Making Money Online
October 11th, 2009
I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time, but I keep putting it off, why would I write something so obvious? However, I’ve seen so many people ignore this point, so here goes…
Forget everything you’ve read about making money online and remember this, there are only 2 ways of making money online: Sell something; or help someone sell something!
There! Obvious isn’t it. But I think people get caught up in page-views, visitors, RSS subscribers, Twitter followers and everything else that they forget the fundamental things. You’re in business to make money, to make money you have sell something to someone.
If you’re not selling something directly you’ll be helping someone else to sell something, either thru some form of advertising or affiliate marketing.
As someone running their business in their spare time, it is even more important to remember the fundamentals. You often don’t have the luxury of figuring out how you’ll make money after you have lots of visitors, because you probably won’t be around if you don’t figure out how to make money NOW.
If you don’t plan on selling something directly on your website, think carefully about the types of visitors you’ll be getting and start making relationships with people that want to reach that type of person.
From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.
September 21st, 2009
TechCrunch recently published a post by Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg.
The post provides some great advice on starting a starting a new company, which basically boils down to do it … before someone else beats you too it.
Whilst the article makes some great points, I have to keep reminding myself we’re not all in the same position as the author. Just like every great golfer has their own unique swing, as entrepreneurs we have to evaluate our own situation, what worked for someone else might not work for you. Some of the authors points are very much aimed at the consumer space, and just won’t fly in the business arena, where you only get one chance to impress.
19 Free Web Services That Keep Saving You Money
September 7th, 2009
When you’re bootstrapping every penny counts, and making use of the services listed in this article from PC World will save you money for sure. They are services that anyone starting a new business will need to use, and would normally have to pay for.
From telephone conference services, and free long distance calls to sending and receiving faxes, you’ll save money by making user of these services.
Article: pcworld.com/article/171435/free_services_that_keep_saving_money.html
Most Inspired Google Slap Over
September 7th, 2009
For a few months now the Page Rank on Most Inspired has sat at a 3, where it had been at 5 for a long time before that.
I’m not exactly sure why it had been demoted to a 3, but that is the black hole that is Google. People can pretend to know why things have happened, but unless you’re on the inside, you really just guessing.
I decided last week to try and do something about it!
I’ve been a member of the Google webmasters program from about when it started, and made sure to add Most Inspired right from the beginning.
I hadn’t logged in a while since I’d already verified my sites, and added the sitemaps. When I logged in I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before.
Most Inspired was still being index by Google, and provides a stream of steady visitors, but clicked the link anyway. On the detailed page I found the relevant bit:
If your site isn’t appearing in Google search results, or it’s performing more poorly than it once did (and you believe that it does not violate our webmaster guidelines), you can ask Google to reconsider your site.
I followed the link and made sure Most Inspired wasn’t violating any of the guidelines, which I don’t believe it ever was, and them submitted my reconsideration request. You can only do this if you’ve added and verified ownership of the website in your Google Webmasters account.
The help page states that reconsideration can take many weeks, but on Friday I noticed that my PR was now up at 6! Wow! I have heard nothing from Google, but the volume of requests they get, probably means replying to everyone is unlikely.
Since I never heard back from Google its hard to exactly why Most Inspired was slapped in the first place. They only thing I can think of is that I used to use Text-Link-Ads on the website (which I’ve since removed), there was some rumors that this would cause problems, but I don’t know for sure.
It’s hard to tell what affect this is having on my search engine traffic, since this is a holiday weekend in the US and traffic is usually lower, but it makes me feel better.
Stop Password Masking?
July 4th, 2009
Jakob Nielsen recently posted on his dislike for password masking. While I can see his side of the argument, I have to disagree.
The post itself acknowledges that are certain instances where you need the higher level of security afforded by password masking, such as when you are using a shared computer (eg, at an internet cafe), and certain functions high risk applications (eg, banking). I would argue that this need goes even further.
Read the rest of this entry »
Where we stand…
January 18th, 2009
If there was any doubt in peoples minds about how bad things are in the economy, all you need to do is watch the latest batch of advertising coming out of Madison Avenue.
Launch: Most Cheated
January 13th, 2009
Cheat sheets are a very convenient way of remembering syntax or shortcuts for your favorite language, framework or application.
Your favorite web design or development blog will have no doubt posted a list cheat sheets for you to use, Most Cheated takes this one step further providing a database of links to cheat sheets.
The cheat sheets are collected into 5 main categories: Design, Development, Server Software, Application and other, with tagging for further classification. The format of the cheat sheet is also noted.
The Problem With: Twitter
October 16th, 2008
Twitter’s technical woes have been well documented. Although the seem to have gotten a handle on the issues, with little downtime lately, they have done so at the expense of certain resource intensive features.
There has been much speculation as to the cause of Twitters problems, was Ruby on Rails to blame, or was it just a poorly architected system that would have had problems regardless of how it was implemented?
I don’t think Ruby on Rails was the cause of Twitters problems, any services that grows as fast as Twitter did is bound to have problems. I don’t think Ruby on Rails help either though. Twitter reached Ruby on Rails related performance limits, which are generally lower than with other development platforms, and instead of having the time to rebuild and re-architect their core system they ended up having to focus on short term.
The real problem behind Twitters problem though can be traced back to intended usage. Originally built as part of the Odeo site, a way for members to send updates to each other. Since becoming an independent service, Twitter has morphed into a general purpose messaging platform, where people follow and update thousands of connections. The top twitters users currently have nearly 100K followers, with them most active users have sent over 500K updates. Well beyond the scope of its intended usage.
Even from a user interface viewpoint the was not designed for this, the sidebar of a users homepage at one time listed all the people following you, this has since been changed to show just 36 friends, but demonstrates ways that Twitter has had to change itself as it has grown.
Given the traction that Twitter has, with a very loyal user base, that refused to abandon it during the technical issues it had, Twitter is not going anywhere, and as it rebuilds itself to match how people are using it, I expect Twitter to continue to be a huge success … as long as it can find a way to monetize its users.
Depending on how they do this, it might turn its loyal user base against them.
Do I need a .com
October 6th, 2008
Must a website for your business be a .com, or can a .net, .org or one of the other tlds be sufficient?
When you are starting out, the majority visitor will come to your site either via a search engine or a link from another website, and once they know your site will probably use a bookmark in their browser rather than typing in the name in the browsers address bar. So your .com, .org, .net will have little impact on your traffic.
Once your business becomes a huge success you may start advertising more on radio, television and in print. The .com issue may now become relevant, as a matter of branding and the level of type in traffic grows.