A few people and asked what is happening to this blog and enjoyed the content. Thanks for the much needed encouragement! They kept me going! 

This project is continuing at the new home, SeekingRevenue.com.

Join me as we seek revenue and gain financial independence.

Traffic

2 little spikes in traffic which I will talk about more in my posts.

From 0 to independence

Traffic on this site still in limbo. Planning a couple more lesson learnt topic to see if it helps.

59ideas

Despite moving to 59ideas.com, I’m still getting residual traffic. This is linking and search engine indexing at work. The nice little spike is of course from googleblog which I talked about in my last post.

Since moving to my own domain, I’m using AWStats which gives a different reporting format. Posting here the monthly chart.

whois.la

Traffic levelled, planning a few ideas up my sleeve to drive it up.

Financial result

It’s worrying, I’m getting less in Feb. I have not figure out the reason, possibly within normal variation.

I am not giving up, but I’m giving an excuse. The Great Firewall.

It is a real pain updating via proxy. I’m already slipping behind with updates on Best Blog on WordPress. I’m certainly behind on this one.

Yes I thought of moving. In fact I already had the domain 0toindependence.com. But it is hard work moving blog. Did it once with 59ideas, can’t say I enjoy it. It is nice to have the wordpress.com guys running the blog.

Also I’m working on my ideas. One problem with ideas is you tend to spend too much time thinking about them then doing. And when you spend time doing, you don’t want to repeat by writing about them.

Through the process had learnt quite a bit about time management. Balancing real world work with virtual ventures.

I planned to post more updates and lesson learnt in future. Stay tuned.

This blog had been around for (coming to) 2 months – a very short time in blogodom. There is no deny that I’m looking to get into the A-list and earn revenue from online activities like blogging.

This blog is not getting traffic. My two other blogs are.

I surf alot for blog to list on the Best Blog on WordPress. I also looked at blogs that frequently get onto the Fastest Growing blogs and Top Posts.

Here’s what I learn about what gets traffics and what not.

1. Have a Theme

Not the WordPress template theme but as in a topic.
Musing blog is fine, everyone need one. But if you want traffic, start a blog with a theme. It could be baseball, learning english or cartoons.

Theme works. Proven.

2. Write an About

Tell people about you and the blog. Why you care to blog? Why people should care about the blog?

Surely I’m not the only to click on about when I visit a new blog. I consider a blog not ready for Best Blog if the author does not even bother about About. 

3. Fill up those Blogrolls

Blogroll tells visitor who you read, what topic you like. It also gives a hint on who you know, who are your friends. It is a glimpse of the topics likely to appear on your blog.

You are who you read or at least make people think so.

I confess this is an area I badly need impovement.

4. Write good content

Content was and still is king.

If you are a programmer, take a look at this post. Would you visit this blog again?

5. KISS your post

There are exceptions. But in most cases Keep It (your post) Short and Simple. Most popular post are.

6. Pictures

7. Movies

This blog gets tons of traffic. Why?

8. Trackback or comment on popular Blog

Ever wonder why so many people like to throw in a cent or 2 on Scobleizer‘s post?
Hint: How much would traffic worth?

This post get more traffic in a day from Google’s blog than anywhere else. All because of a trackback.

Actually this is the prime reason why there are so many announcement of announcement. There is some value in this. But refer to point 4 above.

9. Process information, Present it

Bloggers love information overload, or do we?

Digest your information and things your learnt. Present it to people, preferrable make it a list.

I am betting this post will get lots of hit tomorrow!

Time flys. I’m planning marriage this year so there’s plenty of happenings off-line. Updating of this blog is certainly slacking behind. 59ideas though is gaining traction slowly and nicely.

Whois.la seems to reach a temporary plateau. Need more ideas to push it along. The redesign is ready and I need to fix a time to get it launched.

Managed to get hosting for Ken and the Art of MotorCycle Maintenance up but it’s behind schedule as well. Plenty of catching up to do.

Torn between skipping a beat or continue to launch sites at the planned rate of one every 2 weeks, I decided to press on.

From 0 to independence and 59ideas

whois.la

Tommy is looking at many program and finding out what works and what doesn’t. I had alluded before my view on such programs. Needless to say, I cannot agree with him more on the topics and what he is doing. Check out his research on scams, ebooks, get rich quick programs.
If you are trying earn revenue online, learn the rope, don’t fall for the traps. Learn to fish so that you have fish abundant as you need.

Jochen at DarK Moon Blog is using Adsense together with his online games and music to make online revenue. Very interesting idea. If you have talent in those areas, this is one way to go.

Whether online or offline, it is important know your strengths and find ways to use them for to maximise return.

Good fortune to your quest!

iPower now offers domain at $2.95 which is the cheapest I had seen. Yahoo Small Business is offering at $2.99 (for up to 5 years) but it is for new sign up only.

Note that these prices are for new domain registration. For renewal, the price is between $7 to $9. You might get slightly below $7 if you sign up as reseller of a domain registrar.

As a plug, I can do renewal at $7++. Drop me a note if you are interested or can help me drive my price down further.

The price of cheap

Everything comes with a price. My recent experience tells me that the price of cheap domain is much wasted time and frustration. Let me recount.

My iPower episode:

• 1 Feb – Register domain KenandtheArtofMotorcycleMaintenance.com at iPower
• 2 Feb – iPower requested scan of credit card and identification to prove identity
• 3 Feb – Scanned and sent
• 4 Feb – Nothing heard. Waited 30min to chat with online support
• 5 Feb – Still nothing heard. Sent an online support request (hidden under many clicks)
• 6 Feb – Support email said account approved but no account information was given.
• 6 Feb – Email support again
• 7 Feb – Support claimed information was sent. None was received
• 7 Feb – Email support again
• 8 Feb – Domain account setup information finally received

That’s more a week just to get a domain registered!

If you think that’s bad, read this worst one at Yahoo.

• 6 Jan – Registered 59ideas.com
• 6 Jan – Order confirmed. Account information received
• 7 Jan – Try to sign on. Failed -
  “Currently you do not have any Yahoo! Small Business products.“
• 8-13 Jan – Waited
• 14 Jan – sent email to Yahoo support
• 17 Jan -
  “Hello Ken,
  Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Support.
  We will be happy to assist you with your inquiry about your account. In order to review your account, please reply with the following information:”
• 18 Jan – “Hello,
  We apologize for the delay in response.
  After researching your account, there was a problem found with the card on file. Please contact the bank or financial Institution that you go through for further information. Alternatively, feel free to call us at: 408-349-5151″
• 18 Jan – call my bank. They told me no charge was attempted so it was not a problem on the bank’s end.
• 19 Jan -
  “Hello Ken,
  Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Support.
  To be able to proceed with your order you will need to use a different credit card for your order. We are not sure what the issue is with the card, that you will need to discuss with your bank. The order itself is cancelled, but per ICANN rules when a domain is registered then cancelled there is a 45 day wait period before you can try and purchase it again. So you can try an different credit card for the domain, or you can wait the 45 days to try and register it with a different company. We do apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.Please let us know if we can offer any further assistance.”
• 19 Jan – I have no other card, I asked if they can process it again.
• 20 Jan -
  “We apologize for the delay in response.We appreciate your suggestions and comments regarding Yahoo! Billing.
  It is through our users’ feedback that we are able to continue to make improvements.We’re already starting to build a database of user suggestions for our next round of enhancements.Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.”
  What does that mean?
• 22 Jan – Out of desperation, I actually emailed Tim to see if know any real person at Small Business. Silly me, he probably has no time for a $2.99 problem.
• 23 Jan – 1 Feb – waited
• 2 Feb – Call international with Skype to talk to Yahoo support at 3am in the morning
• 3 Feb -
  “Hello Ken,We apologize for the accidental closure of your order for domain 59ideas.com it is possible to reactivate your Yahoo! Domains account.To reactivate your Domains account:1. Sign in to your Yahoo! Domains account at:http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains2. Click the “Use it with a Yahoo! plan” link next to the domain name
  search box.

  3. Enter the domain name you would like to reactivate. Please be sure to
  sign in with the Yahoo! ID that was used to purchase your domain.

  4. You will be asked to confirm that this is the domain name you would
  like to reactivate.

  5. Confirm the service that you will be receiving “Domain Name”

  6. Fill out your payment information.

  7. Review your order and click the “Place My Order” button.

  Your Yahoo! Domains account is reactivated and you can begin using the
  features immediately. Please note that your domain name may not resolve
  for another 24 to 48 hours. This is a standard propagation period.”

• Problem is what is described doesn’t fit what they have on their website. Here’s the prove:
  
• 4 Feb – Managed to figure out on my own what was needed and reactivated the domain.
• 5 Feb – Got my account information
• 8 Feb -
  “At Yahoo!, your satisfaction matters more than anything else. In order to meet your needs and preferences, we invite you to share your thoughts with us about your recent experience with Yahoo! Customer Care in a brief online survey.”Guess what will my feedback be?
  Not hold my breath for any change though.

The moral of these stories?

There is a price to pay for cheap.

To use or not to use them? You decide.

Yes, bookmark that, because it will be a pain to type.

It is almost halfway into the 6th week and I am just announcing the idea. All because I was trying to save a couple of dollars on the domain name KenandtheArtofMotorcycleMaintenance.com.

This was supposed to be a filler idea so, I’m not too concerned. Still I would like to get it up and going.

It is also an exercise too in extra long domain name. I wanted to see the effect (if any) a very long domain name has on promoting the site and getting traffic.

Short names are running out and domain names are getting longer or are mix-mash of characters (meebo, lexxe, riya came to mind). Try hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy.com.

About the Idea

The name of couse is a play on the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Ken is my name so it fitted very nicely.

The site is a full blown experimentation of what I call “idea in the blogging“.

I like riding motorcycle (more about that on the site later) and one of my dream is to run a motorcycle repair shop and look at all the different motorbike coming in – Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW, KTM, Aprilla, Cagiva, Ducati, Triumph … talking to the riders. All motorcycle riders have fantastic story to tell.

Very nice … but not going to happen any time soon. At least I can blog about it!

Not much activities last week. 59 Ideas is growing nicely as I get into the blogging flow.
Can you believe it? I registered for a domain for last week’s idea and until I have not gotten the account to the domain. More on this when the account is finally accessible. The price to pay for going cheap.

Activities

• still waiting for domain to launch week 5-6 idea
• already registered domains for week 7-8 idea
• plan and setup for week 7-8 idea
• catch up on pending writings

Routines

• Finalise idea for Week 7-8
• Plan Week 7 ToDo
• 1/2hr /day on Best Blog

Bloggers, by their very nature, are very forthcoming with sharing their success stories. Here, Steve Pavlina share about his traffic and Adsense revenue growth rate.

Starting from Feb 2005 with $53, he is projecting $4700 in Jan 2006! A consistent average growth rate of 50% that has yet to taper off.

This will come as no surprise if you read Steve’s content. Very amazing things he is doing and blogging.

What will be the growth rate of a less than average blogger like myself? Let me share this with you on Jan 2007.

Activities

• launch week 5-6 idea
• catch up on pending writings

Routines

• Plan Week 6 ToDo
• 1/2hr /day on Best Blog (This suddenly is not a pastime anymore.)

Traffic

Traffic graph for 0 to independence and 59ideas.

Traffic for Whois.la

Financial result

Already I’m behind plan for the last two weeks. Beside a personal short-coming that need improving,  I seriously need to adapt and overcome.

So, I’m behind

• writing content
• weekly plan
• forthnightly idea
• forthnightly round up

Some of the original plans and thoughts had to be changed.

I was supposed to launch a new idea every 2 weeks. I believe this is still possible, but need more focus.

The last idea, Whois.la, was simple – brought it and made an introduction. A new design was made and should be ready this week.

The idea for week 5-6 was in the head but I might not pull it off, again because of the happenings in my offline life. Despite that I’m going to put in a filler idea.

The filler idea is really just that, to fill up the gap in my plan. It will be lightweight so that I can get a grip on my time and get back on track.

More reports on my progress, traffic, revenue, plans and idea coming up.

Online directories are very much like their real world counterparts. They are classified list of websites.

Two of the most well known directories are Yahoo and dmoz. Getting a listing in these 2 can mean a noticable increase in traffic and search engine ranking but it is not easy.

What about other directories?

There are countless other directories. Some are effective, some marginal, the rest worthless waste of time. But how do you know?

One useful method is to look out for personal testimonies or experiences. My plan is to also report my experience with directories on this blog as time goes by.
As countless as the directories are services that will help you submit to them. Coincident? Just say they mutually ensure eachother’s existence.

So, what about the paid inclusion and paid submission services?
Is Yahoo directory worth $299? Personally I have yet to use any paid service so I cannot comment from experience. Again, report will appear as if I ever try them.

More good readings:

• Tips on getting listed in Yahoo (and the other big indexes)
• The Power of Directory Submissions