Cowpetition - The Price is Right Contest
written by Anthony Dinh
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard about JohnCow and Garry Conn competition that started yesterday, and will be ending on Wednesday, June 18th. Basically, the two blogging heavyweights will be going hoof to head, each building a non-IM niched blog from scratch using a virgin domain. After 1 month, whoever sells his blog for the most mooney on Sitepoint will be the champion!
To feed off the frenzy that will be generated around the competition, I will be holding my own contest and giving away $280 in prizes. Below are the official details of the “Cowpetition - The Price is Right Contest“. The rules are simple and the prizes are great, so don’t forget to enter!
Deadline Wednesday, June 18th, 12:00am EST
Rules
- subscribe to the RSS feed via email (1 pt)
- Stumble/Digg this post with a comment linking to this post (1 pt)
- predict the competition winner and the final selling price without going over (1 pt, closest bid gets 3 pts)
- write a blog post about this contest - in your own words, please do not copy&paste (5 pts)
Grand Prize Package
- Self-Portrait Caricature Package by Randy Ariestoteles of FreshMeatDesign.com ($150 valu
e) - detailed site review by me ($50 value)
- sponsored 125×125 ad banner for 1 month ($30 value)
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
- novelty AmazingPopper bottle opener ($10 value)
- guest post opportunity with backlink to showcase your work and gain exposure to new readers - can be brand new post or one of your best existing pieces (pricele$$ - traffic boost, RSS subscribers, backlink, exposure, etc.)
2nd Place Prize (multiple giveaways for
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
- novelty AmazingPopper bottle opener ($10 value)
3rd Place Prize
- sponsored link in Featured Sites section of right sidebar for 1 month ($10 value)
If you wish to enter the contest, simply perform the required actions under the rules section, and leave a comment below indicating which steps you’ve taken so I can tally up the points. Please include who you predict will win and your bid on the final selling price. Lastly, if you write a post, please provide a link to the post as well.
Read more about FreshMeatDesign.com here, or check out their impressive portfolio of logos, banners, caricatures and mascots.
GOOD LUCK ALL!
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I’m Not a Baby, Get Me Out of the Sandbox!
written by Anthony Dinh
DiariesOfABlogger.com has been up and running for about a month now and I’ve tried just about everything I could think of, but it’s still failing to get ranked by Google. I’ve come to the conclusion that my site has possibly been sandboxed by Google. I know I’m a newbie blogger and that my site logo is a baby, but enough already, get me out of the sandbox…whaaaaa!
Here’s a quick rundown on what I’ve already done.
- about 3 backlinked comments left a day on reputable blog sites
- sitemap submitted to Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and DMOZ open directory for indexing
- auto ping list enabled
- domain link included on social network profiles (Twitter, MyBlogLog, Myspace, Digg, Entrecard, etc.)
- articles submitted to EzineArticles
- link exchange program with some blog sites
- relevant posts interlinked to each other, and links back to homepage
- H1 tags used on each post
- permalinks enabled to rewrite SEO friendly URLs
- page title formatted to “post title | site title”
Each day, Google is inundated with literally thousands of new sites and it has no way of knowing the trustworthiness of these sites, so in order to maintain the integrity of its index, Google sandboxes these sites until it’s able to analyze and filter out all the spammy sites that are of little or no value. From what I’ve been reading, apparently a site can be sandboxed for anywhere from 3 months to a year, and there’s nothing you can really do but sit and wait…very annoying! 
Hopefully, I will be free from the confines of the sandbox soon so I can run and play with all the other fellow bloggers.
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$100 a Day in 7 Easy Steps
written by Anthony Dinh
You may not realize this, but it’s easier to make $100 a day online than you think. For most of you, the concensus seems to be that making an extra $500-1000 a month would make life a whole heck of a lot easier. With this “wash, rinse & repeat” method which is surprisingly easy to duplicate, you could make up to $3000 a month per site right from home. If the $100 a day goal is a bit high for you beginners, then you can certainly shoot for a more modest goal of $50 a day which will still net you a nice $1500/month. Whether you choose to start a blog, write a content website, pursue affiliate marketing, build lists, generate leads, provide an online service, create informational e-products or open an online BANS (build a niche store), you can apply the “wash, rinse & repeat” method to start multiple money generating sites and scale your business over time. For this excercise, we will be promoting ClickBank digital products.
Step 1 - Find Your Niche
I would start with something that interests you or that you’re knowledgeable about such as cars, sports, fitness, men’s/women’s health, lawn & gardening, wood-working, making money, arts & crafts, pets, baby products,debt consolidation, hiking/camping, traveling, etc. Picking a niche that interests you will make writing content for your page much easier. If you are unsure about what niche to get into, search forums, usergroups and sites like Yahoo! Answers to get some ideas of current hot topics that people are discussing and the kinds of questions that they’re asking.
Step 2 - Snipe Your Keyword
Keyword Sniping can be done using one of the many free keyword search tools that are readily available such as WordTracker or the one offered by DigitalPoint. Both tools will return a list of related keywords with their daily search volumes. A search frequency of at least 200 times a day is recommended. Google search “your keyword” with quotes around it to get an idea of how many competing pages there are for each keyword. The fewer competing pages the better, but the rule of thumb that I go by is anything with fewer than 1 million competing pages should work nicely.
Step 3 - Find a Webhost
Due to the competition with so many hosts out there, you can find hosting service for really cheap these days if you look around. I would recommend HostGator.com since they offer first month’s hosting for only 1 penny if you use the “wordpress” or “jury” coupon codes when prompted.
Currently, DiariesOfABlogger.com is hosted on IX Web Hosting, and I couldn’t be happier with the service. Both Linux and Windows platforms are supported, so you may pick the one you’re most comfortable with. Three levels of service are offered, so there’s one to suit everyone’s needs (Unlimited Pro, Business Plan, Elite Plan). I purchased the mid-level Business Plan package and prepaid for 2 years, so the monthly fee came to $6.45, but you can get a free domain and hosting for as little as $4.95/month. Check out the plan comparison chart here for more details.
Step 4 - Create or Find Your Product
You can either opt to write your own product material, or you can market one of the many digital products available at ClickBank and earn a commission for each sale. Just make sure that there’s a high demand for your product. I would chose one that pays at least $15 commission per sale, one with a high %rfd which indicates that many affiliates are making sales on the product, yet it still has a low gravity and not too many affiliates are currently marketing it (between 10-50 is good) to avoid market saturation and too much competition.
Step 5 - Build Your Site Around the Keyword
You will need to create and publish a minimum of 10 posts surrounding your keyword and product with some solid content that speaks with authority on the subject matter. Though you are using Wordpress blogging software and your site looks like a blog, the difference is that you won’t have to post regularly as you would with a typical blog. As a matter of fact, I would suggest removing all post dates as the information you provide should not appear to be dated in the readers’ eyes. Be sure to use a nice, clear headline that catches the reader’s attention and compels him or her to click on your product. Also, including social proof, testimonials and screenshots will help in convincing the visitor that your solution works and it’s what they’re looking for.
Step 6 - Setup Autoresponder to Harvest Emails
Although not completely necessary, setting up an autoresponder will allow you to harvest your visitors’ emails when they sign-up for your product. Doing so will allow you to send out newslettters in the future to promote other products which would be of interest to your niche audience.
Step 7 - Market Your Product
There are many channels you can use to market your product. You can either promote it by posting in Yahoo! Answers or some of the forums that you came across in step1, by including a linked signature in your profile or newletters to your product landing page or by getting involved and answering questions posted by others within the forum to gain exposure. Yet another way to get word out is by submitting articles regarding your product to article such directories such as EzineArticles and ArticleMarketer. Cross promoting with other sites within your niche through link exchange programs can also be an effective way to market your product.
As with anything else, you will have to try it, make some mistakes, learn from your mistakes, then improve and grow. It will take some time, trial and error, testing and tuning before you come up with a formula that works for you, but persevere, push on and don’t give up! Once you discover that secret winning formula, it should be rather easy to duplicate your success by simply washing, rinsing and repeating.
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The New Face of Diaries Of A Blogger
written by Anthony Dinh
As promised in my previous post, today I will be unveiling the long-awaited new logo that will represent the Diaries Of A Blogger brand from this day forth.
Drum roll please…..dun,dun,dun,dun…..TADA!
OK, so what’s up with the baby theme you might ask? If you notice, my tagline is “A Newbie’s Journey to Making Money Online”, so the baby is representative of me, a “newbie” in this blogging game. My hopes are that hopefully, once you start seeing this logo around enough, it will be engrained in your minds and become synonymous with the Diaries Of A Blogger brand.
There were some comments saying that it’s not necessary to have a custom header logo to build branding, that there are plenty of bloggers who still make it big without one, and that it’s all about the content and how the author brands him or herself. I would have to say that I totally agree with these statements because branding strategy encompasses other aspects of a blog such as the domain name, the tagline, etc., and the logo is just one of them. However, having a logo that people can immediately associate with your brand is quite powerful as well. Think about all the logos you see around you on a daily basis (Nike’s swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, NFL team logos, etc.). You can look at those logos and immediately associate them with their brand without any words needed, and this was my intention here, to achieve brand recognition through my logo.
If like the look and feel of my logo, and would like one of your own, I recommend enlisting the services of the talented Randy Ariestoteles of FreshMeatDesign.com. To get a better idea of what kind of work they do, check out their impressive portfolio of logos, banners, caricatures and mascots. Not only will you get quality work at a reasonable price, but the artists are very responsive and the turnarounds are quick as well.
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Do You Digg It? comScore Says Yahoo! Buzz is the Way to Go
written by Anthony Dinh
Everyone in the blogosphere and MMO niche knows that submitting your posts to Digg can lead to huge boosts of traffic to your site, so we all diligently submit our best work in hopes that it will gain enough popularity to ultimately achieve the holy grail of being promoted to the front page. Heck, it seems like everyone and there mom has a Digg button or link in some form or another on their site these days.
Move over Digg, there’s something leaner and meaner! comScore, a global internet information provider of consumer behavior, has just released some metrics indicating the Yahoo! Buzz is gaining more internet traction and has actually surpassed Digg at it’s own game. For the month of April, Yahoo! Buzz reached nearly 7M unique visitors in the US, while Digg fell behind with just under 6M unique visitors.
Traditionally, Digg has been known to cater to a young, male, techie audience, and Yahoo! Buzz is capitalizing on this shortcoming by addressing the needs of the more mainstream audience. Yahoo! Buzz boasts to be a nice option for the less hard-core social media user, with 50% of its visitors being female. Though these factors don’t mean much to the casual user, it’s music to the ears of eager advertisers. Studies have shown that women and ”technically challenged” users are more apt to click on ads than tech-saavy users.
Being one of the world’s most popular sites, any of Yahoo!’s new projects will surely get a big a kickstart from the enormous amount of traffic that it currently generates. The site is still in beta and unlike Digg, it doesn’t have open article submission policy, so submissions are not open to all sites. For now, submitted articles must come from approved sites only, but you can join a mailing list to be considered until it opens up to the public.
Is Digg losing its touch? Not really. According to Compete, Digg is still generating as much buzz as it did over a year ago, and the site is still exhibiting some steady growth.
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