How To Make Money With Your Blog-Book Review

I don’t get it. WordPress. Can someone please tell me what all the fuss is about with having a hosted wordpress blog? I really don’t see the point myself.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I tried to install it and had a few problems. Being somewhat pig-headed I gave it another go with another web-hosting company and, I got it up and running just fine. But what does it do that the freebie doesn’t ? You have to be able to use HTML to change anything and you don’t have aksimet (spam filter) built in. With the freebie version, it’s my old favourite, drag ‘n’ drop.

I guess they both have their plus and minus points but for me, I’m happy with what have for now.

I thought that from time to time I’d review some products and give you my honest opinion of them. So, here we go then;

I’m currently reading a book entitled ‘How to Make Money with Your Blog by Duane Forrester and Gavin Powell. The blurb on the back states “Whether you’re an experienced blogger or an absolute beginner, you can make money with your blog.” However, in my opinion, this book ain’t for beginners baby! There is no denying the content of the book is extremely useful and provides some very good advice but for a beginner it leaves an awful lot to be desired.

To me it seems to imply right from the off that the reader has a certain level of skill already in relation to the building, presentation and back-end operation of blogging. I would have liked to have seen a more clearly delineated explanation of some of the concepts contained within writtenso that the beginner could follow along more easily.

Verdict: For the beginner, nope. Intermediate to advanced? Yep! This is no doubt a very useful addition to your bookshelf. I’ll hang on to mine until I know a bit more about what’s going on.

Spam, luverrly spam.

I woke up this morning to find that my Google mail had delivered 56 messages to me overnight. It had also binned over 300 messages that it had recognised as spam.

I sat down with a cup of tea and began to go through the 56. Out of that lot, only five of them were of any use. Everything else was just trying to flog me something or other. Again, no problem with that really. It’s about selling after all and I suppose I must have signed up for some free report or other to get onto their list in the first place. Or did I?

You see, I found a few emails that I had not, did not and would not subscribe to. Period. So the only thing I can think of and strongly suspect is the case, is that someone has sold my details on. Now that’s bang out of order. I can’t prove this of course but I can’t see any other way of these people getting hold of my email address and it seems a tad too coincidental that shortly after I sign up for a ‘freebie’ report I get walloped with a load of crappy offers.

I guess I’ll just have to be a tad more careful when I sign up for anything in future.

A Wasted Day?

I spent the best part of yesterday trying to set up a hosted blog on WordPress. For someone with no skills at all in relation to web hosting this was always going to be an uphill challenge.

I started off ok but things kind of slid away… I downloaded the WP files as you’re supposed to do and put them on my desktop. So far, so good. I then went into Wealthy Affiliate where my membership gives me ‘free’ hosting and tried to figure out what to do next.

I then had two bits of luck. On WA is a lady called Deb Williams who has produced a fantastic set of videos for WA members to use in relation to WordPress. As I started to watch she made mention of uploading my WP files to WA. I froze. Upload? How the hell do I do that? Fortunately Debbie explained everything perfectly. I needed a piece of software to FTP my WP files onto WA (who knew?).

I duly downloaded my free software CoreFTP Lite and followed the video making extensive use of the pause and play buttons to assist me (I have a short memory). It only worked! However, when I came to log-in and look at my site, I kept getting an error message telling me that there was a problem with the .php. It wasn’t installed apparantly.

Second bit of luck coming up. My son Richie is a serious whizz-kid with the internet and websites and co-incidentally he had only just emailed me a link to some software which allows him to take control of my desktop remotely. He knows I need a truckload of help. I installed it and let him play.

It was freaky to see him take over my WA dashboard and move around. He quickly found the problem. It seems that when I set up my account I needed to check a button that allows .php files. Now, I never knew that so a slap on the wrist for Kyle & Carson of WA for not mentioning this fact. I know they can’t make mention of everything but for us newbies, setting up servers and stuff is daunting. If it hadn’t of been for Richie, I’d have been in trouble right there and then.

Anyway, it got done and I had my WP blog duly set up. I then spent the rest of the afternoon getting to grips with the new controls and even managed to figure out how to install new templates. Again, thanks to Deb and her stonking video’s. But once I’d done that, I was stuffed. The templates I’d installed wouldn’t let me remove stuff from the sidebars- or anywhere! You had to be some kind of whizzo with HTML. I’m not. So after all that, I thought ‘bugger it’ (for now) and came back to this blog.

I know it’s not ideal and has it’s limitations, but the other one was too complex and time consuming for me at this stage. I need drag ‘n’ drop’ so I duly applied Occam’s razor to the problem.

Occam’s razor is often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” That’ll do for me.

So, overall, perhaps a disappointing day? No, I don’t think so. I learned an awful lot of things I never knew about before and I feel a lot more confident in relation to hosting, FTP, nameservers and the like. Nothing’s ever wasted.

Of Course I’d Be Only Too Pleased To Help…

I missed out on posting yesterday due to be pretty damn ill. Don’t know if it was something I ate or just a bug but, wow! Not good.

Anyhow, I was thinking today about some of these guys that post up with their blogs and websites asking you to contact them if ever you want anything as they’re only too glad too help. Of course, you have to sign up first to their mailing list so they have your details in order to send you various affiliate links and programs of their own (perhaps) for sale.

Now I don’t have a problem with that. That’s the whole point of making a living out of marketing. What does annoy me though is, if you’re going to make an offer to answer questions, don’t bloody ignore me when I do.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve emailed a couple of so called top flight internet marketers who, in their ’sales’ emails have offered to help with any questions but they have not got back to me at all. I’ve asked dead simple questions that requires very little effort to answer but - nothing. I asked one guy which of his products would be best for me to buy as a newbie. My wallet was open and I was ready to buy there and then. Five days later and still no response.

Now surely if you’re in the business of selling you would take the time to answer a bog simple question that is guaranteed to make you an extra $97, wouldn’t you? Now I know you may be thinking ‘perhaps the guy never got it’ and I could understand that if I’d sent just the one email but I sent three.

So perhaps my $97 and potential backend sales isn’t good enough for him. Seems a dumb way to run a business if you ask me. I’ve unsuscribed from his ‘newsletter’ now and I’ll spend my money elsewhere.

However, where I did get my questions answered was over at Wealthy Affiliate. There’s all sorts here -people starting out and people making a daily fortune. I would seriously go have a look. It’s a membership site charging $29.99 per month but there’s no tie-in time so you can leave whenever you want.

Have to be honest though, I’ve learnt more form the forum posts and 8 week program than from any book so far.

Still at No 2 for Membernaire

I’m still sitting quite comfortably at No2 on Google with my Squidoo page on the Membernaire affiliate program. Interestingly, I haven’t made a penny!

I’ve been thinking about why I haven’t made a sale. In hindsight, it’s blindingly obvious. Jimmy Brown’s site is a membership site and limited to 1000 subscribers. It has been advertised by the world and his brother who probably made the bulk of the money within the first day or two of launch.

Not having the knowledge to play with the bigger boys, I probably got killed in the crush. Membership is now full, so sitting at No2 isn’t going to earn me penny one from now until the cows come home.

So, having accepted that I won’t make anything, that’s fine (for now). What is important is that I’ve learned how to get to No2 and I reckon if I’ve done it once, I can do it again but with a different and less ‘hyped’ product.

I’m going back over my notes to kind of map out my path to No2 and when I have it down I’ll post up here for all to see. I don’t suppose I’ve done anything too spectacular or radically different from anyone else with my campaign, but I do suspect that the WA forum played a large part in it’s position.