You Can Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

On the web its important to be different. So important in fact that your livelihood hangs in the balance over it. Whether its a brand new internet auction site, or a fantastic unheard of niche that has a market craving for it, unless you’ve got a different way to lure in a fresh audience then you’ll have a hard time breaking even, making money or achieving your goals.

But I’ve also learned that you can take existing models and ideas and with a few simple changes convert them into something spectacular and business-changing. I got an email from someone called Terry at Kineda asking me to check out there new “Bloglebrity” tool. The idea is very similar to a concept by Business Opportunities Weblog:

My blog is worth $33,872.40. How much is your blog worth?

Here, Tristan Louis, the creator of this tool has used Technorati link statistics to place a monetary value on my blog. The idea behind it is extremely simple; assign an amount of dollars for each link back to your blog, with higher repping blog linkbacks worth for $$. As expected the little box spreaded like wildfire so much so that the page got a PR7 and some great publicity to the site.

Now Terry has again used Technorati linkage values but displayed them in a different way than money. She has assigned a certain amount of links to a Celebrity Blogging Status. So for example, if you have a lot of links back to your site in a 7 day period, you could see yourself as an A or B-list Bloglebrity. The range goes down to a disappointing D. As a matter of fact, Blogtrepreneur happens to be a B-Lister (see the badge top-left of this article).

Again, this author has created a little graphic so that others can display it on their sites (just like I have done), once again giving her site some more link love. No doubt this will work wonders on her SEO and traffic.

But what Im really trying to emphasise is to look on original ideas in a different light. Examine what has made a particular site or product successful and look at a different marketing or USP (Unique Selling Point). Then you can leverage the resources from the first product and inject it into your brand new one - appealing to the same audience who may not recognise the ingenuity. So to all those who cliché, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” - you’re wrong. Teaching an old dog something novel may just be the best thing that will happen to your business and prosperity.

Blogtrepreneur Got Hacked 2 Weeks Ago

I know Im a bit late on the topic but I only received some screenshots of the hack a few days ago. It turns out that 2 weeks ago, this very site got hacked by some Egyptian people. TBH, I’ve read the screenshots and they dont seem to convey that much of a message - I was a little surprised at this, as normally the hackers have a theme to their site attack. Not this time.

Below are some screenshots of what was on Blogtrepreneur. I didn’t actually managed to view the shots myself as I was away for the day but a few of you may have been wondering what had happened. This happened as I was renewing my hosting account on top of server downtime, so maybe there were some vulnerabilities. Either way, the screen was morphed only for a few hours before normality was restored:

No-one likes to be hacked but this teaches me a few lessons:

• Always keep your blog, forum and any software you have hosted on your account updated to the latest specifications and upgrades as these may contain security and bug fixes. I have now upgraded this blog to Wordpress Version 2.0.5
• Never get on the wrong side of another on the net. If you’ve got something irrational to say, use the 1 hour rule to calm yourself down and think logically before you post - it will save you from having a lot of annoyed enemies.
• Blogtrepreneur may actually be starting to become renowned on the net. Hackers seem to target sites if they are known as their message will be conveyed to a large audience. Whilst this site does not have a huge amount of traffic, its RSS subscribership if very nice.

I won’t dwell too much on this occurrence and will take the good points out of it rather than to worry when the next attack might be. Learn from mistakes and make sure you don’t do the same thing again is what I’ll do. So sorry for any inconvenience caused, and for any offence you might have taken at the site.

Teentrepreneur.com - My First Attempt at an AIS

Lately I’ve been reading quite a few AIS (Automated Income Stream) and Adsense blogs (such as PMPR, BuildingMyEmpire, 45n5, Osworld and Nothing Ventured). All these sites talk about how they have content sites which they leave on autopilot and which normally feature some sort of monetization. Most of the time, these people use Adsense, and if they have 100 or so sites earnings on average $1 per day, this can result in a nice healthy living from doing not much work at all.

Naturally, I wanted to try my hand in this form of passive income, and so I decided to use an old domain name to conjure up a fresh new site made using a template.

Introducing Teentrepreneur! This site aims to help young, teenage entrepreneurs (like myself) find their feet online with a selection of helpful Articles, Biographies on other famous young moguls and quotes from the mouths of many a top earner. My aim is to reach the top of Google rankings for the term “Teenage Entrepreneur“, and hopefully that won’t be too hard as my domain name is pretty well optimized for this.

SEO or search engine optimization is an obvious point which I will hope to improve on as time goes by. As this is a passive income site, my only traffic will come from the search engines, and so my site must be well suited for bots and crawlers and should boast a wealth of information for the users. I’ve made use of title tags, meta descriptions and a clear navigation.

At the moment, as well as the site not being completely finished, it also contains an Adsense link unit in the sidebar and some banners further down. These have been strategically placed and this is a topic which I’ll focus a whole post on later on to show you how exactly I produce my HTML pages.

There are quite a few routes and paths that I am able to follow and these include:

• Littering the site with Adsense ads. Hopefully as they are well positioned, they should attract quite a high amount of clicks resulting in a good CPR. However, I know the niche and its not a big payer for clicks, so Im not expecting too much if any!
• Using Affiliate links to link to (for example) Richard Branson’s autobiography at Amazon. I also hope to signup to CJ or Clickbank to make use of their ebook affiliate offers. I know they pay quite a healthy sum of money per conversion so it wouldn’t be wise not to try it.
• Finally I’ve heard quite a lot about site flipping. Khalid in particular flips numerous sites after hand building them for hundreds of dollars. Apparently, I would have to wait 3 to 4 months for my site to have sufficient search engine credibility before I sell it, but nevertheless, the profit margin sounds almost too good to be true with minimal work.

As usual I will keep you informed of my progress and any tips or tricks which I happen to use. At the moment Im just hoping that I can learn the ins and outs of AIS, and Teentrepreneur.com will put me in good stead!

ReviewMe - Another Controversial Income Stream?

Disclosure: This is a review of ReviewMe and yes, I am being paid to write this (a whole $30). I was going to write about this service anyway, but I thought I might as well get paid to do so. Only a true entrepreneur would capitalize on this chance, and the opportunity to win $25,000 - so please value my honesty in telling you what Im being paid, and bear in mind that I’ll always tell you if Im being paid to write a post - it will happen only once in a blue moon.

This week yet another income stream was announced to bloggers and entrepreneurs across the world. It’s called ReviewMe and is owned by creators of Text Link Ads, Andy Hagans. Whilst I totally love TLA, Im not sure whether this idea is going to kick off. Here’s why:

A while back a similar service was launched called PayPerPost. In short it caused an amazing amount of controversy as the idea (like ReviewMe), was to get paid to write a blog post. At first, you didnt have to necessarily disclose that the post was a blatant advert, however more recently DisclosurePolicy was launched to help PayPerPost users spread the word more about being paid to advertise.

The main problem with this type of monetization is the obvious bias posts will have. If you’re getting paid to post, then you’re more likely to say positive things about the site or product you’re reviewing. In effect this will make your post sound less credible and will in turn cause your blog to sound less powerful if worded in the wrong way.

ReviewMe has also gone down the path of PPP by offering Bloggers to “Get paid to review services and Web sites that are of interest to your readers, and reap the benefits of conversation with advertisers” and by allowing Advertisers to “Get your service or Web site reviewed by bloggers, gaining your site traffic, invaluable feedback, and word of mouth buzz.”

The main difference that this service assumes is that bloggers must tell their readers that they are being paid to post (just like I have done at the top of this post). While this may put off new readers, it would help clear the air of confusion and mystery around the post. Also ReviewMe states that you don’t have to give a good review necessarily. This should make honesty and bias less of a factor hopefully.

But will it still cause controversy? Of course it will. Many bloggers simply don’t believe in being paid to post as writers will still tend to be biased towards the advertiser for giving them a chance to get money.

And will the advertising be effective? If the reviews are displayed to a blog with relatively high amounts of traffic, good RSS subscribership and a friendly audience then the ads should work out well. But be prepared to face the music as a blogger or advertiser as people’s minds have been swayed after the PPP fiasco.

5 Sure Fire Steps To Speaking Successfully in Public

Recently public speaking has become extremely important. With the setup of my Young Enterprise company through my school, I’ve had to pitch to a number of people and on the way I’ve learned a few tricks on the trade that I thought I’d share. So many people start flipping out when it comes to public speaking, but to be honest being confident is so important to your success. For example if investors are looking to put money into your company and you come across as shy and nervous, they’ll definitely be having 2nd thoughts.

On the contrary, I listened to a talk by a senior pupil about his company. He epitomized successful speaking so much so that his team managed to get into finals in the specific region. I hope that we can replicate some of his successes but in doing this, I (as part of the Financial Sector of the company) have already pitched to advisors and bank managers where I have setup an account.

Here are my steps though to successful speaking to strangers:

1. Stand up tall and broaden your shoulders. Posture as well as being important for the health, can bring across an air of uncertainty or brimming determination. I find that standing up as tall as possible and widening your shoulders and sort of puffing out your chest, can help you to have a better esteem about yourself and thus can aid the way you portray your products or business.

2. Speak clearly and forcefully. No-one likes people who mumble. They may not pronounce some important figures very well in the financial part of the plan, or they may stutter and seem unenthusiastic about their service. On the other hand, by opening your mouth and speaking in a nice voice but with power, will help persuade investors to by shares in your company, or may persuade buyers to purchase your product.

3. Be prepared. Preparation is vital if you’re to successfully make your way through a meeting. I prepare notes before every date to make sure I know what I’m about to say, and how the structure of my performance will be laid out. Without post-it notes, or simply a piece of paper, you may ramble on; missing vital points and showing a lack of direction.

4. Add some humour. The most boring aspect of lectures in Universities or classes at school is the lack of humour and the air of seriousness. By adding a punchline into your speech or talk and by livening up the atmosphere, you’ll be more likely to build a relationship indirectly with the audience, and you’ll promote a better response to what you’re saying. Common jokes about the girlfriend/wife, your football team or about another person can help your cause to no end.

5. Finish in style. Whilst finishing blog posts can be easy in some respects, finishing a speech can be extremely important to your personal success. You may like to summarize what you’ve said, or throw in another scorcher of a joke, but personally I prefer the talks where the public speaker gives you something to think about or ponder upon at the end. These people show intelligence and confidence, and these are sure fire ways to getting the best out of your speech.

« Previous Page