Monday, July 23, 2007

Blog Review: Correr Es Mi Destino


Correr es mi Destino: translated from Spanish means "to run is my destiny." This title comes from a Manu Chao song : "Clandestino," a personal favorite of the author.

The blog itself details the life and times of Zhu, a self proclaimed world citizen and avid traveler. Originally from France, she now lives in Ottawa, ON. She blogs about traveling, politics, hockey, and other random occurrences in her life. She does so with conviction, in that her posts are often emotional and grab the reader's attention.

Here are examples of some posts that caught my eye:

I don't feel it would be right to critique this blog based on Moneblogging principles, as Zhu is clearly not interested in blogging for money. Her blog contains no advertisements. She writes from her heart and that is evident in the length and quality of her posts. The blog does seem to have a significant amount of traffic, however, which could lead to revenue if she so chose.

In addition to the quality of her content, she is also excellent at networking with other bloggers. She has commented on my blogs several times prior to this review, so I have become more familiar with her blog. I have also heard her name come up several times in the blogosphere in a similar context.

My advice: Keep it up, Zhu. You love to write and are good at captivating your audience. If you ever feel like making money from your blog, I'll be here to help.

"A rolling stone gathers no moss."


Friday, July 13, 2007

The ABCs of Moneblogging

A – Advertisements – The primary means by which blogs make money (Ex: Google Adsense).

B Blogger.com – A commonly used blogging medium, allowing anyone with a computer and internet connection (minus some people in China I’ve heard) to get on the web and start blogging.

CContent – The driving force behind any blog. Write content that your audience finds interesting and captivating. This includes Pillar Content, mentioned later.

D – Dough. Serious Dough. That’s what you’ll be making by implementing these tactics strategically and efficiently.

E – Efficiency – Avoid writing articles that carry on for too long, which lose the reader’s attention. The more time one spends on your blog, the better.

F – Formatting – Make your blog look appealing to the eye. Use colors that flow well and avoid cluttering in your sidebar.

GGoal setting – Set modest, achievable goals for both the short term and long term. To start, one could comment on 5 other blogs per day or gain 10 figures in Google Page Rank.

HHeadlines – Important because they must capture the readers attention. These are also important for Search Engines. Be sure to have key words in your headlines.

I – Independent Income – There’s something to be said for making a buck for oneself the hard way. When it pays off, the feeling is combination of gratification and motivation, with a hint of arrogance.

J – Jimi Hendrix. I listen while blogging. Others included here are Tool, Atmosphere, Jedi Mind Tricks, Air, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, among others.

K – Key Words – Used for optimizing searches. They consist of major (key) words that persist in the title of your articles and text.

L – Lingo – Know your Moneblogging vocabulary (e.g. SEO, Alexa Rank, Google Index, etc.) so you be able to carry on conversations regarding your work.

MMarketing and Monetization – Two of the most important concepts in moneblogging. Marketing, combined with good content, will produce traffic. Traffic, in turn, produces revenue. Monetization involves incorporating advertisements onto one’s blog, allowing it to make money.

N – Networking – Establish contacts with other bloggers and get them to link to your site, provided you link to theirs. One could even offer to exchange reviews of each other’s blogs.

OOpportunitySeize the Day. If an opportunity arises, such as a free blog review or otherwise, act on it immediately.

PPillar Content – Articles or other such content that draw attention because of their quality and value, in turn generating links, comments, and other such attention. Ex: Top ten lists, pod cast, video, how to article, etc.

Q – Quality – I cannot emphasize this enough: write quality content. The rest flows from this.

R – Revenue – Generated mainly through advertisements, but one could also charge to review other’s blogs, once the blog has enough traffic.

S – SEO or Search Engine Optimization – the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

TTime Management – Key to avoiding burnout. Don’t forget you have other priorities in your life; think forward so as to manage them efficiently.

UUnique – A key characteristic of blogs, in that they are inherently dynamic and tend to move up faster in ranking than standard web pages. Learn more here.

V – Victory – Achieved through successful implementation of these principles.

WWord Press – A commonly used web interface system for blogs with their own domain name. The templates are customizable and are available in several varieties.

X – Xenu – In Scientology, Xenu was the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. If there are any questions regarding validity of this statement, just ask Tom Cruise about it and he will confirm this information.

Y – Yes – The answer to the question “Can I do this?” It takes time, creativity, and hard work, but that’s what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. The former goes the extra mile.

Z – Zen – Get in the zone and act on the moment. Go out and get ‘em!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Pinkhatseo.info review

Next Review: Pinkhatseo.info

This is a newly established blog from Danielle, essentially a continuation of Pink Reviews from the previous post. Her new setup allows her more options for customization of her site and allows her to have a verifiable Alexa rank. As it is a new site, the Google and Alexa rank are relatively low. This will change drastically with time.

The content and monetization are about the same as Pink Reviews. What Danielle now needs to work on is marketing her blog through SEO and so forth, in which she is well versed.

Pink Reviews Review

Here is the first blog review from moneblogging:

Pink Reviews was formerly shopautodotca seo contest, an SEO contest to promote used cars and their used car classifieds. The contest was sponsored by ShopAuto.ca, whose Google and MSN indexes jumped significantly as a result.

At the contest's culmination, the author, Danielle, started her Pink Reviews blog. This maintained the links she acquired through the previous contest, a very smart and clever tactic
. Currently, the blog has a google index of 478; the Alexa rank is unavailable.

The content at Pink Reviews is somewhat random, containing information about ways to make money from one's blog (much like moneblogging) and random videos or articles that have sparked the author's interest. My favorite page was the Power of Schmooze Awards, which encourages and rewards blogger interaction through comments and links.

Pink Reviews is well monetized and marketed well, thanks to her Google rank. Danielle does need to work on getting more quality content up and establish more pillar articles. This will propell the blog forward in the future.

Alexa Page Ranking System: What is it?

The Alexa page rank system measures a website's popularity by ranking it according to traffic volume. The most popular website on the internet (currently yahoo.com) is given an Alexa rank of 1, the second is given a 2, and so on. One stipulation, however: in order to obtain traffic measurements, one must be using an Alexa Tool Bar. Thus, it is impossible for Alexa to monitor all traffic coming into your site. Alexa is updated frequently (every 3 days or so) ensuring an accurate measure of a website's popularity.

In comparison, the google rank of a web page is determined by the number and quality of inbound links to that web page. Therefore, a higher google rank is better. Also, Google rankings typically take around 1-2 weeks to update (based on my experience).

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Free Blog Reviews from Moneblogging

To ecourage general discussion, I am offering free blog reviews to anyone that emails me with such a request. These reviews are absolutely free, and will be judged honestly based on moneblogging criteria (i.e. monetization tactics, content, etc.). Please note that text links back to your site will also be added and the content of the review will be published on this blog. This opportunity will not last forever, but for now, take advantage.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Time Management, Simplified: How to Be Productive With No Worries

Perhaps you have several blogs you are constantly updating. Maybe you are blogging while still maintaining a full time job or while in college. Maybe you're in some crazy situation that I haven't even thought of. Either way, time management is key to a productive and organized workday. It allows one to not only organize ones actions and goals, but it also prioritizes them. The following article details these elements.


This guest post was written by Leo Babauta of the Zen Habits blog.

time management simplified how to be productive with no worriesI’m a big fan of Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, and adopted the system wholeheartedly a year and a half ago. This year, I’ve written a number of posts on GTD, but one of my habits is to take whatever I do and try to simplify it.

Slowly, I’ve been reducing my time management system (based on GTD) to its barest minimum.

And you know what? It’s not only simpler, I’ve found that it’s so much more productive, less hassle, and more stress-free than the official GTD system, or even other time-management systems I’ve tried.

Before I get into simplification, let’s look at the main elements of GTD:

  • Capture - write everything down as you think of it.
  • Process - process your notes and inboxes, putting everything in its appropriate place.
  • Contexts - break your to-do list into several lists based on the context you’re in and what you can actually do right now.
  • Projects - Anything that takes more than one physical action is a project.
  • Workflow - This is really fluid in GTD … you can do whatever tasks right now that your context, time or energy allow. Basically, you decide what to do from moment to moment.
  • Weekly Review - This is the key to GTD — making sure you have everything in your system, and that it’s in the right place. By reviewing it weekly, you can ensure that you are in working order.
  • Tickler - A way to remind yourself about things coming up. Allen suggests using a system of folders, 12 for the months and 31 for the days of the month (43 total).
  • Filing - He recommends a simple alphabetical system, easy to use so that you actually file right away.
  • Someday/maybe & waiting on - Two additional lists that are very useful for parking projects you don’t plan to do now and for following up on stuff you’re waiting for from other people.
  • Goals - Not very emphasized in GTD — it does talk about higher altitudes, where you look at things like goals, and those should be done during the Weekly Review, but it doesn’t seem very important to the main thrust of GTD, which is more focused on daily actions.

Those are the basics — there are other stuff, but I think I’ve outlined the system fairly well. And let me say — it works very well, and if you adopt this system you will most likely become more productive (unless you focus (obsess) too much on the tools and keep revising your system instead of getting things done).

Simplifying the System
As you can see, GTD is a lot of things to implement and keep track of, which is why the Weekly Review is so necessary. But it can be made simpler, and by doing so, you will reduce what you need to do and the time you spend maintaining the system. Here’s how:

  1. Reduce your tasks. My philosophy with everything is this: before you organize, reduce. If you only have three things to organize, instead of 20, you actually don’t need to organize. How can you apply that to time management? Reduce what you need to do. You can eliminate tasks, delegate them, postpone them, get out of commitments. For more on this topic read posts I’ve written elsewhere: on Zen Habits, FreelanceSwitch, and Lifehack.
  2. Capture. I think this is one of the most valuable tools of GTD. Write down ideas as they come to you, tasks that you need to do, before you forget about them. Get it out of your head. I carry around a small Moleskine pocket notebook and write things down in that.
  3. MITs. Of all the stuff you need to do, which are the three Most Important Tasks (MITs) you need to do today? Write those on the top of your little notebook (or on your computer) and only those. Those are the three tasks you are going to focus on. Single-task and don’t get distracted from them. If you get only these three things done today, you’ve been very productive.
  4. Batch process. Besides your MITs, there are a lot of little tasks you need to do throughout the day. Don’t let them interrupt the more important stuff. To be more productive, batch them up and do them all at once, preferably towards the end of the day. Batch like things together — do all your email once a day, at 4 p.m., instead of throughout the day. Do all your paperwork at once. Process your physical inbox to empty. Don’t do them throughout the day. I keep a little list of batch process tasks at the bottom of my notebook page (MITs are at the top).
  5. Goals. I think goals are very important. But having too many can cause you to lose focus, and you’ll end up not doing any of them. Instead, use a simple goal system: choose one goal to focus on this year, and a smaller sub-goal of your one-year goal to accomplish in 6 months. Then choose a smaller sub-goal to accomplish within the next week or two, and each day, work towards that short-term goal. Your MITs for today should include at least one task to move you forward towards your short-term goal. Focus on one goal, not many, and you will make it happen.

That’s it. That’s about as simplified as you can get while still getting stuff off your mind. This system allows you to focus on what’s important, to limit your workload to something a bit more sane, and to increase your effectiveness by focusing less on the busy work and more on the high-powered tasks.

Some notes on my simple system:

The content in this blog is Copyright 2007 of Chadrick Ashby