My PPC Advertising dot Info

First of all, before starting to talk about today's topic, I would like to apologize for not posting any new articles in the last 2 days. It's not that I don't want to write anything anymore, but I'm currently a bit busy, working on a project with my friend Querblogger, from MakingMoneyExperiment.com blog. If you'd like to know what this project involves..well, I'm afraid I can't disclose this just yet:) Things are almost ready, so when we'll go live with our new website ( yes, it's an website, not an atomic bomb, or something else shady :), we will tell you more about it and we will let you see it and test-drive it. But for now, let's keep it as a surprise.

With this said ( and hoping that you now understand why I wasn't posting anything this days ), I should move on and tell you about the 5 qualities that make an affiliate marketer good and successful. You'll see that it's not just about luck or how much money you're willing to invest, but also about how determined or optimistic you are in your quest to make money from affiliate marketing. So here it are the qualities I was mentioning above:

1. You must have the desire to learn. When you'll first start as an affiliate marketer, you may not know all the tips and tricks of the trade, so you have to be patient and have the desire to learn and be trained. The truth is, we learn every day. Even though we may not be in high school or college anymore, we still find out new things daily, either it's at the work place or somewhere else. So it happens in affiliate marketing too: we constantly need to improve our knowledge, our skills, in order to be successful.

2. You have to invest time and effort. Very true! Results won't appear instantly, just because you've set up a site, bought a domain name and threw in some affiliate links and some content. You will have to spend time in promoting your site, adding more content, improving its loading time, its design etc and all this actions require you to do some efforts. No one says you won't be seeing any kind of results in the long run, but everyone will tell you that you have to work to achieve them, as they won't simply pop up in your way.

3. You must be determined. I would say "You must be determined to succeed". If you don't want to make money and be a successful affiliate marketer, why have you started a site and wasted so much time in spreading the word about it, anyway? This really makes no sense. If you lack determination, then it is better for you not to do it. Maybe this isn't for you..in this case, a 9 to 5 job is more appropriate..

4. You must be disciplined. If you'll say to yourself "I'm a disciplined guy and I want to do my best to start seeing some results with my affiliate marketing business." and you also going to do it, then you'll be a step closer in achieving your goals.

5. You must be optimistic. Whatever your goals are, whatever your niche is, you have to be optimistic when it comes about reaching the wanted results. You should never leave anything and anyone to discourage you! Most of the time, you'll hear people saying: "Are you sure you now what you're doing?" or "Man, you'll get nowhere with this site/blog..stop wasting time. I personally believe making money online it's just a waste of time." Well, this kind of persons either don't have a clue of what they're talking about, or they simply want to make you quit, by repeating the same phrases as those above, over and over, to you. In this case, just ignore them and "keep walking":) You know better than this guys and gals what you have to do.

So, there you have, my dear readers and fellow bloggers/webmasters/netrepreneurs. This are the 5 qualities that make an affiliate marketer a good one and will ensure his success. There are probably others, but I was able to come up with "only" those mentioned above. If you know of other such qualities, feel free to leave a comment and tell me which are. Thanks for taking time and reading this article!

Finally, after a whole day of hard work, tears and blood ( well, it wasn't so hard, but I like how this expression sounds :), I've managed to come up with a new design for my blog. I was starting to get bored by the old template I had, so I've decided it's time for a change. To tell you the truth, I wasn't planning any major redesigning job so soon, but because I found this wonderful theme you see now, I really wanted to do it. But how did all started?

Few days ago, I've done a quick search on Google for the following keywords: "free blogger templates". As you may imagine, I found lots of websites and blogs which were offering what I was looking for. Now, the problem was that most of the themes and templates presented on those sites and blogs were pretty much the same, only a few being newer. I've seen them before, so I got bored after browsing through various categories, lists etc, searching for the right one for my blog.
But just when I was ready to move on to something else ( like checking my emails, for example ), I saw in Google's SERPS ( Search Engine Results Pages ) one site which I have never visited before. Because I was curious to see if there are any other different Blogger templates than on the other sites, I've clicked the link and I was redirected to EBlogtemplates.com. From the moment I got to this site, the first things which caught my attention were the templates. Why? The answer is: this ones looked unique and I've never seen them before. Not to mention that EBT is not just a place from where you can download new themes for your blog, but also the place to learn various tips and tricks on how to improve it, too.

After taking a look at the themes' gallery, I've picked one which I thought would do well for this blog: it is called WP Theme Polaroid and you're looking at it right now:). Yes, you're correct: it's a WordPress template, converted to be used on Blogger blogs ( like mine ). Never thought making a new template from scratch requires so much work and good skills, such as programming, designing etc. And to quote the owner of Eblogtemplates.com "those who are creating such themes are artists". Believe it or not, it's true. You have to know to work with HTML codes, to design the headers, various icons etc which appear in a template and to use different softwares, so you can do a good work. I admit: I'm not talented when it comes about about drawing or creating designs, this is why I admire those who are doing this.

Even though I said I'm not such a talent at making templates, I still have enough knowledges on how to make them work on this blog:). You thought it's an easy job to change your blogs' design? Well then, you need to think again. It's not a breeze and you probably know it. So, what I've done yesterday?

First of all, I've uploaded this new template and replaced the old one. After that, everything had to be done from scratch once again: I had to copy and paste the META tags and keywords back in the newly uploaded template, to set the fav icon ( that little image which appears right before my blog's URL, represented by my country's flag ), to place the Google Analytics tracking code and the social bookmarking script ( from Feedburner ) and other codes that had to be implemented. Next step was to customize the other parts of the theme, such as the "About Me" and "About the blog" boxes you see on the right and left side of my big photo, the photo itself, the "Recent Comments" box and all the other boxes, widgets or functions which had to be customized correctly.

Have I finished the work now? Almost. Why just almost? I still need to create 3 pages ( About Me, Advertise and Contact ) and link them to the buttons from the top navigation menu. When I'm done with those ones too, I can say for sure that my customization process has ended indeed. You should be able to see and browse my blog without any problems, as I've tested the new template in 4 different browsers: FireFox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. There were no difficulties encountered! However, here's a note for IE users: when visiting this blog, you may not be able to see my fav icon. I guess this is a glitch of this browser, as the fav icon is clearly visible in the other 3 browsers with which I've tested the blog. Oh, and almost forgot: my friend Querblogger reported that there were some pop-ups which appeared when he visited the blog, from his FireFox browser. I DO NOT use pop-ups or pop-unders on this blog and never used such things! They are annoying for anyone and I don't want to drive away my readers and visitors. Again, during my test period, there were no pop-ups, pop-unders etc on this blog, and they did not appeared on any of the 4 browsers used for the test! Should you encounter such a problem, do let me know about it.

Now I would like and appreciate to hear your opinions about my new design:) Thanks!

You were probably used to hear phrases like "A-list bloggers are cool, they make loads of cash, they are the best, so let's do what they do and we'll also be rich." or "John Chow sucks..He knows nothing about blogging, he's just talking about what he ate 1 day ago or who he met at I-don't-know-what conference or reunion..or whatever." And believe me, this are quite usual things you hear or read in the blogosphere. It's nothing new. Almost everywhere you look, there are some people, bloggers, webmasters, marketers, forum owners etc, who don't like John Chow or Jeremy Shoemoney. Even I wrote about Chow few months ago, expressing my opinion on how much he really helped others in making money online ( as he claims on his blog and in his Adwords ads ). For sure, the articles I saw on his blog didn't gave me the needed information. So I can say he hasn't been of any use to me. But that's just me, and I'm very wrong ( according to his fans, which may read this post now ). Anyway, let's put John aside for now. I don't care what is he blogging about now, as I'm not visiting his blog anymore. It's just too damn boring..Plus, I'm not his fan, nor I will ever be..not his fan and not his copy, either. Sorry, but I want to be as original as possible:)

How about talking about former AuctionAds.com's owner..don't know who he was? Not that it matters, but his name is Jeremy Shoemaker ( aka Shoemoney - no linklove for this guy..you'll see why ). Last night, I was spending some time on one of my favorite forums, Bloggeries, reading some threads, when I came across this one, written by an user named blogenchancingtips. If you'll read it, you'll see it's only a small summary of three larger threads published on WickedFire.com forum. There, the owner of WF is practically blasting Shoemoney and is accusing him of being a liar and a scammer. Well, I agree, we're not all saints, but what I've read about Shoemaker, really made me think "I never knew he might have done that..".

For example, Jon, who runs the WickedFire forum ( and who also received a C&D ( Cease & Decist ) letter from Shoemoney ), says that this guy actually faked his famous Adsense check! I'm sure that most of you who've been visiting Shoemoney.com lately know about it and you also know the amount of money shown on the check: $132,970. Guess what: according to the same forum owner, it seems Jeremy Shoemaker photoshoped the whole check to make it look like being that big ( I'm talking about the sum of money here...). In fact, the real one was showing only $132,97 ( anyone noticing the difference? ). I can't say this is true, not I can deny it.

But if Shoemaker did this, then he either did it for fun ( don't think it's funny, though ), or he did it on purpose, to make people believe that he was paid that much by Google. Either way, I don't think it's fair. Hold on a second! It seems this is not the only gimmick done by Shoemoney. He may have also fabricated some numbers ( referring to technical data of AuctionAds.com's servers ), when promoting his site. From what I've seen on another blog ( I'm really sorry for not remembering its URL now ), Shoemaker used some old scripts and hardware for his servers, which could have been an instable combination, unable to support the number of ads which he claimed the servers were supporting daily ( up to a few 10s of millions ).

Apart from the above mentioned tricks/gimmicks, whatever you'd like to call them, Shoemoney may have tried to bribe DMOZ's editors too, not to mention that he was kicked out from Yahoo!'s affiliate program, for delivering very pool quality traffic to their site ( he posted on his own blog the conversation he had with one of Yahoo!'s representatives, and it can clearly be seen that 65% of the traffic he sent through his blog, to Yahoo was crap..even worse, those where "customers" who were using false information or stolen credit cards, in their attempt to sign up for Yahoo!'s services ). And the list can go on, believe it or not. It doesn't ends here.

The owner of WickedFire.com is determined to dig deeper and see what other things he can find out about Shoemoney and he wants to put this guy out of the money making industry! In his opinion, it would do more harm, than good to have Jeremy Shoemaker around.

Now, I don't know what Shoemoney has done, or what not. I even don't care, as long as this hasn't affected anyone ( but it seems this happened ). And I won't say I'm backing him up or Jon, from WF. But I would really like to see if we can find out the truth about this "A-list blogger".
Only then those who are now worshiping him will finally see his real nature.

A quick note: This is not a bashing post. I don't know who this guy Shoemoney is and I'm not interested in him, his blog or his businesses..or whatever. I wrote this article because I thought it would be a good piece of information and you may actually be willing to read it. If I've hurt Shoemaker directly, or one of his fans, do let me know ( a C&D letter is one its way to me too? ).

Yes, the above title does sounds like an invitation ( and I think it is :). You're now gonna ask me "Where exactly should I bring this buddy and who's going to pay me?". Don't be impatient, I will tell you what to do in just a couple of seconds. The other days I was pinging my blog at Ipings.com ( or was it Pingoat.com? Can't say for sure.. ), and one Google Adsense ad caught my attention. And because I was curious to find out more about this site named BringABuddy.net, I've clicked on the respective ad.

From the moment I got on the site, one thought came through my mind: this service is similar to Scratchback.com. "So, if it's similar, why are you talking about it? Anyone who'd like to know how BringABuddy.net works should see your post about Scratchback.com. Isn't that easier?", is your next question. It would be easier this way, I agree, but since most of my readers and visitors are probably new here ( how about subscribing to my RSS feed, if so? ), it's better for me to explain in this post how BringABuddy works, rather than saying "Oh, just go and read this post and you'll find out..". Plus, there are a few terms used on the BAB website, which you won't find them on the SB site and have to be explained right in this post.

Let's get going! First of all, how can BringABuddy.net can help you make money? What it has to offer? The answer: BAB is a way for you to start accepting donations on your blog, it's your fancy "money jar", if you like to call it so. Here's how it works: before making any money with this site, you have to be a member ( obvious, don't you think? ). Signing up it's easy, fast and most of all, free. Yep, no monthly fees, contracts, payments etc. Completely free!

Good, so you've just signed up? What's the next step? Update your profile. To do this, once you've logged in, go to the "Profile" tab, which can be found in your account, just below the BringABuddy BETA header of the site. Things that have to be updated:

1. Tick the following boxes: Website owner, Advertiser, Bringa ( NOTE: You don't have to tick them all. Usually, one is enough. But hey, if you want to make money, advertise or refer new users to BringABuddy at the same time, then please feel free to tick all of them! ).

2. Activate your Rewards Account. "What's that?" Answer: the Rewards Account is actually BAB's referral program. If you set it as active, you will make some extra money for every blog or website owner you send to the site and signs up. NOTE: It requires a one-time activation payment of $2.80, made only via PayPal ( so make sure you have a PP account ).

3. Your payment method ( which by the way is PayPal only! ). In the field next to the "PayPal Email", put in your correct PP email address. If it's not the correct one, then you can't receive your money. Be sure you double check it:)

4. Your normal email address..meaning the one with which you've signed up. Don't worry, it won't be shared with any 3rd party. It's required so the BringABuddy's staff can contact you for various questions, reports etc.

5. Your nickname..usually, the one you used to register on the site and the one which is part of your login details.

6. A hover message. This one is optional. In the field next to where it says "Hover Message" write what you'd like to appear to someone, when he/she hovers the mouse pointer over your nickname. It can be your websites'/blog's URL or just about anything you can think of:).

Once you're done, don't forget to save the changes, by clicking on the little "Save" button, located at the bottom of the profile page. Now, let's move to step 2: Create your BringABuddy widget. Start by clicking on the "Activities" tab, from the top navigation menu of the site. Then click on the "Add a widget" button that you'll see shortly after the "Activities" page loads. You'll be redirected to the widget selection zone. Pick the one you like. There are 9 of them: from the "Minimalist" type, to the "Slate Blue" one. Actually, it all look the same, but the colors are different:). Next, edit the widget, by giving it a name, a description, setting the URL of the page where it will be displayed, the number BringABuddys and Linkas, as well as the cost of a link which will be purchased ( see, that's how you'll make money: people will buy links on your blog or website. No need to worry, as all are made "NoFollow" automatically, so it won't be taken into consideration by the search engines ) as well as the colors of the widget ( try to blend it in your site's design ). When you're done, click on the "Update" button and you'll get a HTML code which has to be placed on your site/blog, via the copy and paste command:). If everything is correctly set, the widget should be visible. If not, then see where you've made a mistake.Pretty cool, huh? That's what I call an easy way of making a buck.

In the end, here are a couple or terms used on the BringABuddy website, as well as here, which you may not know:

Linka: the person who's buying a link in your widget
Bringa: the person who's bringing visitors to a site..kinda like a recruiter:)
BringaLink: your referral link
BringaReward: your reward for bringing new referrals

More answers to your other questions can be found on the FAQ page of the BAB website. So make sure you visit it;) PS: You'll get paid once you reach $20, via PayPal..I almost forgot about that:) Good luck!

Let me ask you once again: Do you want me to digg, stumble or sphinn your blog posts? What's wrong..oh, you're probably thinking that I'm fooling around..Well, hear this: no, I'm not fooling around and I'm not kidding ( not this time ). I'm really serious about this. In fact, I have decided to do a little experiment and see how many of you bloggers will be interested in having your articles digged, stumbled or sphinned by me. If you're asking "What's the catch?", here's the answer: I want to increase my blog's traffic and RSS feed subscribers ( hopefully ) and I thought "How the heck should I do it?" I know, this is quite a no-brainer, as most of you'd say "Why don't you organize a contest? This would be nice and you would increase your traffic, the number of RSS feed subscribers and whatever else you want.." Contests are a nice way of driving traffic to a blog, indeed, but I'm aiming to provide this "service" ( if I can call it like that ) for a long period of time from now, unlike a contest, which only lasts for a couple of days.

So, I've thought to do something else, a bit more special, than just the good ol' contest thingy:) And this is how the "Digg, stumble or sphinn my post for free" idea was born. "Huh?! What's that? Free diggs, stumbles and sphinns? Gotta be joking, right?" You've definitely missed the first paragraph of this post and especially this phrase: "Well, hear this: no, I'm not fooling around and I'm not kidding ( not this time )". Now, you've probably realized that things are getting more and more serious here, at My PPC Advertising blog, so you want to know more about how this "service" works. If so, then please read the rest of the article:)

I saw that many fellow bloggers really want to increase their blogs' traffic and improve the overall stats. And because they know that getting as much visitors as possible is a very important aspect of a successful blog, they are willing to do anything to achieve this goal..even paying for others to do the hard work of digging, stumbling, sphinning etc their blog articles. Whilst I agree this is not quite an easy task ( actually, it's a bit time consuming, and you probably know it yourself ) and those that are doing it, deserve to be paid, I can't agree with some which are not fair when it comes about pricing their services. They just tend to ask a high price for only a few diggs or stumbles which may or may not be done properly.

There's where I come to the rescue:) I want to offer FREE diggs, stumbles and sphinns to ANYONE who runs a blog and wants my help! Ok, I know that my one little vote won't actually send you on the first page of Digg, StumbleUpon or Sphinn, but it adds up to the ones you already received ( and who knows, it may even get you on the main page of the above mentioned websites ;). You can't even imagine what being featured on such a site means: a lot of traffic coming to your blog..and I'm not talking about 10, 20 or 50 visitors, but 100s or even 1000s of them! I can see you're a bit excited, so let's get down to business ( I mean, here are the rules :):

1. I will offer 5 diggs, stumbles or sphinns to each one of you, per day. Obviously, the votes will be for different articles, not for just one ( you either tell me what articles do you want me to vote, or I will pick them myself, in case you haven't already mentioned this ).

2. I will respond to a maximum of 10 requests every day ( do the math: 5 votes/day X 10 requests FROM DIFFERENT people = 50 votes daily ). Why such a limited number? Because this is a time-consuming task, as I've already told you and I really am a busy guy, not just online, but also in real-life ( I hope you understand this :).

3. To make my job easier, I will like to kindly ask you to provide me a voting button or link, in the beginning or at the end of the posts you want me to digg, stumble or sphinn. In my opinion, it's a time-saving way of voting:).

4. Do not forget to mention what kind of votes do you want to get from me: diggs, sphinns or stumbles ( NOTE: not specifying the exact method of voting, will result in your requests' cancellation ).

5. Once the voting operation is completed, I will leave you a comment on your blog, so be sure you have the comments enabled.

6. Only good quality articles will be submitted by me to Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com or Sphinn.com. If you don't have such posts on your blog, please DO NOT waste my time..or yours.

7. While I do not ask you to do the same for me, I will really appreciate if you'd stumble, digg or sphinn some of my own blog posts. After all, I believe this is the least I deserve for offering this free service..am I right?:)

This are all the rules. I haven't mentioned that only appropriate articles will be voted, meaning that no hate, adult, warez, crackz or the like related posts will be submitted to those 3 sites I've talked about above..but you already figured that out, I know that;)

With this said, let the voting begin! Best regards to you all!

When it comes about driving traffic to my blog, I'm always interested in testing every method that may look promising. Until now, I've tried many traffic building websites and programs, from search engine submission to social networking websites. Whilst most of them worked, there were also others that failed and brought me no results ( I know, nothing it's perfect, not even the internet ).
If a program fails, no matter how much you like it and no matter how nice it may be, then it's time to say goodbye. Why am I saying this? I don't want to upset no one, but since you're seeing no results, why would you want to waste your time with that respective traffic generating site or program? It's not worth it and it's about time to move on to another one, which hopefully is better than the previous you've tried.

Now, let me tell you about a new website I found, that can help anyone who's looking to increase the traffic that's coming to his site or blog, and which is free to join ( what can I say..I like freebies :). Some days ago, I was browsing through some sites listed in the LinkReferral traffic directory, and I've stumbled upon one named TrafficEra.com. And because I was curious to see how it works and how it can help me, I've signed up (remember, in the beginning of this paragraph I've mentioned it's free to join ). If you're asking what was my first impression about the site, here it is: it's quite promising. In fact, I like the concept that stands behind it and this is why:

Unlike any other sites out there, this one incorporates 4 traffic building methods: surfing, splash pages, banner advertising and social networking. Believe it or not, it's true! "But I have Google Adsense ads on my site/blog and I don't want to use automatic scripts that can generate invalid impressions on them..I may be banned for this.." I hear ya..and I also know the Adsense rules.
If so, then nobody will force you to surf to earn credits or use the splash pages to promote the site you own. You can make use of the other 2 methods: banner advertising and social networking. As a free member, you will get the following benefits:

1. 0.2 credits for each second you spend surfing through other members' websites or blogs
2. A 5 to 1 surfing ratio
3. Powerful networking platform
4. The possibility of meeting and connecting to all the members from the TE site
5. You can create unlimited groups and add unlimited contacts
6. You can add up to 3 sites to your account and promote them via splash pages or surfing
..and many more. The complete list of benefits can be seen here. If you feel like spending some cash and want to take advantage of the more features this program can offer you, then you can upgrade your membership at anytime. When you sign up for free, you're a Silver member. The other types of paid memberships are, as follows: Gold ( $19,99/month ), Platinum ( $29,99/month ) and Club ( which is by invite only and it's $49,99/month ).

So you've just registered on TrafficEra. Now what? Go ahead and update your profile, upload a photo of yourself, and start making some friends, joining teams and groups that fit your site's or blogs' topics the best. Engage in discussions, give answers, or ask questions about the things you don't know to well..be sociable! The more friends you get, the more groups and teams you join and the more referrals and credits you earn, the more chance are for you to be a top member of this site and have a good personal value.

There are a lot of things to be said about this traffic building website. I may have missed some details in this article, this is why I recommend you to visit TrafficEra.com today and read more about it and about what it has to offer you. I wish you good luck and may you get on top;)

Since this blog was created, back in August 2007, there have been written many reviews about various websites, blogs, products and services I've considered them to be useful to you, my readers and visitors. But it've been quite a while since I haven't reviewed a blog of one of my fellow bloggers and friends. This is why today I will present you a blog called The Making Money Experiment, which belongs to Peter Leitsch, better known as Querblogger ( a very friendly and like-minded friend of mine from Germany..the country of Michael Ballack ( for those who are soccer fans :) ).

Before going in to more details about his online journal, let's see how our friendship started. For sure, we first met many months ago, in 2007, via LinkReferral ( not only that this is a good traffic source, but you can also make some new friends there too ). Can't remember exactly if Peter reviewed my blog at LR or if I was the first to review his blog, but we soon become friends. And from there on, we've started to exchange opinions, comments on our blogs, emails and make jokes, every time we were discussing something ( we are the kind of guys who do like to entertain themselves and their readers ;). Right now, we are planning a little "evil" thing ( won't tell you what's about..it's our secret :), because we are "evil" bloggers ( that's one of our jokes: we name ourselves "evil bloggers" who are "dreaming" to buy the good ol' Google one day...ha ha ).

Let's move to describing Peter's blog..As you can see from the title, it's about making money online. There are many blogs like this in the blogosphere ( including mine ), but what matters the most is how the authors are writing their articles. You may see 2 articles talking about affiliate marketing, for example, but most likely, they won't be the same ( of course, there's an exception: if one of the bloggers simply copied the original article and pasted it on his blog, without any modification, then this is called plagiarism ). So, what's the point of this explanation? What I want to say is that Querblogger is not the kind of person to simply copy/paste articles from other blogs on his own..he writes each and every article with his words, trying to tell his readers and visitors the importance of the topic he is blogging about in the respective article. You don't have to believe me..Just go here, here and here and see for yourselves.

"When did Peter started his blog?" I hear you asking. The answer: after "scanning" his archives, I found that TMME ( The Making Money Experiment ) was created back in October 2007 ( right at the beginning of the month ). And because it's a make money online blog, you'll find articles about different money making opportunities and programs, such WidgetBucks, Paid.vg, or the newly born Pay-Per-Play ads. Also, he is talking about some free traffic source, like LinkReferral, BlogRush or EntreCard. This are just a few examples of his articles that he wrote till now. But there are more from where this came and I would recommend you to read them, if you have time ( if not, bookmark his blog or subscribe to his RSS feed :).

As about the design and navigation, all I can say is this: it's a pleasure to navigate through his blog's pages, because it loads fast, fonts and the text are very easy to read and you can understand everything he is talking about. The green and blue colors used for the template, along with the graphics, look very nice and blend perfectly. There are few ads, no pop-ups or any other annoying adverts. A well done designing job, for a Blogger.com hosted blog;)

I'm sure I can talk about Peter and his blog for many more minutes, but I don't want to tell you just everything..find out for yourselves:) PS: Don't forget to leave a comment, after going there. It's always nice to interact with the blogger behind the respective blog. Have a nice "trip" to The Making Money Experiment and enjoy your stay! PPS: Is this evil enough, Querblogger:)?

So, you've just built your first website and want to let people know that it exists. What to do next? Hmm, I don't really know for sure, but how about starting to spam everybody? If you were thinking this way, then I must tell you it's totally wrong! No one likes to receive an unsolicited email, where the sender promotes his products or services, which are of no interest to him or her. Believe me, I know how annoying it is to deal with more than 20 spam mails a day ( fortunately, this emails are sent to an address which I now rarely use it, so they don't clutter my main email address ). And I'm sure you wouldn't like this to happen to you, too. If so, then DO NOT SPAM!

Instead, be more creative and think at some ways to promote your newly created website. Try banner advertising, search engine submission, directory submission or pay per click advertising.
And because I've mentioned pay per click advertising, let's talk about Google AdWords a bit. Just in case you haven't heard about it by now ( which I kinda doubt ), this is an advertising platform offered by Google.com ( yes, that Google ). Many websites, blogs or businesses owners are using it everyday, to spread the word about their services or products which they have to offer to their customers, on the internet.

An AdWords campaign can be either cheap, or expensive, depending to what niche is your website or blog aimed. But if you can afford to spend a lot of money on advertising, then this shouldn't be a problem for you. Either way, this type of campaigns can prove themselves effective, if are done properly.

If you already know how to create a successful AdWords campaign and market your site/blog, then probably you don't have to read this article anymore. On the other hand, if you need some tips to improve the one you already run and make it successful, you should read the next few steps and remember them, once you're ready to advertise on Google Adwords.

1. Create a good campaign and use it effectively. Google's duty is to give you the opportunity to advertise your website or blog the best possible, so you to be satisfied. Yours is to make sure you pay them for this. And since you give them your hard earned cash, you really have to be sure that the campaign you've started is fit to what you want to achieve. Google will profit from you, no matter if your campaign is good or bad.

If it's good, then you too will see results and you'd want to use Google's AdWords advertising platform for weeks, months or years to come. If not, then you're probably doing something wrong and you need to take some time and fix the problem. This is why creating and using a campaign effectively will save you from this burden.

2. Use the tools Google is giving you to target your audience. It's not recommended to start targeting each and every market possible from countries around the world. Instead, try to concentrate on the one that matters to you. When you create your campaign, use the right keywords or keyphrases and select the regions/countries where your ad will appear. This way, you'll make sure that you're reaching the right visitors ( or potential customers ).

3. Compose the proper ad. What sense does a campaign have, if your ad isn't attention-grabbing? Is there any reason for you to continue it? I guess not. In order to get visitors clicking the ad, you have to be careful how you write it. And since you have a limited number of characters to do it, you need to be creative. There's no room to start writing stories and also, you just can't write 2 words and hope people will click on the ad and visit your site. The text must be appealing to the visitors and make them want to see what you have on the site or blog.

4. Use the correct keywords. Another important aspect when creating an AdWords campaign. And it can turn out to be difficult for some advertisers to decide on which keywords are right for their ad. If you can't do it yourself, then you should probably try a keywords suggestion tool ( and Google has one, as far as I know ). This will help to come up with just the right ones you need. Avoid using those technical terms, even if your site is about tech, gadgets and things like this. Put yourself in the shoes of an average person, who's not such a tech-savvy and think on what keywords he/she may type in, when searching on Google. You may even find the ones you were looking for!

This are my tips for today. I know there are more, but those ones came through my mind for the moment. You can find more, if you're interested, by searching and reading more articles, ebooks, or reports on Google AdWords. Once you've figured out how to succeed with it, then nothing should stop you. Good luck!

You know the saying "All work and no play". But it really has to be like that? I mean yes, we have to work to earn money and sustain ourselves and our families, but we also have to take some time to relax and forget about the daily madness and about that boss who most of us have. Everyone chooses to spend his free time in his own way: taking trips, going to parties, playing outdoor sports ( like soccer, football etc ) or staying at home and enjoying a video game.

Also, there are others who may prefer something else..for example, he or she would like to go to an online casino and play the games listed there: blackjack, slots, roulette, craps and many others. And if you're one of them, then the following website of which I'll talk about, may be of interest to you. First of all, it is called 32Vegas.com and it is an online gambling casino, as may have noticed already. I'm not really the one who spends most of his time playing casino games, but from time to time I like to visit such a site and see what's new or even play a game ( I usually play free games, as I'm not an experienced player and it would be quite sad for me to lose my hard earned money like that ).

"Ok, I understand that...But what games can I play at 32vegas?", you'll ask me. I know you're probably interested by now, so I will cut to the chase: if you visit their games page, you'll see that the following ones are available: card games, video slots, table games, video poker, casino specials and progressive games. In order for you to play them, you have to become a member. To do this, you have to download a special software, used to run the games, access the member's area and to stay in contact with the online casino. You don't need to worry, as this type of softwares are not harmful for your computer ( I had a couple installed on my own hard drive and nothing bad happened ). Once you've installed the program, you'll be able to start playing any games you want, either in "Practice Mode" or for "Real Money". If you're like me ( a less experienced player ), then you should play in the "Practice Mode" for a while, untill you feel that you're prepared to move on to the next serious step: playing for real money.

Now let's talk about the design of the site. You know that this aspect counts too, when you're visiting a website. If everything looks good and you like it, if it is easy to navigate through and you find the information you need fast, then you'll going to return to that site in the following days ( or even months ). If not, then you'll be just another internet surfer who came just once and will never return.

At this online casino, you'll see that it worth to return day after day. And I'm not saying that just to give you a false impression about it. In fact, once you'll visit the site, you'll see I was right: the template looks just awesome ( it fits the topic of the site perfectly ), it has a very easy to use navigation menu, very accessible, just below the header, plus a translation interface, which allows you to translate the entire text written on the pages of the site, in your own language: Polish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and many others. All the pages, boxes, banners and advertisements are correctly placed and you'll see no missing or broken links, no strange looking banners, or any other designing mistakes. I tell you, everything was done by the book!

As a conclusion, I really like this site and I would play around on it every day, if I would have so much free time ( which unfortunately I don't ). But if you DO have some time to spend online and want to exercise your skills by gambling, then feel free to go to 32Vegas.com. Have fun!

PS: I'll post below a screenshot of the main page of the online casino, for those who'd like a "preview" of the site, before going there:)

Driving traffic to a site or blog is done through various methods, such as search engine submission, search engine marketing, banner advertising, pay per click advertising, directories submission etc.It's up to the webmaster ( or blogger ) to select the right ways which he/she thinks will work for him/her. You have to remember that whilst a promotion method may work for one of your friends or fellow webmaster, may not bring you the same results. You really don't have to copy others. Instead, try to be as original as you can ( this is what you're visitors and readers will appreciate when viewing your site or blog ).

Do you know that it is possible to drive traffic to a site/blog if you write articles and publish them on various directories or ezines, too? If you had no idea about this yet, I'm telling you that this thing can be done. Now, don't just open Notepad or Microsoft Word and start typing as a mad man, just because it is possible. You have to to think about it for a moment: are you really ready to do it? Can you write attention-grabbing articles, which will make readers flock to your site or blog to read more or to buy one of your products or services? If so, then go ahead and do it. You're probably a good article writer and never thought at this before ( how about becoming a freelancer and making some good money from this talent of yours, too, huh? )

But what exactly is article marketing? As the name says it, it's all about marketing your articles, with the purpose of announcing it to the world, driving traffic to your website/blog, building reputation and delivering your targeted readers the information they need. So, you kinda found out what this "mysterious" term is and you'd like to start doing some article marketing, because you consider you did a great job in writing a couple of articles and you really want others to read them.

Hold on a second! Where do you think you're going so fast? Marketing an article may look as something "cool" to you, but you have to know some basic stuffs about it..and when I say that, I'm thinking about the mistakes you have to avoid, while promoting your articles. If you want to know what are this mistakes, please keep reading this article till the end ( you're probably going to consider it useful :)...

1. Unclear targeted audience. You see, lots of article writers tend not to write for a certain niche or targeted audience. What they do instead is to write for everybody. This is wrong. Because if you want to reach interested readers ( and potential visitors or even customers ), you have to write for them, not for the whole world wide web! You want to get them in visiting your site or blog, they are your main target. So, concentrate on this people and start writing articles which will be of interest to them.

2. Desperate times may require desperate actions: SPAM. Ok, I know you want traffic to flood your site, but come on...don't spam each and every category of each and every article directory and ezine that exists on the internet! It's totally a not recommended, hated and annoying thing to deal with. Instead of getting that "flood of traffic" you so desperately need, you may get a ton of complaints, negative votes or bad karma from the users or owners of the article directories and ezines where you've "submitted" your articles. Not to mention that your reputation is at stake, if you start spamming.

3. Using the wrong titles or headlines for your articles. Maybe "wrong" it's not quite the right word, but rather inappropriate. If you do not write attention-grabbing articles, that have the correct ( and appealing ) headlines, then it really doesn't matter how good the article is. The readers will not give it much attention and will move on to read other, better written articles. Take time in coming up with the best titles you can for those articles of yours and you'll see that people will read them.

4. How about thinking of your readers first, before of you? The articles you write are not for your own eyes only. You create them because you want others to read them and because you want to share the information and knowledge you have with your readers. So think of them too. They may not care too much if you're a seasoned article writer or internet entrepreneur, or you've just started doing online businesses a couple of months ago. But they will care about the information they'll read from you. If this is good, then they will appreciate it and will appreciate you also.

5. Please check your spelling and grammar. The last ( but not the least ) mistake is not to pay attention on how you're writing your articles. You may know what you're talking about, but if you start doing many spelling or grammar mistakes in an article, especially if you write in a language which is not your native one ( for example writing articles in English, while your native language is Romanian ( in my case ) ), can make it look funny and the readers will have the tendency to skip it and think that you're a lousy writer. This is why I'd recommend you to read and re-read the newly written articles and correct any mistakes you find, BEFORE submitting them to any ezine or articles directory.

That's pretty much it my list with the most important mistakes you have to avoid, while doing article marketing. If I have omitted any other mistake, then please feel free and tell me, by commenting on this article. Thank you for taking time and reading the article and be careful next time you want to get involved in article marketing. Be sure you don't commit any of the above mentioned mistakes.

I believe that many of you like to go shopping, right? Well, I like this too. Even though patience isn't really my number one characteristic, some times I just feel the need to visit some stores, to see what new products or services are available ( if there are any ). If you're asking me what types of shops I like to visit, I will answer you that mostly those which are selling electronics ( such as cell phones, laptops, personal computers, computer parts, various accessories etc ). But I wouldn't say no if some of my friends would invite my to go visit a clothes store or a shoes store. This are interesting places to see, too, so it shouldn't be ignored.

I also like to go to a store or shop ( be it an online or offline one ) when there are various promotions, as you can buy products or services at a lower price or you can even win a couple of prizes ( if the respective store is holding a contest ). But how about if you're lucky to receive a coupon from your favorite shopping place? Or from any other store in your city ? Wouldn't this be a happy moment for you? I'm sure it would, as you would immediately go and take advantage of the discounts offered by that coupon.

And because we brought into discussion the terms "discounts" and "coupon", I would like to tell you about a website which was created just for people like you, who're probably looking for the above mentioned things ( discounts and coupons ). It is called CuponChief.com and it is offering coupons, coupons codes, shopping discounts and online deals from stores such as BestBuy, where you can find some great products, like 8 GB Zune MP 3 player, with a $20 discount, select digital cameras ( with a 5 % up to 15 % discount plus free shipping ), flash drives ( with a 15 % discount ) and many more other useful products; BlueNille, from where you can buy a sterling silver loop heart pendant with a 20 % discount, or a sterling silver oval four-frame locket with cable chain, with the same discount ( just to name a few products ); DellHome, where you can buy various electronics, such as laptops, flat panel monitors or desktop computers, all having different discounts, according to their performances. EBags, GAP, Overstock.com plus 3 more important suppliers are completing the list of shops for which you can get a coupon code or a discount, that you can apply it to a future order you'll make.

There are also many categories which you can browse and search for some coupons. They are easy accessible, being located just under the "Coupons by Store" navigation menu, which is located on the right-hand side of the site. And because it are many, this should keep you busy for a while:) Overall, I'm pleased with what I saw on the CuponChief website: it's a clean site, professionally designed, easy to navigate and very useful, through its main purpose: that of offering you the best deals you'd ever wanted;)

In the end, I would like to show you a screenshot taken by me on the main page of the CC site, so you can make an idea about the place you'll going to visit. Happy shopping!

Traffic..everybody's talking about driving traffic to your blog or website, everyday, wherever you look. Why do you think they're doing that? Let me tell you: because traffic is very important. You know the saying: No traffic, no sales. And it is very true. In fact, it doesn't matter if you're actually selling something from your website or blog..you still need people to come to it, if you want to make money from those Adsense banners you've placed on it, for example. Do you really think that by magic, cash will appear in your Google Adsense account, without having to do nothing? Sorry to disappoint you, but there's no such thing as magic tricks that will make money grow in trees ( waiting for you to pick them up ). You have to work, should you want to see results. That's the rule.
One of the aspects where you have to put in some efforts, is the promotion of your site/blog. The more people that come to it, the more chances of earning a quite decent monthly income you have.

There are various ways of advertising/promoting a site or blog: search engine submission, search engine marketing, pay per click advertising, banner advertising, directory inclusion or other low cost and even free advertising services that you may find on the internet. It's up to you to chose the right one. If you have a large advertising budget, it may be easier for you to select an advertising solution which may not be so available to webmasters or bloggers with a lower budget. But what about if you're just starting out, with almost zero advertising money and very little possibilities of improving this situation?

If so, then I would recommend you to search for free or low cost promotion services. You don't have to give an arm and a leg, just to drive some traffic to your site. There are such types of advertising methods on the internet which are free or quite cheap. I know, you will say: But cheap or free it's not all the time the right solution...Yes, you're right. But ( again this word ) do you have any other options for now? Thought so...

Here's where AdsFlip comes to the rescue. What is this, you're asking me? It is a pay per click advertising service, offered by IWebTool, of I'm not mistaking. It is similar to AdLeaf or AdGridWork, of which I have discussed about here ( you can find the respective articles in the "Free Advertising" category, located in the "Browse by category" menu, that can be found on the right sidebar of this blog ). You want to know how it works? Here are the steps:

1. First of all, you have to sign up for a free account ( yes, the account is free and there are no hidden fees, ever! )

2. Create your own ad, which will be displayed on other websites and blogs from the AdsFlip network ( make sure it relates to your blog's/site's topic(s) )

3. Insert some text ad banners on your own blog or website, in order to earn credits, that will be used to "pay" for advertising, through the AF network.

4. Enjoy the free traffic:)

I've mentioned about credits and paying for advertising, even though it's a free service..So, was I not telling the truth? Of course I was:) You see, since you don't pay any money at all for using this advertising network, you still have to earn some credits, in order for your ad to run on other sites and blogs. Without them, your ad won't run. The same thing happens when you're advertising on AdWords too ( which is a paid service, as you all know ): if you ran out of money, the ad you were displaying on different sites will stop being shown, untill you deposit a new amount of cash.

At AdsFlip, you're not paying money ( as I said, it's free to join and use this advertising platform ), just credits. The more credits you earn, by displaying text ad banners on your own site or blog, the more times your ad will be shown on other webpages from the AF network. Pretty simple to understand.

Here's another good news for you: if you sign up now, you'll get 1,000 credits as bonus! With this, you'll be able to start showing your ad in just minutes and also, start receiving new visitors. So, what are you waiting for? Go to AdsFlip now and get your free account!

January is already over and here we are, starting a whole new month: February. I was just thinking at how the time flies so fast and before we know it, this year will eventually end too. But not to worry. We still have many months ahead ( 11, to be exact ) and many things will happen, that's for sure. This is why I think we should better think what we'll do tomorrow, rather than thinking about what will do in July, for example.

You know that usually, at the beginning of a new month, all bloggers are showing their monthly reports, telling their readers and visitors what they've managed to accomplish in the previous month. And this is exactly what I'll do now: I will compile my monthly report, so you all can see how much cash I've earned ( not a fortune, of course, but enough, considering that last month I haven't spent too much time on making money, but more on driving traffic to this blog ) and how many people actually visited the blog.

First of all, let's start with my earnings report.. Last month, I've managed to make around $43.19, with a slight increase of $1.89 than in December 2007 ( when I've earned $41.30 ). If you'd like to know which were the sources that brought me all this money, I'll tell you in a moment:

- SponsoredReviews: $19.5
- Blogsvertise: $20
- Bidvertiser: $2.32
- FeedProfit: $0.28 ( will do a review on them in the following days )
- Adster: $0.11
- Entireweb's SpeedyAds: $0.08
- LinkReferral: $0.90

TOTAL: $43.19

I'm currently a member of many other money making opportunities, but I didn't had time lately to get involved with all of them very seriously, this is why I only managed to make money with only few of this websites and programs. Let's hope this month things will be better than in January.

Now, let's move on to the statistics report..Last month, a number of 1,737 people have visited this blog, and a percentage of them helped me earn money:) ( this is why I would want to thank them a lot ). All this visitors generated a total of 2,199 pageviews. My main traffic sources were, and still are, LinkReferral ( which sent me 248 visitors ) and Entrecard ( 243 visitors ). The rest of the visitors came from various other websites and blogs, such as BlogEngage, BloggingZoom, PostOnFire, Making Money Experiment, IncomeForEveryone and many others.

So, what do I think about January, overall? Well, my opinion is that it was a good month and I'm quite satisfied with my earnings and traffic numbers. They look good and I have every reason to believe that I will be able to improve them even more in the following weeks and months. I'll have to put in more efforts and I should see the results appearing not too far in the future.

"You got any targets for this month and for the ones to come?" I was sure that some of you will ask me this question:) Of course I do! As I've mentioned in the beginning of this article, many of my money making opportunities in which I'm involved ( and other projects too ) were kinda left aside, mainly because I was busy with various other things in the real life ( especially with passing all those annoying exams I was keep talking about in the last two articles I wrote in January :). So, I've decided that it is time for me not to "ignore" them anymore.

I still have an unfinished Squidoo Lens and a One Euro Wiki page, that also has to be edited ( and yes, nobody will do it for me ). Besides that, I still haven't joined most of the money making programs listed in my FreeMoneyTeam account. I'm planning to do it starting from tomorrow. Well, there are many, many other projects in which I'm involved and I also have to take care of this "baby" ( I mean my blog :), to write fresh and interesting articles, to make sure it's available all the time, to drive traffic to it etc., which is not something hard ( but also not too easy either ).

In the end of this report, I would like to thank you all: my readers, visitors, advertisers, friends ( Querblogger, Rome, Marko, Javo and all the others ), for being here for me and my blog. Because of you, I've managed to make this blog a bit more popular every month and earn money with it. But most of all, I'm glad that I can offer you the information you want, about the topics you're interested in, every day. Once again, thank you guys!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that my blog's Page Rank is 3, my Alexa Rank is 397,053 and the Technorati rank also decreased ( which is a good sign :) to 587,893. The number of subscribed readers to my RSS feed is 19 ( low, but I'm working to improve it ;). All this ranks improved in just under 2 months after buying my .info domain name..So yes, having a TLD ( Top Level Domain ) helps..

Well, that's it..hope I haven't forgot something else :P