Internet Business Blog

Over on the right-hand column, you might notice I’ve rearranged some of the content boxes and added a new one called, Share the Love.

This new content box allows you to buy links on this very blog for just $5! That’s $5 for traffic, link popularity, link juice, link love, whatever you want to call it.

Only a maximum number of 10 links will be shown at any one time so when link number 11 comes in, link 1 will be bumped off the list (FIFO).

Thanks to Gary for supplying the EZ Linkz script.

Over the summer, I listened to the audio book version of Robert T. Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and I experienced what could be described as a financial awakening. Apart from being a very enjoyable listen, the book offered some valuable lessons about how the rich get rich(er) and why the poor stay poor.

The key concept taught by the book is that of financial aptitude; knowing how to make your money work for you. It explained how the rich invest their money in income generating assets instead of the liabilities that poor people spend their money on. When asset buying is done well, it leads to more income without having to invest more time. That extra income can then be reinvested and the money making cycle not only continues, but grows.

For most people, their only source of significant income is through their jobs working for somebody else. Whilst there are those in jobs that pay well, the way in which they make extra money is to invest more of their time into their jobs. On the surface, this seems like a fair deal, but it’s hardly scalable and the extra income generated stops as soon as the overtime stops.

If you could get paid continuously for the time you invest, why would you instead choose to only get paid once for it?

I already appreciated that getting paid once for my time is unlikely to make me rich and that the smarter way to do things was to have automated income streams that aren’t directly proportional to the amount of time I spent on them. This was crucial because my time was one factor that will always be limited so I had to make use of someone or something else’s time in order to be where I wanted to be financially.

This is why, I’ve been working on reducing the amount of time I spend on single-pay work and instead reinvesting that time on developing assets that will generate income continuously. Gary of OSWorld has a large spread of 250 products that generate his income. In my opinion, he’s a good example of someone who has lots of individual income generating assets and has been able to escape the rat race because of them.

Back in September, the Northern Rock bank hit the headlines for the wrong reasons and their stock value plunged. I watched with interest as their share value bounced from the roller coaster ride it was on and I remembered that investing in the stock market was one of the ways of making money work for you suggested by Rich Dad. It was then I decided to take a closer at investing on the stock markets as a means of making my money work for me.

After speaking with a friend about my new found interest in the stock markets, he explained how his dad had tens of thousands of pounds invested in a variety of assets and was living a very enjoyable life in retirement. I always wondered how his parents were able to afford what seemed to be dozens of holidays throughout the year only to discover that my friend had a “rich dad”!

Within the space of the following few weeks, I researched and invested in a variety of different financial vehicles, moving as much money I could from bank accounts that offered a relatively low return.

Here’s a summary of my investments so far:

• Mini cash ISA offering a safe 6.3% return over the short term.
• FTSE 100 index tracking fund which could return a higher percentage over a longer term, but with greater risk. In order to minimise the tax I’ll have to pay on any income generated, I’ve wrapped it in a mini stock ISA.
• Shares in a number of FTSE 100 companies. Although these are large blue chip businesses, they’re still a risky investment as has been demonstrated recently with the likes of Northern Rock.
• Shares in a FTSE SmallCap company I consider to have great growth potential. Another risky investment, but with the potential to offer massive gains.

All of the above was set-up online and now only require minimal input from me as all I need to do is monitor their progress.

It’s still very early days for my stock portfolio, but in my mind, the financial switch has been well and truly flicked. Now, every significant purchase I make is categorised as being either an income generating asset or a liability. Doing this has already helped to reduce my outgoings significantly.

Interestingly, Rich Dad, Poor Dad categorises a house as a liability whereas everyone I’ve asked considered their homes to be assets. What do you think?

Are you still serving up the same drab sales pages? Want to spice them up with some eye-catching graphics?

I recently came across a fantastic collection of website graphics specifically designed for sales pages. I liked them so much that I bought resell rights to them!

You can get the Marketing Graphics Pro package for just $25. Over 2,000 individual graphics for use on any of your own websites.

cehe@internetmarketingfool.com

Adblock Plus is currently the one of a number of Firefox add-on recommended by mozilla.org and it’s not difficult to see why. As well as being faced with potentially thousands of advertisements in their daily lives, website visitors also face an increasing amount of distraction from core content as more websites become monetised.

Using some form of ad blocking software can make for a more pleasant browsing experience, but there are those who take issue with having the ads on their websites being blocked whilst their content is freely consumed. Whilst I’ve participated in discussions about visitors viewing ads as recompense for the webmaster’s efforts, I hadn’t seen anyone actually take action to discourage it until now.

Danny Carlton has taken a very active stance against ads on his websites being blocked by users of the Adblock Plus plugin. In fact, Danny has taken it even further than just blocking these users and blocked all Firefox users completely from his websites.

If you’re an Adblock Plus user, how would you feel about being blocked from a website that opposed your blocking of their ads?

Try www.articlewagon.com in your Adblocking Firefox browser and you’ll be presented with the following instead of the regular website content.

This page cannot be displayed because ad blocking software has been detected.

I can appreciate the argument against ad blockers, but I also appreciate how much they can improve user experience. I’ll admit that I use the Adblock Plus Firefox add-on. Not only do I find it improves my general browsing experience by removing the more annoying ads, but it also prevents me from accidentally clicking on my own ads. There are even a few websites for which if it wasn’t for Adblock Plus I wouldn’t be able to bear them at all.

As an ad publisher, does it bother me that people might be evading ads shown on my websites? No, because I don’t rely on ads being seen in any way. I am a Google AdSense publisher, but I’m not dependent upon the income it brings in.

Let’s not forget that there are other forms of advertising that aren’t as intrusive, aren’t as easily blocked and aren’t rendered useless if they were to be blocked. Take Text Link Ads for example, the ‘ads’ are simply text-based links with no reference made to any central website (such as the TLA website itself) so they can’t be blocked by looking for a common denominator unless all links are blocked. Even if they were able to be blocked, they would still be visible to search engine spiders and still provide value to the advertisers in the form of link popularity.

Since the AdBlock detection process relies on JavaScript, simply disabling JavaScript using the Web Developer add-on for Firefox renders the blocking harmless and allows the visitor to view any pages that use such countermeasures.

So is ad blocking akin to stealing? Are people whose browsers are unable to render adverts (e.g. they use a screen reader because they’re disabled in some way) thieves because they consume content without ads?

I understand the concept of going into a shop and paying for goods, but if a website doesn’t make it clear that the non-blocking of ads is a requirement for usage then what’s a visitor to do? If visitors aren’t first made to agree to view ads as compensation for content consumption, are they really stealing when they don’t?

Personally, I think that preventing people who use adblocking software from visiting a website is short-sighted. Webmasters should be looking to diversify their website monetisation methods so that they withstand the shortcomings of each individual method and bolster each other.

Do you use an ad blocker? How do you feel about stealing from people? If you’re an advertiser or an ad publisher, how do you feel about people deliberately blocking your ads?

Technorati Tags: Danny Carlton, Adblock Plus, Google AdSense, personal crusade

Freelancing can be a great way for developers to earn a full-time income or just earn some extra pocket money to supplement their jobs. There are a number of established websites where everyday, people offer opportunities for the right candidate.

My experience as one of those people looking for the right candidate often meets with frustration as bidders fail to impress upon me that they’re the right person for the job.

Here are some of the things that turn me off a potential bid:

• The bidder offers a generic response to the project e.g. “Can do this!” or “We’re ready to start this” or “We are XYZ. We’ve done this, that and the other”. What are you ready to start? Don’t try to over-impress me with your past accomplishments; tell me what you can do for me and my project.
• The bid is at the top-end of the scale without any justification as to why. It’s difficult to choose such a bid especially if it’s made by a freelancer with no previous feedback. I want someone who knows how to get the job done. Engaging someone with a lack of experience just adds to the amout of work I have to do.
• Placing a bid, but then failing to respond to follow-up questions. Why show interest and then ignore me?
• The bidding period isn’t over, but the freelancer will continue to hound me to pick them. I have all I need from you for now. Give me time to make my decision.

Here are some of the things that sway me in the direction of choosing a particular bid:

• The freelancer has a history of good feedback on similar projects. This shows me that they’ve experience in the field that I’m interested in and have demonstrated they can work with project managers.
• The freelancer demonstrates that they’ve taken the time to understand the project requirements and offer some suggestions for improvements or points out things to watch out for. This is going the extra mile to show that you’re really interested in my project.
• A demonstration is provided before the end of the bidding period. If a freelancer can show that they’ve got what I want then it makes it very easy for me to pick them as the winning bidder.

It’s hard to escape from the relationship factor when it comes to business. Establishing a good working, business relationship can be very similar to any other relationship.

Frankly, if freelancers treated the bidding process more as a date then they’d probably be a lot more successful at winning the projects they wanted.

Technorati Tags: Freelance, Scriptlance, Elance, Rentacoder