NetBusinessBlogWork from Home, Business Opportunities, Websites for Sale - Run an Online Business

I have to give Facebook some credit, they’re really trying to compete with MySpace by adding unique features, one of the more recent ones being the Mini-feed.

However, with their latest release of “Facebook Gifts” I think they’re really off base, and what makes it even worse is that they’re hiding behind a breast cancer research charity to mask this new monetization attempt.

Facebook gifts are basically little images that users can send to their friends along with a message. They range from funny gifts to sweet gifts (just in time for Valentine’s Day) and are actually really nice images. Each account is credited with 1 free gift to send to a friend, but after that these gifts (remember, images + text) are $1 each. Granted for the first month they’re donating all of the net proceeds to charity, but after that it seems like they’re going to be running this program as a profit-generator.

Arrington believes this idea is going to be a big money-maker for Facebook, but I just can’t begin to convince myself that people would actually pay money for a little image with some cute text especially when they can be linked to easily for FREE. Perhaps February will do well for Facebook gifts because the idea is new and because the proceeds are going to charity, but as far as this thing taking off further down the road, I just don’t see it.

For starters, $1 to send a stupid little picture? I can send pictures for free. Hell I can even send sexy moving, dancing, flapping eCards. Again, for free. What’s different? Facebook integrated these gifts with the social networking experience by adding a “Gift Box” in their users’ profiles as well as including gift receptions in the mini-feeds. Will that still warrant people spending $1 to send an icon? I doubt it.

Another important thing to remember here is that Facebook IS NOT MySpace. Up until very recently Facebook was open exclusively to college students and alumni. Facebook has a more mature audience consisting mostly of 18-25 year olds, not 10-15 year olds (*cough* MySpace). Will grown men and women seriously pay money to send an icon? Again, I doubt it.

At the end of the day I think this strategy will just crash and burn. Maybe I’ll eat my words in a few months when Facebook gifts really take off, but I just don’t see that happening. At least I got to send my 1 free gift anyways; hope that means I don’t have to buy her flowers.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Official AGLOCO Blog has been on fire lately with a ton of posts on general company information, news, community commentary, and tips on building your AGLOCO network. The most recent post confirmed that the AGLOCO Viewbar will be available for download in March. Here’s what Brian Greenwald had to say about the release date:

Obviously, I have two minds when it comes to this. I really want the Viewbar out there. I want Members to start using it. I want advertisers and online merchants using it. And I want to start generating revenue for Members and the company.

On the other hand, I also want more time to get ready for the Viewbar. As a part of the AGLOCO Revenue team, I want to have more time to get more agreements in place so the Viewbar makes more money even at the start.

I personally don’t mind the March release date. We’ve already been waiting forever (in internet time), so what’s another couple of weeks? Anyways, I’m excited to finally see the AGLOCO Blog answering questions and interacting with the community. They’re showing that they really do have a connection with their community. AGLOCO is starting to seem more and more like an “AllAdvantage 2.0″. Read more about AGLOCO here.

• Join AGLOCO and Start Building your Network

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]

By now I’m sure a lot of you have heard about MyBlogLog, and if you haven’t you’re probably wondering what all those faces are doing at the bottom of my sidebar.

Connecting Users

MyBlogLog is a newish social networking site setup specifically for bloggers. The idea behind the site is to connect blog communities across multiple sites and allow users to keep an easier track with their favorite communities and fellow users. Visitors can join a blog’s MyBlogLog community by browsing their communities or by clicking on “View Reader Community” on their Recent Readers widget. MyBlogLog highlights the fastest growing communities on their community homepage which can generate some good additional traffic and activity.

Delicious Widgets

One of the biggest draws for MyBlogLog is the easy-to-integrate widgets associated with their site. The most widely used one is the “Recent Readers” which you can see by scrolling down to the bottom of my sidebar. Another one is the “Top Links” which tracks the most popular links and displays them in a list. There’s also an option to track all clicks and display them on a hover-over. I used the links features for about a week but quite honesty didn’t see all that much use in them.

There are a couple other good widgets that take advantage of MyBlogLog’s userbase but aren’t necessarily endorsed by them. One of these is MyAvatars by Napolux. MyAvatars integrates MyBlogLog user avatars into your blog’s comments system so that you can easily match blog commenters with their faces from MyBlogLog. There’s also the possibility of utilizing MyBlogLog’s database to create custom widgets such as ShoeMoney’s Top Commenters widget (combines Comment Karma with MyBlogLog).

Free Promotion

Another great thing about MyBlogLog is the free promotion it generates. Much in the same way having a MySpace account for your site or blog can generate free traffic, MyBlogLog users find and visit your site by browsing the communities or stumbling into it through a chain of other users. In this sense MyBlogLog is extremely useful and really is a quality service to the blogging community.

However just like MySpace there are a ton of spammers. MyBlogLog has a really lame abuse reporting system that could use a serious revamp. There’s also a lot of people trying to take advantage of not only MyBlogLog but all social networking sites to generate visitors and increase SEO - see Gary Ruplinger (and yes I do plan to refer back to this guy everytime I mention social networking SEO spam).

Overall MyBlogLog has a long way to go but is a fun little alternative to larger social networking communities. The majority of the users over there are like-minded and friendly. Ignoring the random spammer there’s little to complain about.

• Join NBB’s MyBlogLog Community

Sponsored by: NorthxEast - An Online Business Blog

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Are you taking full advantage of Squidoo?

TechnoSailor is up for sale. This would be a great buy for anyone wanted to dive into the technology blogging niche.

John Chow with yet another wacky contest.

Neil Patel challenges Jason Calacanis to prove that SEO can be worthwhile and whitehat. Jason accepts. I don’t know why this is news … but everyone else is linking to it and I’m a fan of bandwagons.

I can’t get enough of Big Big News. Dorkiness aside, this guy’s funny.

Everyone’s favorite SEO guru, Gary Ruplinger, informs us of the most common myths surrounding snakes (video below).

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]

The top banner position and all of the text link slots are sold out until February 26th, but I’ve just instituted a new form of advertising for those of you who want to buy a targeted text link on this site but just can’t wait it out. I now offer single post text links. You can see an example of a single post text link at the bottom of this post.

Single post text links are links that appear at the bottom of the sponsored post with your chosen anchor text. The links appear both on the main blog and the blog’s feed (which has over 450 subscribers on average). These links are permanent and will never be removed as long as the blog and the sponsored post exists. You can choose to allow the text link to appear in the next post or choose to reserve the sponsored text link spot in the next post in a particular category - ie. if you want to target SEO traffic you may prefer purchasing a sponsored link in the next post filed under SEO.

Single post text links cost $15/link. There will be one link allowed per post.

I’m doing this in place of running FeedBurner Ad Network ads which are large and rather intrusive. The site is also too young to run Text Link Ads feedvertising. I’m not trying to clutter this site with ads, but keeping it up to date takes a lot of my time, and if there’s a possibility of bringing in a little bit more revenue without taking much away from the readers’ experience then I’m going to try it out.

Sponsored by: SEO Book by Aaron Wall

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]

When most people launch a site they want to get as many people as possible to register and become active on it. Whether it’s a forum, a portal site, or even a blog - people want users to register and participate. To do this webmasters typically promote their sites like crazy through SEM, PPC, offline advertising, direct ad purchases, forum posting, blog comments, etc. The main goal is get as many people to your site as possible and hope to God a few of them register.

On the other hand, have you ever tried telling people they can’t register? A lot of sites make registration available only through personal invite or application, and it works.

reverse psychology
(in nontechnical use) a method of getting another person to do what one wants by pretending not to want it or to want something else or something more.

When someone hears or sees that a website is exclusive then they usually want to join it if nothing more than to see why it’s off limits to the general public. Moreover, when someone does get accepted into the site they feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in being one of the “few” allowed into an exclusive site. This typically means that you’ll have a higher registered user activity.

A recent example of this method in practice is over at Mintpages. I got an invite for Mintpages a few months ago. It was a really young community then but has grown extremely fast. The web development community niche is an extremely competative one. Mintpages quite honestly doesn’t provide anything at all above and beyond what you could find at any other development forum. The only thing they did differently was to make their community invite only (or by application). This made the people who were invited to join the community want to post because they felt as if they were above the average developer. I’m actually a bit disappointed in Mintpages because the community they were able to create in such a short amount of time was great; however, they did absolutely nothing to grow it. It’s still active, but not nearly as popular as it could be based on the initial interest.

Another example of a community with an exclusive memberbase is the 9rules blog network. Members of 9rules are bloggers who have to apply during preset application periods. If they’re accepted they get to add a 9rules banner to their page (seen on the right) as well as gain the benefit of getting targeted traffic from the 9rules homepage and other bloggers in the network. The main attraction for bloggers wishing to join the 9rules network is the potential traffic from the site. However, there are a ton of other blog networks out there. What makes 9rules stand out? I think it’s due to their exclusive memberbase. If any blogger who wanted could join the network it would just turn into another blog directory. But because it is so exclusive the bloggers who are able to join the network gain a certain amount of prestige in the blogosphere which yields respect and traffic.

For most webmasters the conventional strategy of mass promotion is probably always going to be the way to go. However, one should always consider the possibility of creating a community built around an exclusive memberbase. It has its pros and cons, and it always depends on the industry you’re targeting. Notice both of my examples were based around a skill industry - web development/blogging. Reputation goes a long way in these fields and belonging to an exclusive community raises that reputation. Will this work for every niche? Probably not. But it’s up to you to find out where it works and where it doesn’t.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Popularity: 3% [?]

It seems that freelance web design is getting more and more popular, especially among the younger generation of online earners. It’s a fun skill to develop, and once you have some practice it’s fairly easy to turn that skill into some moderate revenue. That’s how I got started in online business 7 years ago. The same is true for a number of others.

Is everyone cut out to be a web designer, however? To say that the ability to do web design is in-born sounds somewhat elitist; therefore, the idea has been cast aside by most people in the industry. It’s largely believed that with time, practice, and dedication anyone can pick up web design and make it into something profitable. After all, it’s true with other money-making avenues in the industry: SEO, affiliate marketing, domaining, etc. Why not web design?

What people seem to forget is that web design is at least somewhat of an innate skill. Some call web design “art”, but I don’t quite believe that. Sure there are some websites that have some beautiful aesthetics, but these websites are more of collaborations between web design and a form of art. For example, illustrations or photography. Incorporating art into web design is great, but I personally feel that web design itself is more of what you do with art, stock photos, and content elements.

That’s where the “designer’s eye” comes in. The concept of the designer’s eye is simple: some people just know what looks good. These are the people who have the natural ability needed to develop into the most successful designers. I’m not trying to say that only a handful of elite can succeed in the web design industry, but I will say that if someone completely lacks the designer’s eye then no matter how hard they try … they just won’t develop enough to really succeed. Keep in mind there’s a difference between inexperience and inability. Many people simply lack the technical knowledge needed to create good website designs, and it takes time for them to develop that. However, those who lack the designer’s eye just quite honestly can’t grasp the necessary concepts needed for good web design.

Ready for some examples?

Jesus-is-Savior.com
Lacks the Designer’s Eye

This is a profoundly ugly website. It’s safe to say that the designer of this site probably doesn’t have much (if any) training using actual design software; however, he shows irrefutably his lack of any inherit taste of design. One doesn’t need 5-10 years of experience using Photoshop to realize that the chaotic and confusing way this website is setup blows. Only someone with absolutely no designer’s eye could create something this horrific.

Simplebits
Has the Designer’s Eye

Ignoring the logo (which would require a bit of ability to do) everything in this design can be done by a rookie. Yet it looks great, doesn’t it? It all boils down to the designer’s eye. Knowing how to put elements together, what colors to use, how to arrange content so that it isn’t cluttered. Is this a hard concept? Not really. But some people just can’t grasp it.

So What’s the Point?

I didn’t write this post to discourage anybody. I want everyone who reads this blog to succeed with their goals and retire happy and healthy. What I don’t want is for people to waste time trying to do something that they blow at. If you take a step back and look long and hard at the websites you’ve been churning out lately … and they look like Jesus-is-Savior.com … you need to re-evaluate your career choice. Try SEM or affiliate marketing. Play to your strengths - if you’re bad at designing, try something else. So many people want to pat others on the back saying “if you keep at it, you’ll get the hang of it”. That’s not always true.

Find what you’re good at and run with it. Just because others are earning through web design doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for you.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

I just read a great post by Muhammad Saleem over at Pronet Advertising arguing his thoughts on why so many social networking users (Digg in particular) mark every link or post related to SEO as spam. Although I don’t think it’s quite so cut-and-dry as he makes it out to be, there are definately some good points made.

He uses this video to sum up his argument:

This is a prime example of the mindset of many many SEO “experts” in the industry. Not only is “Gary Ruplinger” (the guy in the video - yea I went to his site, shut up) full of ill-conceived advice that will almost certainly get your account(s), website(s), and IP banned from social bookmarking sites, they’re not even good! If you want to take full advantage of the wonders of social bookmarking, write good posts that people want to read and share. Little “SEO tricks” such as the ones mentioned in this video are worthless and will do nothing more than embarrass you in the community.

People who view Digg and other social bookmarking sites as “tools” to be used for promotion and SEO fail more often than not.

Muhammad sums it up:

Like I mentioned before, the Digg community doesn’t have an irrational vendetta against SEO-related sites, it’s just that people like the gentleman in the video above, cause the community to generalize about SEOs and thus label all of them has having the same mentality and using the same tactics.

You can read his full post here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Brian of ConvertUp just did a short blog post about my two part series Building a Niche Minisite (Part 1, Part 2). It focused on the benefits of writing a multi-part article. Basically it all boils down to the fact that by splitting your article into multiple parts, you generate more traffic both from people returning to read new installments and from other users who simply missed the first or second parts.

His post reminded me of one I had been planning on writing for a few days now: the benefits of writing multi-paged articles.

Brian’s argument on writing multi-part articles as that it generates more traffic (and more backlinks). An implied result of getting more traffic is getting more ad impressions, more clickthrough opportunities, and more money in general. Although writing multi-paged articles won’t generate more unique traffic, it is useful in creating more revenue.

What is a Multi-Paged Article?

What I mean by a multi-paged article is simply a post (on a blog or static site) that the writer breaks into two, three, or more pages instead of letting it all fall on one long page. Visitors don’t typically enjoy going through a ton of pages to read one article, so I would suggest keeping it to three or four maximum. If the article is interesting, however, you shouldn’t have a problem getting the users to navigate to more than one page to finish it. My own habit is that if I get to an article that stretches six, seven, or more pages I’ll almost always close the window no matter how interesting the headline or reviews are.

How Do Multiple Pages Create More Money?

Most people focus almost entirely on obtaining unique visitors in order to increase their online revenue. One thing a lot of people tend to forget is that there is still a lot more you can do once you get the user there. By breaking your articles down into multiple pages you’re increasing your total ad impressions and page views. Instead of the user reading the one page article and then exiting, they’re browsing through multiple pages while reading the article and then exiting. This is important for a number of reasons:

• Advertisers like sites with high page views - More page views = more money
• The reader sees more ads without feeling overwhelmed - in turn should lead to more clickthroughs
• Increases your pages per visit ratio which makes your site look better overall to advertisers
• More impressions mean more money with CPM ads

The only downfall in using multi-paged articles is that some users may get bored and leave before finishing the article. These users typically won’t turn out to be your repeat visitors anyway, so you still got what you wanted out of them - a single visit and possibly a single ad click. You should make sure, however, not to overwhelm your visitors with too many ads per page and too many pages in general. No matter how interested the visitor, there is always a breaking point at which they just don’t want to go through anymore pages.

People have been using multi-paged articles forever. Just look at any major news portal - almost all of them include multi-paged articles. It’s a good strategy and if implemented well can really increase your revenue.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Well the poll question for the last couple of weeks has been “Which Affiliate Program do you Prefer?” Here are the results:

It’s no question that Commission Junction smashed the others with 47% of the total votes. I think it’s mostly due to their huge product and link selection. You can almost always find a CJ offer for any affiliate market campaign you want to run.

The next poll running is “What do You Think of Conferences?” In today’s world of internet marketing, SEO, blogging, and so many other ways of making money online, there have been a huge number of conferences springing up trying to provide a learning place for webmasters to network and share ideas. The question is, how effective are these? Some people in the industry swear by them and others chalk them up as nothing more than “another networking opportunity.” What’s your take on them?

You can vote using the poll on the sidebar.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]