Spring ??

I feel really weird in my office in the spring. First, it smells like outdoors. But, when I look around the room is filled with plastic plants. It is almost surreal, I smell plants but they are not real. Some times it takes a couple of seconds to make the connection. My silk flowers were expensive. I thought they would be non-allergenic.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Technorati Favorits

If you want to help promote friends, then consider 'faving' their blogs on technorati. This is a good tool. Not as good as Stumbleupons web page feature which lets viewer see a full page of your website as a 'view' (you won't see these people in your stats.)But, it is good for promotion.

It also helps promote your technorati by giving you more content and a better read. The problem with most writers is that they write on writing and making money as writers - whether they are doing well or not. I recently talked to one person who wanted to know why their blog 'successful writing' was not making money. I asked how long she had been a writer. Her answer - 3 weeks.

If you want to promote, work with people who are accustomed to promoting. If you want to write - then write about something you know.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Increase Technorati Rank

What is Technorati authority? It is the number of blogs that link to your website in the last six months. Many new blogmasters believe they can increase their Technorati rank by linking dozens of times between different blogs. This doesn’t work.

Technorati only gives 1 to each blog linking – not the number of links.

A blogmaster needs at least 3000 different websites to link to their blog – in the last six months- to reach the top 100 on the Technorati list. Of course, the number one way is to get people to link to your blog – but this is not easy. Telling people that they may put an excerpt of your blog on their site will work – but this will not build 3000 links.

There is a good reason why you need to build your Technorati rank. First – it brings up your Alexa rank because many people who use Technorati have the Alexa toolbar.

One of the most popular methods of increasing Google rank is to build 50 – 100 blogs and create your own network. Within weeks you have 500 legal links, and PR3. This will also increase your Technorati rank and using ‘duplicate content’ will also keep the relevance. (remember to only promote one blog so it earns high PR… creating a link farm will not work)

Claim your blogs on Technorati.

You can purchase links (legally) through forums:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=58 Just be careful. The problem is that you can’t please everyone. You cannot increase your Google and Technorati ranks. You need to chose which is most important to you. As for me? I get very little of my 4m hits a year from Google, so it doesn’t bother me whether Google likes my links or not.






Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Weight PT2

I've talked about diet pills. There is another way to loose weight, exercise. I have been looking for fitness equipment that fits into my office. I want something that is close at hand so I don't feel like I am leaving my work.

I have started to take breaks lately after Sharon told me, and Mary came down with RSI last fall and still isn't back to work. I couldn't handle it if that happened to me.

Getting Started With Alexa Rank PT2

Step 5: Join Social groups such as Digital Point, Stumble upon, and technorati. These sites send visitors to your site, and build ‘inbound’ links. Do not limit yourself when building exposure. I’ve even used yahoo answers!

Step 6: Set your website as your homepage. Alexa is set to limit the number of requests it accepts from a website, per day. However, if you have a laptop, an office computer, a home PC, then the access count up. Do not set up FireFoxes ‘reload’ feature. This may seem like a good idea, but Alex is smart enough to stop that type of black hat SEO.

Step 7: Include the widget on your site. There’s no evidence that the Widget improves traffic ranking. It only informs Alexa that your site exsists and ensuring your inclusion in the Alexa service.

Step 8: Create sub domains instead of several domains on similar topics. Alexa will combine them into one page rank.

Getting Started With Alexa Rank Pt 1

Step one: You need to understand that Alexa rank is skewed towards blogs with a large techie audience. (Much the same way digg is) because the techies are the ones with the toolbars. If you want to increase your page rank, then you need to convince your blog members and RSS subscribers that the Alexa toolbar is an important download.

Is this a defect? Well, you can look at it two ways. If you can get these people reading your pages, then by default, your blog is considered to have good/original well-thought-out content.

Step 2: Get off Blogspot and wordpress.com. I’ve talked to several people who have moved blogs off the community blog platforms and watched their daily traffic trends increase from somewhere in the millions to less than 100 000 within two or three months.

This is not a guarantee. www.inspiredauthor.com has more than 350 000 hits a month, more than 10 000 pages on line, is pinged daily, has 150 members who blog, has PR4, and is not in the top 100 000 at the moment. But then, it is not a site that techies would be interested.

Step 3: Consider buying traffic to get started. This will bring visitors to your site, help you determine what the best topics to write about are, and increase your rank. If you make the perfect match (read more on how to make the most of traffic buying and revenue generating in the web promotion section of this blog)

Step 4: Download the Toolbar
IE http://www.alexa.com/site/download/
FireFox http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
The firefox version


Getting Started With Alexa Rank
Step 5: Join Social groups such as Digital Point, Stumble upon, and technorati. These sites send visitors to your site, and build ‘inbound’ links. Do not limit yourself when building exposure. I’ve even used yahoo answers!

Step 6: Set your website as your homepage. Alexa is set to limit the number of requests it accepts from a website, per day. However, if you have a laptop, an office computer, a home PC, then the access count up. Do not set up FireFoxes ‘reload’ feature. This may seem like a good idea, but Alex is smart enough to stop that type of black hat SEO.

Step 7: Include the widget on your site. There’s no evidence that the Widget improves traffic ranking. It only informs Alexa that your site exsists and ensuring your inclusion in the Alexa service.

Step 8: Create sub domains instead of several domains on similar topics. Alexa will combine them into one page rank.





Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Home Entertainment

You've invested in a home theater, but have you thought ofhome theater seating. I took a look at these and thought they'd be great. First, they will be easy to keep clean. They are built so that you can vacuum all the corners. They can also be washed with detergent.


The main reason I hate television rooms is that they get so dirty. Everyone eats while they are watching movies. Drinks are spilled. Garbage is left behind. That is the reason I'd be interested in theater seating.

Starting a New Biz

My daughter in law is starting a new online biz. She has been learning and reading for a few weeks and is ready to get started. It is so much easier to get started now than when we started in the blogging world 2 - 3 years ago. It is amazing how the Internet world has evolved over the last few years.

All bloggers evolve. I've evolved mainly due to the fact that my websites have grown. www.inspiredauthor.com now has 17 million page views a year. It takes a lot more to manage now. I did help my daughter in law avoid one mistake I made. She didn't start on a small site first. I had her start on something that can grow.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Why You Need the Alexa Toolbar on FireFox

At this time I have not tried IE, just Firefox. Download Here:

http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/


This tool will give you Google, Alex, and Complete rank. It offers a far more accurate image than Google does.

For example. http://www.healthafter40.blogpsot.com/ has dropped from PR4 to PR0 in the last 3 months. However, it has increased 75% on the Alexa rank an increase of more than 1 million. It is currently around 2 million in ranking, getting about 5000 hits in 3 months. This is not good traffic, but it does show that (unlike Google) the website has increased in popularity, hits, and repeat traffic.

After downloading the toolbar, go to the bottom right of the browser. Click the Alexandria bar.

Now you can see all the stats on page rank and information that you could possibly want to see.

For example, I found that 33% of my readers are from the UK, and I have a large percentage of visitors 15% from India. This will have a dramatic effect on how I write to my customers.

I clicked incoming link and it opened up the tabs to show my incoming links from different browsers. For example, I have 1098 that Google recognizes, and 1973 that Yahoo recognizes. I also know that my rank is 1 398 600 . I don’t have far before I start ranking high enough to make better money as a blogger.

Just owning the Alexa toolbar will increase the Alexa rank of the websites you visit. It might be a good idea to post that you have the Alexa toolbar. If you visit a site and increase their rank, they ‘may’ return the favor. At least, if you are working with a group of professionals who want to increase their page rank then they must all have the alexa toolbar.

Adding the Alexa widget to your website is vital for attracting new members to your website.
The last benefit is that you can see a webpage’s Google PageRank, and Alexa’s Page rank.


Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Weight

Did you gain weight last winter? Most work at home people gain weight over the winter. I've had a couple people tell me that I need exercise. I had my doctor tell me to lose weight. There is always lipovox but I've never used diet pills before. I'm wondering if it isn't time to get started.

I know a lot of the younger generation use them, but I don't know anyone who does, or if they did - they are not saying. I have heard that the new ones are much safer than the old ones, I just don't know if they are right for someone who works at home all the time.

Review: Wealthy Writer

Review: http://www.wealthy-writer.com/

There is a new website built for writers who are trying to turn their part-time work at home writing venture into a viable home based business: http://www.wealthy-writer.com/. This is one of the best sites I’ve found. First, it is truncated, this basically means that it is broken up so that readers can surf several posts on the home page and follow topics they want to read.

This makes it easy to learn everything you need to know. Unlike most sites, this one helps writers find agents, learn how to increase traffic, and understand how to use tools such as Technorati, or building Alexa Rank.

If you are looking for a one-stop free ‘how to start a writing business’ website – this is the one!

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Does IZEA Have a Double Standard?

I’ve been confused about the new ‘Did Google Spank You’ campaign. Yes, I am furious at Google. After all, what is the difference between selling an ad link in a blog post or putting google ads in a blog post?

What I’m having a hard time understanding is why IZEA also spanks bloggers who lose their Google Page Rank – especially when IZEA has their own ranking system? I’ve talked to several bloggers who lost their Google Page Rank – then suddenly IZEA stopped sending them Paid Posts.

I know a lot of bloggers who would love to leave Google behind and work with IZEA. Personally, I would rather spend my time generating new traffic instead of leaving comments in blogs so I have enough links to increase my PR. IZEA’s system tracks traffic – it sounds perfect…except that IZEA won’t stand up and support their bloggers.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Secondary Computer

I've bought an external harddrive. The biggest benefit of it is that I can attach it to my notebook computer and then work as if I am on my PC with all my software and everything. I don't know what I'd do without my laptop. Actulally, Sharon on our group got me onto notebooks.

I tried docking them, but I prefer to use an external harddrive. My outfit is 5 years old. I update my computer every 3 years, but I haven't updated my notebook. It is about time.

Write to Increase the Alexa Page

Web fans (who have the alexa toolbar installed) love to read about ways to increase traffic. If you review friend’s Alexa page, write about Alexa, and build a site that attracts alexa fans – then your alexa rank will increase. You will also help spread the ‘good rank’ tool that is Alexa.

Write for webmasters. If you write content for webmasters and exchange reviews with bloggers who use sites like SocialSpark where they most likely have the Alexa toolbar ( you can insist that you only exchange posts with sites that have the Alexa widget on the blog).

Write to an international audience. I have a large audience of women from India. Alexa toolbar is big in India, so these ordinary bloggers can increase my Alexa rank without trying.

Create an Alexa category on your blog. Even if the blog is a general ‘how to attract traffic’ or ‘how to improve your page rank’ then you can still call it Alexa News. This is a purely marketing move. Visitors from Google will not help your rank. Google doesn’t care how many people visit your site, how many RSS subscribers you have, or whether 10 people digg your blog posts a day.

In fact, even building links to please Google doesn’t guarantee that you’ll build a good page rank – so don’t cater to Google fans.

Participate in Foreign Alex sites
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500?&qterm=&p=DestTopSites
Asia uses Alexa. Getting on those sites, and reaching the top, will increase your rank even higher.

---
www.wealthy-writer.com



Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

How to Increase Alexa Rank

Most people do not realize that Amazon owns Alexa. The Alexa rank is measured based on the amount of users who visit the blog or web site – but only if they have the Alexa toolbar on their browser.

As Google becomes an unreliable tool for measuring Page Rank – face it, every time the webmasters learn how to use the algorithm, Google changes the rules restoring the elite positions of their advertisers. A blog or website that doesn’t work within their parameters is penalized, benched, and has to start all over somewhere else.

This is giving Alexa and RealRank more importance in the small business world. Haven’t you noticed more and more of the Paid Post sites adding Alexa and IZEA’s Real Rank to their blog ranking systems? ReviewMe, Text Link Ads ,SocialSpark and Sponsored Reviews are just a few.
Question #1, will increasing Alexa Rank increase the number of people who a) have the toolbar b) visit your site from the Alexa traffic pool.

One thing that Alexa has in its favor is the fact that it calculates traffic on a three month basis. It also calculates the number of pages viewed as well as the number of visitors.


Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Your Internet Working Slow?

Are you paying for fast Internet service? Is it working as fast as it should? If not, then you need to visit this website http://www.firefold.com/Categories/HDMI-Products.aspx. You need good cables. All the cables in my system are gold coated. HDMI cables can make the difference between your computer speed to Internet and printer, fax, phone, working fast - or struggling. It can reduce the number of times a connection is dropped, downloads are interrupted, and you are left screaming in frustration.

If you are making a living on the net then you need good cables.

Making Money as a Pro Blogger

There has been a major change in the blogging world. Paid Posts are becoming more accepted as bloggers learn how to improve their blogs and networks. There are several different Paid Post ads. I have written reviews and posted on most of them, at least the ones I’ve found.

The problem with pro blogging is that it is a full time job. Pro Bloggers need to stay online.

Smorty normally posts jobs around 3am Eastern. Pay Per Post varies, but if you want to make money, then be online from 10am to 9pm Eastern. Loudlaunch has its own limitations and resources.

Low PageRank blogs need to work with a wide source of Paid Blog agencies. Many blogs rely on Google for their traffic. Others are built around Social Networks. Each has its benefits.

Meeting Google’s rules is hard, mainly because they keep changing the rules. The good news is, Alexa uses some of the same link building strategies combined with traffic reports. In my word, Alexa is more important than Google – unless you are foolish enough to trust Google for all your traffic.

One good reason to focus ‘off Google’ is the fact that even the pros find themselves working for months to get good traffic – only to have Google change the rules and they are dropped to the bottom – out of business – within days. Am I anti-Google? No. I just don’t believe a pro blogger should focus all their efforts on pleasing Google’s fickle rules.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Make Money on YouTube

No one touches the web without learning what YouTube is. Now they are testing a new program in Australia where contributors earn money in exchange for a banner being placed on the ad. This revenue sharing is designed to help contributors who create good content.

http://au.youtube.com/partners

The program has been operating in the United States and United Kingdom for months. Some contributors are already earning thousands of dollars each month.

"It has certainly been an incentive for people to create more content," a YouTube Australia spokesman said.

"There are people overseas who have millions of video views and are earning thousands of dollars."

Many people have worked hard to become celebrities on YouTube. The secret to success is found in building a community and interacting with viewers.

Office Decorating

Has anyone considered wood blinds for their office? As I get older and my allergies start bothering me more, I have been looking for ways to decrease dust in the office. However, I read a recent report that states that wood blinds can also reduce my heating bills.

I like the look of wood, so that is no problem, and they are a lot cheaper than drapes. Of course, most members of this blog are in warmer clients so they probably have never priced 'lined' or thermal drops.

If you are a canadian blogger and have looked for blinds, then you might want to take a look. I am leaning toward the new honeycomb blinds.

Will The Net Crash in 2010?

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately over the threat of ‘brown outs’ and a potential crash on the internet. I’ve already talked to a few freelance professionals who are in a panic.

First – don’t sweat it. When television took off, the communication companies came to the rescue. Already, companies like AT&T are promising to invest billions into upgrading.

There is a problem – video. It will be blamed for 80% of the bandwidth hogging. This will slow down the net. According to a study, partly funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), the cost of an total overhaul will reach 137 billion dollars.

What Does that Mean to Us?

I don’t think the hype means anything. AT&T is already upgrading to the tune of $19 billion. Can you really see the giant conglomerates giving up their golden egg, companies like Google, AT&T, AOL, BT (UK), Rodgers, and others.

There will be a race to fiber optics – and beyond. The winners will see their stocks skyrocket. That in itself is worth billions, not to state that all that extra bandwidth can be sold. One single podcaster pays $0.01 per hour of audio file.

That spike in video – someone will pay for it. Webmasters will probably pay for it in hosting costs. To put the panic in perspective, if every ‘active’ domain name in 2007, 6.6 billion, were charged a onetime fee of $5.44, the cost would be covered.

Currently only 20% of the world’s population uses the internet. (1,319,872,109 users) if everyone was charged a onetime fee of $100, the cost would be covered. Of course, they wouldn’t do that. We would be billed $20 more a year for years.

Online retail sales, excluding travel, exceeded US$175 billion in 2007, an increase of 21 percent from 2006, according to Forrester Research. Forrester expects online sales to exceed $200 billion this year and exceed $300 billion in 2011.

When looking at the problem in ‘global’ terms, you can see that the big companies will not be afraid to invest the money needed to meet the future demand. There is money to be made. And whenever there is money to be made, someone will invest.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Warning: Avoid Free Domain Names

Almost every web host, forum host, or blog host now offers free domain names. Even other sources such as Paid Post services offer free domain names. I’ve been hit hard 2 or 3 times by these free domain sites.

The deal is great for the first year. After that, you’ll pay much more to review the domain than godaddy.com will charge. I’ve had bills as high as $40 per year to renew.

I learned the second lesson the hard way. When you leave, the domain doesn’t leave with you. I worked hard to promote one domain. The company promised to transfer the domain for months. After a year I gave up trying to get the domain that I’d worked up to PR4 and was now ‘aged.’ I continued to try and buy the domain and watched for it to expire. Eventually, it was sold for $4000 to a company in Italy.

All my link building work was lost. My loyal visitors were going to another site. My friend’s links lead to another website.

There is a saying that nothing is free. This goes for domain names. A website’s entire success can hinge on its domain name. Losing this because you need to change web host, or need a larger host, can cripple a website, or even force a webmaster to start over again.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Shopping Online

Have you been shopping online? I'd love to hear from anyone who has been shopping for drug store typ products online. I've been looking at different products. One is Orovo. I've never bought it, but it keeps popping up everywhere. I've read reviews and info on it for several months.

I've been doing a detox for a couple months, trying to reduce my problems with allergies and sinus infections. They have a detox that looks good. I am interested and want to buy. What do you think?

My First Take on SocialSpark

I’ve been watching social spark for about 2 months. I was not one of the ‘selected’ for the beta release, but I’ve been moving around the web looking for information. I jumped the gun and enrolled in SocialSpark as soon as it opened last week. I’ve read the blogs. I’ve chatted with other bloggers. I’ve explored the site. Now I have some advice to pass one.

What is SocialSpark?

SocialSpark is PayPerPost’s new ad campaign. The platform is one of the most powerful I’ve seen in the Paid Post arena. It lets the advertisers and posters view each other’s profiles. This includes RealRank, and Alexa. No one was surprised to see that Google’s PageRank is brutally absent.

There is a PPP code in the blog, so Google will be able to identify the blog. Will this effect traffic? I don’t think so. Most blogs are established on the Social Network. I find that Google brings less than 20% of my blog. Of course, this means that you’ll take a hit on Google income, so if you make more from Google than you’ll make from Paid Posts then you might want to rethink SocialSpark.

I was pleased to learn that the ominous banner that floats over the blog is nothing like our first images. It is a fairly nice banner that visitors can click through. Once gone, it is gone for that visitor’s entire visit. This box is OPTONAL. The blogger does not need to subscribe for the Sponsorship.

SocialSpark and Social Networking

SocialSpark blends the best of both worlds, SEO and Social Networking. Bloggers can make comments about advertisers, and vice verse. There is a friends list and social voting – UP or Down. This is similar, but broader than the system used at PayPerPost.

So far, I’ve seen this work as nothing more than a big popularity contest ‘you vote for me, I’ll vote for you.’ I am not sure how much weight IZEA or advertisers will put on this ranking.








Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Prioritizing for Procrastinators

Many people waste more time managing and organizing their time than they would loose if they just took each day as it came.

List your tasks in order of the consequences if the task is not completed, not the greatest importance. Starting a list with the tasks that bear the greatest consequences, if not finished, causes a dramatic paradigm shift. The tasks you thought were most important, probably because they represented a personal need or goal are near the bottom. The tasks near the top, earning an income, become the focus of the day.

The next step is to start – and finish – each job in order. For some, this may mean allowing the answering machine to pick up the phone. For others it may mean viewing your writing job as if it were a position with an employer. You could not stop work in an office to do laundry, run errands, or catch your favorite show. Why stop writing to answer the phone?

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

How to Submit To Search Engines Successfully

Have you taken a look at your website or blog? Are you getting visitors? Have you checked to make sure you are indexed?

There are right ways, and wrong ways, to submit to search engines. Most websites are indexed organically. The search engines follow a link from one site to another, delving deep into the site. The indexing times can take anywhere from days to months.

One urban legend was Google’s sandbox. This doesn’t exist in the true sense. It just takes time for a site to be indexed. Most search engines may index only 300 – 400 pages. Getting the site indexed deeper can involve several techniques including setting up sub-sections and sub-domains and submitting them to search engines, individual page submission, and linking to that page from an outside source.

Submitting one page at a time which links to other pages is called creating a "hallway page." This will get previously ignored web pages indexed, and it may also improve the ranking. It is important to remember that web pages found organically receive more value than ones submitted. So letting Google follow links to un-indexed pages increase their rank.

Avoid Redirects, no-follow links, and meta refresh code. Most search engines will refuse to index these web pages.

If a web page does not change for several months, then search engines may purge it from their databases. Search engines love new content. That is why optimization must be done every few months. An old page may be re-submitted after part of the content or page is changed.

Text

Make sure the web pages are not full of code that cannot be indexed. Search engines will long look through a page indefinitely, past affiliate codes, meta info, heading info, dynamic menus, graphics, video, links, and finally to content. They may leave.

Robot File

All sites should have a robot file that tells the search engine what information is important. It contains meta information.

Archives

Archives can make it easier for search engines to dig deeper into the website. Check your CODE. Did the template designer put a no-follow code in it?