Profitable Productive Blogging

Here it is the Holiday season. Did you know that Halloween is second only to Christmas in dollars spent? That is crazy. Anyway if you are like me you could probably stand to have a few extra dollars around this time of year. Let me tell you how I do it. In addition to this blog I do affiliate marketing. Do you do any affiliate marketing? What have been your most successful programs. I have been involved in affiliate marketing for several years and it has been very good to me. Here is an example. Today I received an e-mail from one of the affiliate programs I represent. Here is the news from the email that really caught my attention. With our great success the last two months of our bonus offer we have decided to extend it and make it even better! Each month we will pay every affiliate a $500 bonus if they generate at least 7 transactions in that given month. You see in addition to the normal commissions many affiliate programs are always running some kind of incentive program. Set bonu...

What is your opinion on climate change ? Do you feel global warming is a result of human activity? What impact do you feel the Internet and blogging in particular has had on the climate change debate? I know that the Internet and blogging in particular has been having a large impact in the political realm and in certainly in the area of public energy policy and how it relates to climate change. The blogosphere has been able to create buzz and even generate large amounts of funds for candidates and their energy policy initiatives. This is just one more area where I feel blogging and the Internet "new media" has been having a substantial impact. The other day I came across a pretty cool site, EnergyPolicyTV , that has a large collection of videos related to alternative fuels, climate change, energy policy, and many more related topics. I was looking for some information on clean diesel and found one of the videos on this site. The videos are from a variety of sources and it see...

I have never been one for memes but today I felt like it so here goes. I first ran across this Tuesday Toast thing when I was toasted last week by Lori at A Cowboy's Wife . Which meant a lot by the way. Today I wanted to toast all of my readers for your support and for all of your contributions to this blog. I have said it before, but I will say it again. You all have made this blog what it is as much as any content I have written. Thank you all and Here's To All Of You! later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED and my newsletter! or clicking the links below to subscribe to my feed, bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

As some of you may know I also do real-estate investing. I tend to gravitate toward the lower end, but on occasion I move on up to the east side. There is a big difference in what you can put into a house in the low to low-middle market and the high-mid to high market. The expectations of the end buyer are different and yes brand recognition makes a difference. I don't put granite in a house under 200 and I don't put laminate in a house over. You can use the internet to make and save you money even in this line of work. The two areas that make the most impact and where you will most likely spend the biggest part of your budget are the kitchen and bathrooms. One thing I use to impress higher end buyers is high end high quality brand name faucets in these areas. The kind you won't find at Depot or Lowe's. Yep name dropping even works when it comes to selling homes. I usually do my price comparisons online and most of the time also buy them online. One site I frequent is F...

Wow some people are beyond pale. Here I am just coming off a somewhat major illness, making life changing decisions, quitting blogging, selling the site, and what response do I get? I get an email not wishing me well, but attacking me using somewhat harsh language and accusing me of pulling an Ashwin with the current contest . I am only giving away $50 bucks. Chillax I'm good for it. Here is my response to the email. SUCK IT! My actual response really wouldn't have been appropriate. Okay, first it is my blog and I'll do what I want with it. Second, I have been completely honest and upfront with contests and have always lived up to my word. Third, where in my last post did the word contest appear, and where in relation to that was a change in said contest mentioned? Funny thing is after tracking the persons entry it wasn't a valid entry anyway. He, oops, or she should have followed the rules. I have also decided that due to the length of the contest, and to give this guy...

Has the real estate market and credit crunch touched your life? If you are like millions of people around the country and have had your credit dinged a bit lately, don't fret. The Internet is a great place to get bad credit loans . I came across a great source for folks with dinged credit while doing some searching for information on another blog I run. The site is BadCreditOffers.Com. Instead of getting shafted by the crappy offers that come through the mail the site allows you to compare dozens of bad credit offers from major providers and find the best offer to fit your needs. It is really nice to be able to compare offers side by side and really find the best deal and what fits your situation. The site also offers quite a bit of information in credit repair. Before you restructure old debt or acquire new credit you should always check your credit report . You should do this several times a year and with all 3 agencies as they can vary greatly. later all and have a profitable an...

I just want to start by saying thanks to all of you my readers. You have made this blog what it is, as much as any content I have written. Due to some life changing decisions I have made the painful decision to stop blogging. I love doing this very much and will miss writing and interacting with all of you. This blog has had a decent amount of success over the last 6 months and I have enjoyed every minute. I encourage all of you to continue and have a profitable and productive blogging career. Thank you all for reading. I have enjoyed the journey and all of the friends I have met along the way. I just want to say a big thanks to a special blogger, Lori of Blogging With Cents , for being more of a help and inspiration to me than she knows. She has kept me on my toes and forced me to get better. Thanks and here is a toast to you. Also a shout to Kevin @ Blogging Tips for being an encouragement and a model blogger which I hold in high esteem. Finally to Bloggrrl , for her interaction w...

Several days ago I came across a new, online since April, niche search engine. Spock is a people search application. You can search for family, friends, celebrities, really just about anyone. Spock combines two very powerful forces. First, it organizes web content about people into easily understood search results. Information is gleaned from bio pages, social networks, news sites, blogs, directories ...pretty much every place imaginable on the Internet. Second, the Spock community contributes information to help enhance the search experience. Members can add tags, pictures, and web links or simply vote on existing information to increase its relevance. Anyone can join to help make search better for everyone. This is not a social network. They are not trying to be a social network. Spock is a people search application - once you find who you are looking for, go ahead and click through to see where they are on the web. The way it appears to me and a good way for you to picture how it w...

The October Ad Specials will be gone October 31st and prices will return to normal. You won't find lower prices on a better blog anywhere. This ad space is a steal. Get yours before the deals and spots are all gone. Here is what is left. All prices are for 30 days . 1. 468x60 Banner Ad - 1 Available - PRIME SPACE IN HEADER!! GONE YOU MISSED IT! Price: $20 per month Now Only $10 For A Whole MONTH! 2. Text link ads in sidebar - 10 3 Links Available Price: $5 per month Cut over 50% to Only $2 3. 125×125 Sidebar Banner Ads - 6 2 Spots Available Price: $10 per month October Special of $5 later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED and my newsletter! or clicking the links below to subscribe to my feed, bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

I came across a cool new Silicon Valley startup company GreenRoad that has developed technology that measures driving safety and they claim it can reduce car crashes by 54%. What I found very interesting is the device that goes in the car that can detect driving "maneuvers" to assess safety level, and then transmits that data to an Internet site that lets drivers see where they need to improve. It gives a color of red for bad drivers and green for good drivers. I really think it is amazing how the internet has penetrated almost every aspect of life even driving. The technology is a combination of metric reporting back to the website and non-invasive in-vehicle coaching to help change driver behavior instantly. Not knowing for sure how this works, I would assume it would be some sort of a voice prompt. This seems pretty cool, unless of course you are a crazy driver then the thing would most likely chirp at you quite a bit. I would be curious to see exactly how non-invasive it...

I turn on my computer today, open the browser and as soon as the home page loads I am bombarded with PageRank this and PageRank that. I read articles of bloggers lamenting their PR drop and articles saying that PR doesn't matter . There were articles talking about the evolution of PR and TrustRank and all that stuff. After reading all this about how PR is no longer important and doesn't matter I as sure I would open my email inbox and see a bunch of paypal notices where my advertisers had sent me extra money. Alas I have not seen any such notices today. I highly doubt I would see those notices even if I sent an email out to all of my advertisers informing them of an immediate increase in ad prices and citing the fact that all these prominent bloggers have all said that PR doesn't matter. Well here is the memo for all of my advertisers and readers and affiliate programs and the like. PR doesn't matter. I have consistently maintained a 30 day moving average of close to ...

This offer just came through my email box and it was such a great deal I figured I would share it with all of you real quick. It's Halloween and do I have a TREAT for you! Once again Restaurant.com, one of my favorite online money saving sites, is offering an amazing 70% off!! Save 70% on dining certificates. This means that the $25 restaurant gift certificates that normally sell for $10 have been reduced to just $3!! That is amazing. Like I said I use these codes personally to get certificates to this cool little restaurant with trains called Tyler's Tender. My kids love the place and I can get awesome deals to take them. 70% Off Sale! Use code TREATS at checkout . Offer Good from Oct. 24th through Oct. 31st! Note:This is not a sponsored post it just something I thought you all might be interested in. later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED and my newsletter! or clicking the links ...

I have not had a home land line phone for almost 10 years now, and rely strictly on cellular communication. I have over the past several months been looking into the possibility of VOIP Internet Phone service using my broadband connection. Would you or have you considered VOIP service? I have checked into Vonage and Skype and also another site I came across with pretty good rates iConnectHere.com. They seem to have really good prices compared to vonage. I did some checking on them and the site is the direct to consumer side of deltathree. Deltathree is a publicly traded, NASDAQ I believe, company and is a leading provider of integrated VOIP solutions and private label VOIP. I checked into the financials and they seem pretty sound. The stock has taken a hit over the last year but overall they seem financially sound. iConnectHere.com offers pc-to-phone, like Skype, and phone-to-phone, like vonage, VOIP service. I compared their prices and features against the big dogs Vonage and Skype t...

pay per click BlogRush Cleans House Well, well, well, It has been an eventful weekend but now it is back to the grind. Stopping by my inbox this morning to peruse the weekend mail and I see an email from the BlogRush crew. I figured it was probably another email about why the dashboard wasn't working or why my content wasn't being served properly, but no it was an email singing praises about this wonderful blog. Here read it in their own words. Congratulations! You are receiving this update because your blog has passed our strict Quality Guidelines and criteria -- we believe you have a high-quality blog and we are happy you're a member of our network![emphasis added] I knew I was good but wow now it is confirmed by a third party that I have a "high-quality" blog. At least John Reese and the boys (and girls) think I do. Well after reading this and busting the stitches on my hat I continued farther into the email. Here is where it gets interesting. Not only are t...

One of my wealth accumulation strategies , I'll be publishing an article on it in the coming days, is simply Leverage . What I mean by that is using multiple programs or tools to maximize the results. You can do this in many aspects of your life, but today I want to focus on targeted advertising. You can use the offers by many companies to really Launch your blog or affiliate marketing program with a minimal budget. I am about to bring your two offers that when combined will give you $150 in targeted advertising for only $30 dollars out of pocket. That is a a obscene 500% return on your investment. Talk about stretching your ad budget dollar! Jump start your blog or affiliate program today! $20 In Free PPC Ads With No Deposit Or Minimum Balance! $130 Targeted PPC Ads For Only $30! By taking advantage of these two offers you can really jump start your advertising with a small budget. Now you know how you can get $150 in targeted advertising for only $30. later all and have a profit...

I am all about making the most money and making that money work for me and make me the most money. The less I have to do and the more my money can do for me the better. That is my approach to credit cards Credit cards if used properly are a very useful, and sometimes, necessary part of life. Credit has become so easily attainable that it has become a large problem for a large amount of people, we are seeing the results of that in the mortgage market now. What do I mean by that? Don't carry a balance! Unless there is a legit emergency you should never carry an interest accruing balance on your credit card. Don't throw money down the drain, which is essentially what you are doing if you are paying interest on your gas, food, gadgets, or whatever else you put on there. If you don't have the money don't charge it. If you must charge it don't charge so much that you can't pay it off. If you won't be able to pay it off don't buy it, again unless it is a legit ...

I just wanted to pass along this bit of news concerning the October contest . Don't worry folks I'm not pulling an ashwin. I contracted a very serious skin infection and have been in in the hospital and really haven't felt like blogging or assigning numbers and drawing winners, etc.. I have decided to simply extend the contest through the end of the month. Thank you all for you patience. I am doing well and should be back in the swing of things come the first of the week. later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED and my newsletter! or clicking the links below to subscribe to my feed, bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

I saw this news release several days ago and went and checked out the site. I have signed up but have not implemented the program on any of my blogs yet. I thought that it would be well worth sharing with all of you. If you are looking for an easy way to cross link articles and sites this is certainly something you want to take a look at.

I headed over to IncParadise.com and poked around for quite some time. As someone who has went through the initial process of incorporation I was looking to see how they introduced their service especially to a person newly looking at incorporation, how the site differentiated itself from others (why pick them?), how easily was information found, and how would incorporation help my business. Upon visiting and checking out the home page and poking around as If I was new and looking for information in general on incorporation I found that it was a bit difficult to find the information I was looking for. I wish that the faq bar on the right side of the page was higher in the place of the picture and quote. This would place their excellent faqs in the top of the page and readily visible to new visitors. Once I found the faqs I feel that most questions a new person would have were answered very well. The second thing I was looking for was differentiation and how the site was better or diff...

Welcome to Day 5 of my series Tools & Tips for Profitable Productive Blogging . Today I simply want to talk about motivation and what it means to me to write passionately. Read what I have to say and then leave your opinion. This is something that I have struggled and I believe that this post will help you avoid some of the pitfalls I and other bloggers have fallen into. Write Passionately How many times have I read that. I have read this on blogs from Kathmandu to Kalamazoo, which is actually where I went to college, sorry tangent. Well I struggled with this advice from the beginning of my blogging career. What exactly does writing passionately mean. Am I to stroke each post affectionately while telling it how beautiful I think it is? Does each post have to be top flight Pulitzer worthy content that I pour my heart and soul into? Can I ever just post about what I came across that day, week, or month? Finally after discussions with many bloggers I came to this conclusion about what...

Since I am of the "penny saved is a penny earned" mentality I have, over the last month or so, been bringing you information on where you can find some great discounts online. Today I would like to point you to eDealFinder online discount codes another good source for your favorite online merchants. I use discount codes for almost every online purchase. In fact on Friday last week I used a discount code to pick up 2 great seats to a Chicago Bulls game for the grand total of $13.23. For all of you guys out there that may be in the doghouse or simply want to surprise the lady with a nice new gift they have ShoeBuy coupons , a great place to buy your lady shoes, and ProFlowers.com discounts , which, in my view, is the best place anywhere online or off to get flowers . If you are looking to make an online purchase check out eDealFinder first to get your ShoeBuy discount codes or codes for your favorite merchant. Now go earn some money through saving money on things you are goin...

Welcome to Day 4 of my series Tools & Tips for Profitable Productive Blogging. Today I am going to talk about posting and a few ways to post in a more productive manner. This is something that I have struggled and I believe that the tips and tools in this post will help you avoid some of the pitfalls I and other bloggers have fallen into. I have talked with quite a few bloggers over the course of the last several weeks and asked them lots of questions on their posting practices. I have tried to take some of the knowledge gleaned from these "pro" bloggers and meld it with my own practices. Here are my tips on how be productive in posting. I have implemented these practices and it has been a tremendous help. Have A Specific Time For Writing & A Specific Output Goal This is very key to being productive in your posting. I know when I started blogging, and really up until recently, I just posted whenever the time presented itself. I would find myself interrupted many time...

Kassper is holding a contest in which he is giving out a lot of backlinks for anyone who writes a short post or a review of his site. All you have to do in the post is link ONCE to his blog using either Blogging Tips or Make Money Online and link ONCE to any of his posts. My favorite was his post on how to Get In The Google Top 10 - Post Title Optimization. In return for your post you will get more than 50 backlinks to your blog. Now since this post is a bit late and he has already done 9 posts in the series, you won't get all 50 links if you get in today. Still thought the trade would be worth it though. 40 links in return for 2 isn't a bad trade at all. Well head over to Kassper's blog and poke around a bit. He doesn't have a ton of posts but there are some really good ones in the mix. I am sure you will find his blog a profitable and productive read. later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscri...

BloggerWave is a new paid posting program that I have recently joined. The concept is the same as other programs many of you are probably familiar with. Jobs are offered and then accepted by bloggers who then post about whatever it is the job requires. Usually it is a product, service, or website, that is looking for a review, or simply "buzz." The jobs offered will have a set amount that will be paid to the poster opon completion and approval of the post. Bloggerwave has a very compact and efficient interface that, for me, loads quite a bit faster than others. The interface is tab based and is very easy to navigate. There are tabs for jobs, blogs, postings, profile and logout. This nice compact interface makes the system easy to use. The Bloggerwave program has one feature that I see as a plus over the other paid-to-post programs, especially for newer bloggers. They allow you to add up to 5 blogs without first having to "qualify" each one with a certain number of ...

Image by: flattop341 Mike's Money Making Mission - Is It Possible To Make Money From Free Blogs? I am doing something a bit different this week and linking to two articles from one blog. The reason I am doing this is to show the potential that blogging has. Mike started his blogging journey right at a year ago and after looking at his most recent weekly earnings report I'll let you decide the answer to the opening question. A Total of $3899.22! That is a weekly total mind you and with free blogs. This is quite a jump from his first week of $0.84! Congrats Mike and here is to your continued success. Michel Fortin dot Com - The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy Probably one of the best articles on "copy" I've read in a while. Blogging Tips - JPG, Gif, and PNG oh my. A very nice summation of the dominant image formats used on the web and the why and when to use them. Dosh Dosh - How to Influence Powerful Social Media Users for Traffic and Attention A very in de...

I know it seems to early to be talking about Christmas. What can I say I love this time of year. As soon as the weather starts turning a bit cooler and the leaves start changing I start looking forward to the holidays. Well a few days ago I posted about something that I would love to have for Christmas. Today I am going to talk about something else I would love for Christmas. I also think it would be a pretty good gift for most any guy. What is this great idea? Paint! Yep paint. The bonus is this paint comes pre-wrapped in bright multi-colored little plastic shells. These ready to go presents are a great little thing called paintballs. Now here is the problem. You can't get just paintballs as this just wouldn't be nearly as much fun and actually having some paintball guns from which to shoot them. Notice I said gun s plural. No guy, or gal for that matter, should find himself on the paintball field of battle with only a single gun. No that just wouldn't do. I know when I g...

Welcome to Day 3 of my series Tools & Tips for Profitable Productive Blogging . Today I am bringing you some great Browser Add-ons that will make your blogging life much easier. I have given a brief explanation of each program below. Once again none of these are affiliate links! I personally use all of these add-ons(except the IE ones) and really like how much easier they make blogging. What are some add-ons that you use? Do you use ones that are not on this list that you feel should be? Share your experiences, good or bad, with these or any other add-ons. Well without further ado here they are.... Use FireFox Add-ons ScribeFire ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog. This is one of my favorite add-ons and what I use to write and publish most of my articles. ClipMarks I love this add-on. It allows you to sele...

Welcome to Day 2 of my series Tools & Tips for Profitable Productive Blogging . Today I am bringing you some great free software that will help keep your computer running smoothly and efficiently so you can blog at peak productivity. I have given a brief explanation of each program below. None of these are affiliate links! I personally use all of this software and find them to be among the best paid or free software available. What are some tools you use to keep your computer running efficiently? Do you use any that you could recommend that aren't on the list? Is the software you are running Free or Paid? Do you Feel more safe using paid software or does it matter? Keep Your Computer Working Efficiently Virus and Spyware Having good and up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware software and a good firewall is critical for those of us spending lots of time on the web. There are lots of programs you could by but in my opinion the FREE programs that I use are much better than many of...

I was in a discussion today on what to get my dad for Christmas. We went round and round about who was harder to buy for Guy or Girls. What do you think? I say girls hands down. I know I'm not that hard to buy for. Anyway back on topic. The reason for this post is just to give you a quick heads up what I feel would be great and certainly fits in that whole gifts for him category. I know it is something that I want. I have the epoxy stuff and it has it's drawbacks. What is it you ask? Garage flooring! Huh? Yep garage flooring. I put down an epoxy floor coating and I like it okay. I have a friend though that put down a tiled garage floor and I like it much better. My floor is gray with specks in it. His? Chicago Bears Blue and Orange! I made a mess and ended up a mess when I coated my floor. These tiles interlock quickly and the look is seamless. They are supposed to be waterproof so we put them to the test and sure enough the tile was waterproof. The floor is about a 1/4" ...

Well I'm not actually in the top 100 but I did debut on the list page at #157. Not bad considering I don't have a page rank yet and I started a bit late to the Alexa game. What is this list you ask? Well, about a month or so ago Mark over at 45n5 published a list of the top 100 "make money online" type blogs. The list hit big on digg and got lots of link love and mentions from many of the top blogs he put on the list. They also have a widget you can add, a banner, that will display your rank on the list. You can see mine in the sidebar. They also have another great feature called MoneyLinks . MoneyLinks is a feed of all the new posts of the blogs on the list. So this post will be on there shortly. This is a big plus for the blogs featured on the list. I figured I probably don't toot my own horn enough so why not post the good stuff. My goal is to push hard to top 125 in the coming months. I think that getting a good page rank(if google ever gets around to it) wil...