Posts for the 'low cost startup' Category

I am very sorry for the recent instability of my blog. This was because I converted my blog from Blogger to Wordpress. I was really impressed by Wordpress. To give you some ideas, I’ll share to you in series why I prefer Wordpress to Blogger, how I converted my blog and how I resolved the problems I encountered during and after the conversion.

Now, here are the top 5 reasons I migrated my blog from Blogger to Wordpress:

As basis of my comparison, you have to take note that I am hosting my blog at HostMonster. Hence, I am using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program and blog admin panel for publishing, uploading and editing.

1. Plugins or Blog Widgets. Wordpress has more plugins or widgets available for bloggers. Wordpress has several choices of interactive or sociable widgets or plugins such as top commentators, popular posts, related posts, recent posts, recent comments and many more. Widgets in Wordpress seemed to be endless or bottomless. In Blogger, I can’t find a widget or plugin for top commentators and popular posts. These could be provided by Blogger or other developers in the future, though.
2. Publishing or Editing Blog Posts. In Wordpress, publishing a new or edited post is far faster than Blogger. Unlike Blogger, Wordpress does not republish all blog entries everytime you publish a new post or edit an old post. It simply saves or upload the new or edited entry. If you have a numerous blog entries, it will take time for Blogger to update your blog. It will even encounter an uploading error during peak hours when many bloggers are updating their blogs.
3. URL Structure Options. In Wordpress, there are several options of URL structure to choose from while there’s only one in Blogger, i.e. http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/yyyy/mm/post-name(.html, .htm, .php, .asp, etc.). In Wordpress, you may choose either of the following URL structures:
   • Default:
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/?p=123
   • Date and name based:
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/2007/10/30/post-name/Numeric:
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/archives/123
   • Custom:
     You may customize your blog URL by placing after your blog directory, each of the following codes in any order in between slash and you may add file extension at the end like .html, .htm, .php, and .asp.

   Codes:
   %year% = year posted in 4 digits
   %monthnum% = month posted in 2 digits
   %day% = day posted in 2 digits
   %postname% = full post title with dash as space
   %post_id% = post sequence number

   • Examples:
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/%postname%/
     http://your-blog-domain-and-directory/%post_id%
4. TrackBack capability. Wordpress has the ability to track back other blogs’ link juice to your blog with an excerpts or portion of texts of its posts. Likewise, your backlinks to other Wordpress blogs are easily detected by its TrackBack feature. Blogger has only a simple backlinks feature that list the post title with links to all other blogs’ posts linking to it. However, there is a third-party site that offer a Weblog Commenting and TrackBack Tool for Blogger and other blog software, i.e. the Haloscan. But, I did not explore this tool.
5. Popular Blogs are Using Wordpress. Most of the popular blogs I like are using Wordpress. Some of them are MattCutss.com/blog, Problogger.net, JohnChow.com, copyblogger.com, and StevePavlina.com. Matt Cutts, Senior Engineer for Google Search, said in Wordpress Conference that it is guaranteed to be crawlable if you use Wordpress. Though there are also many popular blogs in Blogger, Wordpress blogs appeared to be more popular.

As to the other points of comparison of Blogger and Wordpress like themes, indexing and HTML or blog template editing, I found them even. Both Blogger and Wordpress have many templates to choose from their respective sites and also from third-party sites. And based on many bloggers’ experience, search engines index the new posts of these blog platforms at a reasonable time. Another thing, both template can be easily edited, with knowledge of HTML basics.

With the reasons above, I have converted my blog. Though I’ve encountered some problems, I managed to resolve them and now, I am enjoying the benefits of Wordpress blog. I hope this post can help you decide whether you convert or migrate your blog from Blogger to Wordpress or not.

For more comparisons of Blogger and Wordpress, here are the links from some popular blogs:
Blogger vs. Wordpress.com Comparison Chart
Which Blog Service is the best? Wordpress vs Blogger vs LiveJournal
Blogger vs. Wordpress Read more »

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I have been receiving queries on how much money I make online with my web site and blog. I’ve been shying away from this question because I have to hit $10K a month yet.

But, I’ve stumbled upon this post of Paula Neal Mooney and I realized that it is a good idea to share this kind of info to others who want to work at home and make money online. It is better if you will know how much a certain blogger or webmaster make money with the kind of blog or web site he is running. Though, some may overstate or understate their earnings. So, just evaluate and judge it by yourself.

My Top Money Makers

Below are my top money makers from January to July 2007. I started some of them only in the middle of the period:

Resell Rights Packs - $3,228.00
Adsense - $2,833.53
Commission Junction - $329.92
Kontera - $207.34
5 Pillar - $292.13
MaxBounty - $39.65
AuctionAds - $27.35

Web site traffic is the main factor to make money online. If you have a huge web site traffic, you can make huge money on the net. Honestly speaking, driving a good traffic to your site is not plain and easy. It needs dedication, patience, creativity, sociability and continuous learning. Here are the top 7 sources of free web site traffic that could help you.

My Online Advertisements

If you want to speed up increasing web site traffic and you are ready to invest some amount of money, use online advertising. Here are my online advertising that bring around 25% of web site traffic at an average cost of $100 a month:

Google Adwords
BidVertiser
Clicksor
Text Link Ads
AdBrite
LinkReferral

To maximize your ROI (Return on Investment), make sure that you give a clear direction on you site or blog for your visitors to follow. This is the direction that will guide them to find what they’re looking for. By doing so, you hit your goal as well.

My other minimal expenses are for my domain name and hosting, as follows:

Domain Name with Netfirms - $9.95/year (first year was $4.95)
Hosting with Hostmonster - $3.95/month with fantastic features

My Website Background

Honestly, I learned website building from scratch in 2005. Then, I registered my domain name in October of the same year. It was just for fun of having my own website to brag with my family and friends. I had zero knowledge in SEO, then. Hence, my domain name was not optimized.

I built my website in 2006 with nonsense content. On the later part of 2006, I learned the detailed SEO techniques from Ken Evoy, who has been instrumental to the success of several top money making web sites. So, I immediately revamped and redesigned my website. I began posting search-engine-optimized contents that help others make money online. From then, it has started gaining PageRank, receiving web site traffic from search engines and beginning to make money. And in January 2007, I started my blog and it reached PR4 in April.

So far, I am happy with the money I make with my website. I have a limited time for writing and posting blog entries as I’m still working as a slave horse. But, I am very much optimistic that I can make more money in the future. I see vast opportunities to work at home and make money online, full-time without a BOSS watching over my shoulders.

I believe you can make it, too. Just take the first step…Do it NOW!

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Yes, you can save money in blogging. If you have no internet connection or if you are paying for it on an hour, this is exactly for you. Remember when you are blogging, you need to be online only when you are posting your blog articles. Read the following tips to minimize your internet connection or your online time while you’re blogging:

1. Compose or write your blog offline. If you have computer, you use your Windows Word or Notepad or its equivalent in your favorite operating system for writing. If you have no computer, then you may write on a piece of paper. Proofread, edit and finalize it.
2. Insert the HTML codes offline. If you know basic HTML codes, insert the HTML codes to highlight, emphasize the words or phrases in your article. Write the codes for inserting images and hyperlinks. If you don’t know basic HTML codes, learn here. Then, proofread and finalize your article.
3. Upload your blog articles online. If you write your articles in Word, Notepad or other word-processor, go online and just log in to you Blogger account. Then, post your article by just copying and pasting it in the posting box.

   If you have written your blog articles on a piece of paper, type it first in the word processor using your friends’ or relatives’ computer, save it to a disk and go to internet cafe to post it to your Blogger account.

   If you don’t want to disturb your friends or relatives, just go to internet cafe to log in to your Blogger account. Type it, preview it, edit it, use Blogger formatting tools, preview it, edit it again (if needed), then post it. Log out and congratz yourself for your new posts. Then, use your remaining time to view your blog or view other blogs or sites to get new ideas.

I hope this post help you make money online at the lowest cost possible. In my next post, I will help you set up your Google Adsense to let the money flow in to your blog and into your pocket. Don’t you worry, your blog is still in introduction stage. No need to rush your Adsense income. For the meantime, compose and write more for your blog.

You may also create your Google Adsense account now by clicking the button on this page. If you want to have an idea how affiliate program works (including Adsense), click here.

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