What’s up? I’ve been a bit busy with summer school work (as usual), but also a brand new project that I’ve recently decided to try out. Because it is still in its development stages, I won’t give out any details on it yet; however, in the coming weeks, when I see it start making some profit, I definitely will. It is a niche I have yet to try out, but it is a fun little niche that doesn’t take too long to manage, and… anyways, we’ll see.
However, today I just wanted to bring up this thing about working upfront. One of my biggest sources of income is actually consulting. I’ve been in the web industry for a long time and while I do make money blogging, marketing, designing, and the sorts, aside from marketing, consulting is probably the biggest source of income for me.
How and why? The secret is that I go and find people to help. Usually it isn’t so hard, and depending on the difficulty of the subject, I charge people from free to whatever they wish to pay me. Recently, I met a person looking to start-up their “money making life” on the web and promised a low-XXX fee for consultation, which would include everything from the moment you login to GoDaddy to coding support. Now in regards to the payment, I had three options that I usually propose:
- Pay After Work
- 50% Upfront Payment
- 100% Upfront Payment
As my client was a young, yet aspiring person, and he was still worried about all the Internet scams that go around, I proposed to him a pay after work option.
So I began the week about telling him on how to setup a domain, get a host, WordPress, and SEO and advertising tips to get his blog/site known to both search engines like Google, and normal visiting people. I ended off the week with telling him about coding the backends of WordPress and giving him an in-depth step-by-step tutorial on monetizing the blog with multiple companies.
At the end of the week, I have not only worked quite a decent amount of hours just for this client, but also for lost a lot of hours with the client now showing up on time. In addition, what happens at the end? Well, the title is hinting at you. 
After being notified that he is gathering the funds, he then goes off to claim the useless-ness of my consultation. Okay, I’m alright with the last part as I really have nothing to say if I didn’t teach him anything, although our sessions and his plethora of questions seem to question his assertion. Then, all communication with him stops. I give up on trying to receive my due payment and send him a clear message that I have given up and will leave the payment up to him and his morales in business.
At the end of the day, I lose out money wise, but I feel that I gain morale wise. People, if you’re looking to do business, stick to your words. While money is important, there are a lot more things important than money; I personally feel social relationships tops green by far as I know I have received millions of dollars of worth information thanks to the people I have developed a business relationship with.
Anyways, rant for today, finished. 
Were you ever in such a situation? Do you know ways to prevent such events? I’m sure my readers are interested and so am I, so please feel free to comment.
So the end of my “academic” week is here and I just tried to visit Digital Point and what do I see? “Upgrading forum software.”
What?! Shawn Hogan actually drops by and works on this forum? Are we in for an era on Digital Point where we actually have Shawn around?
So I talked about the Moonfruit contest last week and mentioned how viral Twitter can be. Well, let me say this first though–only if you do the right stuff will Twitter campaigns be viral. This actually is quite hard. Why? The biggest reason behind it is because anything you do with originality will catch the eyes of many. As I am not exactly a machine that spits out original contests and campaigns you can do with Twitter, I won’t force myself in that route. However, I will share with you all on some of the things that has been done before that help get your site out there in the Twitterverse.
Adding Your Site to Profile
This is a no-brainer that you should do. Although Twitter is rapidly growing to be a service that pretty much everyone uses (like Facebook), it still is dominated by people with some degree of website building background knowledge. If you have a half-decent Twitter page with timely updates, getting a click from your fellow Twitter users through the Web field is not hard at all.
If you don’t have it in right now, set it up straight away! You are definitely missing out. If you don’t know, in your Twitter account, click “Settings” and then fill out the “More info URL” field.
Distributing Free Twitter Backgrounds
Let me be honest with you. I have not tried this technique myself, but I strongly believe that it is a fail-proof strategy. Recall all those free wordpress themes? Well, if you examine closely, all of the free themes will have some sort of a link back to the original theme creator. That’s right, they are giving themselves back both a do-follow link and exposure on your blog (if you use a free theme). Well, why can’t it not be done with Twitter backgrounds?
Twitter backgrounds (at least the ones I’ve used) tend to be 1600×1200 pixel. If you are a whiz with Photoshop or even Paint, you can create some dazzling backgrounds for fellow Twitter users. Then, as you are interested in promoting your brand, you can put a small logo on the top-right corner of the background. However, a thing to note here is that you should definitely lower your logo’s opacity, so that you don’t kill the design.
Contests with Hashtags
Remember the Moonfruit contest I talked about yesterday? Well, you can do that too! A quick overview on how the contest would/should run for your maximum exposure and benefit would be:
- Create a contest
- Make participating in the contest easy; let them retweet your ad tweet
- Make sure that you utilize your site’s domain’s hashtag and not something random (eg. #ahnternet, not #myfirstcontest)
- Don’t forget to link to your blog’s original post
- Make it so that every tweet counts as an entry; this makes people use your hashtag like oxygen
This seems to be the strategy Moonfruit took and it seems like it is flawless, at least until Twitter puts a restriction on this. However, I doubt such restrictions would come into play anytime soon, so I guess you’ve got some time to try this out if you are thinking of running a contest in the near future.
Twitter.com/YOUR_DOMAIN
This is also a no-brainer. You SHOULD get the same name on Twitter as you have with your domain name. In my case, I have Twitter.com/ahnternet for this blog. Had @ahnternet been taken, I probably would have registered @ahnternetcom or something along those lines.
I tweet about my random day to day things @Static, and although a good portion of my followers are highly concentrated on that Twitter account, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use @ahnternet. Whatever gets posted on @ahnternet, I can always just re-tweet on @Static to give whatever I’m tweeting, maximum exposure.
Your Own URL Shortener
So we all know how Bit.ly, Tr.im, Cli.gs and the likes are pretty nice tools that let you track while also redirecting your visitors. However, I believe that you can really make yourself stand out by just giving a direct link to the post. What am I talking about? Let me give you an example, in the case you are using WordPress.
So the URL of Twitter Is REALLY Viral is:
http://www.ahnternet.com/2009/07/16/twitter-is-really-viral/
Obviously, that is way too long for Twitter’s 140 character maximum. However, what if you setup a redirection through your hosting control panel so that a URL along the lines of:
http://ahnternet.com/t/1
redirected to the post above? I believe that is an exposure right there. Fortunately, if you are using cPanel (which most hosts use), Awstats will track that link too similar to what URL redirection services provide. Okay, so this way can be a little bit annoying, but if you have a redirecting routine setup, it shouldn’t take you more than a couple minutes. Are you not willing to invest a couple more minutes to receive much more exposure to your site’s address and brand?
Conclusion
I have only recently started to aggressively use Twitter. Hence, I’m probably not the guru that you need in the middle of the night if you are trying to do something on Twitter. However, I feel that my experience on it so far helps me confidently state that these tips are fail-proof and Twitter 101. Exposing your site’s address and brand simply cannot get easier.
I’m the type that won’t just end it with this post, so I’m going to go ahead and try these out tips myself too (especially the contest one). Of course I’ll write a follow up post. However, I have a darn good feeling that all five of these will benefit you brilliantly.
What’s your view on this topic? Think I was completely off? Was I spot on? I’d like to hear what you have to say, so comments are more than welcome!
I’m sure you all know of Twitter. I’ve got a few accounts on it (actually an account per site) and I’m sure many others have it too. It is supposed to be a place where you update everyone on what you are up to right now. If you are my follower (you should be!) I’ve been tweeting this last week with the hashtag #moonfruit. Well, if you didn’t hear about it (you probably did if you use Twitter), then well, Moonfruit was giving out 10 MacBook Pros randomly to people tweeting with their hashtag.
One of the requirements of putting your name in the drawing lot was following @moontweet. When I first found out about this and tweeted my first #moonfruit, there was ~3000 followers. With the drawing part of the fun now over, @moontweet has ~43,000 followers. Yeah, a new 40,000 followers in seven damn days!
Twitter is undoubtely extremely viral. John Chow and Shoemoney has shown us. Moonfruit has shown us too. Hence, I have really stepped up my Twitter “abusing” to get something out of it.
What’s the point of this post then? To make you come back tomorrow to check out another post on Twitter. I’ll be discussing how you too can get your brand out in the Twitterverse.
Oh how I’m so glad that this week is over. My last week has been hectic since starting summer school in Yonsei University in Korea. I’m right now taking:
- Modern Korean History
- Understanding Contemporary Korean Popular Culture & Korean Culture Wave
Everyday for homework, I am required to read ~200 pages of material and take notes on it. The following day, I am required to take a short quiz on the reading, so I can’t afford to just read over it really quickly to get it out of the way.
Hence, my blogging frequency for this blog has dramatically dropped–definitely will be changing for the coming week with a great article about Twitter. Anyways, tune in, subscribe, give me some love, and I’ll repay you guys.
So Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen came out in the theaters last week! Woo-hoo! Megan Fox makes the movie just awesome, but the story is pretty cool too, so hey I went and paid my ticket to watch the show.
Anyways, although ahnternet is technically a “personal” blog, I still want to give something worthwhile to you guys, so here it goes.
Today while I was waiting in line for my Transformers 2 ticket, I was somewhat befuddled at a screen that was showing the movies that the theater was playing. Drag Me to Hell, Terminator, Night in the Museum 2, Transformers 2, Transformers 1, … what?! Transformers 1? That must be an error, right? I quickly realized it wasn’t–they were playing it again to help people who might have forgotten the previous story. Anyways, what does this have to do with you?
“Publish” Doesn’t Mean “End”
Let’s first look at the “posts” component of this article–recycling in the aspect of the blogging. Often times, we will publish an article and think, “Well, that article’s done with now.” It is as if you won’t ever come back to that article. I feel that such a thought is actually a big mistake that bloggers make. It is like although “Publish” is a bit significant in that it feels like the article is finally ready to be released to the world, bloggers should see it as “just another draft.”
In the world where we’re constantly going after good keywords and SEO, we often forget who we actually write for. It definitely isn’t entirely for Google or any other search engine spiders and it also isn’t all for yourself. The majority of our content should be written for the blog readers and subscribers. Hence, you want to deliver quality.
Recently, I had a legitimate comment made on a post I made back in August 2008. That’s right, nearly a year ago. First, I was surprised that someone commented on a post that old. Second, I found a few sentences that I could rework (and I did) to make the ideas easier to grasp.
Regardless, I’m currently in the stages of composing a new post that enhances upon this post I made. Obviously it won’t be a lame re-phrase or a regurgitation of what I wrote 11 months ago, but its focus would certainly revolve around the same idea. Why am I doing this? There is a clear indication that there are new people coming into this industry and often times, these old posts can get buried away and catch a few webs. Therefore, it seems appropriate to re-open and explain once again. Who knows, you may have missed a couple points here and there too!
Recycling Ideas & Not Copying
Let’s admit this. We see same ideas coming up again and again. Remember The Million Dollar Homepage? That site and the script was cloned so much it wasn’t even funny. I think it came out to be that the only one that suceeded was the original. Hah! Well then, why am I saying, recycle ideas if you know that copies are bound to fail?
No, it is not copies that I’m talking about. I would say a model to build on with a hint of creativity. What am I talking about here? Let me show you.
The Thesis Theme is a popular theme in the blogosphere, not because it is fancy, but because it is an excellent theme to build on. However, let’s be frank. Many blogs that run Thesis, you sort of get the feeling that it is running Thesis. However, you still wouldn’t be able to conclude for sure. Why? Because the more successful ones have adopted Thesis, but have developed its own unique parts. This is what I’m talking about. Starting from something and building on it.
One of more direct examples I could give you is my mini-sites. I run a lot of mini-sites that sell various things ranging from simple eBooks to tools like directory submitters. Often, I’ll just copy over the same page, change the words from one product to another, and then play around with the site. Sometimes I’ll re-order the paragraphs and other times I’ll change the color of the page. At times, if I’m just flowing with adrenaline, I’ll add more scripts and functions to the site to make the visit a little bit more enjoyable. However, in the end, the core beginning is the same. By doing this, I am able to save money and time mostly while providing the same great quality and easy navigation to my visitors.
Conclusion
I will say this again. I am not promoting plagirism and I am not telling you to regurgitate your old posts. The point I’m trying to get across is that by enhancing your previous works, you both benefit yourself and your reader in the ways I mentioned above.
If you are an old blogger, look through your achives and see what posts could still be pertinent to readers today. See one? Read through it and see how you can enhance it for today’s visitors new and old.
Are you a new blogger? Read through others’ blogs. See what they are talking about. See what you can give about that topic? Remember, don’t copy. However, I’m sure other bloggers wouldn’t mind you giving your view on the subject. Isn’t that what communication and interaction is after all?
What do you feel about recycling ideas or posts? Let me here your view through the comments, as I do fully realize that this can be quite a controversial assertion.
While I was on Twitter today (follow @ahnternet and @Static!) I noticed a reply that was directed to Static, my account. I won’t mention the person on here, but the individual was interested in buying my Twitter account. I actually went through a rough patch to get that Twitter username, with the Twitter staff giving it to me after the original @Static had no updates in six months. Anyways, where am I going off to with this post? Username branding. On many sites, I will first go by Static, and if not available, I will go with my second brand, -AM-. If both are not available, I’ll often just go with ahnternet–something super unique. Obviously, Static isn’t; hence, I often don’t get what I want.
I probably will stick with Static, as that has been the username I have been using since 2003. However, I’m always on the lookout for something creative, catchy, and connectable to my life. So, for anyone out there searching like me, I decided to look a bit into this username branding–after all, usernames are quite important!
Types of Usernames
There seems to be three clear categories that usernames fall into. It is either one’s real name, something that is “connectable” or memorable, or just plain random.
Real Name
You’ll see a lot of people just using their real name. Actually, most people in the MMO niche use their real names. It has overwhelmingly more pros than cons in that:
- You simultaneously build credit and integrity
- You look very real and serious
- You seem professional
- You never consider having to change your username… or name
- You are attached to it immediately
Although people might worry about your personal information being released to the entire web so much and things along that line, if you are worried that much, you shouldn’t be on the web in the first place. Especially owning domains and working in this Internet marketing field, you can’t always be behind the mask.
Something Connectable
Some people, like myself, use something connectable or memorable as their username. Obviously it doesn’t look as professional and as real. I still recall a member on WebHostingTalk that once PMed me saying that I was a teen in a man’s industry acting as if I was Flash, but instead, Static. No, it didn’t hurt, but it did teach me about the importance of usernames.
Complete Randomness
Some just use really random stuff. My first ever username was actually “dumb_eldore554″ over at the Legends Alliance forums. Later I had it switched to Static–something more memorable and connectable–but dumb_eldore554 was just a really random name. Alright, dumb_eldore slightly resembles the character from Harry Potter, but where the heck did 554 come from!?
3 Ways to Brand Usernames
I’ve quickly realized that usernames can be branded in multiple ways so that you really make that username yours and make any other people using that username a copycat.
Get a Domain
Obviously I can’t own Static.com. It was registered back in 1994. Yeah, I don’t think I even knew about the Internet or even computers then! Heck, probably not even computers DOS games! Yeah, that doesn’t work. However, what if your username was your name? Let’s say… Johnny Sampson II? JohnnySampsonII.com is available right now. Register it, use it, and you are immediately branding it.
Quickly Signup on Many Popular Sites
Recall that reply and the story about @Static on Twitter that I hold right now. I hold the username, Static, on most huge webmaster, Internet marketing, web hosting, and social networking sites. I was quick enough to get hold of them. However, I still don’t have the username on all sites. Why? Someone beat me to it. Obviously, this hurts me when it comes to me wanting to brand my username. As “Static” is a word itself, my branding task is impossible, but if it wasn’t a word, if you hold the username across every site, it makes your branding job a lot easier.
Make It Graphical!
No, not obscene or gore, but I’m talking about a logo. One of my favorite logos is Shoemoney’s. The “S” is very similar to Superman’s “S”, making it extremely memorable and at the same time, interesting. This pretty much solidifies your branding. People remember images better than words after all!
Conclusion
Do you face similar situations? How do you brand your username or yourself?
By the way, I just received another reply on Twitter from a random person saying, “@Static wuzz good bra? whut about that trip friday?!?! Holla @ ya boi.” What?! Oh the fun and joy of having a word as your username. 
So the roundups are back since the blog itself is back too! It feels so good to be in summer vacation!
Post Roundup for June 2009
Frankly, nothing much was posted in this blog since I only made my serious comeback mid-June. Hence, the only worthwhile article would be:
Link Love for June 2009 Week 4
So lately, I’ve been reading a few old and new blogs since my “hiatus” and to get myself back up-to-date, I’ve been reading a lot. Some of the more noticeable and excellent ones were…
- How To Promote Your Blog Over Instant Messaging is an interesting post over at Blogussion about a potential channel for advertising. I don’t wholeheartedly agree with the article and its effectiveness in reality (but that could be just me), but if you primarily use instant messaging for business work, it is an interesting article to look over.
- Things To Consider Before Starting Multiple Projects is a post by Teenius on multiple projects. I found myself being quickly overwhelmed with multiple projects, but never really gave it a good thought on why. I’m lazy, so I like how this article laid it all out for me.
- How To Land The Big Interviews is an excellent post from Stanley at TUK. Often times, those A-list bloggers can be a tad bit intimidating to approach in fear that you might approach them incorrectly and go in their badbook. Well, this one tells you how to NOT make those mistakes.
Conclusion
So I’ve decided to make these monthly roundup posts’ conclusion part slightly different from the weekly roundup posts. From now on, I’ll be posting a couple goals that I will try to achieve before the next monthly roundup post. Let’s see how this goes.
- Double the RSS subscriber count
- Guest post on another blogger’s blog
I’ve just made my return to this industry, so my monthly income from my mini-sites is quite low. However, starting next month, I hope to provide monetary “prizes” for my missed goals and my top commentators. So… stick around at ahnternet!
All the way back in January 2009, I said that domaining is not for newbies. Since then, I have come to offload a lot–and I do mean a lot–of domains. Now, I have a group of domains that I use for websites or are saving to use as websites in the future. I only have a few domains that I am investing in as they are no-brainer premiums.
However, want to know something ridiculous? As I have a lot of domains needing renewals from June to October, I decided to go ahead and see how much I would need to spend on renewals every year, assuming that I don’t buy anymore. After realizing this maybe a little too much sum for just domains, I decided to make quick two sales, although it didn’t help that much. Anyways, here it is. I do most of my domain management through Moniker, so the pricing is based off of Moniker’s pricing page.
.com $8.02 * 9 domains
.net $6.64 * 4 domains
.org $7.97 * 3 domains
.info $8.02 * 27 domains (I know, I need to find a new .info registrar)
.us $7.29 * 1 domain
.asia $19.99 * 1 domain
.mobi $7.49 * 3 domains
.tv $32.99 * 1 domain
.cc $18.99 * 1 domain
.ws $14.81 * 1 domain
.in $18.46 * 1 domain
.jp $89.70 * 1 domain (need a new .jp registrar too)
.sc $117.14 * 1 domain (ouch)
.me $19.86 * 2 domains
Drum-roll please….
This equals to be…
A staggering $740.52 just on domains!
Okay, so I make a lot more than that every year so fund it all, but still, after selling out a good 20 domains, I am still above what I had initially hoped–below $500.
Maybe I need a new registrar or the flexibility to spread my domains out on multiple registrars…
How much do you spend on your domains? If you don’t want to give out any specific figures, a ballpark would do. Leave your comment, get a link back both throughout the blog and through CommentLuv!
With the summer still in its beginning stages, I’ve been reviving a lot of my old projects that I had left to pretty much die out (this blog included). At the same time, I had a friend who was curious to learn what I was doing online as he was amazed that I was bringing in a stead $XXX amount per month, although I wasn’t doing much online. I told him that the money was from a few campaigns that I had still kept alive with minimum effort, so he wanted to join me in the “make money online” business.
As all people in this industry will tell you, they’re not going to tell you what they do. So, all I told him was that you just build a website and then start reaping in as much money as possible from whatever traffic you are getting. So, he went on to ask what website he would create.
I, for one, have been a long supporter of “follow your passion and the money will follow.” However, I do know that some people are making lots without working with what they like. As some of you may know, the only two I’ve been happy to share information about recently is SoccerProz and another education-related website that I will release more info about in the coming weeks. I’ve decided to devote the majority of my online time this summer on these two websites (although I’ll be active here and with my internet marketing sphere). I’m following my interests. I love soccer and I had bittersweet feelings about my college applications days–hence, I’m working on these.
Nonetheless, as I know some people can be successful without following their passion, I told my buddy the two options he has. He can create websites with the focus on chasing money, or he can dig into his interests and hope that money will chase him. I didn’t want my assertion to sound so weak, so I told him that I will follow-up on him with pros and cons for both.
Chasing Money
Pros
- You usually know where you are going.
- Especially when you are starting out, you know that the topic you chose will most likely be fail proof.
- You probably will see some money quickly.
Cons
- You can quickly lose interest.
- You rarely will keep it developing for a long time due to the reason above.
- You probably have a lot of competition, which can be discouraging. (Although this is also true for the passionate topics, it is rarely discouraging when you love the topic.)
Digging Interests (Passion)
Pros
- Obviously, it is fun.
- You often learn a lot more, which makes you dig in more and more.
- You most likely won’t lose interest in it regardless of monetary results.
Cons
- There is a lower percentage of seeing money quickly.
- You might not know which of your many passions you should start with.
- There’s a good chance that your passion is immensely focused that you will start going off track without realizing it.
I guess it really is a toss-up between the two as they both have their valid pros and cons. However, my personal preference is following your passion, especially if you are just starting out, primarily because of the following two reasons:
- You don’t know if you are going to be staying in this “webmaster-ing industry” for a long term.
- You really don’t want to bore yourself out.
Webmaster-ing/blogging/marketing/anything is all about patience and working yourself up in the industry. Even if you create a website on some new invention/gadget/software, you are still not going to see green on a single night.
To exemplify this a little bit better, I’ll be documenting SoccerProz growth in a little depth over the course of its development for your benefits.
If you have any other pros and cons on the two sides, feel free to make a comment. Any questions or feedback? ahnternet CommentLuvs.
Static is a teen blogger who runs the blog, 
