MelvinBlog

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

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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they serve only as rough, out of date guidelines.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

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.

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?

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.

The Pleasure Of Being Read

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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!

CPM Ads: Underrated MoneyMaker

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I often hear questions in forums that say “I have the traffic but little income from my blog”. Well as what I have observed people saying it, are people who are putting their earnings largely on Adsense. Though Adsense has had been a great money maker for some, almost 85% of people in this world are still not successful from using it… So getting back from the statement, I always answer “try CPM ads”. CPM stands for Cost per Millie, meaning you are gonna paid per 1000 impression. Take note, impression is not unique visitors, its pageviews!

So why do I think it’s an underrated moneymaker? Well just look. If you’re blog is getting about the normal 5000 uniques a month and say 12000 pageviews, then you’re on your way to $30 per month. People oftentimes think of selling direct ad sales but sometimes you cannot find anyone who will buy it. Especially if you’re blog is something very unrelated to internet marketing, then chances are people will notcare about your ad space. With CPM ads you can make money easily. And the sky is the limit. On my basketball blog, I had a large leaderboard CPM banner at the top that really pays me well. What I have done is I have ordered a cheap 100,000 US traffic. And with some advertisers paying up to $4 per cpm (US based), thats a really great deal for me. And that’s just the prelude. You can do more, “read more buttons” hot or not, voting scripts, and etc) Just do note that some CPM networks are very strict with some shady techniques and you’re account can be terminated, do it at your own risk!

Well one thing famous bloggers don’t like CPM is that it gives user a bad experience. Oftentimes ads are not good to user experience because they are unrelated. ANother is that sometimes they show flash ads that slows down your site! They also take a huge chunk of your income, 30-40%. Sites like Chow and Problogger could have had tripled their earnings that easy. But well it’s really bad to branding so I guess theirs no way they would try putting CPM ads on their sites…

How about you how do you find CPM ads? Have you considered trying and using them?