So, basically I’m giving away free advertising on my site to others for nothing in return. Honestly, I’m not impressed with that, but its an example of trying to tweak a site. I thought it may work, it didn’t and as a result, I’m dropping it.

I know others have experienced success with the website but it just isn’t working for me. I think the principal is decent but I do not feel that the system is worth taking the space on your blog to display. This is a perfect example of finding out what fits for your blog. Although BlogRush may work well on others blogs, for me it isn’t.

As a result I would like to say, “Bon voyage BlogRush…”

On an unrelated note, I hope you guys are all having a great weekend!

Before I go into all the negatives, there are a few positives. One is that Thor actually got this thing going. It takes a lot of work to do something like this and kudos to him for doing it. Secondly, I think it is great that so many sponsors have put their faith into this project. Community involvement is key and I really like how the affiliate companies are supporting this show. I also think the idea for the show is cool and like the way a new episode comes out every day. I also think that there is a lot of heart in the show. The producers do want it to succeed they just have to resolve some issues. I think as the show goes on a lot of the issues I talk about below may be resolved. With any project there are bumps at the begging and I hope they can be fixed.

That being said, I do have quite a few problems with the show at the moment. The quality of the film is horrible. Seriously, the show looks like it edited it in windows movie maker. The show is roughly cut together with frames just fading in and out.

The show is poorly put together. The host is reading off a script and not doing a good job of it. Although it is a reality show, it seems horribly scripted. Like when Jason came into the room in episode 2 (yes I actually watched it), I just groaned and rolled over. A scripted reality show, doesn’t that sort of defeat some of the purpose of the show?

While the intentions for a great show may be there, it simply is not put together well. Also, you want an internet reality show, yet you don’t want to make it look good. The Next Internet Millionare looked good. Thor you were on that show, maybe you should take a few pointers from how Joel Comm produced it.

I have also not learned one thing about affiliate marketing in the first two episodes. All I saw were some companies come up talk about their offers, a bunch of people talk smack and then a few peoples thoughts. Honestly, it can only get better from here… (I sincerely hope it does)

Finally, Wes from Tracking202 pointed out, whoever runs their site forgot to .htacess the video folder. If you want to see episode 3 before it comes out and every next episode (unless they fix it), just follow the link: http://208.87.32.10/ (EDIT: They’ve now fixed this, but I’ve already watched an episode that wasn’t supposed to be out, and so have a lot of other people…). C’mon that is just sloppy. Also, if you say episodes will be up at 1 PM CST, they should be up at 1 PM CST not like 3 or 4 PM CST. If you can’t keep the promise, don’t publish it.

To leave you off with some video, my buddy Ian Fernando (a contestant on the show) made a video that I am posting below. I think other contestants may catch on to what he thinks and the show will go from internet reality to internet comedy.

What do YOU think of the Top Affiliate Challenge

- end rant -

Well Carl, I’d say the single hardest thing is finding enough time for it all. There is so much to do with a blog and so little time, you just have to keep working at it!

Rajaie AlKorani - What do you usually with the money you make online?

I honestly re-invest about 75% of it, I take out enough that I can have money for life, but money makes more money, so investing is always a good option. You want to maintain your online earnings.

Nick Throlson – Are There Any Side Projects You Are Working On ?

A affiliate marketing campaign comes to mind as well as a few websites I’ve been meaning to develop for a while but life keeps me pretty busy! I do make money online in any way I know how to, so new ideas are always popping into my head, there is just not enough time for them all…

How to DIY - I want to know if you can share some hints, tips, methods, or voodoo tricks for link generation. In the very near future I am trying to hit this hard and drive more traffic to my site.

I can but this will be a bit short (might need to elaborate in a post soonish). Firstly, there is a great Do-Follow blogs list, that is definitely worth checking out! Next, I’d recommend internal linking. Many pass over its benefits, build depth to your site that search engines can follow. Thirdly, I would also write content that is “linkbait”, write content that is fresh and provocative and promote it. You’d be surprised at what can happen!

Jay - iBlogtoBlog.com - Would you be willing to show us one of your landing pages? Also, how much do you earn from affiliate marketing on a monthly basis?

Unfortunately, those will have to stay with me for now…

Mr. Javo - I would like to know what do you think to do, to win the blogging contest idol

I am going to do what I’ve done so far, write great content. I will be promoting my content a bit more this month but honestly, I’m taking a passive approach to the whole contest. I will not cheat or fake any stats, I figure growth is good and this contest is a great incentive for many to grow their blogs (including myself).

Forest - How many times a week do you recommend you write on a new blog?

As many as you have time for. The reason I say this is you want to start to build a consistent post schedule. So pick a number you think you can hit, and start posting that, be consistent. It’s not about who can churn out the most content in the first 2 weeks, its about who can maintain their flow of quality, new content.

Big Ben Patton - What is the most effective tactic for a pre sale in an email marketing campaign for information products?

Ben, I haven’t done much email marketing, but I would have to say that I’m a big fan of “free”. Nothing sells like something that is “free”. What I mean by that is throw in some bonuses or a free e book/product at the purchase point that would be bundled along with your offer (signup for this offer and get a free book, or whatever), I am assuming at this point that you own the product you are selling… This will increase conversions and make the consumer feel like they are getting a “deal”.

Monthly Unique Visitors: 6,406 Unique Visitors
Old numbers: 10,708 Unique Visitors
RSS: 123 readers
Old numbers: 106 readers
Technorati Rank: 56,385
Old rank: 45,762
Alexa Rank: 191,934
Old rank: 232,526
Monthly Revenue for this blog: $187.86
Ad and review sales: $75
Affiliate commission: $112.86

Traffic and RSS

As you can see our unique visitors dropped over 4,000 this month. This is because I cut out a lot of my StumbleUpon traffic as well as a bit of the Mixx traffic in order to bring the average time on the website as well as the pages/view up. As a result there are less people per day coming to the site but the quality of the visitor is up. Our Alexa is also finally climbing back up. I hope it will break 125k by the end of this month (July). Our Technorati fell slightly for some reason but I expect to see it bounce back shortly. RSS wise there was slow positive growth that will hopefully continue throughout this month as well.

Earnings

This month the blogs earnings skyrocketed. Private ad sales stayed the same but the ral difference was the affiliate commissions. There were a few miscellaneous affiliate commissions that totalled $48 earnings for this blog. The other source was the MarketLeverage affiliate program. My affiliates made me a whopping $64.86 this month. Hopefully you guys can keep it up in July and keep earning! Next month I will hopefully build on this income and bring it up to $200 for the month.

Wrap-Up

Although the month was slightly slower than I would have liked in traffic terms, the earnings made up for it. The blog is turning a profit and that is always a good thing. Thank you to everyone for being a Moneybites reader and I will continue to enjoy hearing from you guys as I publish more content

Well this is a simple contest that I’ve cooked up for you guys. All you have to do is write a short new post about this contest, and provide at least one link back to Moneybites.com using the anchor text “how to earn online”. You must also have subscribed to the Moneybites.com RSS feed through email to qualify. One entry will be given per blog post, so if you own more than one blog, you can get more than one entry. Please note all post content must be unique.

It is that simple!

The contest will end on July 15. There will be three winners. First place will get a whopping $50 through paypal. Second will get $20 and third $5.

Winners will be chosen using a randomizer.

Best of luck to everyone and I look forward to seeing all of your posts to let more people know about Moneybites.com!

Links in the podcast:

MarketLeverage

Adwords

Iblogtoblog.com

How to pronounce Niche

Honestly, Google Analytics is king. Their service is free, easy to use, fully integrated with Adwords as well and gives such detailed analytics.

Using these free analytics can help you find which websites you need to enhance your involvement with, help define a visitor demographic (area, type of computer used, etc), and so much more.

You can also track your keywords with it to find which ones are bringing you the most benefit for SEO. This can help bring your business to the next level as if it is done properly it can allow you to have a dramatic increase in organic traffic due to finding good keywords that already bring you traffic and fully optimizing them.

If you are a webmaster who is not running an analytics program do so now. You can get Google Analytics free, find out more here.

Honestly starting something is half the battle you can put it off as long as you want but you’d be surprised how easy it is to get going once you start. I want to share with you a few tips I use for getting myself motivated and started with projects:

1. Set deadlines – setting deadlines helps keep you on track. If you feel there is some pressure to complete something, the chances of you doing it are much higher.
2. Start a small part – starting even a small part can get the wheels rolling. If you start a small part you may just keep on going until it is done, or at least you’ve got SOMETHING done.
3. Lock yourself in – Lock yourself in until it is done, don’t let yourself out, get someone to lock to door. This has to do with self discipline, if you want to get out more you have to do it and just get down to work.
4. Get a friend to help – have a friend help you start, or better yet, pester you until you do

All these strategies are solid for getting started on a project. I know not everything is fun, but if it was it wouldn’t be called work. Just get it over with and start, after you have you’ll be happy you did.

(the two circled screens gave it away, with Google your email is your password, and secondly, on the Adwords website, the copyright is just 2008 Google, not 2008 Google Adwords)

This then leads to a second screen, Source-Adwords.com/xxx-xxx (I am not including the end so no one gets caught by this for any reason). This is the first thing you should look at for phishing the domain. Adwords would not use a cheap domain name, they would just use their Google domain. This is obviously a fake, busted. It also didn’t hurt that my phishing filter popped up and warned me of it as well….. Another reason why Firefox kicks butt.

This is a strange thing for me being the first Adwords Phising email I’ve got. Have you guys ever got anything like this before?