MelvinBlog

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

Blogging Experience

Does Your Blog Really Add Value?

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The exams are almost over and so is the contest. I am very thrilled to have this many contestants and I think it really boosted my blog’s traffic and search rankings. 🙂 To all sponsors and participants, I really wanted to thank you for supporting my first contest.

So, before I made a post about giving reason why people should follow and read your blog. While I never really considered this blog a “helpful blog”, I think I have still provided some value to my readers by giving out necessary tips. Let’s face it, when your blog doesn’t hand out something useful then more likely people will just leave you.

So today I will just list here some of the useful posts from this blog that can hopefully benefit you. I also do hope that some of the my new readers can read it in case they haven’t before. Here it is:

The Whole Make Money Online Concept

Blogging Tips

Blog Monetization

Affiliate Marketing

Some recommended reads

How To Get Sponsors For Your Contest

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“How do I get sponsors for my blog contest?”

There were about 4-5 people who ask those types of questions to me via the contact form. I believe getting contest sponsors is something that has been talked about a lot but I just felt I would add something so that more people can understand more about it.

Just last month I held a contest which is known as The Melvin Blog’s 2009 Contest. There were about 40 entries right now and some really great prizes up for grabs. Anyway back to getting contest sponsors, I think getting some sponsor is SO EASY but getting QUALITY sponsors is what you really have to work a lot. Normally when you hold a contest, the first and easiest way in getting sponsors is by heading into forums that is related to your niche. The downside though is that you’ll pretty much be slapped with tons of free advertising offers from blogspot blogs with over 5,000,000 in Alexa rankings. Since most contest nowadays are really all about like that, I highly suggest you to stay away on accepting those types of prizes.

How bout info products? Well you should and always should ask for a copy first before thinking whether it’s of a nce quality or not. For god’s sake most make money online ebooks are just rehashed PLR products that have ZERO value in real life. It pays to read after all!  My favorite way of finding sponsor is by basically finding sites that link to you. Yes, in my experience these sites will more likely bite your offer because they know your brand. And because they have linked to you it means they (possibly) like you! 🙂

If you’re an affiliate marketer like me I believe you’re way ahead than most people. You can just basically contact affiliate networks and ask them to sponsor your contest. Because they know you’re one of their good affiliates, they have no other choice to make. 🙂  Just be sure you’re not just a dead affiliate like most people. If you signed with them and never produced any lead then forget about it!

You must also never be afraid to contact persons whom you feel can help you in your contest. If they declined to sponsor something, so be it! The thing is you’re putting out your blog in its extended reach. Of course, they’ll look at your blog and if they find out you have a nice blog, then they’ll be receptive to help.

Getting sponsors can really vary. Another thing that I would want to emphasize is for you to be as transparent and honest as you can. You can’t just say lies about your sites. Basically sponsors sponsor something because they want something in return. Exposure, brand awareness, traffic, Search engine boost and etc. If you’re blog is just getting less than 100 uniques a day and you tell them youre getting thousands, what would you think they would expect? The thing is don’t make them feel disappointed by not having their expectations met. Just tell them what your site can give. Like for example this blog, when I started the contest I have a PR0 (still pr0 up to now), then only about less than 200 uniques a day and so. It’s just a so-so figure I must say but look how I rake up some really good quality sponsors!

At the end its just like putting yourself in the situation of the prospective sponsors you’re contacting and asking yourself “what will i get if i give three shirts in melvinblog.com’s contest?” “Will I get something good in return?” Wht do you think?

How to Make Money Outside Internet Marketing

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Although the title looks like that one you have been seeing in email spams and “get-rich quick sales pages, it’s actually not. A lot of people jumping into internet marketing always have this question “How do I start? I dont know anything about internet marketing?” The answer is always read, try to learn, test, then learn again.

But as always there are a ton of ways on how you can make money online if you’re dumb and poor about internet marketing. We all know it takes time before you can completely grasp the whole concept of it, but whats the need on learning it if you can make some cash without it? 🙂 Today I have compiled ways on how you can actually make money online without any knowledge about IM. The only thing you need is the basic read and write knowledge as well as some persistence on your part. I believe all of them costs nothing (although if you have the money, the better)  Here they are:

  • Forum Posting – Forum Posting is basically posting in a forum and getting paid. It’s not really that big but if you can work quick, then you can definitely have your earnings up. ForumsFirst.com is one that pays for it. They are probably the most reliable and better forum posting company. You can also look at some forums like dp and v7n, as normally there are people that look for forum fillers.

SECRET TIP: With this type people often whine “I don’t type fast” While typing fast is a huge factor in this one, it’s not totally the only thing that can give you success with it. Why not use a dicatation software? In my previous stints with doing it, I use Dragon Naturally Speaking. If you’re a Mac user you can use Mac Dictate. What is a dictation software? Basically its a software that converts your voice to text. COol? Definitely! You can make $50 a day easily with forum posting with this type of software. $50 a day? Yeah, something most affiliate marketers cant even reach!

  • Get Paid To Sites – GPT sites are sites that pay people to complete an offer. Maybe a short survey, or signup to a free site, or maybe something that requires a credit card. Believe me there’s no shortage of this sites. Why? Because some affiliate marketers are incentivizing some offers, thats why they come to these sites, pay them and earn. Win-Win situation for all! Jim of TNF has a list which he personally recommends
  • Freelancing – Contrary to what most people are saying, freelancing is really a lucrative thing. A lot of people are looking to outsource (including me). They look for designers, article writers, coders, data entry personnels, and many more. I mean Im sure at least you know how to do one of it right? Freelancers are the one whom I often called as “partners in business”.  Elance.com is one company which probably is the biggest.
  • Starting A Contest Blog – I hate doing stuffs like this but basically lets face it, you can actually make some cash/gadgets with contests nowadays. 85% of contests require blogging and doing it costs you nothing. What are you waiting for? Create a free blogger blog, fill it with some content, then start hunting for contests. I know a lot of people making good use of contest blogs and taking advantage of contests.

SECRET TIP: How do you know a contest is live? Easy, just look at other contest blogs and you will know it. Contest bloggers try to find contest as much as they can so they are actually doing the work for you. Search Google for terms “contest blogs” “blog contests” or so and you’ll find a ton.

  • Selling Photos – Selling photos is something that I have never done and will never do in my entire life. But after countless hours of doing research about it I found out it can really be a good business. If you have a camera, then go into a peaceful place (cemetery?) and take shots. Then sell it to  sites like iStockPhoto and StockExpert.

Now with this list, I dont really see any reason why people cannot make any money online. Although it doesn’t make you that big, I believe seeing your first dollars would make you more inspired. And inspirations do a lot. Anyway if you can add anything valuable to this list then don’t be shy to put it in the comments. Or if you have some questions, then ask them.  My goal is to get more to add in this list and hopefully share it in some of the local forums here in my country. 🙂 What say you?

How to Ask for Payout Bumps

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Payout bump is simply an increase in a payout for a certain offer in an affiliate network. It’s usually a 5 to 10% increase, say for example I am promoting a certain ringtone offer that pays $15 per lead. Because I am generating huge traffic to that offer, I tell my affiliate manager to increase my $15 per lead and after some talk he then upped my payout to $16.5 per lead. A lot of affiliates are getting these bumps, super affiliates, medium and small affiliates. Of course when you’re just starting and you have never driven them a lead and you ask for higher payouts then chances are you’d be ignored. Since 95% of affiliates are “dead affiliates”, only few can manage to get these bumps.

Did I say few? Maybe I can restate myself. 🙂 Actually bumps are applicable to any type of offer, yes even email and zip submits. Most people are not even thinking of asking because they always think what they are making is small. That’s wrong! Actually, you don’t really need to produce a high number of sales/leads a day to increase your payout. Last year, there was an offer I was just making a small $5 proft a day and when I asked my manager to increase the payout, I was surprised that he just sealed the deal immediately. It’s really easy to have an increased payout and I’ll show you why:

  1. They expect you to do that – That is actually so true! Most merchants that have offers with affiliate networks are always hoping to fish a super affiliate. And even before someone asks for a bump, they already have prices in front of them in case someone asks for it. Remember the merchants nevertheless just want the exposure and they understand that in order to get more, they have to pay more.
  2. Saturated market – if you look on offers within an affiliate network what you would notice is that there is a lot of offers within the same niche. With that being said, these merchants understand that in order to stand out they have to make themselves look more lucrative to the affiliates. I mentioned earlier that there was a certain offer that I was just making a small profit yet I still manage to get a pay out bump. Why is that so?  It’s simply because that offer has a lot of similarities with other offers.  they understand they have to stand out. They know that if they would turn you down, you would go elsewhere and they don’t want that. The point here is that you’re giving them no option. Take it or leave it.
  3. Affiliate managers wants you to become super affiliate – this is very true.  Most people don’t really see the value of affiliate managers.  What these affiliate managers want is for us to become super affiliate because they know they would just benefit if we are benefiting from them. They give us the best tips, best offers because they want us to work harder and earn more.

So how do you ask for increase?  The thing is it really varies and it depends on how people do it.  But I think it’s interesting to let you know how I do it. Here’s is exactly the message I keep on using everytime I email my affiliate manager. 🙂

Hi, I think I’m driving nice traffic to this offer and I have been doing it consistently for almost 2 weeks now. Basically I want more profit and I would like to ask for  an increase in payout. Let me know what you think. Thanks

So you see, it’s really easy. Most people say it more unhumble, but again if you’re just small and medium affiliate, just remember to be super polite. You know what I mean. 🙂

Do Comments Justify the Success Of a Blog?

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Most people and friends who just have recently started a blog normally ask me “why is my blog not getting comments? I look at my Analytics and I see the traffic but no comments” I responded then “time will come and just be patient”. But then at the back of my mind there are a lot of things going on so I  decided I need to post my thoughts here.  Ok, getting in into the number of comments into blogs, most people, I think are so wrong into thinking that the number of comments to  blogs justify how successful a blog is. Although comments are for sure one of the things to look at when analyzing a blog, I think it only plays a very small percentage on it. I am now blogging for almost a year overall and about 7 months with a blog kinda related to internet marketing and make money online and I really have seen it all with this niche.

I used to have a basketball blog and it drives traffic like crazy before and it only receives 5-6 comments a day. Now I got this Melvin Blog that gets an average number of traffic and yet I almost always get 10+ comments per post. Does it mean its a successful blog? No way! How about blogs getting 20-50 comments per post? Not either!

Blog comments can pretty much be gamed and by saying gamed, I don’t really mean blackhat. Sure I have 150-250 good friends and only 5-6 of them knows I blog.  Only 3-4 of them read this blog. So you see, it really depends. Now if you have 200 close friends that are addicted to blogging as well, then chances are you’re going to get nice number of comments.

Most people reply to each and every comment in their blog, some comments always on a blog that comments on them and so. But the thing is that it really just plays a small role on determining a blog’s success. Don’t get me wrong, sure it’s nice to have people that always care to say something or people  that share their stand.

It also works well on the eyes of advertisers and so. Maybe we can also add the fact the maybe the blog’s content isn’t as great as others that’s why its not returning the expected number of comments. It’s all true but the main point is you cannot take a look at the other blogs who get 100 comments and say they are an established blog! You can’t say I’m a smaller blog because I get fewer comments.

I know you also know a lot of blogs that are getting thousand uniques a day and do not get much comments but certainly there are a number of factors to look with how commenting really works, why people comment on posts/blogs, and if it really makes a blog successful or just makes it look successful.

Spam Spam Go Away

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Everyone who has a blog knows that pain of dealing with spam comments and trackbacks. Of course, the more popular the blog is the higher the spam content it may receive each day. For this blog, I think it has about 3000 spam comments caught by Akismet since it started last May. Now while Akismet does a very nice job of catching spam comments from your blog, we cannot ignore the fact that we still always double check it, in case it catches false postives. Right? Although normally the rates are very low then and it seems that Akismet has improved so much since the day it started.

So here now I am going to show you other guides/tips that can help you fight and reduce spam on your blog:

  1. Comment-Timeout – I am pretty surprised not a lot of people use this plugin but what this plugin does is simply close the comment form of the blog posts that are older than 3 months or so. You can set it to whatever you may wish for but certainly its a nice plugin that helped me reduce the number of spams I receive every day. Comment-Timeout is a nice plugin I swear!
  2. Hold a Comment if it has 1 link! – Now this is what i have just learned last month. Basically there will come a time a guy will follow you and comment genuinely. In wordpress, upon approving the comment of a certain guy/email, it basically just accepts each and every comment of that guy then. So after quite some time, the spammer then use that to spread spam links on my blog and fortunately I thwarted him before he could do so much. Always hold a comment for moderation if it contains a link!
  3. Use the Comment Moderation Box – In the settings of your discussion in wordpress admin, you’ll see a semi-sized box wherein you can put ip, emails and etc. What you might want to put here is the list of proxies provided by TOR. You can also search for other open proxy ips and try to list them as well. Proxy is a great way to surf anonymously but oh boy spammers just take advantage of it so well!
  4. Wp-ban – This is another wordpress plugin and it does display a custom ban message when the banned IP, IP range, host name or referer url trys to visit you blog. You can also exclude certain IPs from being banned. There will be statistics recordered on how many times they attemp to visit your blog. It allows wildcard matching too. I don’t use it here, but if you have a very popular blog or maybe you are the target of the spammers, then it can be useful.
  5. Trackbacks – trackbacks are one easy way to spam and spread links on other people’s site. What happens is that spam blogs will send a trackback to you w/your own content. Before I wasn’t aware w/it, so I just approve every trackbacks I receive. You must always take a look at a site before accepting their trackspams!

So that’s it. What you will find out is that most of the solutions are just inside wordpress itself. If you know a little programming then you expand things more depending on your knowledge. Just always back up! 🙂

Can Your Blog Survive 2009?

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I know the title is a little funny for you guys and most of you will not even take it seriously. This is the first time my blog will face the month January , February, March, April and to be serious Im dead excited about it. It feels like I am going on to a fresh start. Im also thrilled because I have a plan already laid out for the blog in its first 6 months and I can assure you its gonna be exciting. There’s something in me that screams I should focus more on maintaining this blog more than anything else. 😉

Anyway back to the question. Actually its a question to a more broader bloggers/audience and not just for the readers of the blog. I know and I’m 80% sure of my top commentators and those who were following me since I started can survive. But then its like most just won’t. Yesterday I was reading my old posts and those people who commented on it. Some do not have the blog anymore but the domain is parked, some just stopped posting and seemed to have lost interest with it or maybe busy and unfortunately some have completely abandoned it. I can’t blame them (and you can’t) but its just like these things happen and sometimes its inevitable. There were times were I want to tell people that no matter how busy and crappy their life is they should still hold on to their blog. I’ve realized then its not fair to tell them that.

As some of you know, this blog is hosted on a monthly basis (via subscription) and while I am thrilled to experience paying monthly bills because its more challenging and hassle-unfree, maybe their’s a day where all of a sudden my paypal balance goes $0. You’ll never know. Right now, Im more inclined of receiving checks as a form of payment and in my country its not possible to transfer money from the bank to paypal. After all I realize that maybe I am in the same situation with most bloggers who were unsure about the future of their beloved blogs. But of course, thinking today, its goddamn impossible.. 😉

I see a lot of guys setting a goal for your blog and Im thrilled reading those things. But you see, things happen very quick! Maybe tomorrow my flip is gone, then next month my camera, then my computer! How about you, do you think you have everything it takes to maintain a blog for another year? Can your blog survive the year of the ox?