Identify Phases Of A Succesful Blog

Often I find myself overwhelmed with updating and maintaining my blogs, let alone promoting, answering emails, monetizing, etc. One of the many reasons is that I have never fully identified the many facets of publishing and maintaining a successful blog or becoming a problogger. Overlooking this simple problem causes me to be less productive as I fail to well-organize my day-to-day blogging activities.

So what are the phases of publishing a blog?

1. Technical – setup a blog, customize the templates, solve technical problems or back up your blog.
2. Content scouting – unless you can think on your feet and automatically produce quirky, interesting information, you have to rely on outside sources for your blog content. They can range from newspaper’s articles, TV shows, Internet podcasts, seminars or conferences’ lectures to conversation with other people.
3. Write, Edit & Post – you have come to the most important phase of a blog’s life-cycle. Hack code all you want, overload your head with information, promote your blog like crazy, sign up with tons of advertiser networks or optimize your blog won’t shoot your blog to fame if the blog lacks both quality and quantity. So what do you have to do? Write, write and write and do publish the posts::Chuckle::. I have to mention the publishing part because I have a collection of posts which never make past the “Draft” status.
4. Promoting – after you have done all the above and think your blog deserves a worthier existence, you need to promote it. In this messy, jungle-like www, only few special blogs reach their stardom based solely on mouth-to-mouth marketing or on random encounters by other netters.
5. Monetizing – it’s time to compensate for your hard work. You can make your blog into a cash-cow or at least self-sustain. (More on this later.)
6. Administrative – all the routines including exciting and tedious stuffs such as moderating comments, replying to your commenters, call technical support, filling out forms applying for ad services, writing emails to solicit sponsors and advertisers, etc.
   Next time, I will blog in more details about the sub-tasks of each of these phases.

 

Tags: Bohemian Biz, Blog

Comparing today’s most popular blog editors

Link to the blog editor comparison chart.

I used and and tried out all blog editors mentioned on the chart except for Blogjet. I downloaded Blogjet’s trial version before but wasn’t able to set it up and don’t know anybody who use this editor.

The chart covers what I think all popular blog editors today, but in case I miss something out, please let me know.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blog Editors, Bohemian Biz, Listmania

 

TravelJo! launched

A week ago, I launched TravelJo!, an online travel site publishing airfare, accommodation, car rental, vacation packages deals. And no, I’m not a travel agent and TravelJo! is not a travel agency. This web site is strictly making money via another online $$$ experiment method: affiliates.

Why affiliate travel site?

1. No particular reason. I’ve known about affiliates for some time, and it’s either now or later I implement it.
2. I like traveling, so I won’t bore myself out searching, picking, and posting travel deals and tips. (What will be the fate of me if I choose to affiliate-sell toilet-related products, for example.)

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Method: Affiliatess

Status: Unsure

Ebay 15 cent insertion fee, one-day only!

I know I’m an Ediot (Ebay’s idiot). But I will give it another try relisting my unsold items. Normally it costs 20 cents to list an item and more if the starting price is too high (among tons of other imposing fees.)

Ebay has a promotion today: 15 cent insertion fee and no extra charge for high starting price. I will take advantage of it and hike my startin price ridiculously high. Yah, it didn’t sell when it was low, so what the heck!

See my listing.

Amazon MarketPlace Purchase: Sold another book

Two days ago, I sold another book for about $13.84. I emailed my mom to ask her ship the book and received a confirmed email from her today. Hehe, who knows mom can be a really good personal assistant.

Our invoice problem

1. She has a very old computer (too bad she and my dad burned both computers I gave them.) This “handout” computer (from my cousin) doesn’t have any USB port, thus can’t be hoooked up with a printer. Amazon MarketPlace Purchase requires seller to pack a hardcopy invoice with the item. Without a printer, my mom can go to the public library, but she has to drive for 15 minutes, stumbles around the library’s printing GUI, pays 15 cent. This process can takes up to an hour, for a piece of useless paper. Not worth it.
2. Or she can give my printer to my cousins and ask them to print. She only has to drive to their place to pick it up. Take less time, but still take some time.
3. So I resolved to method #3. I faxed her the invoice. I can fax for free without having a fax machine so there is no cost. My ability to cut and paste quick is simply amazing, so there is no lost time to prepare an invoice. Problem sovled right? No. My mom reported that the paper are jammed and the fax machine only spat out stupid text.
4. Do you know what my mommy does next? “Daughter, I hand-wrote the invoce. I wrote exactly what you send me in the mail. My handwriting was really neat and pretty.” She told me. Huh? Hmm! The buyer might not care getting a handwritten receipt, but Amazon might get MAD at me.

Experience with AMPP

So far, I make the most money selling old books on Amazon as other online media have not made me any money yet. It took some time in the beginning to create a mini inventory, list my books on Amazon, but after that I just had to wait for orders to come. The only setback with listing on Amazon as a regular seller is that my listing will be gone within two months, which is sometimes around mid Jan.

Amazon has been fast when informing me (email) about their payment. The money is normally in my bank account about a week unless AMMP combines two or more payments. I like the fact that AMPP doesn’t enforce a minimum payment.

Ideas, Lessons & CarriedOut

#1: Created an online saving account for my mom (CarriedOut)

I want to give my mom some of the money for helping me out though she doesn’t care. Asian mothers like doing things for FREE for the children so much, at least my mother. She is my most zealous free-doer of all time.

1. I set up an online saving account for her and tie both her and my bank accounts to this online saving.
2. I transfer my money to this saving.
3. She can transfer the money to her existing bank account or let it sit.

#2: Selling stuffs and don’t have to worry about handling inventories. Leave it to a trusted person, my mom for example (Idea)

 

Method: Selling on Amazon MarketPlace Purchase

Ebay Store

I chatted with an old friend of mine last night for two hours, catching up on each other’s life. T., his name, got married in July of this year to his long-term girl friend, the same one he introduced to me five/six years ago. All our mutual friends except one were at the party. I wasn’t as I lived in Europe at the time.

Marriage life has served him just right. He loves the new independent and responsible life. Of course, he sure does love his wife. We studied the first two years in college together. Another friend and I joked that he was a one-woman-only man, that if he has a girl friend or a wife, he’s stick with her for life.

We traded questions back and forth, and I found out he nows operates an Ebay store, selling Networking equipment etc.

Ooh la la! I cried as if I went to Ebay heaven. Do you remember my previous post about my Ebay blunders? A month ago, I tried to auction old books on Ebay and didn’t make a damn cent. I even lost money in the process. => I’m an official Ediot. Still, I will make at least a few more Ebay attempts selling god-know-what.

Here is a quick note of my free Ebay consulting session with my friend.

• He only sells and does not auction his items as “I will be out of business soon.” Some of his items are priced over $10,000.
• People, who have no business, auction their stuffs.
• Books (old books) are not popular on Ebay.
• He accepts Paypal, Wire Transfer, Money Order & Cashier Check (watch out for fakes), COD Check (pay on delivery).
• Doesn’t like Paypal as it charges a lot of money per transaction. (how much is 3% in $10,000?)
• Prefer wire transfers as they charge a flat fee.
• However, wire transfers are good only for high-valued transactions. In my case where each item only costs a few dollars, Paypal is better.

I tried to convince him to install Skye and buy a headset so that we can talk next time as I plan to ask him a bunch of Ebay related quetions for FREE.

I offered to fixed his company’s web site (the poor guy is learning the boring HTML, creating the entire site by the traditional html coding (Huh?) and hates every second of it.) He told me he didn’t want to burden me with his problem. So typical Asian man.

Paypal and other payment methods

I opened a Paypal accountout of the whim some years ago as Paypal name was hot at the time. Then I let my account sit for the next two years and deleted every single email Paypal sent me.

In January of this year, I applied for a remote data analyst position and was asked if I used Paypal. This was the only reason that I remembered about Paypal. Right after, I tried to access my account to see if it was still valid. I couldn’t sign in because at the time I lived in Bosnia, which belonged to one of Paypal’s restricted regions (all former Yugoslavia countries except Slovenia.)

I returned to the US for a few months, and the idea of selling on Ebay crossed through my mind, so I started selling some old books. It was obvious which payment method I used: Ebay had Paypal built in to the user account, Paypal is popular with US bidders and I already had a Paypal account and didn’t want to spend extra time searching for an alternative payment method.

Prior to Paypal, paying other people and receving money from them were done through the following methods:

1. Cash: Easiest. But you have to be in person to pay or receive cash.
2. Check: More efficient than cash, but there is delay when sending and receiving the check plus the additional it takes to clear the check at the bank. The delay time can takes up to 10 business days. And we haven’t address the problem with bounce check.
3. Money order: I never tried money order but my mother used to pay her rent using this method. So I guess other businesses accept this payment as well. It cost a little more than a dollar buying from the post offices and only 10 cent from Walmart (California). It’s easy to cash at grocery stores, post offices and banks, etc. However, unless you hand the money order, you might lose all money if the note is lost in the mail.
4. Cashier check: Similar to money order.
5. Credit card: You have to own a mini credit card machine to authorize credit card payment. I bet it will costs you a great deal to set up your own card processing services. It’s only efficient if you have an established business or close many transactions per month. Besides, people might not want to give out credit card numbers to any strangers they do business online. It makes sense right as you wouldn’t freely give your numbers out either. Fraud.
6. Wire money: I’ve never done this, so can’t say much. I know that wiring money through Western Union costs around $20 at least per transaction.
7. Online payment: As mentioned before, I use Paypal. So far I have positive experiences with them. Once you have a Paypal account, you can sending money to other Paypalers using their email addresses. It’s free to send money, but Paypal charges receivers 3.9% (the rate can change now, so double check) of each transaction. Anyway, I only did a few small transaction so can’t vouch for Paypal all that much. Also, there are lots of complains about Paypal, so you should do more research. Other than that, try it!

The list might not be complete. I update as I learn about other payment methods.

Eefoof – Get paid for original content

 

This is my newest online-money-making experiment: submit my photos to eefoof and expect a payment. (Uh, don’t know when as the minimum amount is $25. But I suspect it will be a long time before I see that check unless you start viewing my superb, heavenly cool photos like crazy.)

Isubmitted my pictures to Eefoof, a community web site that pays authors for submitted videos, audios and images. Base on the hits I get for my “photography” work, Eefoof shares with me a small amount of their ad-generated revenue.

Does it work?

I’m a bit unsure about this money-making method as Eefoof is an underdog in the creative sharing community. Have you heard of Eefoof before? Yup. My point exactly.

In addition, the site’s look is too mediocre and the existing content is low-quality if not sooooo baaaad. I’m not sure if they can attract fans at all when Flickr and Youtube are among their competitors.

But again, I think users will be more motivated and willing to jump boat to Eefoof since they all have a chance of making money.

Think about Youtube, that famous video-sharing startup which recently bought by the Internet giant Google. Youtube is profited from thousands of videos uploaded mainly by its users. These Youtube users have been doing it for free and for fun JUST because there is no other alternative which offers them some money in return. Hopefully, with Eefoof’s possible competition, Google and Youtube might consider paying the users for their videos.

How can Eefoof possibly be Google’s and Youtube’s competitor? You might ask. Maybe they can’t. But if somebody mentioned the name Youtube a year ago, you wouldn’t have thought it could be Google’s next rival in video sharing right?

For now, I just want to see if I can get enough from Eefoof to cover my Flickr’s picture expense, $25/year. Isn’t that ironic? I pay to have my pictures hosted from one service and try to make money for the same pictures from another.

Notes

I spent 3 hours to check out Eefoof, prepare, upload photos and write this post. Geez, I demand Eefoof to make me a lot of money. ;D And I kindly, simply ask my readers to keep hitting on–NOT ME–my photos.

I’ll check back in a month and see how much money I’ve made.

[via dumb little man]

5 gifts to make kids rich

1. A Roth IRA: It’s difficult to make kids think about retirement, let alone acting on it. Since you spend a lot of money for them on expensive, unworthy toys, why not open a retirement saving account. Once they hit their twenties, they will probably appreciate you a lot.
2. Book to teach them about money –
3. Money management board game – Pay Day: Probably similar to Monopoly.
4. Entrepreneur motivation – The Sim 2: Open for Business: I don’t play this game but like the concept behind this. Most kids like to learn by examples and apply what they have learned. So unless you run a business and employ your kids to teach them about it, there is no better way to instill little business savvy than let them play the game.
5. Contribution to a 529 Plan: Help pay for their colleges later on. I don’t know much about this option.

I wish somebody has taught me about money growing up, but I understand that for some culture, especially in non-advancing and poverty-stricken countries, this option wasn’t an option because the adults do not know better.

[Link to article]

Google Adsense Sacked Me

The dreaded email

Officially on November 27th, I was sacked by Google Adsense for invalid clicks. They sent me an email out of the blue informing me that they disabled my account due to invalid clicks. I used the link provided in the email and appealed. I got another seem-like automatic email rejecting my appeal. Then I wrote a details email explaining my situation. Promptly, Google sent me another automatic rejecting email.

Google email #1

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks and/or impressions
have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have
therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that
this was a necessary step to protect the interest of the AdWords
advertisers…

Google email #2

Hello, Thank you for your appeal. After receiving your response, we re-reviewed your account data thoroughly. We have reconfirmed that invalid clicks were generated on the ads on your site in violation of our Terms and Conditions and program policies. https://www.google.com/adsense/terms https://www.google.com/adsense/policies We have these policies in place to help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. According to our policy on this matter, we are unable to reinstate you into the program. As you may know, publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed any further participation in AdSense. For this reason, you may not open a new account. Please bear in mind that subsequent or duplicate appeals may not be considered and you may not receive any further communication from us. We appreciate your understanding. Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team

Google email #3

Hello,

Thank you for your response. We appreciate your providing us with more
information about your account activity.

Please note that we have certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. We have thoroughly re-reviewed your account data upon receipt of your response and have reconfirmed that invalid clicks were generated on the ads on your site. According to our policy on this matter, we have disabled your account in order to protect our advertisers. We appreciate your understanding…

Of course I know that these invalid clicks and page impressions generated from my web sites, but I can explain that. However, I don’t think Google care too much for that.

It sucked so bad as I was planning to have a Google Adsense category where I record everything I know about this popular contextual advertising.

“Truth in advertising,” The Economist 25 Nov. 2006:13

Yesterday J. read this article and laughed his head off before shoving it on my face. It seems Google, which earns $27 billion a year from only internet advertising, is pressured by their advertisers to enforce a stricter and more efficient pay-per-click program due to easy and increasing click fraud.

…That rose future could be in jeopardy unless the big internet company, including Google, do more to clamp down on some dodgy practices on the web. Concern has been growing in recent months that “click fraud” might undermine the industry.

…Disgruntled advertisers have launched class-action lawsuits against Google and Yahoo!, and big companies are threatening to hold back spending on internet advertising unless the industry generally becomes more transparent and accountable.

Alternatives

I’m going to switch to Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) or other contextual ads which are not as popular as Google Adsense, but I am not worrying too much about that.

 

Resources Google Adsense’s alternatives Adsense and YPN comparision chart