Simon’s Notes

Ok, so there were a few obvious kinks to “Red-Dream v1.0″, as a result, I’m releasing “Red-Dream v1.1″.

Some of the updates include the ability to change the widgets that go on the bottom 3 sections. Most importantly, when you change the widgets on the sidebar, the calendar and the advertise widgets stay there. Everything else is still the same. Enjoy.

Red-Dream v1.1

Simon

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. 

Filed under: Blogging, Themes by Simon Rodrigues
4 Comments »

Hi Guys,
So I’ve finally switched over to wordpress, what a mission. Anyway I think I got it all covered, if there are any abnormalities that I may have overlooked please let me know.

In the last couple of weeks I finally got around to doing what I’ve wanted to do for a while now, design and code my own blog template and theme. I have to admit that I’ve always struggled on the visual side of things, but I’m hoping that with a little bit of practice I’ll only get better. Anyway, I’m releasing my very first wordpress theme and I’m hoping to get some constructive feedback. It’s the same theme that I’m using on ‘Simon’s Money Notes’, and I think I’ll call it ‘Red Dream’. Here’s a screenshot:

This is version 1.0, and here’s the download link:

Red-Dream - v 1.0

I’m sure there are a lot of bugs, especially since I’ve never coded anything like this before in my life, I can’t even really say that I know html (ok I kinda do now), but hopefully this is just the beginning.

Simon

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. 

Filed under: Blogging, Themes by Simon Rodrigues
5 Comments »

Hey guys, I’m back. As you all know, I’ve taken a huge step back from blogging, in fact, I haven’t been blogging at all. I didn’t stop because I stopped enjoying it, but I just didn’t have the time any more. I found myself neglecting the things that put bread on the table, and instead I was devoting too much mind space to blogging which is great fun, but not always profitable.

As much fun as blogging can be, the bottom line for me, being a business minded person, is whether or not blogging is worth my time in dollars. When I retire I’ll have plenty of time to do the things that I love, and one of those things will certainly be blogging, but until that day arrives I will have to cut out some of the fluff.

So why am I blogging again? Well, as far as I can tell there are 3 basic ways to make money online:

1. Sell content.
2. Sell advertising space.
3. Sell products or services.

Anyone can sell advertising space pretty easily by just smacking some adsense on their site or blog, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ‘make money’, not enough anyway. Selling affiliate products is the simplest way to make money from the third option. And selling reviews is the norm when you talk about selling content.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m a big fan of paid reviews. There are a number of good paid review programs that you could join, and I joined them all. Some of the programs that I recommend are PayPerPost, Smorty, Blogsvertise, and ReviewMe.

Anyway, I started noticing that I was qualifying for quite a number of paid reviews. At first I didn’t really pay much attention, but then I thought I’d give my blog a visit. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that google had finally decided to do their PR update and they had given Simon’s Money Notes a very healthy PR4.

When I first started this blog, I had a very modest goal of getting it to turn over 100 dollars a month by the end of the year, but with my new PR4 I think I could reach that target this month and the possibilities are endless. Blogging just might be worth my time again.

It’s good to be back.

Simon

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging, Personal by Simon Rodrigues
2 Comments »

For those of you that don’t know, I’m doing a little begging, you heard correctly, I’m collecting contributions for a John Review. Well I say I’m begging but I’m actually offering something in return, I’m offering a very good mini-review for any one who cheerfully chips in :)). If you want to read my previous batch of reviews check out “mini-reviews for John Chow chippers - Batch 1“.

Since doing the last batch of mini-reviews, I’ve received two more contributions from two very lovely bloggers. So without further ado please take a few minutes to check out these great blogs.

• My Blog Contest - Are you looking for a one stop competition shop? Then look no more, Simon’s blog is blog where you can find it all. Looking to win some freebies? You came to the right place. There’s some other cool stuff also like a list of SEO software that you can download, and a few suggested online money makers. Check it out.
• Buzzing with Ange - I feel that this mini-review doesn’t really do Ange justice. Not only is she my biggest contributer to date but she is also a good friend of mine. Ange is a mother of two and she lives in Australia, Ange’s blog is all about wealth creation. Who wants to be wealthy? Then check out Buzzing with Ange. With Ange you come to realize that wealth is an attitude, and once you develop that attitude, wealth is attracted to you.

Hope you enjoy reading these two great blogs and if you find them as helpful as I did, go ahead and subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you’d like to get one of my great mini-reviews to your blog, all you have to do is chip in towards my John Chow review. There is no minimum, you can contribute as MUCH as you like. It’s really quite a bargain since my full reviews will set you back 30 dollars.

See you around.

Simon

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging, Reviews by Simon Rodrigues
6 Comments »

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

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
No Comments »

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

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging, Reviews by Simon Rodrigues
2 Comments »

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

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
4 Comments »

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

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
2 Comments »

Most of you might be aware of a review that John Chow made on his blog a couple of days ago for a blog called AndrewTalk.com. If you read the review, which most of you should, you’ll know all about it. Basically John totally destroyed this guy, Andrew is obviously a new blogger and he was doing some pretty bad mistakes that maybe he wasn’t aware of. Andrew’s blog layout was pretty simple, nothing to write home about, and definitely nothing that would really grab a prospective reader. But the real issue was the fact that apparently Andrew was copying all his content verbatim without giving any credit to the authors. Now that’s a serious mistake that can land you in a lot of trouble.

The funny thing is that some of the posts were taken from John Chow himself. So to recap, Andrew starts a new blog with a very basic design, copies all his content without asking permission, and then pays 400 dollars for a review from one of the blogs that he was taking content from, a blog that happens to have a crap load of readers, JohnChow.com. He was asking for a major hiding and some huge embarrassment, and that’s exactly what he got.

When I first read the review I thought it was quite interesting. I’ve contemplated ordering a review from the Chow himself except I didn’t want a negative one, so reading this helped me get a little glimpse into the mind of a top blogger and what they look for, or more importantly don’t look for, in a blog. Then the comments started pouring in and I started feeling a little sorry for the guy, he’s obviously a brand new blogger and sometimes it can be easy to make mistakes like this. When I started out I also copied some stuff for my first blog (didn’t last long), and I didn’t really realize the consequences. It didn’t seem like he really deserved the ridicule and embarrassment that was being heaped on him.

What would you do in his situation? I asked my self this, and I came up with some suggestions. If he reads this maybe he can take a few tips. But for the rest of us, life is not perfect and sometimes things will happen that will really not be cool, so I guess we can all learn something from this.

• I would close JohnChow.com and not read any comments till I was back on track. People may laugh at you but there is no reason to dwell on that, so I would take the lesson from the review and not bother with anything else. For now!
• I would immediately delete all posts, and immediately go to work on writing some fresh ones. Doesn’t matter who you are, if you can operate a computer and you’re desperate enough, you can write 4 or 5 good posts in 1 or 2 hours.
• There’s always some good in anything that happens. Sometimes it takes a bit of training for your mind to see it, but with that kind of adrenaline pumping you won’t have a problem, if you focus, with seeing the opportunity. The way I see it, people see John give a good or mediocre review all the time but a bad review is generally quite rare, and a horrible review has only happened once or twice, I think. So suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a huge spot light, thousands of people know who you are, but more importantly thousands of people are very curious to come check you out because you’ve deviated from the norm. I would definitely not let this go to waste, and that’s why its so important to start writing fresh stuff immediately. If done properly, 400 dollars could be a bargain in this situation.
• I would use my instant popularity as some wicked leverage. There must’ve been hundreds of people that wouldn’t have minded getting on that blog to have a bit of the traffic action. Maybe holding some sort of competition where you exchange a link for a review of your blog and the winner gets some cash also. Or getting some bloggers to guest blog some posts for you. There’s so much that can be done. If Andrew had done the review exchange after making a few fresh posts, he could have easily found 50 bloggers willing to review. Almost instantly he’s got 50 reviews for 400 dollars making it 8 dollars per review. Thats not too bad
• I would not be defeated but I would be very humble. Humility can be a huge asset. I would write an email to all the bloggers that I’ve wronged, the more respected the blogger the better, explaining exactly what was going through my head and apologizing profusely, then I would tell them in detail what I planned to do with my blog in the future. If I’m lucky they might mention me on their blog getting me more exposure.
• I would look to the future and learn whatever I could get my hands on that had to do with blogging and the niche I was writing about. Andrew obviously didn’t know much about the subject that he was trying to blog about, and that was his first mistake. So I would make sure not to make that mistake twice.
• When I’m up and running and doing better, I would approach John Chow again, but this time I’m not going to pay him. I’ll invite him to come take a look at the new blog, and I would humbly ask that he make a small mention of it again. Chances are that he’ll do it, especially since he’s seen what a success you’ve already been for him from the first post.

Hopefully something like this will never happen to me, but if it ever does, I’ll come here first. Andrew is busy building up his blog again, and I truly wish the best for him. However stupid his mistakes were, I don’t think they were malicious. There is a lesson here for everybody, and that lesson is to never give up and always look for the positive, because if you do you’ll find it.

Simon

If you like this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging by Simon Rodrigues
5 Comments »

There seems to be a bit of a casual debate going on in the blogosphere about when and how a new blogger should monetize his blog. From my limited experience and perspective as a reader of many blogs, I’ll give my 2 cents.

The Debate
I don’t know if thats the correct term in this case, its a real subtle debate and no one is really lashing out at anyone. But basically most bloggers fall into one of two camps. The first camp believes that a new blogger should not monetize his/her blog until there is a steady amount of traffic flowing through, 500 hits per day seems to be the standard amount of accepted hits. The second camp doesn’t really care when you start monetizing as long as its not obnoxious and obtrusive. There’s a few little added jabs thrown in such as whether programs like adsense are viable monetization options or whether you should only go for private advertising and so on, but those are the general issues.

My Position
I can’t speak as a blogging expert since I haven’t been blogging more than 4 or so months, but I can speak as an avid reader of quite a number of blogs. Let me start by saying that I’ve had a limited amount of ads on this blog since its inception, and unless I really feel that my readers are not liking them I think I’ll keep them. The reason for that is because I’ve never bothered myself with ads on other blogs. I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with them if done correctly. I will never disregard a blog just because of a few adsense ads.

Having said that, I think my position is that its fine to monetize your blog whenever you wish as long as you don’t overdo it. There have been many instances where I have overdone it considerably, but I think I’ve hit a right balance for now. And if you don’t know what that balance is for you then maybe you shouldn’t monetize at all in the beginning.

Hiding Your Ads Can Add Instead Of Detract
I truly believe that if done correctly a few ads can add to your blog instead of detracting. There are a few things that I would suggest if you’re going to use something like adsense on your blog.

1. Don’t go for the bigger ad blocks, its better to have something smaller that won’t scare other’s away.
2. When in doubt take it out.
3. Try to make your ads blend in with the general theme of your blog. So if you have a black background with white writing, match the ad block accordingly.
4. Please avoid putting more than one ad stack on your sidebar.
5. I would recommend not putting stacks at all, I think it looks better when its in the posts. There is a lot of good articles out there explaining how you can do this.
6. Sometimes you’ll find that the ads being displayed are just from google whores. So check out what you’re promoting, but be sure not to click on the ads, just type the URL that you see, then go to your adsense account and block those URL’s. You might see an increase in your revenue and you won’t scare your readers.

Benefits of Not Monetizing
Of course there is benefits to not monetizing also. Besides the obvious benefit of not having ads, the one benefit that I can appreciate the most is that when users click on one your ads they are leaving your site, so by not displaying ads you take away that option.

In Summary
I don’t really think there is a right or wrong in this scenario. I’ve seen many blogs without ads that I enjoyed and I’ve seen many blogs with ads that I’ve enjoyed. I’ve even been know to click an ad or two.

What do you guys think? Does it really bother you when you come to a blog that has some google ads? More importantly, do you think I should take mine off? Please let me know.

Simon

If you liked this post consider subscribing to my full RSS feed.

Filed under: Blogging, Make Money Online by Simon Rodrigues
2 Comments »