Blogging Experience

The Huge Value Of Testing Stuffs

by Melvin · Sep 8, 2008

Most people underestestimate the value of testing different stuffs. I mean most don’t even know they should test things. Testing plays a key role not only in online business but also in every aspects of life. Sometimes, it can be risky and most of the times it will help us learn and gain knowledge based on what we have observed. With affiliate marketing, I really love to test stuffs out. I mean when I was doing Adwords early this year I was very receptive on committing mistakes and learning from them. I put up different landing pages and different color schemes and see how they flop! On that way, you know you could do better the next time.

There are tons of ways wherein you can test something and do a case study. Like for instance in this blog, when I was promoting Pepperjam Network here. I think I made over $100 with an affiliate banner at the sidebar (when there are few advertisers yet). Why is that so? Basically I just rotated every type of ad that Pepperjam gives. I give my users different views of the ads which I think have helped both of us. What you are needing to do is make your users avoid banner blindness wherein they just go w/your site and say “these banners again”. That’s why as much as possible I ask for different types of ads from advertisers so that they can maximize their exposure from this blog.

Now someone can say “It’s risky to test things and I don’t think I can afford it”. Well its true but most of the times it is not really as risky as what you might ever think of. What you have to do is always look and observe what you’re visitors are doing. How they respond to it. It’s easy sometimes to say, “oh what I did doesn’t really make much sense” but you will benefit a lot from it on a long term basis. How if it doesn’t work? Then it doesn’t work, leave it! If you believe you have exerted a better effort with stuffs that flops then you can always drop it and start again. I know many are afraid but it’s just business and life I think. You will succeed and you will fail

I know some of you also do testing and some “under the microscope” experiments. Maybe you can share yours and what you have learned from it.

Every Kid Who Has A Blog Is Busy Right Now!

by Melvin · Sep 6, 2008

Yesterday I was looking on blog premiere forum (kid and teenager bloggers) and have observed that it seems most kid bloggers today have had some adjustments with his posting frequency and others have just simply stopped because of studies. Well this is true especially the latter part of the year wherein the school resumes back and more probably take a huge chunk of time of bloggers and marketers who are studying still. It has also been noticeable that the comments and activity of young bloggers through forums and social sites have decreased. Really hard to manage time right?

Well I think it’s one crucial thing here and most kid and teenagers will learn from it. How they should be able to manage their time and how we should maintain our online stuffs without having our studies suffer. For me the trimester of our school has ended. There will be a one week break before I head back again to the second trimester. This trime by far is the busiest one and I really learned a lot on it. It’s ironic because the blog has never lost its ranking. I mean from August to July, I have stopped promoting it and well mainly because I can’t, everything related to school has been like eating my whole time.

How about you? I know most readers here do also study and split their time doing different stuffs, do you think you are managing your time well?

Make Some Money By Placing Banners

by Melvin · Sep 3, 2008

I am not really a fan of these “place a banner” and get monthly payments or anything like that but sometimes stuffs like this will help people or new people build something for startup and it does not cause anything to join. So I thought I would be making a post about it.

Well What I am talking about here is freebies 4 Webmaster. Last July they contacted me introducing their services, I though they were just scam or maybe they are really so I turned down their offer. But then last month I was playing with monetization here in this blog and you may notice me placing different things on the sidebar and doing A and B testing. Then one friend referred this now to me. I pasted the 468X60 on the lower part of the sidebar. I did it last August 20 and then yesterday I received 10 British Pounds from them which means they really pay. They do also promise to pay monthly for keeping that banner on my site. Lets see.

They Hacked This Blog And How My Determination Fixed it

by Melvin · Aug 29, 2008

Most of you probably know that this blog was hacked a couple of days ago. In fact, you can see in my archive page that there is a notice (until now) saying to just go directly to my posts instead of going to the homepage. Well, long story… (you may not want to read this because this is boring!)

The day started when I tried loggin in to my wordpress blog admin page. I was surprised to see that the my login wasn’t succesful so I retried it. But well still to no avail. I immediately pressed the forgot password and well my password was reset and I was able to login again. Being curious, I immedaitely visited my site and saw that I am hacked! Well, I was surprised at it that I wasn’t even able to take a screenshot of it (if everyone has, please give it to me 😉 ) I then panicked a bit mainly because obviously I know little with things like this and well its just that from my point of view I can do nothing by myself.

So I then turned to the busiest forum in the world, the digital point. I have made a thread there saying my site was hacked and I immediately got great responses. Some were saying that I should check for some shells, others are saying this and that and those. I also went through the teenager internet marketing forum, blog premiere. Many people have responded as well, but in a longer span of time. Jason pointed out saying that I should get the db from my host which is gator. Oh, yeah! I forgot I should have a conversation with my web host which should be done first and foremost. I immediately called them and talked (they were polite) and they say they would get back to me asap. The incident reminds me of the hacking of Carl Ocab’s site. When his site was hacked, what he did was to change host and update the nameservers and it became fine. The process is a little lengthy though.

I was busy all throughout the day. I then called Rajaie who could probably help me with this. he responded immediately (thats what friends are all about:-) ). He asked for my wp account and I immediately made one for him and made him an administrator. One clear thing is that I dont have a clear path of what to do. While waiting for him, I emailed Scocco of DBT, I tweeted Shoemoney, and the number of replies from dp kept on growing. I then revoked the admin privileges to Alkorani because I feel I should on a more clear direction.

Turned the PC off and think more. I had to be more focused and DETERMINED for it. The blog, well aside from having sold out ad spots, hundreds of readers, the main thing is that it’s a part of me. That’s why my name has on it. After 2 hours, turned the PC again, got reply from Scocco saying I should reinstall wordpress and load the backup. Problem is that my last backup was made way back June, wtf! I told him if there;s other solution? and he said none! I am a click away from removing wordpress and reinstalling it and loading an outdated backup but I said No! Then the great light came in and it seemed that in a blink of an eye I know the end of the tunnel is very close.

I, have searched on C99 shells and have found some of them on my public_html folder, then I also found suspicious files which I fearlessly deleted. Then still not fine~ oh shit! Then an idea popped out and well I changed my template back to the old and ugly Kubrick theme. I loaded it and to my surprise it loaded succesfully… Aha! The problem was on my template. Obviously, the site’s main page is the only one not functioning. What I did is look at the index.php and bingo! I have found out the culprit! I immediately restored the code back and it was back again. The rest was history…

What did I learn? Many things; always back up, never lose composure, trust yourself, and believe in your friends that you can do it, they add positive things. To all, thank you for the help, digital point, blog premiere, the bloggers I have contacted and everyone. A very great experience to me!

Can Blogs Help You Make Money?

by Melvin · Aug 23, 2008

Well this is a great question by one of my childhood friend. He was very curious about how blogs can help people make money. In all honesty, blogs CAN’T make you money, and although they can help, it’s just not as easy as people think. Why? Well blogs first and foremost is a place bloggers where stuck their own notes and what they are putting their is all based on their OWN experience and opinion. You see guys put “Making money with PPC” or maybe with Website Flipping or so but the truth is it’s based on their own experience (most of the time). They have done it well so they can recommend it and in this way they can help you learn and gain some knowledge about it. But their’s no way they’re helping you make money, or maybe they do but it’s still up to you.

I don’t really have problems with this but it’s just that what worked for others doesn’t mean will work with you (or doesn’t mean it won’t work for you). Yeah, they are plenty of blogs there that provide useful and superb resources. You can always read a good article about Pay Per Click and still suck at doing it. You can print a ebook about making money with articles but still fail. Bottom line is people do things differently and have different expertise. Or Maybe making money online is just not for you

The Importance of StartUp Income

by Melvin · Aug 17, 2008

I always like to go back to the old days wherein I used to struggle and almost “cry” trying hard ti make money online. Well, I still struggle today but never cry anymore. 😉 So I can say one thing that has really made me up on internet marketing is the startup income. During those hard times, I have the money to cover up all failing projects and dumb purchases. It’s also evident to see that when you’re carving up something online or even offline, you need to have some startup cash to cover your expenses. Jason always points it out in some of his post saying you have to work for some small income first to get you online for bigger things. I agree on that. Before I was doing some freelancing to cover up some PPC cost and advertising expenses. Of course its risky because you will 85% sure fail. But well I was more of yearning about learning that time.

Well, if you’re thinking how you can build some initial income here’s what I can suggest to you:

Forum Posting – This one is easy but you have to have hardwork. Forumsfirst pays $0.20 for each 40 word comment. They pay via paypal and the minimum is $10. If you type very fast (like me) and have a great WPM accuracy then a $10 can be easily made by an hour. Cool!
GPT – A while a back ago I asked Jim of the Netfool why he is promoting GPT sites. He responded saying because everyone can make money from it so easy. All you have to do is complete free offers. Check out The Net Fools GPT sites.
Freelancing – Before I used to embark a lot of time in this one. Before I used to have a good grammar before blogging made my grammar look atrocious! If you’re up on writing articles, coding and so then this one is for you.
Digital Point – Last month I made a post about how you can make a living on DP forum. Again DP has an enormous opportunity on making money. You can join contests, do some data entry jobs and boast yyour portfolio there. After all there is no middle man so you get a fair share of everything.

Of course there are tons of it but at least these are what I can say have worked for me well. At the end it is all about determination and hardwork. I guess it always pays off at the end.