Helping you to make enough money online to quit the day job

Posts in category Building a blog

Preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Dec08
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

When I first started trying to earn a living writing articles online I found that I was getting pains down the inside of my right forearm.

I am a 4 finger typist, 3 on right hand and 1 on left. I also use a ouse right handed.

I realised that it was the mouse that was the problem. My arm was in an unnatural position, even though it was a £60 mouse.

I bought a trackball and the problem went away. I have spoken to lots of writers who have also switched to trackballs. Prevention is better than cure. Catch the tendon problem early and the pains go away completely…

Logitech trackball

My trackball

It takes about an hour to become used to a trackball pointing device, but once you have used one for two hours you would never go back to a mouse. Friends who visit and use my trackball go away and buy one for themselves. The mouse was around first, but that is the only thing going for it.

You need to move a mouse around a desk. With a trackball, the decice just sits on your desk and you spin the wheel, It takes up less room, meaning you could have one on the arm of your armchair and use it with a laptop, something you could never do with a mouse.

Mice used to have a ball underneath that you rolled over your desk. Trackballs have the ball on top.

I would advise everyone to buy a trackball, you can buy one for £20 nowadays, mine cost £45 back in 2002. Mine still works, too! Prevent carpal tunnel syndrome ever developing.

Posted in Article Writing - Tagged , , ,

Which is the Best Free WordPress Theme?

Dec06
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

The best free WordPress theme is the one that meets all of your needs. Once you start browsing the thousands of free themes you can spend hours playing around. I actually design all my own themes, faster than I could find one on WordPress.org.

Are you building your WordPress site as an authority site, as a blog for blog subscribers or to attract search engine spiders and to link to articles or other sites?

This site is 90% aimed at my subscribers and regular readers, so it uses a blog format because that is what blog readers expect to see. I do not use Pages extensively.

I have another site about writing articles that is designed to become an authority site over time. It uses Pages as its main structure. There are blog posts, too. Every time I post I do a 500-800 word Page Post and a 200-300 word Blog Post that links to the related Page

I have other sites that are designed primarily to build links, here is one I use to link to my gardening articles. That one has a blog structure again, but the articles are all as Posts rather than Pages.

If you want a site with lots of Pages then you need the Page Menu to be vertical.

Choose a free theme that is simple. Bells and whistles just distract the reader.

If you want to have a go at designing your own themes for WordPress, Blogger or any blog platform, try this Web Design Generator – Artisteer software. It is a free download, but you need to pay before you can save or export. The interface takes some getting used to because it has drop down menus for every aspect of your theme design, from font colour and spacing to page width and layout, from header graphics to footer options.

I find that by using this program I can design a whole new theme in one hour, or modify one I did earlier in twenty minutes.

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Using Social Bookmarking Sites To Boost Your Page Rank

Nov30
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Social bookmarking sites are a necessary evil. We all need to put our web pages and posts in them to get links.

There are two kinds of bookmarking sites. Those that have “DoFollow” links and those that have “NoFollow” links.

NoFollow links do not help your page rank, though they will help Google (TM) to find your post. There is a faint chance of a few visitors following your link.

DoFollow links WILL help your page rank as well as doing everything that NoFollow links do.

It makes sense to mainly build DoFollow links…Next question, “How do you find DoFollow BookMark Sites?”

You can check them yourself by highlighting the text and right-clicking and examining the code, or by using a browser plug-in, but here is a list of DoFollow Bookmark Sites to start you off.

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Using Referral Links to Earn Money

Nov29
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Referral links have a big potential to help you earn money. However you need to be very careful before using them.

An affiliate link or referral link is one you get by signing up to an affiliate program. You embed the affiliate link in a block of text or use an image such as a banner or button ad. People who click your link AND follow trhrough by signing up, or whatever, earn you money.

There are problems.

Most people will not click on affiliate links. You really need to get your subscribers to like you before they will click and allow you to earn money. They know that the money you earn is not added to what they pay, but they still will not click.

Many people hide referral links by using a link shortening service like bit.ly, but those links annoy me even more and I will never click on them, because I see it as being dishonest.

Referral links are just like the commission a salesman earns, a kind of finder’s fee. Companies have a marketing budget and affiliate commissions come out of this. People who click a referral link pay exactly the same as people who find the site direct from a search engine.

You need to be open when using referral links and you should only recommend products and services that you are personally familiar with.

If you fill your website with referral links nobody will click, EVER. They think you are just after a fast buck, as the Americans would say. Your reputation is easily lost, be VERY slow to make recommendations.

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Putting Ads on Your Website

Nov28
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Your website will be one of the strands in your long-term income plan. You can only earn from your website by putting ads onto it (unless you turn it into a paid membership site).

There are different kinds of ads you can use:

  1. PPC (Pay Per Click)
  2. CPA (Cost per Action)

Pay Per Click Ads

There is only one provide that it is worth signing up with at the moment, Google’s Adsense (TM) PPC program for publishers.

To sign up you must have a website. The process takes a few days but is pretty simple. You can format your ads in many different styles and colours using the Adsense (TM) interface. You then just copy the code onto your web page.

If you are using WordPress (TM) then you need to download an Adsense (TM) plugin. Dashboard – Plugins – Add New – Search – Adsense…Choose one, Install, Activate (once Google (TM) send you your Adsense (TM) publisher ID. Play around with the settings until you get ads where you want them and looking the way you want them to look.

Website owners like Google’s Adsense (TM) because they are contextual, so they actually add to a website and provide exactly what your readers are looking for, hopefully anyways.

Cost Per Action Ads

These usually have big numbers attached to them. You can earn $100 a time, but earning depends on a reader clicking your ad, AND following through with a required action such as placing an order. Only a tiny proportion of people clicking ever place an order and you will earn nothing unless an order is placed, no matter how many clicks you get.

These CPA ads are often affiliate (referral) programs. There are many different places yuou can find these ads. Start at Commission Junction because they are the largest, so there are more links to choose from.

Follow this link to find out more about how to put ads onto your website. (Link openes in new window)

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Which is the Best Web Host?

Nov27
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

No recommendations, just things to look for…

Down-time…Every web host claims 99.9% up-time. There seems little to choose from here.

Location…Choose a web host in the country you are targeting. If you are targeting British Web users and your site is on a US host people using Google.co.uk will not find your website, unless you have a .co.uk domain.

Speed…Judging in advance is difficult. Even if you visit one of the sample sites your host gives you, that would probably be on a super hosting package, not the basic one. Only buy one domain from a web host until you are satisfied. Once you see what you are getting buy extra ones. If your site is too slow then either upgrade your package or find a faster host. Dedicated servers are fastest, but cost a lot more.

Unlimited Domains…Most web hosts offer these. You just pay for the domain name if you buy any extra ones, not for extra hosting.

Support…You need to know that there is someone there to at least answer emails 24/7. Especially if the host is in a different time-zone. Ask for recommendations from friends.

Referral Program…Almost every host pays you if someone else buys their hosting after following your referral link. This is why you see so many ads for web hosting on every single website. You can earn up to $125 per referral.

Size…Avoid small hosting companies that you have never heard of. They close down referral programs without notice. Many are one man reseller operations with support two steps removed from the customer. If they actually have their own servers they are likely to be slower.

Cost…Costs are very similar for similar packages because this is a highly competitive market. Cheap deals are cheap because you are being offered a second rate service. Expect to pay about $100 a year for unlimited domains, 24/7 support and a shared server.

There are no referral links in this post. I have nothing to gain or lose by you following these suggestions.

I use two hosts:

  1. www.Blacknight.com in Ireland, who I find have excellent support but they are expensive and their interface is awful to work with. They shut down their referral program, which was pathetic anyway overnight. I plan to move all my domains from their when my hosting package expires mainly because their servers seem very slow.
  2. www.bluehost.com in America, who have excellent support, 24/7. They are cheap and have a referral program that pays $65 a sign-up. I believe in them enough that I can genuinely recommend them. The interface is slow, but sites I have their open quickly. I pay extra for a dedicated IP address.

I have no personal experience with UK hosts, except a brief flirtation with www.heartinternet.com in Nottingham, whose support is excellent, but whose interface is abysmal., though it was a reseller package I had. They let you pay monthly, which is a good idea at the start. I have heard good things about www.1and1.co.uk.

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How to Get Your Own Domain and Hosting for $17 a Year

Nov25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

I have urged people many times to use their own domain name rather than a subdomain on a free blog hosting site. Most people give much more credibility to a .com domain than a xyabcde.blogspot.com type domeain.

I was researching free blogs yesterday, not something I normally do, and was on the WordPress.com site.

There are two types of WordPress sites.

This is a WordPress site, the software is free, but I have the site installed on a server in Ireland that I pay hosting fees for. You download WordPress for your own site from WordPress.org.

There is also WordPress.com. You can have a free blog at WordPress.com, using a slightly different version of WordPress called WordPress MU. Your free blog would be for example, escapeteaching.wordpress.com.

When you sign up at WordPress.com there is an option there to buy your own domain for $17 a year, including hosting. You pay an extra $7 a year over and above the cost of the domain for hosting. This is a great deal, especially when you are starting out and do not want big hosting bills.

Even if you have three domains you are paying $51 a year. Hosted elsewhere those three domains would cost you $104 a year.

I will probably get my next domain at WordPress.com myself. It is better to have your sites hosted on different hosts and it is a low cost way of doing that.

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How To Start a Free Blog

Nov24
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Decide what you want to blog about. This is important because the first thing you will need for your free blog is a title and your title needs to be relevant and to catch the eye of anyone who comes across it in search engine listings.

Go to Blogger.com or WordPress.com to start with. WordPress.com allows you to register and use your own domain name for $17 a year. In other words they charge you $7 a year for hosting because your domain would cost you $10 anyway.

The administrative interfaces in both Blogger and WordPress are intuitive and easy to use.

You do need to be aware that your ‘free’ blog can be shut down ‘just like that’ as Tommy Cooper would say. I use a couple of free blogs to build links to the content I really care about. Most of my websites are on paid hosts and this gives you much more security, but the risk is less important than the hard cash when you are starting out online. I just feel I have to warn you of the risks, risks that I am less than totally happy with myself.

Make posts to your blog regularly and  promote them through email signatures and word of mouth as much as you can.

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Comparing the Industrial and Information Revolutions

Nov19
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

In the Industrial Revolution, if you had enough money you opened a factory and employed workers to make your products. It took masses of money, or the ability to borrow that amount, so only a very few people could do it.

In the Information Revolution, you can set up a website for nothing, $100 if you want a proper domain name. Anybody can have their own factory, oops, website. You can even pay people to make your products. Your product is information. You can pay freelance writers to write your articles.

The playing field is much flatter, now.

Yet I have a hard time convincing anyone to go this route. Why?

I am coming to the conclusion that people refuse to know about anything that involves any changes, any disruption of the way they live now, even if that disruption would be beneficial in the long run. They see change as a threat, rather than as a new opportrunity.

If I had started writing articles when I had a day job, in between phonecalls from the office to go somewhere, I would be laughing now, instead of writing for 14 hours a day.

I waited until I had no option. On the dole I have to try to build up a way to earn money when the dole runs out.

But I am on the bus now and am glad to be here at my desk at 5.30am instead of working with a bunch of idiots. Now I am my own boss, answerable only to my bank manager. I have a zero balance on my credit cards for the first time since I had one in 1975.

Writing articles whether for upfront payment, ad share or your own websites is work, but, even on the dole with my redundancy payment going down fast, my stress levels are near zero

Posted in Article Writing, Overall Plan - Tagged ,

What Other Job Can a 50 year Old Teacher Do?

Nov15
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin

A teacher could do any job that does not involve physical labour. Teachers are intelligent and can quickly learn any new skills or knowledge that a particular job requires.

I got a job repairing broken down ATM machines throughout Counies, Cork, Waterford and Kilkenny. All it required was honesty and a willingness to work 80 hours a week at busy times.

You can do any job…BUT, What job can a 50 year old teacher get? That’s another question entirely, especially in today’s economic meltdown.

Now, I live in Ireland and the situation here is much worse than in Britain, but I believe my own experience can be applied to teachers in UK.

I am 58, rather than 50 and that age definitely counts against me. I have applied for hundreds of vacancies in the past year. I have not even had one interview.

My thinking is this:

I am seen as overqualified – I won’t stick at it, I’ll be looking for something better all the time

I am too old – I will be taking days off sick or maybe I will drop dead on the job

I know too much about life – 32 year old interviewers are not happy about appointing someone who is as worldly-wise as most 58 year olds are

So…You Have To Work for Yourself

Private tuition and examining are the obvious seasonal work you can do. I cannot do these, because the setup in Ireland is totally different.

You can try to earn money from blogs and writing articles. This is what I am pinning my hopes on. Anyone can earn some money from articles, you just have to stick at it long enough and your income gradually increases.

Posted in Article Writing, Overall Plan
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