Simon’s Notes

I was browsing around some business forums today and I found a very interesting thread on YoungEntrepreneur.com that asked the question “what would you do with 100 dollars and 30 days?” I love questions like this, it really gets your mind rolling. It reminds me of the 30 day challenge that recently ended, and it would be a fun personal challenge to try out for yourself.

There are quite a few replies to the thread and some of the ideas are very interesting.
Its really fun going through all these money making ideas, so for your benefit, I’ll list some of them here:

• Buy some bread and sausages and sell hot dogs.
• Buy some lawn mowers and mow some lawns.
• Washing cars.
• Do computer repairs.
• Private tutoring.
• Buy a product in bulk and sell it individually for more money.
• Design websites.
• Network marketing (I’m writing a post about this in the near future).
• Gamble (not wise).
• Buy at auctions and sell on ebay.
• Sell fruit, ice water, or juice outside of an office building.
• Startup a popular forum.
• Start selling affiliate deals on a site.
• Buy reservations at a restaurant and flip them.
• Car maintenance service.

I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for you, so I suggest you go and read the rest of the thread and maybe come up with some ideas of your own, and don’t forget to leave a comment cause I’d love to hear what you’d do.

You might be wondering what I would do with 100 dollars and 30 days. Well, one of my very first posts is about a job that I have quite a lot of experience in, and that job is being a clown. If I had 100 dollars and 30 days to make the most of it, I’d probably do what I know best, I’d invest in a costume and some modeling balloons then I’d go door to door in some fancy neighborhoods offering my services for their kids birthday parties. I know I can make a lot of money in a short period of time doing this, a few thousand bucks in 30 days is very doable.

What would you do?

Simon

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Filed under: Money Making Ideas by Simon Rodrigues
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I firmly believe in the old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. The internet is a wonderful place for expanding your network of friends. There are so many social network sites available to join and participate in, and I would suggest that you join as many as you feel comfortable with and start making some friends.

A few weeks ago I joined facebook. I haven’t been as active on facebook as I should, hence my network has only grown to about 17 friends. But recently I’ve been reading quite a lot about the benefits of facebook, and it is really starting to intrigue me. I’ve decided to give it a real shot, so I’ll be putting a bit more dedication into my facebook activities.

If you think that maybe you’d like to join my network of friends, feel free to add me as your friend, and I’ll be sure to do the same for you. I’ve also started a ‘Simon’s Money Notes’ group, so if you like this blog, don’t hesitate to check out my group and join it.

If you guys have or know of any other interesting groups, please tell me about them. Maybe I’ll join.

For your benefit, here are those links again:

• Add me as one of your friends.
• Check out the ‘Simon’s Money Notes’ group.

Have a nice one.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
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I don’t really recommend pay to click programs as a sole means of making money online, but I do agree that if you pick a few right ones it can be fun and help supplement your online income, especially if you’re able to build a bit of a downline. When I was a bit younger I got obsessed with PTC and PTR programs, I signed up for so many of them and I even paid 10 dollars for one (never pay anything unless you know they pay you), now I’m glad I did that, because I learned quite a lot, not so much which programs were good but mostly which programs to stay clear of. The programs that I’m recommending haven’t paid me yet, but that’s probably because I haven’t yet reached any of the thresholds since I really don’t spend a lot of time on them. The main reason why I’m recommending them is because of the usability and manageability. Anyway, here they are:

• Adbux.org - The thing that I like the most about adbux is the simplicity. Adbux is a very manageable program, all you do is log on to your account once in a while and click on some ads. They will pay you up to 1.5 cents per ad that you click on, and up to 150% of your referrals direct click earnings. You can also earn commissions every time one of your referrals purchases one of their services. I have found this program the easiest to promote, and I would recommend it over AGLOCO. If you have a blog, you could find your downline growing quite fast. I have never posted about adbux on this blog, the only advertising I have is a link on the sidebar and yet my downline has grown, in couple of months, to 13. The payout is also a very manageable 10 dollars. This comes highly recommended by me.
• Bux.to - Bux.to is very similar to adbux, in fact, it would be their direct competitors in my opinion. I did a review of bux.to in one of my earlier posts, and I got a few comments going back and forth between adbux and bux.to followers, some of which I deleted due to spam, so you can see that there is no love lost between these 2 programs (I even got an email from adbux warning me of bux.to, lol). But the important thing for me is that bux.to is also a very enjoyable program to work with, and a lot of users say that they pay. The system is a little diferent to adbux, bux.to pays 1 cent per ad click and 1 cent per ad that your referrals click. Simple, huh? The payout is also 10 dollars. I haven’t been as successful with referrals on bux.to as I have been with adbux.
• AGLOCO - I’m not going to say much here, you can read my AGLOCO update, and my other AGLOCO update to get my general sentiments on this program. I still think that if they get their act together they could be promising, maybe it’s just because I’m not a quitter.
• Clixsense - Clixsense is another program similar to adbux, and bux.to. On the downside, they don’t give you as many ads per day to click on, but it is also quite a manageable program. All ads pay you 1 cent, and you get 10% of your referrals commission and 50% of any services your referrals purchase. Payout is 10 dollars.
• Hits4Pay - I haven’t had much success with these guys. Hits4Pay pays you 2 cents every time you check out one of their advertisers websites, the main problem is that they never have any sites for you to check out. On the upside, they give you a 10 dollar bonus for signing up, but in the few months since I’ve joined them I’ve managed to accumulate an extra 36 cents, that’s pathetic in my opinion.
• Take the Internet Back - If you checked out AGLOCO and were intrigued by the concept, but disappointed at the outcome, you might want to check this program out. Take the Internet Back promises pretty much the same thing as AGLOCO, except that instead of using a surf bar, you read emails. It’s actually quite interesting, 90% of the company’s profit will go to the users, of which 45% will be cash and the other 45% will be used to reinvest in the company. It’s all completely free, and they give you 10 dollars for signing up, but they won’t pay you unless you have to active referrals under you. This one is definitely worth checking out.

There you have it. It wouldn’t hurt to try some of these programs out, especially since they are all completely free to join. If you would like a program to help you organize your PTR and PTC programs, and help with building your downline you might want to check out the marketing pond.

Simon

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Filed under: Make Money Online by Simon Rodrigues
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Why do some people succeed and others don’t? I’ll tell you why, because they don’t quit. But why do some people quit and others don’t? That is the question you should be asking. If you can figure out why some people stick it out through thick and thin, and why others run at the first sign of opposition, you will have figured out the key ingredient to success.

I’m still quite a young guy, so I can’t speak from a position of experience especially since I haven’t yet achieved some of the things that I want to achieve in life. But I can tell you one thing from the bottom of my heart, I will not quit, and because I will not quit, I will succeed. So what drives me forward even when the going is so tough that I just want to lay down and never get back up? The same thing that drives anyone who has ever succeeded, a dream! It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

The funny thing about dreams is that it can work two ways. When we sleep we have dreams, but sometimes we also have nightmares. The dream doesn’t always have to be a dream to drive you forward, a nightmare works just as well. Lucky for me, I have a combination of the 2, I know what I want out of life, but more importantly, I know what I don’t want.

Forget about planning and goals for a second, sit down and ask yourself WHY you’re doing what you’re doing. And like everything else, don’t forget to write down your reason, because you have to be able to visualize it. Some people are very quick to complain, but when you ask them what they want they have no idea. Know what you want, then make a plan to get it.

The next time you’re tempted to give up, look at your dream. And lastly remember that most successful businessmen have lost 3 business’s before succeeding, if they didn’t have a massive dream they would be nowhere.

Keep dreaming.

Simon

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Filed under: Motivational by Simon Rodrigues
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I’ve been a little obsessed recently with SEO, so you can imagine how excited I was when I came across a contest being held by Dev Basu at DailyMoolah.com where I have a chance to win a free SEO book by Aaron Wall.

For those of you that don’t know what the SEO book is, where have you been? The SEO book is the authority when it comes to search engine optimization. Aaron Wall is a well-known expert in the field of SEO, and the SEO book has been used and is highly recommended by some of the internet’s top webmasters.

If you want some kind of success for your new blog but don’t to fork out a whole lot of cash, I suggest you check out DailyMoolah.com’s competition now. It quite easy to enter, all you have to do is digg the contest post, stumble it, subscribe to the RSS feed, mention the contest on your blog, or do a review of DailyMoolah.com.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so go check it out.

Simon

P.S. In case you don’t win, you can purchase the 300+ page book for only 79 dollars here.

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Filed under: Competitions, Reviews by Simon Rodrigues
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If you take a look at my sidebar you might notice a little widget asking anyone to chip in for a John Chow review of this blog. Read my post ‘chip is for a John Chow review‘ if you want some more details.

Of course I’m not in the business of begging (hehe), so I’m willing to give something back in exchange for your contributions, however meager. I’m offering to do a mini-review of the blog of anyone that makes a contribution. If you think that I’m selling reviews on this blog for 30 dollars, getting a mini-review for whatever price you dictate is not such a bad deal.

So hurry up and chip in, this deal ends on the 21st of September. While you’re thinking about it, take a few minutes to read these mini-reviews of the 2 first contributers, Adam Sutcliffe, and StockTagger.com.

• The 30 Day Man - For those of you that haven’t heard of the 30 day challenge, go check it out now. Adam is one of the many internet marketers and potential internet marketers that are taking part in the challenge. The challenge is to make 10 dollars from a brand new blog in one month. Adam started his blog as a bit of a personal challenge to lose some weight in 30 days, but it seems that he’s left that train of thought and is concentrating purely on internet marketing. Adam’s blog is quite interesting with a lot of very useful posts, layout could use some work, but I’m sure he’s got plenty of time for that. Go check it out.
• StockTagger.com - For those of us interested in investing, this is one of those blogs worth checking out. StockTagger is an extensive database of Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money” stock picks to monitor past performance and to examine what details might lead to future gains. The blog has a nice layout and the posts are concise and to the point. One suggestion that I would make would be to make StockTagger a little more personal, and maybe put a name and a face behind the blog, because as it stands, I have no idea who the author is. Definitely worth a visit, and maybe even a subscription to the RSS feed.

So there you have it. As you can see the mini-reviews are not so mini, so don’t waste any more time and make a small contribution to have your blog mentioned on Simon’s Money Notes.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, Reviews by Simon Rodrigues
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Who wants a free banner ad for one day on John Chow dot Com? Me, me, pick me. I certainly do, and if you’re like me you’ll want to head on down to eMonetized where Tim Schroeder is giving 4 people the chance to have their very own 125 x 125 banner ad on John Chow’s blog absolutely free. If you doubt me, go on over there and read about the ‘John Chow banner ad contest‘.

That was short, and I like to give you guys value for… I’d like to say money, but I’d never do that to you. Anyway, I’ll just do a short review of eMonetized since it really is a good blog for you guys to check out.

According to Tim’s about page, Tim Schroeder is one of those internet marketers making a 6 figure income that nobody hears about. Tim is the proud owner of Webmaster-Talk.com, but a good percentage of his income also comes from affiliate marketing.

eMonetized is a blog where you can go to learn from a master with over 4 years experience. Some of the topics being covered include affiliate marketing, adsense, adwords, blogging, and internet marketing.

This is one that I will hang around, I’ve already subscribed to the RSS feed, and I’m hoping to learn a lot here. If you’re like me and love learning, then go over there and check it out. Take part in the John Chow competition and who knows, you might get lucky.

Simon

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Filed under: Competitions, Make Money Online, Reviews by Simon Rodrigues
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Recently I’ve taken an active interest in SEO. Even though I’m still fairly new to the ins and outs of search engine optimization, I’ve come to realize that its pointless pursuing any sort of online business venture without some knowledge of SEO. Keeyit left a comment on my previous post entitled ‘Picking a Good Key Phrase is not Enough‘, where she asks about keywords and tags in post’s, and this post is my answer.

When you start your blog or site, there will come a time when you’ll want to get your name out there and make yourself known. There are a few options that you can pursue without spending any money, and some of those option include:

• Exchanging links with other bloggers in your niche.
• Exchanging reviews with other bloggers in your niche.
• Becoming active in your social networks of choice (mybloglog, spicypage, stumbleupon, etc).
• Leaving a lot of useful comments on established blogs.
• Checking out some traffic exchange programs (blogmad is my favorite).
• And guest blogging.

But if you’re like me and you’ve decided to shy away from SEO, don’t get too comfortable, because if you’re really serious about blogging you’ll have to learn about it at some point. What better time to start then right now.

SEO is the art of attracting search engine traffic. There are a host of established search engines out there, and a whole lot more little ones. Each search engine has a different or varied set of rules that need to be applied for optimization, but since google is the master I’ll major on that. The reason why SEO is so important is because its the only real natural traffic that you’ll get, all the other forms of traffic generation are a bit like forced traffic, if you stop putting in the effort, you stop getting the traffic, but with SEO the traffic comes naturally without much effort on your part.

Right so what do you need? A lot more than this post can explain, but I’ll give it a bash.

• Do your keyword research before starting your blog. There are some great tools out there for keyword research such as wordtracker, seobook’s free tool, and google trends. If you want to learn more about how to use these tools I suggest you check out the 30 day challenge. Pick 3 to 5 key phrases that you want to optimize for.
• Starting small is sometimes the better option, so if you’re new don’t go for phrases like ‘make money online’, pick key phrases that get less searches but also have much less competition.
• Choose a blog title and description that uses your key phrase. For example, if your key phrase is ‘beer belly’ then your blog title might be ‘beer belly challenge’, and your description would obviously include the key phrase as well.
• I’ve heard that meta tags are out, but I don’t see the harm in using them just in case. If you want a proper explanation of meta tags check out ‘how to use html meta tags‘.
• Use your key phrase as much as possible in your content. Don’t go overboard, but if you can get away with using your keyword or phrase without sounding too desperate, then go for it.
• Try to get as many incoming links as possible with your key phrase as the anchor text. So if your key phrase is ‘beer belly’, then every incoming link using ‘beer belly’ as the text is good.
• Whenever possible, link to old posts.

If you put a little effort and concentrate on some of these things you should see results fairly soon. But remember, I’m not an expert so don’t hesitate to keep on learning, one resource that is often recommended is the ‘Seo Book’ by Aaron Wall, which comes with free lifetime updates. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Have fun.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
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When I first started this blog, SEO was the last thing on my mind, in fact, I had no idea what SEO was (for those of you that still don’t know, SEO stands for search engine optimization). My focus was purely on writing and collecting links. In the short time that I’ve been blogging, I’ve learned so much and there is already a whole list of things that I would do differently if I started again.

Recently I’ve come to realize that SEO is critical if I want to build any sort of online empire, so I’ve started learning. From my limited knowledge, the way to go about it is to start in the beginning. Pick your niche then look for keywords and key phrases to focus on. All of this should be done before you actually start your blog, but because I had already started my blog, I decided to see if I had gotten lucky and maybe there was a keyword or phrase that I was doing ok for and that I could build on.

There are many sites out there that allow you to track your blogs stats, personally I use statcounter.com, and mybloglog.com. By simply checking where visitors to my blog were coming from, I was able to figure out that the only times they came from a search engine were for the phrases

• ‘bux.to’
• and ‘money note’ or ‘money notes’

There were some other phrases but nothing worth mentioning. On google I rank quite high for ‘bux.to’, if you do a google search you’ll see that I come third. And for the phrase ‘money note’ I’m also third place, I think that’s pretty good. When doing a bit of research, using wordtracker and google trends, I found out that the phrase ‘money note’ gets searched about 500 times per day. Coming in at third place and having my phrase searched 500 times per day should bring me some traffic, but the fact is that I get more traffic from the keyword ‘bux.to’ and it doesn’t get searched nearly as many times as ‘money note’.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I get so few hits from google, and I think I have an idea. I have a key phrase and it looks pretty good, but my problem is that anybody who does a search for ‘money note’ is not looking for a blog about business and finances, my guess is that they are looking for something to do with actual money notes. And since my blog description says that this site is about business and finances they skip it.

So if you’re reading this and thinking about starting a blog make sure that you do your research and cater your blog to the key phrases that you want to optimize for, or optimize key phrases that are relevant to your blog. It’ll be worth the extra effort.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
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What’s the first thing that you should do when you start a new venture? Set a goal. Without a goal your endeavors will be in vain. But it’s not enough to simply have a goal, now you need to achieve it. Sometimes our goals can seem a little unachievable, and that’s a good thing, I’ve always been a firm believer in shooting for the stars, chances are that you’ll hit the ceiling. But if do hit the stars, boy is it worth it.

There is quite a bit that can be learned from the life of a gold medalist in the Olympics. When he’s just born there is no way that he is going to win the gold, but he sets a goal to hold his head up, which he knows can be achieved. After that crawling becomes his focus and that to is conquered. Maybe he wants to stand, and eventually walk. Now, of course, he sets a goal to start running. Beating all the neighbor kids in races is a must, and eventually he’s training for the school championship. He’s constantly setting a goal to beat his previous best time, and for his persistence and efforts, he goes on to win it. He gets selected for the Olympic team, and although his dream is to win the gold, his goal is to continue beating his previous best time. We all know how it ends.

The moral of the story is that you climb mount Everest one small step at a time. Have a dream but set small, achievable goals and you’ll see that those stars can be reached.

You should always have a dream, because that is what will ultimately drive you to success. Then set some goals, but divide them up into

• Long term
• Medium term
• And short term

Personally, I think your long term goals should be what you feel can be accomplished in 5 years. Your medium term goals should fall under 1 year. And I don’t think you should make short term goals that can’t be reached within the month. If you do this you won’t feel like you’re always trying to reach something that can never be reached.

If my dream is to have the best blog on the planet, I don’t make that my goal, my goal is to write good content. If I want to have 10,000 feed subscribers, I don’t make that goal, my goal is to break 50. Or maybe I want to make 20,000 dollars per month online, but that’s not my goal, my goal is to make 50 dollars per month.

Do you get my point? Small goals fulfill big dreams, so keep setting goals, and don’t stop dreaming.

Simon

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Filed under: Money and Finances by Simon Rodrigues
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