In blogosphere, almost every blogger claims to have thousands of subscribers, getting lots of traffic and is making big money with his blog but that is right now common all around and has nothing wrong. But the problem arises after sometime when you are telling the fake statistics and you know it’s not going to help you anymore and you need the real thing.
Blogging looks more easy when it has real support of our fans, that is why we should try to avoid some common mistakes, which no doubt can stop the progress of a blog.
Mistake 1 – Worrying about earnings than our Readers
It is very clear than in order for our blog to function properly, we must have some money so that the cost of maintaining a blog can be taken care. But here we have to keep in mind that we are making money with our blog through the web users i.e the readers. I think we should really place ads on our blog for profitability but we must maintain a degree of respect for our readers. We should not treat them as a “Money Making System”.
Mistake 2 – Unconcerned of our blog
Considering that we have blog, we must know that it must be maintained, updated regularly and should correspond to the readers comments. Like first measurement we should answer all the questions,complaints or suggestion that appears from our readers side. Secondly we should take care that we are updating the blog content on regular basis plus also taking a little bit care of our blog design.
Mistake 3 – Not Linking and not getting Linked
For a blog to be known properly in the blogosphere it is important for that blog that it’s articles are linked from other blogs. Moreover a blogger should also consider himself linking other blogs as a part of marketing tactics. This way he can increase the readership on his blog plus he can also increase connections with other bloggers.
“Without connections, a blog practically can not progress.”
Mistake 4 – Wasting time for no reason
If the time you are getting for blogging is not limited then it’s no problem. But bloggers like me who have limited time for blogging should not waste time in stupid things, and the time we get for improving our blog should be considered worth gold. The time we get should be properly utilized in many things like improving the content we are going to provide, try to find different ways to build backlinks and do the best possible things to attract quality traffic to our blog. Wasting time is one of main reason why a blogger doesn’t succeeds. Our blog will improve very less if we don’t manage and utilize the time for blogging properly.
Mistake 5 – Not Participating in other Blogs or Forums
As mentioned earlier in this post; Time is worth Gold. That is why we must manage out time not only for our blog but also to take part in the conversation in different blogs. If you are going to comment, make sure it is not a spam, nor poor, nor by any nature destructive i.e. our comments must be constructive and should possess some degree of kindness, respect and should be helpful or informative for others.
Undoubtedly, all of us might have committed that mistake anytime from the growth of our blog. We must ensure that these mistakes should not happen again and again as it will stop the Progress of your blog.
So go on, think carefully on this article and tell me whether you have done any mistake ever in your blogging journey which could have possibly slowed down the progress of your blog and also do lemme know, what do your think about this article.
5 mistakes which could stop the progress of your blog
Make Money using Google Adwords and Clickbank
Out of the different ways to make money online, the most popular one is affiliate marketing. It involves promoting and selling different products for which you are an affiliate. There are 
hundreds of affiliate networks available. Of these, the most popular network is Clickbank. Clickbank is the largest market place for digital products like e books and electronic services like web hosting. There are both publishers and affiliates.
Publishers are those who have there own products to be promoted by the affiliates. Affiliates are the ones who promote the publishers' products and earn commission on each sale. Different techniques may be used to promote the affiliate products. Out of these, 'Pay Per Click' advertising like Google Adwords is the most effective one as it can deliver immediate results. A combination of Google Adwords and Clickbank may be used to build a successful online business.
Signing up with Clickbank as an affiliate is easy and takes only a few minutes. After signing up, go to the 'Clickbank Marketplace' where there are thousands of products which you can promote as an affiliate. The products are ranked according to a system which takes into account the conversion rates and similar other factors. Look for products which have high demand in the market and offer good commissions. After you select your product, get the affiliate link which you have to promote. When people click on this link, they will be taken to the product's home page and if they make any purchase from there, you earn a commission, which is generally a percentage of the price of the product.
There are different ways to promote your affiliate link. The most popular way is to use 'Pay Per Click' advertising like Google Adwords. Before you start using Adwords, you have to open an 
account with it. You will also need a credit card. While writing the ad text, you must follow the editorial guidelines of Google. You must do some keyword research to find out the relevant keywords which can attract some traffic from the search engines. These keywords should be used in your ads. After you submit your ad, it has to go through a review process before it goes live. While using Adwords, the best thing is to start small. Spend a small amount each day to find out which ad brings the best returns. Monitor the results and continue with the successful ads. Start small and work your way up slowly to success.
How to Start an Internet Business
Starting an internet business may sound simple and easy, but it's not exactly like that. It takes a lot of time and effort to succeed and get to that "flowing" mode. If you're thinking about starting an internet business, you'll have to do several things in order to lay a healthy base, which is crucial in the development process of your business.
1. Find your niche
There is a million of niches, and it's not just that simple to choose one of them. You'll have to do some analysis before you pick your niche. Basically, it's the best to choose a niche that you're interested in, so it doesn't get boring for you. Ideally, it's the best to find a niche that interests you and that is profitable. Analyze your competition and see if you'll be up to competing with them.
2. Analyze the market
It's of huge importance to analyze the market thoroughly before getting into this venture. You have to check other sites in that market, you have to check the supply and demand, you have to check what approach will work the best.
3. Great domain name
Don't settle for any domain name. Go for, if not the best, then one of the best in that niche. Ideally, you will choose a dot com, with your keyword(s) in it. Don't choose a domain name with too many dashes, because search engines don't like that. Choose a domain name that is short, brandable, easy to remember and contains your keywords.
4. Cool design
If you're not a designer, hire a designer to design your website. It's really worth it. A website with a great design will be much more pleasing for the eyes of your visitors, thus making them to remember your site and they may even come back.
5. Clean code
If you're not a coder, hire a coder to code your design. Demand valid XHTML/CSS and compatibility with all browsers. That way you'll be safe, both with your visitors and search engines.
6. Invest in content
Content is king, they say. And it's really true... The more content you have, the better your site will look in the eyes of the search engines. Add more and more content each day and you will have no worries.
7. Invest in advertising
Don't think that you don't need to spend money on advertising and link building, because you have to. You have to let everyone know that your site is alive and online, and awaiting visitors.
Note that you will not earn money in the beginning, but if you keep on working, you will get there. Just have patience!
Ideas to make money in spare time
The writer
If writing is something that comes naturally to you, why not take it up professionally?
You could be an expert writer in your professional domain. Say you are an interior designer. You could approach interior design magazines, web sites or publications which would be more than happy to publish your thoughts and advice.
Newspaper, magazines and web sites would welcome good quality experts to be on their panel.
What you need to do: Send them a sample writeup. If it is good or, better still, impressive, they will lap you up.
You could easily earn Rs 500 to Rs 2,500 per article, depending on your writing style, experience, knowledge and the publication.
How much should you invest?
THERE are some word pairs that go hand in hand. When you say one you cant help but think of the other - eg. chicken and egg, carrot and stick, marriage and love, beach and sun and so on. When it comes to investment, the only word that pops up is return.
No doubt, everyone invests for returns. That magic figure governs the fate of all investment products. The logic in people's minds is simple: The better the returns, the more money you will end up with.
But it's not that simple in reality. Returns are not the sole deciding factor of how much money you are going to make from your investments. Two more factors determine how much money you will end up with:
a. The amount you put into your savings and investments
b. The amount of time you keep it there.
These two factors will have a greater impact on how much money you will end up with, rather than mundane things such as investment returns.
Have a play on the calculators elsewhere on this site. Put with your own numbers and you'll quickly arrive at the number you should be doing.
Here's an example:
a. Let us suppose you need to cobble together Rs 5 crore over 40 years. With an investment return of 12 per cent per year you realise that you have to save a paltry Rs 3,980 per month.
b. If you deduct ten years from this horizon the figure automatically changes to a difficult Rs 14,000 savings per month - over three times the monthly amount today, although you have only taken 25% off from your time period.
c. Now you argue: What if you aim for a higher investment return? Surely then you can amass Rs 5 crore even in 20 years! You would need a fantastic return of 21% per year to turn Rs 14,000 into Rs 5 crore in 20 years.
Is that realistic? Consider this:
The stock market today is perhaps the only way you can reach your goal since it can give anywhere between 12% to 44%, depending on time period and how enterprising your fund adviser is.
Now, the charges of investing vary between 1% per annum to 2.5%, depending on the nature of fund management. So any expectation number you hear above 16% is almost a fraud if suggested by your advisor and foolish thinking if you expect it.
And in fact for an efficient indexing strategy, you should use a figure of 9 per cent to 15%. So, that 12% I was using is, if anything, fairly ambitious. It would certainly be easier to argue for a figure of 9% per year than 12% per year.
And hold on! Taking into account inflation and taxation, from gifts and cash which is generally quoted as a little below 2 per cent, So, you are now left with a paltry 10% return!
So now plug in the numbers!
You now have an investment return to aim for, an amount of money that you need to reach and if you put in a realistic guess at how many years you have till retirement – hey presto! The calculator will tell you how much you need to save.
But remember:
i. It is important to know that these calculations only tell you what to do, given certain assumptions. These are guesses at best and change regularly.
ii. You may find articles on the web saying 'static calculators are wrong, you should be using dynamic calculators'. It does not matter.
iii. This is good enough to make a start. The investment return you get might be different from what was predicted, and the date of your retirement might get closer or further away.
iv. Most important, since you are saving money in today's world, you have to keep increasing the amount you save to take into account inflation and average earnings growth.
Making Money from Blogging: Four Magic Steps to Succeed
The following tips should get you on the right track when you blog.
B) Be your niche.
Will you be it? Whether you become the best blogger in the world on fishing, cycling or fitness is entirely up to you. But the question is: will you keep up on your niche? Will you yourself become a fit person while writing a blog on fitness? You should.
L) Live with other bloggers of your niche.
If you want to succeed, you need to be open enough to at least link other, more known bloggers of your niche, if not quote them and write opinions on their articles and knowledge. Just get into your niche, work for some time and others will at least reciprocate your links.
O) Operational costs.
If you don’t make up enough for the hosting and monthly advertising costs for your blog in three months of blogging, maybe it just isn’t working out. If you make up operational costs, it clearly shows that you are on the right track and you’re on your way to profits.
G) Gain authority.
The best way to succeed in blogging is to become an authority. If you are in your niche and you’re slowly getting better, you are gaining authority. From authority comes responsibility, and if you live up to it, great things will happen.
This about sums it up - remember that the best way to make money from your blog is… blogging. Worthy content will attract more readers than a SEO campaign. Tweaks for your blog are good; just don’t get caught up in them.
The readers are also more likely to come back if your content caught their eye. Keep an eye on this and you’ll be successful in no time.
Why most People Fail at Making Money from Blogs?
Everyone loves making money. Some people love blogging but only few of them are making money from it.
Most of the newcomers to blogging want the “magic pill”. They ask: ‘Tell me how to make money blogging’, but what they are really asking is this: ‘Tell me how to make money from blogging really fast with little to no effort put in it’. Doesn’t that sound unrealistic? But that’s the way most people think in our society.
Blogging is a steady growing process, a steady growing skill. The golden-profit era from AdSense is long gone, there is lots of competition in virtually any niche and there are hundreds of people who copy your content and get away with it; even make money from it. Face it - chances of you earning money from a blog are quite slim if you don’t want to invest your time in it.
It’s not your fault that you want instant gratification, instant profits and instant talent in writing. It’s our modern society on its finest – stimulation without any investment other than money; stimulation that comes easy and with little thought applied, these are things people seek for, these are the things that the people are taught to seek for. People were taught that it’s the way stuff works since the time when they were still lying in their cradles and wondering about the color of the ceiling!
Humans in our capitalism society are taught that you can and should receive instant stimulation right away; there is no need for long-term actions, for long-term thinking and changes. Take a look at any popular magazine. What does it offer to its readers? Of course – instant stimulation, instant pleasure – funny pictures, beautiful people, landscapes and other things that don’t require much thought.
The way it relates to blogging is simple – most of the bloggers I know aren’t willing to work hard to succeed. They’re not lazy. They just were taught from birth that they don’t need to apply much work to achieve their goals. That’s what’s sickening about our society – no one thinks ahead. But you should. That’s the way it works. You go out there, find a niche, write on it, attract readers and only then you gain considerable revenues. The time it takes for your blog to stand out may vary, don’t expect results right away, but you’ll see slow, gradual progress, which is exactly what blogging is about.
What Is PageRank and How Do I Use It?
PageRank is what Google uses to determine the importance of a web page. It's one of many factors used to determine which pages appear in search results.
The History of PageRank
PageRank was developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford. At the time that Page and Brin met, search engines typically linked to pages that had the highest keyword density, which meant people could game the system by repeating the same phrase over and over to attract higher search page results.
PageRank is patented by Stanford, and the name PageRank likely comes from Larry Page.
What Does PageRank Measure?
PageRank measure's a web page's importance.
Page and Brin's theory is that the most important pages on the Internet are the pages with the most links leading to them. PageRank thinks of links as votes, where a page linking to another page is casting a vote.
This makes sense, because people do tend to link to relevant content, and pages with more links to them are usually better resources than pages that nobody links.
PageRank doesn't stop there. It also looks at the importance of the page that contains the link. Pages with higher PageRank have more weight in "voting" with their links than pages with lower PageRank. It also looks at the number of links on the page casting the "vote." Pages with more links have less weight.
This also makes a certain amount of sense. Pages that are important are probably better authorities in leading web surfers to better sources, and pages that have more links are likely to be less discriminating on where they're linking.
How Important Is PageRank?
PageRank is one of many factors that determines where your web page appears in search result ranking, but if all other factors are equal, PageRank can have significant impact on your Google rankings.
Are There Flaws in PageRank?
There are certainly flaws in PageRank. Now that people know the secrets to obtaining a higher PageRank, the data can be manipulated. Google Bombs are a classic example of PageRank manipulation.
"Link farming" is another method people attempt to use manipulate PageRank. Link farming is the practice of linking without thought of the relevance of the pages being linked, and it is often automated. If you've ever run into a web page that was nothing but a collection of random links to other websites, you may have run into a link farm.
Google has adapted their calculations to filter off possible link farms. This is one reason why submitting your website to directories with low or no PageRank may be a bad idea.
If you find your website linked in a link farm, don't panic. In most cases this has no effect at all on your ranking. You can't control who links to you, anyway. Just don't link back to link farms and don't submit your site to them intentionally.
How Can I See PageRank?
PageRank is measured on a scale of one to ten and assigned to individual pages within a website, not the entire website. To find the PageRank of a page, use Google Toolbar. Very few pages have a PageRank of 10, especially as the number of pages on the Internet increases.
How Can I Increase My PageRank?
If you'd like to increase your PageRank, you need to have "back-links," or other people linking to your website. You can trade links with other people, but make sure you only trade relevant links, and make sure you're not trading links with a link farm. You can register your website with directories, such as the Open Directory Project, but use directories with high PageRank whenever possible.
As you build web pages within your website, you can create some of your own back-links by linking to relevant pages within your own website. This is a technique you may notice on this website. However, remember that the number of links you create counts into the equation. Don't overdo it.
The best way to increase your PageRank is to have quality content that other people want to link.
Adsense for Mobiles.
Google has now developed ad software for mobile phones. It will start selling ads on websites or blogs that are designed for mobile devices. Website and blog owners will now be able to have Google ads that are fit to be viewed when accessed from a mobile device.But in order to use AdSense for mobile, you should have a mobile-compliant webpage. By adding AdSense for mobile ad code to a standard webpage will not display ads at all.
You can create mobile-compliant webpage by rewriting your existing website in a mobile markup language, such as XHTML, WML, or CHTML. The most important thing is that you should take care of the layout. It must be properly formatted to display on mobile phones.
Develop your mobile website using server-side scripting such as PHP or ASP. You can then paste the PHP code snippet into the section of the page where you want the AdSense for mobile ads to appear.
At any point of time Google will not be able to assist you with creating a mobile website. However, you may find resources and tutorials on the web that could help you in creating a mobile site. Do a Google search for terms such as "create mobile website" or "make mobile webpage". You will definitely get many tutorials.
Once you've created a mobile webpage that complies with Google’s program policies, you're able to add Google ads to it!
To use adsense mobile, log-in to AdSense and switch to AdSense Setup > AdSense for Mobile.Once you’ve chosen your ad format (single or double, text-link only at the moment) and colors, and specify your document format – “wml (WAP 1.x)”, “xhtml (WAP 2.0)”, or “chtml” – you will be provided with a code snippet to insert into your pages.
AdSense on Wordpress.com Blogs at $15 per year per blog
If your blog is hosted on Wordpress.com, you cannot monetize it with Google Adsense, Text Link Ads, PayperPost or other advertising programs as that’s against the rule book.
_____________________________________________
Sponsored / paid posts including PayPerPost and ReviewMe are not permitted. Sponsored / paid links are not permitted. Text ads are not permitted.
Adsense, Yahoo, Chitika and other ads are not permitted to be added by users. Adverts that may be inserted when using an external blogging program will be blocked.
One discreet link to Amazon per blog is okay, but if the primary purpose of the blog is to drive traffic to affiliate programs that’s not allowed. If you’re not sure, contact support.
___________________________________
However, if you have a self-host version of Wordpress downloaded from Wordpress.org, you are free to modify templates or integrate advertising code inside.
Now some hope for people who have blogs on wordpress.com - you will be able to add adsense to your blogs soon.
According to Guardian, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg plans to allow users to add Google’s AdSense to their blogs. It may be a paid upgrade and users will have to pay around $15 a year per blog to see Google Adsense ads running on the their wordpress.com blogs.
Why are AdSense revenues falling?
Google AdSense has been a cash cow for many publishers since 2003.
i found a nice video regarding adsense revenue...
10 golden rules to become rich!
Once you decide to put your money to work to build long-term wealth, you have to decide, not whether to take risk, but what kind of risk you wish to take. Here are 10 investing rules that can make you rich:
1. There's no escaping risk
Once you decide to put your money to work to build long-term wealth, you have to decide, not whether to take risk, but what kind of risk you wish to take.
Yes, money in a savings account is dollar-safe, but those safe dollars are apt to be substantially eroded by inflation, a risk that almost guarantees you will fail to reach your wealth goals.
And yes, money in the stock market is very risky over the short-term, but, if well-diversified, should provide remarkable growth with a high degree of consistency over the long term.
2. Buy right and hold tight
The most critical decision you face is arriving at the proper allocation of assets in your investment portfolio -- stocks for growth of capital and growth of income, bonds for conservation of capital and current income.
Once you get your balance right, then just hold tight, no matter how high a greedy stock market flies, nor how low a frightened market plunges. Change the allocation only as your investment profile changes. Begin by considering a 50/50 stock/bond-cash balance, then raise the stock allocation if:
>You have many years remaining to accumulate wealth.
>The amount of capital you have at stake is modest.
>You don't have much need for current income from your investments.
>You have the courage to ride out the stock market booms and busts with reasonable equanimity.
As these factors are reversed, reduce the 50 per cent stock allocation accordingly.
3. Time is your friend, impulse your enemy
Think long term, and don't allow transitory changes in stock prices to alter your investment program. There is a lot of noise in the daily volatility of the stock market, which too often is 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.
Stocks may remain overvalued, or undervalued, for years. Realize that one of the greatest sins of investing is to be captured by the siren song of the market, luring you into buying stocks when they are soaring and selling when they are plunging.
Impulse is your enemy. Why? Because market timing is impossible. Even if you turn out to be right when you sold stocks just before a decline (a rare occurrence!), where on earth would you ever get the insight that tells you the right time to get back in? One correct decision is tough enough. Two correct decisions are nigh on impossible.
Time is your friend. If, over the next 25 years, stocks produce a 10% return and a savings account produces a 5% return, $10,000 would grow to $108,000 in stocks vs. $34,000 in savings. (After 3% inflation, $54,000 vs $16,000). Give yourself all the time you can.
4. Realistic expectations: the bagel and the doughnut
These two different kinds of baked goods symbolize the two distinctively different elements of stock market returns.
It is hardly farfetched to consider that investment return -- dividend yields and earnings growth -- is the bagel of the stock market, for the investment return on stocks reflects their underlying character: nutritious, crusty and hard-boiled.
By the same token, speculative return -- wrought by any change in the price that investors are willing to pay for each dollar of earnings -- is the spongy doughnut of the market, reflecting changing public opinion about stock valuations, from the soft sweetness of optimism to the acid sourness of pessimism.
The substantive bagel-like economics of investing are almost inevitably productive, but the flaky, doughnut-like emotions of investors are anything but steady -- sometimes productive, sometimes counterproductive.
In the long run, it is investment return that rules the day. In the past 40 years, the speculative return on US stocks has been zero, with the annual investment return of 11.2% precisely equal to the stock market's total return of 11.2% per year.
But in the first 20 of those years, investors were sour on the economy's prospects, and a tumbling price-earnings ratio provided a speculative return of minus 4.6% per year, reducing the nutritious annual investment return of 12.1% to a market return of just 7.5%. From 1981 to 2001, however, the outlook sweetened, and a soaring P/E ratio produced a sugary 5% speculative boost to the investment return of 10.3%.
Result: The market return leaped to 15.3% -- double the return of the prior two decades.
The lesson: Enjoy the bagel's healthy nutrients, and don't count on the doughnut's sweetness to enhance them.
5. Why look for the needle in the haystack? Buy the haystack!
Experience confirms that buying the right stocks, betting on the right investment style, and picking the right money manager -- in each case, in advance -- is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Investing in equities entails four risks: stock risk, style risk, manager risk, and market risk. The first three of these risks can easily be eliminated, simply by owning the entire stock market -- owning the haystack, as it were -- and holding it forever.
Owning the entire stock market is the ultimate diversifier. If you can't find the needle, buy the haystack.
6. Minimize the croupier's take
The resemblance of the stock market to the casino is not far-fetched. Yes, the stock market is a positive-sum game and the gambling casino is a zero-sum game . . . but only before the costs of playing each game are deducted. After the heavy costs of financial intermediaries (commissions, management fees, taxes, etc.) are deducted, beating the stock market is inevitably a loser's game. Just as, after the croupiers' wide rake descends, beating the casino is inevitably a loser's game. All investors as a group must earn the market's return before costs, and lose to the market after costs, and by the exact amount of those costs.
Your greatest chance of earning the market's return, therefore, is to reduce the croupiers' take to the bare-bones minimum. When you read about stock market returns, realize that the financial markets are not for sale, except at a high price.
The difference is crucial. If the market's return is 10% before costs, and intermediation costs are approximately 2%, then investors earn 8%. Compounded over 50 years, 8% takes $10,000 to $469,000. But at 10%, the final value leaps to $1,170,000 -- nearly three times as much . . . just by eliminating the croupier's take.
7. Beware of fighting the last war
Too many investors -- individuals and institutions alike -- are constantly making investment decisions based on the lessons of the recent, or even the extended, past. They seek technology stocks after they have emerged victorious from the last war; they worry about inflation after it becomes the accepted bogeyman, they buy bonds after the stock market has plunged.
You should not ignore the past, but neither should you assume that a particular cyclical trend will last forever. None does. Just because some investors insist on 'fighting the last war,' you don't need to do so yourself. It doesn't work for very long.
8. Sir Isaac Newton's revenge on Wall Street -- return to the mean
Through all history, investments have been subject to a sort of law of gravity: What goes up must go down, and, oddly enough, what goes down must go up. Not always of course (companies that die rarely live again), and not necessarily in the absolute sense, but relative to the overall market norm.
For example, stock market returns that substantially exceed the investment returns generated by earnings and dividends during one period tend to revert and fall well short of that norm during the next period. Like a pendulum, stock prices swing far above their underlying values, only to swing back to fair value and then far below it.
Another example: From the start of 1997 through March 2000, Nasdaq stocks (+230%) soared past NYSE-listed stocks (+20%), only to come to a screeching halt. During the subsequent year, Nasdaq stocks lost 67% of their value, while NYSE stocks lost just 7%, reverting to the original market value relationship (about one to five) between the so-called 'new economy' and the 'old economy.'
Reversion to the mean is found everywhere in the financial jungle, for the mean is a powerful magnet that, in the long run, finally draws everything back to it.
9. The hedgehog bests the fox
The Greek philosopher Archilochus tells us, 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing.' The fox -- artful, sly, and astute -- represents the financial institution that knows many things about complex markets and sophisticated marketing.
The hedgehog -- whose sharp spines give it almost impregnable armour when it curls into a ball -- is the financial institution that knows only one great thing: long-term investment success is based on simplicity.
The wily foxes of the financial world justify their existence by propagating the notion that an investor can survive only with the benefit of their artful knowledge and expertise. Such assistance, alas, does not come cheap, and the costs it entails tend to consume more value-added performance than even the most cunning of foxes can provide.
Result: The annual returns earned for investors by financial intermediaries such as mutual funds have averaged less than 80% of the stock market's annual return.
The hedgehog, on the other hand, knows that the truly great investment strategy succeeds, not because of its complexity or cleverness, but because of its simplicity and low cost. The hedgehog diversifies broadly, buys and holds, and keeps expenses to the bare-bones minimum.
The ultimate hedgehog: The all-market index fund, operated at minimal cost and with minimal portfolio turnover, virtually guarantees nearly 100% of the market's return to the investor.
In the field of investment management, foxes come and go, but hedgehogs are forever.
10. Stay the course: the secret of investing is that there is no secret
When you consider these previous nine rules, realize that they are about neither magic and legerdemain, nor about forecasting the unforecastable, nor about betting at long and ultimately unsurmountable odds, nor about learning some great secret of successful investing.
In fact, there is no great secret, only the majesty of simplicity. These rules are about elementary arithmetic, about fundamental and unarguable principles, and about that most uncommon of all attributes, common sense.
Owning the entire stock market through an index fund -- all the while balancing your portfolio with an appropriate allocation to an all bond market index fund -- with its cost-efficiency, its tax-efficiency, and its assurance of earning for you the market's return, is by definition a winning strategy.
But if only you follow one final rule for successful investing, perhaps the most important principle of all investment wisdom: Stay the course!
3 Interesting Ideas to Make Money on ebay
1) Sell Used Cell Phones on ebay
The demands for used cell phones with brand names like Nokia, Motorola, Kyocera, Alltel, Ericsson, Sprint, etc in ebay are pretty high. Many of the used cell phones auctions in ebay usually attract bids.
So how to find used cell phones to profit on ebay?
Many people change their cell phones every year. If you are one of them, probably you already have 2 or 3 used cell phones kept at home that can sell on ebay. Your friends may also keep a few of old phones left unused. You can buy from them and resell on ebay.
To get a consistent supply of cell phones, you may think about placing classified ads in newspaper states that you pay money for used cell phone. You shouldn't pay much when buying used cell phones. Do a little research on ebay to find out how much used cell phones are generally selling. If a used cell phone sell at a price of $50 in ebay, you should pay not more than 30% of the price to buy it. If the phone is a recent model you can pay little more and cut a little if it is old and nothing special.
2) Sell Used How-to Books
Used how-to books are quite easy to find and inexpensive to buy. They can be bought at $1.00 or less. You can buy how-to books from thrift shops, estate sales, used book stores, yard sales, etc and sell them in ebay for high profit margin. You can also get how-to books from Book Sale Finder. Here are the type of books you should look for:
Hobbies
Photography, blacksmithing, clock building & repair, woodworking, magic, treasure hunting, iron work, pipe smoking, dog training, antiques, coins, buttons, medals, drawing, painting, craft making, dolls, pottery, etc.
Home and Garden
Home decorating, home remodelling, garden trellis, etc.
Misc
How to repair (watch repair, door repair, pipe repair), how to play, lost treasure, eary aviation, etc.
When you list your books in ebay, you can either list them in the "Book" category of ebay or in the subject specific category of ebay. For instance, If you are selling a book related to home decorating, you may be making more profit if you list the book under the "Home Deco" within the "Home & Garden" category of ebay campare to listing the book under "Book"
3) Sell Gift Cards
Gift card is another profitable market in ebay. There are many people possess gift cards but not everyone of them will use their gift cards. If you can offer to buy these unused gift cards for a price at 20% or less of the value of the gift certificates, they will sell to you. You can advertise your offer in local newspaper, penny shop and trading post. You are looking for gift cards that are still valid (not yet expire). Most gift cards have a toll-free number on the back you can dial to check whether the cards are still valid.
When determining the buy and sell price of a gift card, you should do some research on ebay. Try to look for auction that sell the similar card. See how much the card sells in the auction and set you buying price at 40% to 50% of the selling price of the auction. The starting bid and winning bid of the auction can also give you an idea on how much your card can sell on ebay.
How to Make Your Blog Unique
How Do You Make Your Blog Unique and Stand out from 55 Million Others?
There are 55 Million blogs out there and every day this number is still keep growing. They said, blogosphere is still in it’s infancy. So, how do you make your blog stand out from the rest?
As regards money, for example, 99% of blogs don't make a penny and most soon disappear.
The blogging winners will be those who persevere, adapt and keep on learning and try to be creative.
Your blog post maybe speaking the same thing with hundreds of others. This situation demands maximum creativity in order to stand out. In one of the post made by Steve Pavlina, he gives us a sneak-peek at his flowing creativity experience. Learn from one of the top blogger, read his post entitled "My Experience in Creativity".
I hope you can get lessons from Steve on how to make your blog stand-out through creativity.
15 Common Mistakes that Violate Google Adsense TOS
Google Adsense program is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are well defined terms of service to strictly adhere to when participating in the program.
On my visit through sites and forums, I daily notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.
1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.
2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.
3. Do not place more than 3 ad units and 3 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.
4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links. Update: Google has allowed you to run contextual advertising like Yahoo ads, Chitika etc provided the ads do not resemble Adsense ads.
5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.
6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.
7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.
8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.
9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.
10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.
11. Do not send your ads by email. Html formatted emails look good and allow placement of these javascript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!
12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.
13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches - Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.
14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of ‘excessive’ is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.
15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”. In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.
Update:
16. Maximum 2 referral button per product per page - With the launch of the google adsense referral program, you are allowed to put only 2 referral buttons for adsense referral, adwords referral, Google pack and Firefox with google toolbar referral.
17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads. - Several services like Chitika eminimalls allow you to place alternate urls, when a targeted paying ad cannot be displayed. This involved creating an simple html page and putting the ad to be displayed instead. Even Adsense allows an alternate url feature instead of displaying public service ads. But never use Adsense ads as alternate urls.
18. Do not confuse with adjacent images - It was a common policy to increase CTR by placing same number of images as the number of text ads, which falsely gave the impression that the text ads represented an explanation to these images. Inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads is not allowed. Make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. More.
Whenever in doubt, it is better to ask for adsense help from the learned staff of Google Adsense. They are very helpful!
Blog and Website, Which One is Better for Making Money Online?
The main difference between blog and website is blog has content update frequently and the latest blog post will appear on the top. Each blog post created in blogs generally welcome comment from readers. So which one is better in generating online income for you? Unfortunately I don't think there are any answers to this question. Which one works better for you will depend on your preferences and behavior. You will have to know which one best suits you before putting serious effort, time and money in Internet marketing or you could end up regret making the wrong choice and suffer losses.
Ok, now lets take a look the the pros and cons of website and blog to help you find out which one is right for you.
Website's Pros
- Most Website seldom have new content added frequently. You don't need to add new content and articles to your website if you don't want to. So it saves your a lot of hard works.
- You still can get a steady stream of free traffic from search engines even without updating your website often. You wouldn't lose ranking in Google since most of the webmasters don't add fresh content to their sites often too. This apply to most of the niches except some niches that are crowded with blogs in Google.
- More flexibilities in AdSense and affiliate programs optimization in your website.
- Generate high AdSense CTR if you optimize your AdSense well.
Website's Cons
- Take long time to get a lot of traffic and high search engines rankings. Also visitors seldom return to website unless fresh content are added daily.
- To survive in long-term, you'll got to master some long-term traffic generating strategies such as good SEO to rank high in search engines, effective article marketing and more.
Blog's Pros
- You can join blogger.com or wordpress.com to create a blog easily at no cost. A better option is to register your own domain name and pay a hosting company to host your blog.
- Take lesser time to gain a steady stream of traffic by posting new and quality content on your blog daily and using free traffic strategies like social bookmarking, networking in a blog community like mybloglog.com and so on.
- When you blog start becoming popular, many bloggers will start noticing you. You will find many of them will link back to your quality post and thus gaining a lot of free quality backlinks to your blog. And Probably, your blog will then rank top 10 in Google and getting more traffic. The more traffic you get, the more money you will earn.
Blog's Cons
- Lower AdSense click-through rate. You need to have massive traffic to earn few hundred dollars of AdSense revenue monthly.
- Over AdSense and affiliate program optimizations in your blog can annoy your readers and lose traffic.
- If you want to maintain a steady stream of traffic, you have to keep on writing. Your returned visitors expect to read something on your blog when they come back.
5 Tips to Boost Your Adsense Revenue
Google AdSense program has made it easier for webmasters to make money through a website. Webmasters who run an AdSense campaign will display Google's contextual Ads relevant to the content of their sites and thus encouraging visitors to click the ads and earn money for each ad click.
However you will earn very little AdSense revenue if you don't know how to optimize your AdSense ads on your website. Here are some tips to increase your AdSense earning:
1. Focus on one Adsense ad format. The Large Rectangle (336X280) ad format seems to work better than other ad formats because this format tends to result in higher click through rates (CTR). Another reason is that the ads will look like normal web links that visitors use to click on them. It doesn't matter whether the visitors know that they are clicking AdSense ads or not, as long as there are clicking, you earn AdSense commission.
2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Select a color that matches your website's background. If your site's background is white both, the color of ad border and background should set to be white too. Also the color of the ad title should be similar to coloe of the links in your website. This is to make your AdSense ads look like it is part of the web pages. Again, this will boost AdSense CTR.
3. Don't place your AdSense ads at the bottom of your webpages because it is proven to be less effective. Displaying your AdSense ads at the bottom is like hiding your AdSense and thus leads to low CTR and AdSense revenue. Try to put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between AdSense locations can make when you see your earnings.
4. Try to place your AdSense ads near rich content as visitors main focus usually are your content. There are several ways to insert AdSense ads into your content and one of the ways is place your AdSense just after the end of your content.
5. Try to automate the insertion of your AdSense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your AdSense code in a text file, name it as “AdSense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then use SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.
These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. There are other ways to optimize your AdSense that produce high CTR also. You can learn more tricks by reading in AdSense and webmaster forums.v
Can You Really Make Money Blogging?
But that's not to say that you can't make money online by blogging. Yes, you can make money, but only if you stick with it in the long run. It takes patience, trial and error and hard work to make even a dime. You won't see any positive results in the first few months. But by then, most bloggers would drop out dissappointed. Professional bloggers know that a good deal of money can be made by blogging in the long run. You just have to lay the foundation right.
So how do you lay the right foundation? Stay tuned because I'll tell you. There's more to follow.
Protect your Adsense Code
You may not be aware but there is a potential danger to your adsense account. There is a possibility that someone might copy your adsense code onto a website with inappropriate code that may damage your whole adsense account.
This has happened at least to one person atleast who has acknowledged this. There may be more who have not reported it.
This is quite frightening if you think seriously, all your hard work can go down the drain if someone decides to hurt you real bad. But don't worry yourself to death - there is help at hand. Recently adsense added a new feature to Google Adsense Program.
Adsense has a new tab called "Allowed Sites". The two options under this tab are;
Allow any site to show ads for my account
Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account
In the second option you can any domain or sub-domain to your list of approved sites. If anyone tries to paste your code to any site other than the above list, the adsense ads will appear but you will not get any revenue from the clicks or even count impressions. Here I and many other similar thinking bloggers beg to differ from Google Adsense Program. A better option would have been to only show PSA's. Anyway Google has thought this to be right for them and this is how it works for now. So I think everybody should use this feature and protect their adsense account.
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Thanks
How to Setup an Adsense Account?
Before you apply for an Adsense Account, please make sure that you have a suitable website with enough content that has never been applied for Adsense before. In term of suitability, your site should be free from porn information and adult content. Apart from that, you site should not be made solely for displaying adsense ads. Anyway, just read the TOS and see whether your site is eligible. In other words, your site should not be content-free.
Then, go to Google Adsense Signup page: https://google.com/adsense/g-app-single-1 and start applying in Adsnese. Provide your information including mailing address, your site URL etc. For those who wanna recieve check, you can change your mailing address anytime, no worry.Afterwards, Google need to review your site and decide your site whether is suitable for putting adsense or not. Normally, it only takes you 2-3days. However, for certain occassion, it will take as long as 10 days. Just be patient, and wait for that period. However, some people still say they do not revieve any reply from Google after a week. Nevermind, email them for such situation. They are welcome for all email enquiry.
