Cheap Blog Hosting for multiple blogs

I'm expanding my repertoire of blogs. I'll post the links here as soon as they're ready, but I wanted to share two ideas for extremely cheap blog hosting when you use multiple blogs.

Here's what you need... a GoDaddy account and a Google account

The first form of cheap blog hosting is through Blogger, owned by Google. It's actually free, and you can use your own domain if you wish. Your only expense will be about $10 a year for your domain name. I used to find it far preferable to use a hosted domain, even with blogger. I would purchase through GoDaddy the statistics package, cheap monthly hosting, and get a discount on the first year for the domain. But now with Google analytics you no longer need the statistics package, and the newest version of blogger works better when hosted remotely.

The second form of cheap blog hosting comes from GoDaddy. Don't buy their economy hosting unless you only have one blog. Economy hosting only works with one domain. It's less than $5 a month, or with discounts about $58 a year including your domain. This may not seem like much but what if your hosting 100 blogs? Not only are you going to be paying $5,800 per year, but you're also going to have to take the time to analyze each blog and make sure it is earning at least $58.

Instead, look at one of the deluxe plans on GoDaddy. The benefit here is that you are purchasing space rather than hosting for one website. These deluxe plans are far more inexpensive ways to host your blogs.

I actually recommend purchasing two plans if you carry many blogs. Some of your blogs won't be worth your time to constantly update, but will get some traffic from search engines. Put all of the blogs that are getting updated into one account, that way you always have a good idea of how much bandwidth and space you're using. Put your regular blogs into the other account.

Their midrange blog hosting accounts are less than $80 annually, but you'll save money even if you only have two blogs.

Another advantage to GoDaddy hosting is that you can install WordPress automatically. Some people, with good reason, prefer WordPress. While not as inexpensive as blogger, it is cheap WordPress hosting.

You can still use Google analytics to check statistics, so you don't need to purchase the statistics package through GoDaddy.

Ultimately, your goal is to make your blogging highly profitable, then getting your Web hosting for free or on the cheap is not necessary, but if you're hosting many blogs the savings are large enough to really matter.

Google AdSense Pays Off

The gods of Google have bestowed upon me a new check for $113.13. The checks are comming more frequently from my pay-per-click ads published on this site. Officially, I'm not allowed to encourage readers to click the ads when they visit, but I can say a big thank you to those of you who did.

This website has a very good click through rate, because the ads are well tailored to the content. Staying niched will help increase your click through rate because the ads will remain focused on your current content.

Many bloggers make the mistake of talking about thier daily lives and straying off topic frequently. When you do this realize that you will need to get far more visitors for the same revenue.

Additionally, many of your topics won't have high rates of pay for each click. Certain subjects have lots of competition for keyword bidding. Because of this, the amount paid per click can be very high, some over $1.00 per click. Other subjects will pay little or nothing for a click.

I don't encourage people to specifically write for the highest bidded keywords, because so many other bloggers do the same thing. They end up diluting the keywords by creating more and more sites focused on high profile keywords.

Write what you like, and find an audience for what you write. The secret to making money with Google is to produce lots of unique content, then generate as much quality traffic as possible.

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know

One of my Facebook/twitter friends wrote this. It has a great list of about 30 applications and tips to help you get the most from your Facebook account. Some of them are just social networking playthings, but some of them are really valuable for online marketing.

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know

I'm sure you'll find it as valuable as I did.

Business Ethics As Taught by a Seven-Year-Old

I have seven-year-old twins as many of you know. While I have tried to bestow upon them the wisdom passed down by my parents to me, I know now that they are as much teachers as students. Here are some of the lessons I've learned from my kids, and how they apply to business.

Sales -- If you don't think you're going to get a "yes", find someone new to ask. Kids quickly learn which parent says "yes" to which questions. My wife lets the kids eat in the living room in front of the television. I let the kids have an impromptu lemonade stand. My wife lets them go swimming in their underwear. I've purchased kittens, hermit crabs, and about a hundred goldfish on a whim.

Great salespeople find the people capable of saying "yes". Great salespeopledon't write off an organization if one person says no, they just hunt for
someone new.

Public Relations -- We have a rule in our house. If one of the children does something that hurts the other, that child gets to choose the punishment. It can be as severe or mild as they choose. Pulling hair could get you five minutes in the corner, or six months in your bedroom.

Surprisingly, as angry as they get, there are far more lenient on each other than we are. You see, they know that someday the shoe will be on the other foot. Someday the judge will become the convict. They've created a balance of justice where we seldom have to discipline them for crimes against each other.

Too often we see businesses attack their competition in one form or another. Ultimately you garner more respect out of leniency and mercy than you ever will out of punishing them when you have the opportunity. Your audience will view you
favorably if you build up your competition, then calmly explain why you think
your company is better.

Establishing Value -- My children each have the opportunity to earn five dollars per week. They have a handful of daily and weekly chores. Recently they've been more helpful around the house as they grow and their abilities improve. My son said to me the other day when I asked him to help out, "I'm going to help you, Papa, but you realize this isn't part of my allowance."

It's great to go the extra mile for your customers. But when you do make sure
they understand the value of your time. We encourage our clients to exceed
customer expectation whenever possible. At the same time we know giving
something away for free often creates the perception of worthlessness for that
service. Be subtle, but remind your customers that everything you do has value.
This will prevent you from being taken for granted, plus improve the perception
of value in the minds of your customers.

Be Imaginative -- A few days ago my son was playing with a variety of action figures. I asked him what he was playing. He looked at me perfectly straight face and said "Army Pirates Robots Aliens and Ninjas".

I said "Well, where does the dinosaur fit?"

"That's not a dinosaur, it's a pirate." Upon closer examination, Tyrannosaurus Rex clearly had an eye patch drawn with black Sharpie.

There are rules to business. There are standards. There are operating
procedures. Don't be afraid however to be imaginative. Do things differently
than you have in the past. Do things differently than your competitors. Keep
your eyes open for new opportunities. And when all else fails, draw an eye patch
with black Sharpie.

There are business lessons everywhere. You can learn them from seven-year-olds and 77-year-olds. Pay attention to the world around you and constantly think about what it's trying to teach you.

If you'd like to share a business lesson you've learned in an unexpected place, put your comments below or send me an e-mail.

Make Money Selling Digital Photos

I'm an amateur photographer. Since my college days of black-and-white film, through my first 0.3 megapixel digital camera, and now with a 10 megapixel camera that can sit in my shirt pocket, I love taking pictures.

I have thought for years about selling photos as stock photography, and now it's easier than ever. One of the best websites istockphoto.com where you can upload your digital photography and Web designers, bloggers, etc. can purchase the rights to use it.

Unfortunately uploading my photos to just one website didn't make me very much money. I bought this e-book, Make Money Online with Your Digital Camera I found at ClickBank and so far it's been impressed. It talks about the kinds of photos that sell well and gives you quite a few resources to sell them online. I'm anxious to add this to the Jason's Million arsenal.

The only thing holding me back now is that my digital camera is physically getting more and more difficult for me to use. I hope some of you will be able to make more money than I will. The process is so simple, snap a photo, crop it to make it better, upload it and wait for it to sell. Most of your photos won't sell, at least not very well, but the great part is that the more you publish the more likely you are to generate substantial income. Even if only one out of 100 photos become bestsellers, you make some cash.

Anyhow, pick up the e-book, and start clicking that shutter.

Upgrade your non-sales Web pages

from guest blogger, Mike Schatzki

Free stuff can help you sell product on you Web site, but there is a catch. The free stuff has to be really, really good. I learned just how important this is by accident. In my programs, I include a short segment on how to negotiate when buying a new car. People would forget key points and I got a lot of phone calls of the “tell me again what you said about...” variety. On my Web site, I included a page with the basic information so people could go there rather than call me. It worked; the phone calls stopped.

I started using Google Analytics and discovered that many people came to the car buying page directly from search engines. I knew that the car buying page was okay as a follow-up but that it was not really a good stand-alone article. However, I figured that the people coming directly to the page were not my customers, I was busy and it was good enough. A couple of months ago I decided it was time to bring the car buying page up to speed. As soon as I did, the bounce rate for the page declined and I saw a significant increase in product sales. It turns out that some of the people coming directly to that page were potential customers after all. The page just wasn’t good enough to entice them to buy my products.

When was the last time that you took a really good look at the free items on your Web site? Are they up to date? Do they reflect your current thinking? Are they your best work? People judge you by what they see, and what they see first is what you offer for free. Free has to be excellent. Good simply isn’t good enough.

Source: Reprinted with permission, Speaker Net News

Amazon pulls authors’ comments on others’ books

by Sam Horn

In a recent John Kremer ezine, “Book Marketing Update” (bookmarket.com), he quotes Cheryl Kaye Tardif about the new Amazon.com policy affecting authors who post reviews of other people’s books. In it, Amazon’s guidelines are quoted: “our participation guidelines don’t allow customers to promote their own titles in their reviews.” Cheryl summarizes, “If you sign your review with anything other than your name, your reviews could be deleted.” That’s even if you link your book to the Amazon page promoting it! They will pull all reviews by you if you sign just one mentioning your book, even if none of the others don’t.

Source: This article originally appeared in Speaker Net News.

UPDATE: 4-24-2009: SNN reported Sheryl Kaye Tardif’s description of Amazon’s policy to pull all authors’ comments on others’ books. Cheryl updated her situation, saying she received an email from an Amazon senior staff member. He told her that her reviews had been reinstated.

"I don’t sign my comments as an author, but instead make reference to my books an essential part of the review, such as, 'As the author of a Bishop Museum book which includes a chapter on ho’oponopono, and of Hawaiian Massage Lomilomi: Sacred Touch of Aloha would like to clarify the difference between this book and ancient Hawaiian tradition.'"