good boy! And people can testify to it!

So thats it. Looking at it, it can be said that I am indeed a superstar status but why not? Those are great gifts and talents that I have but some things really overshadowed those. Like my physique, I am merely over 50 kg, has a weak lungs, poor conditioning, weak upper body, bad timing, inconsistent game and really a lot. Add that I developed astigmatism these days and I have had also my blood sugar increasing!

So you think I can still be a basketball star?

The Flip From Market Leverage

by ·

Last month some of you knew that I won a contest by Collin Lahay which was sponsored by Market Leverage. After a month I finally was able to get the Flip from the post office and well they charged me some tax amounting to $45 to it. I just thought this is an example of how corruption has swallowed the Philippines entirely. 🙁 Anyway, thanks Market leverage… After I have opened the flip I got a short video by someone on their staff (Debby or Dina or who?) and well I really appreciate it. I took me some sweat to get that Flip as there was a typo on my name on the package…

So in return I did a video of my mine saying my appreciation! (I suck at doing videos!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmu5j2QNsww

The Pleasure Of Being Read

by ·

Once in a while, I got a question and answer here and someone asked a question like this:

Wess Stewart: What motivates you to blog? What made you want to blog in the first place?

I just said for the pleasure of being read and for money. Well I think I would love to say more about that. The money, of course everyone in the blogosphere has believed they can become rich and they can put up a decent amount of money having their blog. It’s given, I mean not so many people can continue a blog that you have to pay $10 a month and get no moolah for it.

Back again to the pleasure of being read. I was looking at my stats and it says I am getting 800 page views a day and 350 uniques. About 1/4 of that probably is just because of AdWords and some PPC. So thinking of having about 150-250 readers a day reading the simple thing that you say about something, man don’t you feel happy for that? Being read from US to Australia to India, New Zealand, Philippines and etc. just seems to be a pleasurable thing for me. I even have some offline friends who says “oh dude, you’re post about this topic pretty got a great response!” And I was like “oh I thought you’re not reading my blog”.   I know a lot other blogs there have bigger number of readers but for someone like me who’s just a dork and a cool student, it’s really amazing. I also got about 100 feed subscribers and its great!

To be honest, I never think at first blogging can be this  fun. Back to my first day I just posted how I think making money online being not for everyone and I think receiving no responses to now getting 5-10 comments per post and keeping on growing. I also meet a lot of people and learned from a lot of people who commented on this blog to share something about what they think and how they disagreed and such stuffs!

I see people who are getting depressed with their blog not piling up hundred of dollars for them every month but with great readership. I know its hard not to get a lot of money but well you just always have to think that a lot of people are following you. You may not be gaining money but for sure you’re getting the traction that most people couldn’t get. And believe me, this will be more useful for you and your journey!

If you like this one you can stumble it!

Oh My, Pay Per Click!

by ·

Hard times! I was doing some hardcore pay per click the past 2 days with a certain offer from Copeac and although I was not really failing that bad, it still didn’t look well in my eyes. Basically I had about 5 different campaigns there each with 600 PHP daily budget ($10+) and each of the campaigns have different ad types. I have been focusing on some email and zip submits that pay $1.55 per conversion. On some, I was doing dating niche that pays $3 per signup. I guess since I took a break on Pay per Click I really had my skills declined a lot. Although I was never really that succesful in ppc, I always enjoy it. It’s not really easy to get your ad in front of 20,000 impressions per day for free.

Well going back, I think the first day was a complete flop as I never really noticed my ads were disapproved by not complying to the quality guidelines. The dating try was really a flop! I was paying the max of $7 CPC per a $3 offer! The dating has became more saturated and its just harder now! A certain email submit was doing well as i net $26 on 1 1/2 days w/me spending $15 on that campaign. Here’s a quick look (Click for larger image) :

And here’s the adwords cost:

So, what I made in that email submit is $26.35 and the cost for everything is 1,000 PHP ($30). Not bad! Well I do really hope for something better than taht! If I would be losing money in PPC, I would be elated to accept it if I learned from it 😉

How bout you, how’s your PPC campaigns doing?

The Proper Way Of Doing Paid Posting

by ·

So I have never posted anything this month that has something to do with blogging. I just thought I would post one. 🙂 Well, paid post or paid reviews is a thing that is really in right now. I mean almost everyone has given their a blog a go signal to have it. It’s just surprsing how many people do not actually know how to do it the proper way. In forums and discussion threads, I always hear “you have to choose between the pr and the money” and some “oh, I don’t want to piss Google” and such stuffs. The thing is there is really nothing wrong with paid posting and links and blah blah. Matt Cutts has explained it well and still I thought many didn’t get it. So here are the guidelines (very few)

  1. Disclose it! – This is the first rule first and foremost. Unless you’re doing a review from those networks that are taking a cut, you should always tell your readers and Google that what you wrote is a paid review or some sort like that. I know a lot of people (including me) getting away with it with not disclosing but believe me you will hurt your blog in the long term if you do not disclose it
  2. Rel=’nofollow’ – How hard it is to put that simple stuff on your code? Well basically Google frowns on links that pass pr juice and you could get penalized. Although I do see a lot of bloggers nowadays not nofollowing links and well they do disclose though, that it is a paid post. And I think the disclosure would automatically mean something to Google as those sites pr were never dropped. Or Maybe I can tell Google they’re passing PR Juice. 😉

So thats it. Basically those are the only things that bloggers should keep in mind when doing paid posting. People who told you that the end of paid links and postings are near are stupid. The thing you always have to remember is that Google is the largest and the best search engine and they always say they can weed out any spam. Follow what they say and you’ll be all fine!

Answers On The First Q and A

by ·

Hi guys, I just thought the question and answer went well. I received a lot of personal questions and some of the questions really had made me think. So here are my response to your craps. 😉

Royle: What is the thing that you’re doing online/offline that makes you the most money?

Melvin: Obviously affiliate marketing is the answer. I was doing affiliate since January and I have drastically learned a lot. The poker niche made well for me. I think during February I made $180 in 15 days before it went down as the offer got penetrated well by other marketers. The dating niche, though is what I love the most.

Moolahking: I’m so sorry if my question a bit sarcastic. “Do you think you will be live long enough to see the world become worst?”

Melvin: Yes! Right now I can see it and I am scared and we should! People killing each other for some trivial things. Selfish Government. People risking their own lives just to do a worthless suicide bombing. Hell! I can’t imagine this world when I became 50

Rajaie Alkorani:

Could I please ask you a question?

Seriously, what do you prefer? Building a few large websites generating a high revenue, or building tons of mini websites with small revenue?

Which do you think is more profitable (in regards to the above question)

Melvin: Of course anyone wants a large project but sometimes for me I just couldn’t afford it! Large sites imposes larger risks as they have to be well funded. I always go with mini sites. If it doesn’t work, you can just drop it and you’ll not lose much

Stratosg: i will be a bit more personal… does blogging (or online presence in general) make you loose your sociality? do you have friends? which are the best ones? online or offline?

Melvin: Honestly it’s surprising that one thing I have learned online is better communication. Before I am not a social person. I mean I have a lot of friends but then its just that I dont always want to associate wiht people. Well blogging doesn’t made me lose my friends, in fact it has grown up because my offline friends were still my friends and some blogging perks have pretty much became close to me even though I haven’t met them. The best,  still are offline friends and I can say everyone would agree. 😉

Gel: Is it hard to “negotiate” with other websites when it comes to advertising and stuff? How do you draw a crowd (I mean visitors) here in your site? Which is easier? Making money online or offline (if you tried).

Melvin: Its not. Actually companies are very RECEPTIVE with what youre offering w/them as they dont put so many question marks on you. I mean my blog isn’t big and ranking superbly but I know I have earned more than some blogs who have better readership. Visitors? Actually tons of ways and it varies. But it’s just all about creativity! 🙂

Static: Why not themelvingblog.com? Your title is The Melvin Blog anyways

Melvin: because my name is Melvin and not Melving.

Wess Stewart: What motivates you to blog? What made you want to blog in the first place?

Melvin: First is the pleasure of being read. I think that alone is something I can always be proud of. And second of course money!

Jeba: Why you think we should read your blog ? what makes in unique ??

Melvin: Basically to learn from my experiences. Btw, the blog has never been a niche blog I can say as its more of a personal blog wherein I have photos with my friends and so. Thats unique!

Trixie: Hi friend, What’s harder, school or what you’re doing here? Explain your answer!

Melvin: Definitely school! And I’m not just talking about studies. Im talking about dwelling with depressions and stress with traveling from house to school, waking up early, managing your time, seeing your crush and a lot more. By far, offline is harder.

Badboy23: What is the most know site on the internet that everyone comes back to even though they got kicked off it before?

Melvin: I don’t have an idea! I don’t know, maybe its not an easy question after all!

Zappoint: Ok, Here is the question: Do you have a gun? Why/WHY not? Thanks for the oppurtunity

Melvin: I don’t have simply because I am too young. And i think its expensive

Oliver Carding: I have a question for you Melvin.
Have you ever kissed a girl ?
If so did you like it ?

Melvin: wtf! 😉 Of course I kiss every beautiful girl I see my mom at the cheeks. But well, for other people not yet. I never had any relationships in the past and am always commited keeping myself single until I earn $10K a month. 😉

Bingu: Do you like/love ads?

Melvin: I do love ads. I click a lot of adsense ads and its just like they provide info to users. Now if the site has ton of ads then you dont hate the ads, you hate the site.

Andy: hi
have you ever riden a harly like you stole it??
andy

Melvin: I have never.

And well the winner of the $10 straight to his paypal account is…

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  stratosg <<<<<<<<<<<<<

Contact me using the contact form