Profitable Productive Blogging

OpticsPlanet.com has a bag of goodies for all your holiday gift needs! They are the Internet leader in optics & much more! Stop by their site and take a look at the huge selection of the finest quality brand name binoculars, telescopes, sunglasses, goggles, prescription goggles, rifle scopes, range finders, spotting scopes, flashlights, microscopes, and more! Is someone on your gift list wishing for a pair of Ray-Ban or D&G designer sunglasses? Giving the lady what she wants has never been easier than visiting OpticsPlanet.com. Looking for a Bushnell scope or golf range finder at the right price to put a smile on someone’s face? OpticsPlanet has the best one to improve his game! No matter who it is you’re looking for a gift for, you are sure to find it ! For the astronomy fan on your Christmas a telescope would make an awesome gift. Take a look at their huge selection of telescopes for everyone from beginners to experts by brands like Meade, Celestron. Looking for a great deal...

I wanted to give you another quick tip on picking an affiliate program. This tip is really geared more toward PPC advertising more than anything. This is just one in a long list of factors that go into choosing a program for a campaign. Get some more of my valuable tips in my article about Tips On How To Pick An Affiliate Program . I also did an accompanying post that targets a specific program and how it relates to some of my parameters for picking a program: Affiliate Program Profile - Make Money Selling Oprah's Favorite Stuff Many affiliate programs will limit the keywords you can bid on. They will usually have a list of protected keywords and non-compete keywords. Protected keywords can't appear in you PPC ad anywhere with on exception neither can you bid on them. Non-compete keywords are keywords you can't bid on. The exception I mention just a minute ago has to do with the display URL in the PPC ad. The display URL in a PPC ad is the actual URL the ad viewer will see ...

Just Say Hi is a site that has a bunch of cool Blog Stuff . They have quizzes widgets and other cool things for you. They have a ton of really funny quizzes you can take. You can't place all of them on your blog but they are really fun. They have ones about how addicted you are to coffee to how much booze would it take to kill you. Now for some cool stuff you can put on your blog. One of my favorites is their countdown timer generator. You can set colors the date and the event you are counting down to. It could be a nice little feature for a contest or something to that effect. Another fun thing they have are blogger awards. You can send fun and serious awards to blogging friends. You can pick from their selection of fun, serious, or just plain weird awards and send them to your favorite (or least favorite) bloggers. Once the award is sent, the recipient will get a nifty medal in their email that they can proudly stick on their blog or website.They also have some very funny blog ...

You Are Fat By that I really mean your blog. You have gorged on so many scripts and widgets that you can't even button the pants. And that belly button ring of a theme you have, while it might look good on some, on you, bottom line, it is still just stuck through a nasty bulging belly. That tattoo you thought was sexy has now grown to 10 times it's normal size like one of these little kid toys you stick in a bucket of water. Go on a diet already. Lose a couple scripts, drop a few widgets, and your blog won't be lying on the couch after three visitors wheezing and sweating profusely from over exertion. You Are Ugly Of course I'm not insulting you personally. Once again I am referencing your blog. Well isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder? Yep and I am beholding your ugly -ss blog. That is not to say you don't think mine is just as homely. I like to think of my blog as if it were a supermodel. Hot as hell, but she has cellulite, wrinkles, a flat -ss, flat ches...

Well in most opinions probably not but there are some advantages. If after all the Google pagerank issues of the past month you are still doing paid links and paid posting then let me point you to another good paid posting site. The site is Smorty . What Smorty stands for or means I have no idea. What Smorty is is a PayPerPost type of a site with a few added benefits. So if you are looking for another revenue stream in your making money online ventures you might want to check out Smorty. My first impression of the user control panel and account management front end is that it is quite a bit less robust than that of PayPerPost. That being said, the opportunities available pay very well and there are a decent amount of them. There aren't as many as you might get from the big boy but enough to be a nice supplement to other paid posting sources. One advantage that Smorty has over PayPerPost is that they pay weekly. With PPP you have to wait about 30 days for payment for a post. With Sm...

Well okay the chances of that happening are about as good as a snowball's chance in the hot place. Although BloggingZoom is certainly a very viable alternative for bloggers. One thing that has always been my beef with digg is the obvious tech bent to it and it is dominated by a few very unblog like blogs. There a quite a few alternatives out there such as: Reddit, Sphinn, BumpZee, and of course BloggingZoom. Another beef of mine with Digg is that they frown upon submitting your own content. To me this is silly. Many times I know of where a blogger has a great article they would like to get a little more exposure and being able to digg that article themselves would be a great option. I also don't see how it hurts anything. Okay so it might clog up the submissions if everyone submits their own, but they should have enough servers and bandwidth to handle that. Well I think BloggingZoom addresses both of these things. From everything I can tell from their TOS and FAQs there is no ...

Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic. It’s a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know. You can learn something new everyday or help and meet others using your knowledge. Askville even helps you learn by giving you cool tools to help you find information online while you are answering questions. It’s all about sharing—what you know and what you want to know—so go ahead and meet someone new today and Askville! Askville is a user-driven research site run by Amazon.com. Unlike the recently defunct Google Answers service, Askville is designed to run much like a computer game. Users gain or lose "experience points" in particular topics as they answer questions in those topics, depending on how good their answer is. Users also receive "quest coins" by asking and answering questions, and by voting on the worth of other...

Well guys winter weather is just around the corner and now is the time to get your 4-wheel drive vehicle in tip top shape. Before you go hooking up snow plows and driving around in 4-wheel drive due to the weather it is probably a good idea to stop by your local AAMCO for your Free TranScan and 36-step protect check. They are also running a special with a free oil change or transmission fluid change with a $50 purchase. They have certified technicians and over 800 locations nationwide so you are bound to have one close. In addition to the great service and great deals at below your dealers prices, AAMCO is having their Drive Hard / Die Hard contest. This is a tie-in with the DVD release of Live Free or Die Hard starring Bruce Willis. Click the link in the paragraph above and enter the contest for your chance to win. What is prize you ask? It is a trip for 2 to Hollywood California. It gets better though. Not only do you get Round trip airfare and return Airport Transfers In Los Angel...

A few days ago I wrote an article about how to pick a profitable and productive affiliate program for a campaign. Today I am going to profile one of my favorite programs and products and give you some details into the above article and show you why I like the program, the affiliate manager, and the product. The affiliate program in the spotlight today is Dale & Thomas Popcorn . Now let us look at each of the questions I posed about picking an affiliate for a campaign. Have you used the product or service of the affiliate program? Well, I have certainly ate enough of Dale & Thomas Popcorn over the last year or so to sink a battleship so I guess that would be yes. It is one of my favorite gourmet treat indulgences. So the program meats one qualification. Is there already buzz? Dale & Thomas popcorn has been featured on air on The View, The Today Show , and The Rachel Ray Show and in print in Town & Country , InStyle , Time Magazine , Cosmopolitan , and Chocolatier . ...

I have actually gotten the chance to take a look at one of these today and I really like the hardware. The no cost wireless setup to download e-books, read magazines, or BLOGS, is a great feature. No other e-book reader has ever had this type of stand alone functionality. You don't need a computer to download books, mags, or blogs to the reader. The Kindle uses the same display technology from E-Ink that the Sony reader does. The screen does this little annoying fade to black between page flips that I wish could be eliminated. The black and white display on occasion hinders proper viewing of some blogs due to the layout or color setup. The screen is easy to read even in bright sunlight and glare. The unit is lightweight, about 10 oz. About the same or less than a paperback but certainly less than a standard hard bound book. It also has a full keyboard for typing in search queries and more. The keyboard is just functional at best of course for the blackberry crowd it should be just ...

A great way to garner more exposure for you blog is offline advertising. If you have been considering some form of offline advertising today is the day for you. The newest trend in blogging is Ooprint's "Business Card 2.0". These cards are a great way to attract new readers and network with other bloggers. Here is an offer for 100 Free blogger cards . What is a "blogger card?" Well, a blogger card is like a business card but with a few small simple changes. The coolest difference about these cards is the tag cloud at the bottom. The unique tag cloud can be personalized to focus on key words that are important to you and your blog. Your blogger card allows you to leave your mark (or rather, your URL) outside the digital world. They also have a web 2.0 feel to them with gradients and nice format and graphics. You can customize with your blogs logo and choose a color that works with your blogs color scheme. This is a great way to extend your blogs identity and bran...

Amazon.com Black Friday Deals On Black Friday Amazon.com won’t have a cold, dark parking lot to line up in, but they will have a bunch of great deals to help you get holiday shopping done for less. This year they’ve created a Black Friday page for holiday shoppers at amazon.com/blackfriday . Amazon.com will be offering hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST along with thousands of products on sale for a limited time. Also, customers will get gift wrapping for $.99 per item. This year they shouldn’t fight the crowds when you can shop online at Amazon.com from the comfort of your own homes. I personally won't be out on Friday, all my shopping will be done online. 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

The idea behind this post is to give people a voice bigger than their own to protest against the recent stupid PR issues with Google. I feel Google is making a big mistake in opening this war front against online entrepreneurs. The recent almost across the board 0 PRs for PayPerPost posties was the last straw. We are a powerful voice and I think we need to show them such. Remember when EBay pulled all Google ads. Who won that one? EBay. Google isn't the only horse in the barn folks. There are great alternatives out there. I haven't used Google adsense in quite some time, and I have switched the search feature for the site over to yahoo. To become a part of this powerful viral campaign against Google simply copy and paste the list below in its entirety. Join the list and make the switch! ***** Copy and Paste below this line ***** The idea behind this list is to build momentum against Google and their PR policies. I feel Google is making a big mistake in opening this war front ag...

Photo by Brett Rogers I have noticed a trend in my years on the net and dealing with a multitude of people and would just like to give you some friendly advice. Don't be one of the ones that complains about something and then uses that as an excuse for not being successful. I have seen so many folks excuse their way right into failure. In my experience excuses are simply a fear response against taking risks. Take the risk. Quit complaining. The most successful people also are the ones that make the least amount of excuses and take the most risks. I'm not talking about unnecessary risks that is foolhardy. I'm talking about calculated risks. Leaping without looking is a bad policy and will most likely get your head smashed. Look before you leap, but STILL LEAP! Don't be afraid to take some risks. Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. Will all risk lead to success. A big no to that one, but many will be rewarding and all will be a less...

This weeks toast was supposed to be to our hero. I did that one last week: My Dad. Today I wanted to toast a great friend, Ted Kosmatka. Ted lives not far from the dunes of Lake Michigan in a house shaped, vaguely, like a ship. From the local beach you can see Chicago on the horizon. Over the years, Ted has held down several different jobs, and been held down by several more; he’s fed tigers, and worked in laboratories, and shoveled coke in a steel mill blast furnace. The oldest of four children, Ted was a biology major at Indiana University until his father died and financial realities forced him to drop out. He spent the next several years trying on occupations for size, but he eventually went back to school, taking classes between work shifts when he could afford it. On his days off, he worked at the Chicago Field Museum as a research assistant, studying the bones and artifacts of ancient man. While all this was going on, he was also writing--and getting rejected--a lot. (He h...

Here is an interview Tim did on CBS. I encourage you to read his book The 4-Hour Workweek. It is a great book that will change the way you look at life, work, and retirement. And to answer the question I have been getting lately, YES, I am still planning on writing a review series on the book. I have read the book, several times actually, but have yet to start working my way through my notes to write the reviews. Anyway, enjoy the interview and if you haven't read the book buy it and read it you won't be disappointed. 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

Almost 2 months ago now 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. The obvious blogs top the list: ProBlogger, ShoeMoney, & JohnChow. The list is based on a combination of PR, Technorati, and Alexa stats. 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. There is also 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 as it gives them some good exposure. I debuted on the list at #157 and really haven't went anywhere. I have moved this blog to it's own domain and lost quite a bit of "juice" so I guess still sitting @ 158 I shouldn't complain. I actually have better stats than quite a f...

Who likes free stuff? I know I do and I really like useful free stuff. Ades, from AdesBlog.com , has recently release a great set of 140 Web 2.0 style icons that he is giving away for free. These are extremely high quality icons not a bunch of rinky-dink silly icons. He is giving away not just one set but the icons come in 4 sizes; 80 by 80 pixels, 48 by 48 pixels, 32 by 32 pixels, and 24 by 24 pixels so in reality you are getting 4 sets of amazing icons. All the images are in .PNG format with transparent backgrounds. Doesn't seem like much but how many times have you tried to use an icon that didn't have a transparent background? Head on over to his blog and poke around there is a lot of great content. Then stop by UserInterfaceIcons.com and get your free icons. Here is a big thanks to Ades for this wonderful free set of high quality icons. later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED ...

There are several inline text ad programs out there but I would have to say that Kontera's Contentlink would have to be about the biggest. There has always been a problem with inline text ads and paid to post programs like PayPerPost . PayPerPost as well as many of the other paid posting programs prohibit any other links in the sponsored post. This policy was not compatible with ContentLink ads. For many the choice was to just not use ContentLink as for the most part more money could be made from the sponsored posts. Now you can have the benefit of both! In each post where you don't want the inline ads just add <span name="KonaFilter"> as the first thing in the post. Now everything that follows that code will not display any ContentLink ads. At the end of the post you close out with </span> to end the filtering. This now opens another income stream for PayPerPost users. later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day Get more profitable and...

November Ad Specials ! Ad Package 1: Get the Premium Header Ad and 1 Text Link for the rest of 2007! Only $25! That is less than the price for the banner alone! Regular Price would normally be $40 for both and that is only for a 30 day term. That is a savings of $15 dollars and an extra 20 days of ad time! Ad Package 2: Get 1 Premium Above-Fold SideBar Banner and 1 Text Link for the rest of 2007! Only $15! Again priced less than the price of the banner alone! Regular Price would normally be $30 for both and that is only for a 30 day term. That is a savings of $15 dollars and an extra 20 days of ad time! Hurry and get your Special November Ad Package Today! Please Contact Me with your proposal if you are interested in any of these ads. 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

Breaking News: I am breaking some pretty cool news today. You won't be reading about this other places. Kontera, which brings you ContentLink™ , has launched a $25 bonus plan . If you haven't signed up yet with for ContentLink now is your time. ContentLink™ Advantages: Additional revenue from your content Control the amount of links on the page Control the color of the marked keywords Users get the most relevant ads ContentLink™ discovers, in real-time, relevant keywords on a web page from within Kontera´s vast network of publishers, and that keyword is automatically turned into a link to the most relevant ad from among Kontera´s thousands of advertisers. With ContentLink™ publishers generate incremental revenue while advertisers reach their most targeted audience on a Cost-Per-Click basis. This bonus offer is a first of it's kind and I am proud to bring you this breaking news. You won't be reading about this other places. Head on over to Kontera, sign up for ContentLin...

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but can you pick your friend's affiliate program. HUH? It did catch your interest though didn't it? Anyway on to the topic. I wanted to give you some insight into how I go about picking an affiliate program to join and market and to get your comments and feedback on your process for the same, if any. Have you used the product or service of the affiliate program? I have found that many of my most successful affiliate campaigns are for products or services which I have used. I have had successful campaigns for ones I have not used but these are generally lead based programs and not per sale/commission based. I find that my landing pages pretty much always get better results for things I have used. I can market from personal experience. The PPC ads usually get better CTR rates as I can highlight features better. My keywords are usually more targeted and get much higher CTR as well. You don't have to have always used the pro...

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. (Source: Google). In light of the recent Google PR brouhaha about sponsored links being penalized and all I thought now would be a good time to bring you a review of TNX.net. I wanted to focus for just a bit on how TNX.net, in my opinion, is better than TLA and how TNX relates to the Google PR issue. I also want to give you a brief overview of the program. Also coming from an affiliate marketing background I will touch on their affiliate program and how it could benefit you and how it relates to the TLA program. For Advertisers TNX has a very well designed and organized Ad Campaign wizard. Creating an ad campaign is easy and straight forward. You are going to buy links and you can set the parameters for the sites you want your ads on. You can set the website categories, geo-location, number of Yahoo Backlinks and Google PR. TNX makes it possible to combi...

Would you use a free phone that serves up advertisements or would you stick to you phone as it is now?? I know for me I use my phone to0 often and for too many things to have to hassle with ads. I will reserve final judgement until the actual product and OS arrive so I can see the interface and how the ads are served. 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

For those of you who haven't noticed I just recently moved this blog to it's own domain. For those of you out there looking to do the same or are looking for an inexpensive way to host landing pages and multiple domains you might want to consider HostMonster. Let me give you a quick Hostmonster Review and let you know some features. Hostmonster uses a graphical web-based web-hosting control panel called CPanel, designed to make administration of websites easy. The control panel handles all aspects of website administration in its interface in it's Windows XP alike theme. CPanel is probably the best web-based control panel out there. This is a great feature. Order for at least one year and get your new domain FREE FOR LIFE. This is a pretty good little option. If you stay for seveal years you pretty much pay for the service just by eliminating the domain registration fees. pay per click There are some drawbacks though and I would be remiss If I didn't point them out. The...

pay per click I don't personally work with Google Adsense but for those of you who do here is some interesting news. I was wondering how long this would take after the YouTube/Google mashup. Google AdSense has introduced video units , that let you include YouTube video on your blog, and make money from ads on it. Here’s what they have to say about it: We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your blog with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your blog. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your blog's content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your blog, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player size...

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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

Have you ever written an article and when you were finished you just were not happy with how it ended up? What do you do with it? My article writing might be a bit different than yours so let me explain how I write my articles. I usually write most of my main articles in one sitting. Throughout the week as I come up with topics to write about I will clip articles and pages and save them into a draft for the article. When I finally sit down to write out my articles I will usually have 4-5 drafts and a lot of different articles, pictures and pages clipped. I will then build off of that and flesh out the article. Many times when I am done I will go back over each article and read it checking for spelling and grammar. The next day I will read them all again to hopefully find things I missed on the first go around. After this second proof reading I will then schedule the articles for the week. Almost without fail there will be at least one or two articles that I just am not happy with and ...

Since the beginning of this blog I have always tried to not only talk about making money online but also using the Internet to save money as well. Today I would like to bring you another resource to help you save money online. I was browsing around looking for pricing and coupon codes so that I could purchase a cheap digital camera as a Christmas present and I came across this site I hadn't visited before, TechBargains.com . Two aspects of the site that caught my attention and prompted me to mention them to you were their mobile web pages and mobile RSS feeds and their regular RSS feeds. A lot of sites like this don't have either and to me having these is a major plus. I use my mobile for just about everything and having the ability to compare online prices via my phone while I am at a brick-and-mortar store is great. Also with most of my web reading done via RSS these days being able to subscribe is a great way to keep up to date on product pricing and deals. I also liked the...

pay per click Since Blogger doesn't limit the number of blogs you can have start by creating a new blog specially for hosting images. Now create and publish a post and upload your image to the post. Now view the post and click on the picture to get an enlarged version of the image. On the page containing the enlarged photo, in the menu bar, click VIEW > PAGE SOURCE to get the source code for the page. Almost at the end of the codes, you will see src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/..... http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FuL2VMybFkw/RkDEwCxQfpI/AAAAAAAAAA8/ IeHTwTjKZiU/s1600/header2.jpg This should be the photo URL you should use for the profile photo, for inclusion in the img src="photo URL" tag or wherever you need the image url.

Well well when it rains it pours. I want to start by saying a BIG THANKS to JohnCow.com for the wonderful review . The review has brought a nice spike in traffic over the last several hours. The only problem is that I am in the process of moving this blog over to it's very own domain. Finally! I am having a few problems with image loading so to all of you I apologize about that. This will hopefully be sorted out very quickly. 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

I am assuming this is a play off of "idea." I could be wrong though. Here part of the text from the email I received announcing this change. I am very excited to present our new corporate name and identity, IZEA, Inc. Going forward our company will be known as IZEA, with PayPerPost as its flagship product and other properties including Blogger's Choice Awards, RockStartup, Zookoda and BlogInSpace under the IZEA corporate umbrella. These changes are the natural result of our phenomenal growth as a company and the continued success our user community is having with our social marketing tools and strategies. This new corporate framework will enable us to further execute on our established mission statement: To empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence. We will be adding additional services over the coming year and I feel strongly that the IZEA brand will allow us to present all our solutions in a more complete and understandable way to our clie...

iFLOOR America's largest online flooring retailer, today announced a $1,000,000 limited warranty designed to protect its customers from predatory manufacturer policies that exclude warranty coverage from online purchases. The policy, which goes into effect immediately, offers up to one million dollars of coverage in the event that a customer's warranty claim is denied specifically because they made their purchase online. It is complimentary for every iFLOOR customer, and protects the buyer under the same terms as the original product warranty. iFLOOR, Inc. CEO, Steve Simonson, came up with the program to combat "scare tactics" used by manufacturers of hardwood floors and laminate flooring. "Their idea is to discourage you from buying at a discount!" wrote Simonson in his blog "It's About Flooring" . "This is not right! You deserve to save money! So we're going to take care of this problem once and for all." And it would appear th...

I was running some great ad specials for the month of October. 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! 1. Text link ads - 10 6 Links Available Price: $5 per month Cut over 50% to Only $2 Now those were some great deals. When you take a look around you couldn't have found a blog with better stats with deals like that. Stay tuned I will be running a weekly Ad Special each week through November! 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 bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites.

Well as you can see from the above screen capture the winning entry is #5. Heading over to the contest post and looking through the comments and the trackbacks I found that Anton of Link Right Contests was entry #5 with his guess of Julia Child. The actual answer was incorrect so he won the $50 but not the bonus prize. I was a bit generous to 2 entries that commented and entered but did not give the link. I had to search their blog to find the answer. There were several that commented and gave a link to their blog but I could not find a post about the contest or any links back to this blog. Anywho....Congrats to Anton and thank you all so much for reading and taking the time to interact with this blog and really make it what it is. Oh and Anton you might want to consider some kind of Contact Me link for your blog. Other than trackback to your post and a comment I have no way to contact you regarding your winning entry. Having a Contact Me is one of the first things any blogger should ...