Blog Pouch

Twitter

2009-07-27T02:23:00.000-07:00

Twitterland: how interesting and simple it is to remember to teach another to repeat and than spread the word around.

Twitter is free to register; there are no rules, it is social media hub for practically everyone, be they spammers or not.

Twitter users usually enjoy the time off the social blogosphere because it takes only 140 characters to twit, similar to texting messages to your friends.

My take after using twitter for since beginning of this year:
- Not for bloggers because traffic to your blogs will be lower. This is true if your blogs is not about make money online. Have spoken to at least 3 bloggers who love languages, philosophy and teaching. They admitted that people on twitterland only follow, chat but do not visit the blogs. I do agree with them totally, because,
the bulk of my traffic did not come from twitter, but from blogcatalog and organic traffic.

So why use Twitter?
Twitter works like the text messaging. If you receive a tweet or message, you are not obliged to reply immediately. Not until you log on and see that you've got mail.

With blogcatalog discussion post: if you start a new discussion, be sure to follow through and have time set aside to interact with other bloggers for that day or that period, or you'll get ignored.

Simply by announcing your presence does not mean you need to be available all the time for others. A simple thread like: back later, going for lunch or going to bed. That is good enough to inform all your followers you will not be available for chats or tweets.

Ok can you make money on twitter. Yes, once you get enough followers, tweet your affiliate links there and maybe, perhaps or probably you will get some click throughs. So good luck on your social media venture on twitter.

Goodbye MLM Viral Url

2009-07-27T02:18:00.000-07:00

I recently decided that I could not spend any more time with learning the oh so not very interesting multi-level marketing (MLM) online. The minute you step into this zone of online business, you will immediately in the rat race.

Sure, there are many stories of successes and probably more failures. But to risk my healthy brain chasing after the unknown dollars online, I am afraid it is not me.

So I have taken due diligence to withdraw from Viral Url.

Keep A Log On Your Comments

2009-07-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

So you have spent many hours online for the past years and you have probably left comments on a few posts. Over the years these comments will pile up and you would probably wonder if you would get any feedback from
all the one-liners you've have given.

You can do this by keeping a log on your comments. This site called Backtype allows you to track of your presence on the blogosphere. It is free to register.

Play Music To Promote Your Blog

2009-06-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Do you like music? Or do you like just to listen to music and share with others. If you have a website, you can promote your website by sharing your favourite music with others online.

I am using a free music service from Blip.fm. There are a few features that help you drive traffic to you blog:

1. Add your url in your profile setting, publish and it will become visible to everyone who comes to your homepage.

2. By adding your url, you are creating a link to your website.

Grade Your Website

2009-06-05T22:18:00.001-07:00

How is the health of your blog?

I have been using a free tool you can use to check how well you have organised your website to promote it online and return organic traffic.

The best thing I see this tool does is that it offers you a checklist. If you do not understand a term for example, you can simply google it for more information. By process of checked and done, you can stop worrying if you have created a blog which gets optimum exposure on the web.

It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

If you have not used it yet, I suggest you begin by entering your own website url. Generate a health report. Follow this link: free website grading tool.

Viral Url For Affiliate Marketeers

2009-03-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

Congratulations on landing on this page. I keep this blog available only to my circle of social contacts who are either serious or like myself, do not like bullshit talk about how money is made online. That is why you don't usually see this blog except if you have been on BlogCatalog or MyBloglog where I have submitted this blog.

Why do you think I keep this simple? I am surprised at how fast money online blogs get traffic, yet not every money online blogs are useful for YOU. By that I mean, you may not even like promoting other people's products, in which case affiliate marketing is not for you. Or you may not even be interested in blogging at all, in which case you may not even like to read other people's blogs. There are so many ways to make money; yet affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways.

These days we are constantly bombarded by making money ideas, that we can become disillusioned by the whole concept of marketing online. But to leave money on the table when traffic comes in and out of your virtual real estate is certainly a stupid thing to do.

You are here to learn soemthing about blogging and as long as you keep trying to read more, digging deeper, you will only be getting off tangent. Over and over again, you will be bombarded by more and more opportunities online. You need to take action. Stop at a point where you are comfortable to begin selling, whether it is your product or other people's products. Affiliate marketing is one of the ways to test how much you desire to make money online.

Why? you do not have to create your own product, you do not have to worry about how much to charge and you don't even have to bear the cost of paying commissions to your affiliates and working out refunds. Make sense? Ok.

Secure your business.

Yes! Security is one of the key factors in affiliate marketing. If you do not adopt proper security measures, then your business will be at high risk. One of the most important way to restore security is to protect your affiliate links. Do not take them for granted. A bit of carelessness on your part in regards to affiliate links may cost you a lot of dollars.

Do you know the long complicated links that you send to your prospective customers not only look convoluted but they can create a lot of problems too! If you send such an affiliate link to your customers, then the smart ones will definitely figure out that you are promoting someone else’s product and they would rather visit the parent company. Also, if your link does not function then your customers have to type a really long URL into the browser, which will definitely put him or her off.

You could be a victim of even a worse situation. What if some devious Internet pirates steal your affiliate links and replace them with theirs. If they do that, then you get no commission at all. Or if you promote to someone thinking you are helping them, he in turn decides otherwise!! "No, I don't like giving commissions away to this fellow because I don't like this guy." Trust me, if I don't like the sales agent who serves me, I will look for some other agent.

I have been in your shoes; not everybody is likeable online and if you hardsell, people will shun your website altogether. Don’t lose hope. There’s definitely a remedy to this problem and that is ViralURL.com

Do I hear you asking, what is it and how can it help in averting any adverse situation for an affiliate marketer like me? Be patient and read on, if you love your business.

What is ViralURL?

ViralURL is a link cloaker that protects you in the truest sense. There may be many unethical people lurking around, who might play with your affiliate links by cutting them off or replacing them with their own etc. How much effort you put in towards building your business and advertising your business, if your links are tampered with, then all your hard work will be rendered useless.

In order to avoid such a rip off, ViralURL gives you full protection and sees to it that your affiliate links never get exposed to others.

Let’s see what ViralURL can do for us:

*ViralURL helps us in protecting commission.
*ViralURL helps in building mailing lists.
*ViralURL helps in tracking statistics.
*ViralURL helps in earning extra ad credits.

In short, ViralURL allows us to create massive business leverage.

There many ways to cloak your affiliate link but the end of the day, when marketing becomes more and more transparent online, no matter how you try to disguise your link, your friends and readers are going to know you are earning money from referring a product to them.

ViralURL is free to join. You can then cloak your links, promote them and see your business soaring higher and higher.

You can get all detailed information about the program from the site www.ViralURL.com. I signed up for the free membership programme and from the looks of it, I am certainly inclined to upgrade quite easily. I mean what have I got to lose. You are not even asked to pay a single cent for trying and there is no time limit. You have nothing to lose with it.

Go for it: www.ViralURL.com

Free Software For PPC Enthusiasts

2009-01-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

When it comes to using blogging tools, I only look for software because I have very little time to tweak and deal with the nitty gritty of html, .css and what nots. Of course, you need to know the basic. Otherwise you will never understand how to lay down those adsense codes that make you passive income in the first place.

I have, on many occassions, failed even to respond to my better voice not to follow the devil's whispers. Then when you wake up to your senses, you know you should have followed your gut intuitive responses.

Downloading software is half the effort. You have to use it. So far, those that I have recommended and posted here are all real and tested. Keywords phrases have pointed my pages on page 1 on google search results and by submitting my websites to directories, I also have become visible with many directories. The whole idea then is to keep maintaining a rigorous discipline of routines with submission, which is a task I prefer the software to do it for me also.

Having said that, I am adding one more to my list of software already installed on this hard disk, dual core intelligent laptop.

Now go for it. PPC Keyworders enthusiasts. Spy on your competitors and get ranked for all your affiliate programmes.

Basically, you install the software and when you perform a Google search on any
keyword, it places a "view keywords" button directly below any Adwords advertiser's
listing.

If you click the "view keywords" button, you can see the keywords ANY Adwords
advertiser is bidding on! Plus, a bunch of other very cool stuff.

I've never seen anything anywhere near this powerful, especially being free.

You can download it here:

BlogCatalog Review

2009-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

BlogCatalog is satisfaction guaranteed for blogging experience. It might take you 48 hours to wait after your application is accepted but once you have your foot in the doorway, you will expect nothing less than 80,000 other blogs to connect with.

I have made friends, business contacts and learn so much from other people's life experiences on this social site. If you have studied the theory of society of cohesion, a term coined by Maria Montessori, you will understand perfectly the idea of how members of social community cohere to form a binding contract of friendship based on mutual freedom and respect for one another.

What you stand to gain from joining BlogCatalog is what bloggers want to achieve anyway. Readers, readers to comment on your blog, bloggers to discuss and share their experience, and lots more.

The key to BlogCatalog's success is in their discussion board, shoutboxes and the fact that bloggers are free to choose who they want to connect with. Bloggers are people and human beings have to interact and actually become socially skilled and confident. That is the foundation of society.

Granted, I have lots of bloggers who add me as their friends and noticed they do not visit my website even once; I have the liberty then to ignore such requests without feeling the pinch of losing contacts.

If there are any loose ends, it gets discussed. Members are free to form their group or join other groups.

Join now and get approved. You are not a blogger until you are in BlogCatalog.

2008-12-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Informative: teaching video about social media

How To Set Up Your On-line Money Banking In Two Steps

2008-10-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

These days, with more and more people getting on line to sell and promote blogs, businesses and products, there is a greater need to have a well established money management platform to cater to transactions on line.

If you intend to make money online, you need to start with a few basics:
- credit card
- paypal account
- reliable and trusted internet banking service

I cannot help you with the third one as it depends on the country you are residing in. But make sure, you are able to access to your banking statements and accounts on- line wherever you are. Some banks appear to be quite sophisticated in their services but in reality the staff is not trained to handle requests with regard to internet banking.

To test whether the staff or banking personnels are equipped with the knowledge of doing such banking transactions, you can simply ask an officer to explain the mechanics of how you may get to view and make transactions on-line. This may take you between 15-30 minutes but it is very important. When you travel, you do not want to get caught in a banking system that cannot serve you on demand. If the staff just hand out a brochure and expects you to read and understand, walk out and leave. Do not try a new bank just for the sake of it. Your money is not a laundry item, you need to get it right the first time.

One of the tools used by banking on line is the one time login password which is given to you to your mobile phone. This is better than the dongle which some banks give you and chargeable when you lose it. I have tried both, and certainly the bank that gives you a one time password through sms on your phone is still the best.

When you have a credit card, only then can you set up a Paypal account that can be linked your account to your credit card. The benefits of the paypal account is that you only need to give merchants your paypal account link and therefore other information will be kept confidential.

If you decide to promote products on line, you can also receive your affiliate commissions through your paypal account. One such example is Make money online with OfferForge!. It is very nifty, safe and clear. What I like about Offerforge is that the management team can be contacted easily; skyname and addresses are even given on their website. It is transparent.

So 2 steps to get started on making money online:
- Credit card with a banking service that has reliable internet banking system (use a trusted banking service)
- Set up a Paypal account. When you first set-up your paypal account, you will be charge SGD$3.00 or USD equivalent which will be refunded to your account, after it is cleared. So don't worry.

Increase Your Unique Visitors And Hits

2008-09-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

Eversince I started using this simple tool to make sense of my webpages,
my blogging activities are more enjoyable. Traffic increased over the last two months; it didn't jump but increased gradually.

I understand SEO but only at its minimum. This tool does it for me. All I need was to key in the dumb word I choose for my pages and it tells me if I am right or wrong. Plus I have only just started with the basic!

You just have to try this for yourself!

One of the features that I love, is that it will do an on-page SEO analysis of your webpages.

It's almost like having an SEO expert look at your webpage and tell you what you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong. And then give you solutions for improving your on-page SEO. Traffic Travis does all that.

Get quality links through website directory submission!

2008-09-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization is getting more and more difficult by the day. The search engines are evolving at an incredible speed, making it harder for us SEOs to rank our websites highly.

The more quality links you can get pointing to your website, the higher you will rank, period. That is the biggest key to ranking well in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Doing this is easier said that done. One of the easiest known ways to get quality, one way links is by finding website directories and then submitting your website to them. This can be a very tedious process, but always a very rewarding process at the same time.

You can either submit your website to these directories manually, pay someone to do it for you, OR you can use one of the website directory submission programs out there. The best program for the money that we've found is a program called "Directory Submitter" created my internet marketing expert, Brad Callen.

This program allows you to submit your website to over 1600 website directories and can save you an incredible amount of time in doing so. You simply enter your website details into the software once, and then select the directory you would like to submit to. The software will then, automatically fill in all of the submission criteria for each directory and allow you to quickly submit your site.

Not only does this save you time in submitting your site, but it saves you an incredible amount of time in just finding the free directories online. I highly suggest grabbing a directory submission program if you decide to take advantage of one of the easist ways to get quality, 1 way links to your website.

You can learn more about Directory Submitter here:

Traffic

2008-08-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Keyword Research

First of all, get your keyword research tool with this splendid (beta version) website:
http://www.hyperlink.to/msn
Download the excel tool and use it to do a targeted keyword research tool, directly acquired from MSN website, to qualify your other keyword research. Here is screenshot of this website.

Traffic Mastery

Traffic in internet marketing is a very popular and indeed famous topic. If you decide to specialize in discussing traffic in your blog, you will definitely gain lot and lots of knowledge in terms of SEO Tools (Search Engine Optimisation), Social Media Optimisation, Web Desigin, and even Article Marketing Tools.

You do not need to be an expert or even a guru, you just need to know how to work out how the bring in more and more readers to your sites. If your withstand focus, you will generate enough attention to even build a website just to blog about traffic.

This is exactly what Alvin Phang who discovered Atomic Blogging did. When I first met him, all I could gather from his workshop presentation is this, “Men! This guy knows a lot, but what! And his English is just well…..not that good.”

So I asked him if he would be kind enough to explain mechanisms of blogging rather than techniques of blogging, because the real secret in building your own business is not to understand technique (as this is as personal as the golf strokes of Tiger Woods, or forearm skills of Roger Federer). If you try to learn technique, at most you will be able to learn only 50%, analyse another 30%, emulate 10% and perfecting it at your own risk of time and money. I know, I have been there, so have many of us who try. So mechanics, learning how to fish, is better than to be given a fish and eat once right.

Eversince I have subscribed to Alvin, everything he has taught is helpful except for one. He will not help you build your website. He is very interested that you get traffic and make money with blogs, though I must say, you have to admit that this is not a grow rich quick scheme programme.

If you are new to internet marketing, and you don’t even know how to load your first post or ask permission to change your theme editor on wordpress (.php jargon), you need to accept the fact that once you start writing, you must continue posting even if you have started to earn yet.

With some simple techniques of blogging set by Alvin, I did manage to gain well over 100 readers within the first 4 months of work: all with just 6 live articles on Ezine, one social site – myBloglog, participation with Forum albeit only a few, and have Google adsense. At that time, I have not even discovered next2friends yet. You simply have to latch on to targeted information to the person you subscribe to if you want to see some results.

It took him 18 months to get to his comfortable peak at which he feels confident to speak publicly about his success. He is as many have described, a quiet achiever. Allow me to introduce Atomic Blogging formally here in Blog Pouch. The keyword research is just one of the updates Alvin has discovered.

Click here to get to his site now.

Click on Traffic Dash to read an excellent blog on increasing your traffic with non-English search engines. It is great site to bookmark, at least on my blog pouch it has.

Traffic Dash

Stop....Your Facebook Addiction, Get Connected

2008-07-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ok here’s my take. Personal bloggers spend hours searching, publishing, networking and still at the end of the day, they only want two things:
- Traffic
- Money

The questions begin to trickle in. How, why, what, who and where? I think the less we question, the easier the answers will come to you. Right? Wrong!

It is human nature, they need to know; so they write about what they don’t know. They have to know, so they start buying into products that supposedly show them what they need to know. Everybody goes in circles.

What if the solution to all your problems of finding traffic and money happens just on one site? Then you must think I am crazy. Your are right. There is no such thing. But what if I told you, you can broadcast yourself on one site…no not YouTube….by any means possible, including your mobile phone? And still package it in such a way that you announce it straight away via email, embed videos on other sites, and even let you blog about it as you go.

So cut to the chase. What am I selling here?

I am telling you, yes just telling, if you should at least think of parking your name on some social site that gives you genuine readers and make you know you are seen, heard and spoken about.

Most social sites become so big, you log in and log out unnoticed. Waste of time? Yeah right. Out of 100 contacts you network with, perhaps only 3 want to know who you are! Bloggers simply have very little time to meet and greet. Yet even more serious ones will spend just seconds on your blog and move on. Times have changed. The game has to change.

STOP.....Your Facebook Addiction
So what if you have 1million fans or friends? If you really matter to them, you deserve a comment, exchange of links, or a conversation, not a SuperNuduge. If your fans or friends, really matter to you, they deserve your visits to their sites....so make time.

At first glance, you might think next2Friends is just another social site where people meet people, make connections or search for new information. Basically, that is what it will give you.

For the past few weeks, I have been trying the basic features on this social site. And I can’t help it, there are really serious readers on this social site. Maybe it is new so I get noticed. The most important part which I know bloggers want – exposure – is written all over on the user dashboard.

Take look at the screenshot of my user dashboard and profile (if you click on it, you can get to the site). Nothing fancy just words and avatar. But take a closer look, everything about me, which I want publicly known to readers and subscribers are on display, in a big fat rectangle.

We have been learning about converting our readers to opt-in subscribers and what not. But if you are blogger on a social site, you want to convert other bloggers or subscribers to readers first before they become your contact. How can that be done if everyone is so busy thinking of the end and not the means?

This big fat rectangle I am talking about shows off information about you, who you are, what you do and your services. Readers are not distracted by avatars, messages and information that talk about other members and what they are offering. You do get your reader’s attention.. Your network of friends’ are placed nicely at the bottom left.

- Your conversations with individual members are kept private; I like this as I am able to make a log of my conversations with an individual member rather than to scroll down ten other messages to find our latest conversation.

- I do not have to invite them to meet me ‘outside’ the site. In other words, networking is more interactive and effective this way. You have a personal user weblink for your emails, articles and projects.

- People who like to keep a diary of their activities by writing can also blog on the site. It is so easy for newbies and if you like, people who are not ready to build or manage their own websites.

- Yes of course you might think I can easily use blogger or typepad. But the fact remains that if you have a blog, you need to promote your blog to reach out to people and get traffic; at next2friends, you have guranteed readers. The more you practice and learn to improve your writing skills, the better ready you are to build your own website.

Don’t’let the figures fool you, the more contacts you have, the less time you have to get to know them and vice versa. This means you are getting less out of your contacts. You have to get connected, get real.

More from me on this site later. In the meantime, enjoy these videos.

Doyle's Lazy Rabbit

Wordpress Development

2008-07-30T03:22:00.000-07:00

I received two emails regarding wordpress this week.

1. The old forum at EasyWordpress.com has been completely migrated to:

Profit Blogger Forum

”Our new forum will be focused more and more on "blog monetization" and less on technical WordPress issues.
Please note that WordPress has it's own support forum you can post to if you have difficulties with using WordPress,” stated Gobala Krishnan, the wordpress guy.

2. Paul Forcey, from Wordpress Traffic Step By Step announced a pre-launch Wordpress Management and Building Tool.

These are totally separate occurrences(please correct me if I am wrong, I subscribe at different times to these sites).

If you have not signed up for Wordpress Forum and are using Wordpress, I recommend that you do it because forums are great to share and learn knowledge which otherwise will take you months if not years to digest.

Paul Forcey has been very consistent with his emails to me as a subscriber. Both Gobala and Paul have not in any way try to upsell a 3rd party product; they know their business.

They have created great sites to help bloggers monetize and organize their blogging activities. Gobala Krishnan is always giving away discounts and coupons even though you never ask for it; Paul Forcey and his team have created a unique step by step guide to organizing and managing your blogging activities. Go check them out and sign up as soon as you are ready.

... this one goes in my pouch.....see ya

Very Proud Week For Childhoodspeech

2008-07-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, I have been busy finding new sites to get in touch with like-minded internet users at forums and social sites to generate awareness of my weblog, childhoodspeech.com.

Blogging is very enjoyable because I do not have to focus on money per se and get in the mad rush to make money.

One of the best reasons blogging offers is to keep people employed and stay useful to the community. Take for instance, Mr Craig Johnson, who met a tragic accident, lost his beloved wife and is still hard at work on his wheelchair. There are hundreds if not thousands who want to do something good for the community, and blogging seem to offer the opportunity to do both: help others and help yourself.

Social sites
I discover two other social sites which have given me the sense of enjoyment and reward from my blogging activities, other than myBloglog of course. They are next2Friends and BlogRush.

Traffic
I did something really important for my site and hope you too will get in the rush. I search for site on all known search engines and discovered it is not listed!! No wonder there are bots in my stats! If you have a website, you must submit your site to as many search engines as possible to increase awareness of your site. Remember I did not use traffic, I say awareness = you still have to post regularly so your post continue to appear frequently on search results.

Forums
Participating in forums also help to generate awareness of your sites through your signatures and broaden your knowledge on the topic that you are blogging about.

If you participate in forums, you should find those that have at least 30,000 users in order to feel the competitive edge. There are small forums which are niche, and i also recommend them because you can covert the members into serious readers to your site.

Yesterday, the unique visitors to my site did increase and I am proud that I have done the right thing to generate awareness.

So this is my timeline in brief:
- april '08- started childhoodspeech.com
- may '08 - submitted first article to ezine
- jun '08 - joined mybloglog.com
- jun '08 - started email marketing
- jul '08 - joined next2Friends.com
- jul '08 - site approval -BlogRush

Web 2.0 On Next2Friends

2008-07-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is how next2Friends help business entrepreneurs.

This is how next2Friends brings the world to us.

This is how next2Friends celebrate life.

To know more, visite next2Friends. You do not have to imagine what your friends or business friends are like. See them as they are.

Friends On The Blog

2008-07-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

WANT MORE EXPOSURE....YOU BETTER READ THIS!

Are you looking for a social media that do not leave you unnoticed, have your videos, pictures and blogs read in calmness, and not leaving your reader speeding out to make contact with another member leaving you out in the cold. You check you site and nobody visits, you blog all day and nobody comments, share views and worst still, you have not made any friends, only contacts.

I stumbled upon a great social media which promises:
- transparency: not man impersonating woman or vice versa
- real-time video upload not just from your webcam, camera but your mobile phone!
- connect with real people who takes real life pictures
- air your videos to share with your affiliates, friends, relative, subscribers without you having to run a long email newsletter
- broadcast all your work in one profile page.
- blog on your own homepage for all to read
- get subscribers and more......

Hard to believe, then see this for yourself. This was taken from the social site next2Friends.

and it is posted on Oliver's page.

"Make way For Next2Friends the Newest and Qikist (pun Intended) Mobile Social Media Platform.Yes its here,

This is Web 2.0 at its best!

Next2Friends combines Social Networking,Digital Media and Mobiles all in one little package.

The way it does this is by having loads of cool apps which are accessible using a Mobile phone and a Computer which are mans two best friends not forgetting Rex (The Dog)."

If you do not know HTML, want to blog and have your friends read them, all you have to do is blog on the same social site. If you don't want to write, use your mobile phone, take a video of your own seminar or workshop to promote yourself. Bring birthday celebrations at Realtime to your families overseas. All in one social site.

Torneo Dynos Verona

I find this site so simple to work with, idiot proof: that is all I need.

ANOTHER GREAT ONE TO HAVE IN THE POUCH....ZIP....

Exchanging Link

2008-07-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Exchanging links is or should I say, are, part and parcel of sharing your site with another person's site. It is akin to barter trade.

If you are using Wordpress, this is how you can do it.

Step 1: Go to your Wordpress admin dashboard. Click on Link on Write Tab.
Step 2: All you have to do now is fill in the necessary information.

Three things to remember:

1. You have to categorise your links so not everything appears as blogroll. Just add new names to the categories

2. You have to decide if you want the link to open on a new window. Usually a new window is desirable if it is not your site. It will keep your site open when the link is clicked.

3. If you have clickbank account, you should enter your hoplink address instead of the site addresss. (Clickbank account is necessary if you wish to promote a product froom the marketplace.)

I do not try to elaborate too much on what is good or bad about exchanging links because in my opinion, any website that helps people to improve their quality of life should deserve a chance to have a link partner. The website does not necessarily talk about making money, but it has to point towards giving solutions. That will encourage your readers to come to your site and browse.

INTERNET GURU AND EXPERT

2008-07-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

I am amazed how much people have misunderstood the meaning of 'gurus', especially in the western world. I quote from wikipedia,"

An "expert" (Audio (US) (help·info)) is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public.

A guru (Sanskrit: गुरु) is a person who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a given area, and uses it to guide others. .......In a further Western metaphorical extension, guru is used to refer to a person who has authority because of his or her perceived secular knowledge or skills.

In Malay, 'guru' literally means teacher. I am a guru of language and childhoodspeech. And I am also an expert by virtue of my teaching experience and qualification.

Expertise comes with experience and knowledge on a given discipline. To become an expert, you must have the technical skills to be able to give good judgment and decisions on issues that will affect another person's well-being, including his finances and health.

A guru will be able to guide you on techniques and skills which experts cannot because expert's special knowledge limits them from agreeing with fields of study not of his kind. An analyst of market trends for example may not agree with his colleagues opinion of global inflation.

A 'guru' can easily become an 'expert' once he chooses to focus a field of study. Yet not all experts want to become a 'guru' or teacher because it involves understanding what the student's needs and work from that point of need.

An expert talks about his field of study at seminars and workshops, but rarely interact with his audience. He imparts his knowledge and skill based on his understanding on the majority needs. When he is done, he attends to a few questions, clarifies doubts about his subject and leaves.

A teacher however, speaks to his students and discuss issues or problems the students are facing. Sometimes, a teacher can be a dictator because he believes his systems of understanding a process will lead to more positive results.

Before you start buying into products, ask specific question about you doubts, problems and issues. If you need a teacher, you do not buy from an expert because somewhere down the line, you will be left unattended. If you want an expert, you have to work in synergy with his professional position and not get emotional when you own opinions of doing things contradicts.

You need to understand that you have your own learning style. Pick from it and start from there. If you don't begin from yourself, you will just be wasting money and time investing on a person you thought would help you in your journey to success.

This post is written to address readers who have spent so much time and money on products and have since not received any results. When the going gets tough, the tendency is to jump into the marketplace and start buying the most popular expert guidebook.

I just spoke to a newbie who has paid US$100/- for an ebook to build his website. Now he is stuck on how to manage and organise his website because the so-called expert author has no time to teach.

How about those who have attended workshops and seminars of internet 'gurus'? When you raise your hand to ask a question, he says, "let me attend to you later during the break," instead of saying, "if you have any questions, please note them, I will attend to them before you leave, in the meantime, here is how you can reach me" The worst kind of expert is the kind that leaves you with a no-reply address.

If you are here to become successful, understanding the difference between guru and expert will help you make better choices and save you lots of time and money.

EMAIL MARKETING

2008-07-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I have finished learning something old, I am now bombarded by something old but new: Email Marketing.

If you visit my site now, you will notice I have started an email opt-in service for newsletter subscriptions so that my readers can have tips which are otherwise not posted on my site, childhoodspeech.com. Getting a response is not as easy as it looks, at least from the email subscriber’s point of view. I still prefer the old fashion way to doing things, email marketing through emails.

The whole purpose of email marketing is to build your own subscriber’s list so you can genuinely start your own business on line. Email subscription through feedreader is limiting. You are still not allowed to give your email subscribers free tips or market your favourite products directly to them.

As soon as you have enough posts and you have generated enough readers (check on your awstats on cpanel), you should start email marketing campaign.

Blog without html

2008-07-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

I have been receiving requests to teach html for blogs. Actually all my earlier posts are just words. I did learn later. You can quickly post an article in minutes by doing it in a few simple steps.

1. Write your draft on a notepad or windows document. Do not attempt to format your text yet. Just write what you want to post.
2. Make sure your keywords appear on the title and at least first 3 paragraphs of your document. Do not keep repeating them, search engines don’t like it.
3. At the end of your document, do these 3 things:
- type the tag lines
- ask yourself where you want to place advertisement, logos and banners: make a note at the bottom of your finished document
- type the keyword that you want to link to other sites or advertisement page you are promoting.
Done phase one.

Now you can go to your post area in your website, and begin. The reason for creating your post on a document are:
- when you are on the site admin working on your post, you are also opening your front door for the world to see. Just in case the connection breaks, you still have your draft saved.
- If you not understand html, at least you have your paragraphs in order. That is enough.
- you do your spell check on the document as your post area do not have a spell check function.

When you do not know how to insert adsense, picture or anything else, put them on the widget area or sidebars. Don’t worry so much about the design and layout. Basically, if you do not have an article, no readers are going park at your site. So forget about the pictures and design, just go ahead and write. Blogging is about writing. When you have reached you tenth post, you will start to see a pattern in the mechanics between posts.

Organising Login, Userid and Password

2008-07-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a way to organize all the logins, passwords and keywords, here is a FREE to download and use software to you organized.

The only important thing to remember is that you need to set up a masterkey as you may share your laptop or computere.

Click on the title of post to get to the website or here:http://www.keepass.info/.

.....zip....great to keep in the pouch.......

Learning Website Building

2008-07-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

The most challenging part of writing posts on my weblog childhoodspeech is still without a doubt, understanding wordpress. For the first 3 months, I literally struggled to understand html. There was an occassion when I actually had to contact the theme designer to help me. It was a very frustrating day for me then.

I happen to be a person who loves working with layout and design (a bit like moving furniture around house!). Without previous experience with website design, I had to take it one day at a time until I am now finally confident to make some adjustments with the layout. I mean, blogging is essentially a very private affair, like jogging. It is always good to learn the basics on your own.

Here are some pointers which I hope will benefit you on getting organised:

1. Do not choose black colour as background. It is a fact that when black background is used for children, they have more difficulty retaining the knowledge of the images and text they see. The rule applies to adults as well.

2. I love to write and therefore working on a theme with 3 columns is better for me. It allows me more freedom to add more information.

3. The post area is the work area. This is the most important part for me, so learn all the rules associated to that work area. The way to know how much you need to understand is by staring at a blank page before you create.

Print it out using printscreen. Then circle each area you know or think you need help with. As you build your website, take time to learn from other bloggers who have written about it by making a search for the correct topic you want.

For instance, I had a problem with a simple html command to wrap text on my images on my wordpress. It did take me an entire day before I found a site which actually explains to me in plain terms that I can understand. I learn from this experience that it is not always the top ranking sites that can provide the best answer. In this case, it is Preblogging.com.

4. Always save your lessons or html codes on your desktop notepad and file them accordingly. Give the filename exactly for the type of layout that html code represents. So if it is myBloglog, use 'myBloglog.htm' and so on. This is for you easy reference next time.

I find that over a period of time, I was learning tha pattern in the html codes and what they represent. I update them regularly to make sure I do not have duplicates as this will confuse me later. And if I don't need them at all, I just chuck it (delete). Now I have the ones that I regularly use.

As soon as I learn something new, I update my notepad. I do not wait till the next day.

6. I strongly recommend not to follow tutorials based on the popularity of the sites, because every post has a unique message and may require very different html codes. I search on a need basis.

I leave a comment to say thank you once I have taken a tip from the owner; if I do not feel I should enter my comment, I do search on his site as part of my contributions to their earnings before I leave. Ohter bloggers work hard just like me, I do not have to fork out a cent to just search on their pages; they did all the work, I do my part as an internet user.

7. Widgets are blogger's best friend. I love widgets. I mean whoever came up with this name should earn the noble prize. Just copy and paste. Ahh! You can upgrade yourself to become widget pro, because they are basically html commands. If you are truly afraid of making mistakes on your work (post) area, use the widgets as a way to learn html commands. Widgets essentially remain on the widget box, so mistakes you make will not affect the layout of your posts.

Blogging: Art or Craft?

2008-07-12T05:47:00.001-07:00

Blogging used to be about keeping a diary of our activities to share good knowledge or a journal. From my own readings, blogging has lost its artform. Bloggers used to feed the news with content because they are always on the scene. Now bloggers get a feed off the news.

It is about getting more affiliates to sign up and sell programmes, how to keep your ranking high on search engines, how to monetize your feeds or how to disguise yourself in forums to get your threads sticky. Quantity versus quality.

Nowadays, when you have nothing to say, you are taught to customize other people's articles and make it your own. Blogging is made into a craft not an art.

Choice of words are very important if not crucial to our blog's health. We are taught to watch out for keywords for the search engine to like your posts. So we turn our art of blogging into a craft to make the search engine work for us.

One can easily spot the difference between an artist and a craftsman. The artist learns to bridge the gap of love and friendship between himself and his readers over a period of time, whereas the craftsman can capture the attention of his reader albeit spontaneous. The artistic blogger spends a lot of time and little money; the crafty blogger spends more money and less time to get off the yellow brick road.

Landing pages no longer show any posts, but opt-ins, adsense and graphics. The content.....less then 500 words. Marketeers says internet users are becoming impatient and have no time to read, don't write too much. So a picture and caption can be considered a post to be 'read'. Ha! what;s that? Not every picture tells a story, you have to at least write a sentence or two! Wow! Britney Spears shaved her head! That;s a blog too!

From the wikipedia

A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website , usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art, artlog ,sketchblog, videos, vlog, music. MP3 blog.audio, podcasting are part of a wider network of social media.

Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[1] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.

Is Blogging an Art or Craft. Help me understand.

.....mmm,,,,,i should use my designer pouch for this one,,,,,,,zip......oh wait,,,,,unzip,,,,,what is your view .........

SUBSCRIPTIONS, ANOTHER RSS ALTERNATIVE

2008-07-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

Most people do not know that if you want to know about what the market is doing, they need not go about browsing for hours to get breaking news.

I discovered another way to get current information. Through subscriptions. It is a bit like window shopping. Many men don’t like doing it, but I am a woman, so I can spend lots of time browsing, reading and learning. What I have learnt has helped me to come up with reasons why you need to subscribe if you are an avid blogger and want to keep improving.

1. Subscription is about making you a reader, perhaps a potential customer but not a ready buyer. So it is free. You need to decide whether to give away your primary or secondary email.

2. Many aggressive and well known internet marketeers who are very knowledgeable about selling and marketing want subscribers for various reasons: one is to give away free current information. The need to remain current will drive them to deliver only the best information to you so you stay loyal to their site.

3. You can always unsubscribe which means you stay as a passive reader.

4. You should always try to read everything they write about in order to see a pattern in their delivery and presentation.

5. Good marketeers give you up to date information, and is always, always, obliging to their subscribers. I just sent a letter to marketeer, asking him to view my website and comment, and he did.

6. Experienced bloggers or writers know exactly how to get information from their archived files. You will be surprised to learn I just dug out an archive file dated year 2006 in Ezine which has not been revised. This is year 2008 and in the internet world, that is a long time.

7. Subscription means you do not have to visit their sites anymore, unless you decide to do so.

8. Subscribe to your favourite topics for your reading pleasure to make your blogging hours more meaningful.

With subscription, the newspaper boy always deliver.

The logic goes like this:

If you want to blog, you have to write

If you wish to write, you have to read

If you have to read, you need to browse

If you do not the time to browse (window shop), you subscribe.

You know you are better when you have your first subscriber, not just readers. That in my opinion, a milestone in blogging.

My myBloglog Say

2008-07-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

myBloglog is the first social website I joined. I have been enjoying my stay thorougly; these are my reasons.

First of all, the interface on myBloglog is easy, quick and userfriendly. You can join even if you do not have a website or are not planning to have one. It is all encompassing, idiot proof.

2nd, membership is free and you can easily browse other social contacts in one pageview.

3rd, you can access to member’s profile and website without any hassle.

4th, you can receive and send private messages which gives your perimeters to build around as you develop your social network.

5th, members can send mass messages to their communities at one click of the button.

6th, there is freedom of membership with other contacts; join or leave, add or remove. Very nice and no parties are hurt as you still have many left to work with if anyone leaves you.

7th, nobody likes to leave or remove you from their list because everybody wants the exposure. Bottom line, nobody loses, everybody wins.

8th, the numbers on your homepage encourages you: successful bloggers always talk about numbers – traffic, messages, subscriptions, incoming links, backlinks, - more the merrier. And myBloglog does an excellent job at telling you there is progress on your social networking. Even if you have 1 message today, it is coded red.

9th, it does not forget that you want to succeed. If a member follows you, it is noted, like this in your email (you need to activate email alert),

It is a wonderful feeling. If you want exposure, myBloglog delivers.

10th, myBloglog wants you to quit socialising after 15 messages. It sends you a friendly note, "go and enjoy the outdoors!". Before you have a pouch on your tummy, leave your seat and stretch out.

This is my personal recommendation:
In order to increase your presence in the social network, you need to focus on socializing not selling or marketing. Just because it is free and/or offers money, it is good. The social site may not be suitable for your purpose and personality as website builder. You need to keep working on the social site by adding, visiting and joining other communities. And as often as possible, be truthful and honest with your messages. Visit their websites and don't lie that you have. Remember your activities can be easily tracked; if you have visited, the website owner will know just by checking on his myBloglog stats or from tracking widgets on his websites. Take your time to send a genuine message, it is worth your while and you are making your contact happy.

Sucessful bloggers nowadays create blogsites on just one topic on blogger or other free blogs to increase their hit rate with search engines for their winning keywords. Look out for unpopular sites and you will be pleasantly surprised. The author can be the owner of the most creative and hot website in the internet. (Read RSS Alternatives below for research tips.)

If you do not enjoy your stay, consider subscribing to another social site because your absence does not make the hearts grow fonder on social sites. Help the members to decide to include you in their community. Promote yourself and tell them how you can become their good buddy.

RSS Alternatives

2008-07-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

RSS ALTERNATIVES

Google Alerts

As a writer, we want to be kept updated on the latest posts of our other favourite writers, competitors and affiliate websites. There are many ways to do it including, subscribing to the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Feedreader on the website you are currently reading. If you subscribe to the RSS Feed, it allows you to receive the latest posts from the author directly to your email address. This is very good as you do not have to keep visiting the sites. I do recommend this for all bloggers as it means you are focusing your research on dedicated sites and also keep your information current.

Google Alert also has a feature that helps you search for information just by you logging on to your emails. All you have to do is go to Google Alert. Type in the search item you want. You can be specific or general. Continue to fill in the appropriate information accordingly. I like this because I can find tracks or information related to my site and start reading as it comes.

When I do this, I am able to achieve many things:

Search through the entire web to look for the specific information
Allows published information on google which are otherwise not published on the author's website, including the social sites.
Gives me more time to concentrate the more immediate need of writing out posts.
Able to opt on the frequency of alert I need.

Click here for afffliate.

SPECIFY SEARCH

Another method which I find very useful to find specific information is to key in commands on the search box like so:

use closed inverted commas, : ".....your title....." and you will immediately get to the information immediately.

or

use the + sign on your search. For instance on the search box type the keyword+keyword. It does not matter which way you put it.

I find this very useful as I am able to see my personal activities while blogging without even having to keep a diary or bookmark. So keep visiting and blogging, google will keep a diary for you. Self management of time and money is quite simply, made simpler.

....that's all for this pouch....Zip.

This is Blog Pouch

2008-07-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

This is My Blog Pouch. This is where I keep log of my experiences while producing the weblog, www.childhoodspeech.com. Today, I met a colleague at Starbucks, Raffles City Singapore, who asked me about one of the layouts that I did. It is pretty technical to explain so I figured I should take time to share my knowledge here as I go about working the website.

I am an avid blogger. I tend to do everything myself from writing, loading and editing using just Wordpress, tips from various sites and html. Nobody says you can make money just by writing and copying articles, so I have decided to find out for myself and do everything right from the basics. Many experts I have spoken to have one thing in common, they keep learning and improving on the mechanics of generating income based on their personal expertise.

Yaro Stark: Entrepreneur's Journey - Article Marketing and Podcaster
Tim Godfrey: Profit Praxis - Clickbank Expert, Affliate Marketing
Alvin Phang: Atomic Blogging - Traffic Expert
Ewen Chia: Make Money From Home - Internet Marketeer
Gobala Krishnan: Wordpress Guy - Internet Marketeer

There are still hundreds out there who do not wish to be known by their names, like The Rich Jerk (whoever you are spiderman). I mean you can name the sites and the people behind the sites. You will learn that they did not get to the point of success without sweat. They are all experts in their own rights. They are good at what they do, so I will be crazy to follow them religiously. The result is, I came up with Childhoodspeech.com. This is one subject I know very well.

For the first few months, I keep checking on my traffic, adsense and clickbank accounts. Nothing much has happened in the dollar signs (nobody says you can be rich overnight!) The experts say you can make money they didn't say you can get the money now. The first time I see the figures on adsense account went up, I was delirious!!! It really works. I was like a little child who has found sand in the bathtub. I was not looking at the amount, I was looking at the mechanics. Wow! That works like magic.

For me, I started with writing first. I discovered that article marketing is the cheapest and most time tested blogging methods ever used. Many people make money from article marketing alone, whether they customised from other people's articles, produce their own or just use the same materials they have written before a year ago.

I did say my weblog is fresh and not a duplicate / reproduction from other websites, didn't I? Read About.

Here in Blog Pouch, I hope to share my information with you about blogging tips. Not all tips apply to you, but I guarantee you will want to use one tip from this pouch at least once after you have come visit.

Did I write all the articles myself? Yes
Who taught me to write? Just myself
How do I have so many materials? Experience and just keep reading/source.
Who do I write to? Adult readers because not all children are independent readers.
You have good response? Yes. 1st article submitted to Ezine-approved on 1st attempt.
Do you advertise? No. Started socialising on myBloglog in June '08.
Have I earned any money yet? Yes. Will keep earning, that's a promise.
Are you really trilingual? Yes.

....more questions....the pouch is full. Zip.