Join My "Internet Millionaires Bootcamp"

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For all Malaysians trying to make as much money online in the shortest possible time, I invite you to attend my Internet Millionaires BootCamp.

This is a full-day crash course on Internet marketing, blogging for profit, and email marketing. My last event was a tremendous success and completely full house, so I recommend you register early while there’s still seats available.

Get Royalty-Free Music for Audio or Video

Gone are the days when blogging was limited to writing and reading articles. There is a lot more for your audience. A picture speaks thousand words, an an animation is the next step. One can make a blog lively with smart use of podcasts.

Before we move on to help you make rich podcasts, here is a brief introduction if this wonderful service you can provide to your audience:

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers.

Podcasts make you stand different amongst the cloud of blogs which target the same niche.

Moving on to the theme of this post, we shall today see the importance of music for your podcasts. One definitely needs a good background music to add to a podcast to deliver more power on to the content. Music help you grab instantaneous attention of the audience. There may be several instances when you may need to add music to a podcast. Few of them include,

  • Creation of paid multimedia content for your blog or website no doubt needs one of the best presentations to get a better ROI.
  • Preparation of a website presentation or a video message for your audience on your blog.
  • Creation of a good audio message on your blog which may be a welcome message or an announcement.
  • Submission of your videos to video directories needs music to make it more appealing.
  • Adding music as a backdrop to your tele-seminars. This makes it look cooler than otherwise.

There is a plethora of ways in which one can use music effectively to add stars to your blog or website. This not only makes your blog look happening but gives a professional touch to the subject.

How to get music for your podcast? FOR FREE.

Yes, you read that correctly! After having seen quite a few valid reasons to use music in your podcasts, we shall now move on to see places where we can get royalty-free music. If you have a heavy pocket, you may go ahead and pay fee to get music from a lot of paid-websites or jump down to these options to get your work done, all for free!

PremiumBeat

premium-beat

RoyaltyFreeMusic

royalty-free-music

DownloadSoundEffects

download-sound-effects

MusicTracksLibrary

music-track-library

Trakax

trakax

Royalty-Free

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These are a few top notch websites which render free music for your podcasts. Use them and add power to your online content. We would welcome any feedbacks. Enjoy!

Webmaster Malaysia Gathering in Penang

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For all Penangites and adventurers, don’t miss it.

Event: The 4th Webmaster Malaysia Gathering (a.k.a WMG)
Date: 27th September 2008
Venue: Level 10, Suntech Building, Penang.
Time: 7pm to 10pm

  • Admission – totally FREE
  • Halal Food and Drinks will be served.

Featured Speakers:

  • Rohan Thomas (Microsoft)
  • KC Lau (KClau.com)
  • TL Guan (Security Engineer)
  • Derric Chew (derricchew.com)

Refer to this forum post for information >

Bye to Exabytes, On To Our Own Server

InternetMillionaires.com.my has seen it’s fair share of problems in the past few weeks. A lot of members complained that they did not receive email, website down, slow downloads etc.

After some research, it all boils down to our shared hosting account on Exabytes. Recently, we also got an email from Exabytes to stop not send out more than 1,000 emails a day or they will shut us down. Unfortunately our membership base has increased to over 1,600 members and posed a problem.

exabytes-warning

Therefore the only solution we had, was to move back to our own dedicated server.

Our initial expectation hosting this site with Exabytes was because we were able to obtain a Malaysian IP address. This would not only mean that search engines would see our site as more Malaysia-oriented, but also ensure better access to Malaysians if the international Internet gateways were down. However, now we see the advantages of bringing it back to our own dedicated server.

So we’re working towards eliminating all existing problems with our site, in order for it to grow more in the future.

How to Get Better Domain Names for Your Blog

The most obvious thing you would do when starting a new blog is to register a new domain name that serves both as a powerful brand, and a permanent address on the web. But here’s the problem; all the good domain names are taken!

This is due to several factors:

  • Domain "Squatters" -  People / companies who register and hold domain names for years, with the hope of cashing in a few years later when the value for the domains are high.
  • Abandoned Sites – Someone registered a domain name and had the good intentions of setting up a website, but never quite got to it.
  • Brand Equity – Sometimes a person would register all domains names that sound alike to protect his brand. That includes all .net, .org, .info and other variants

All single word domains have probably been registered years ago. Catchy two-word domains are hard to come by unless you get lucky – so the next best option would be 3-word domains. But hold on..

Just because a domain name has been registered, it does not mean that you can’t get your hands on it. Let me show you how I got some great domain names using not-so-secret but severely overlooked methods that are easy and works most of the time.

GoDaddy’s "Back Order" Domains

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Sometimes I get excited when I find a domain name, and register it without thinking twice. One year later when it’s time to renew my domain, I may decide to let it go as by then I’d probably have accumulated a lot of domains from this rather bad habit :)

And guess what – there are a lot of others who do the same thing! Every day thousands of good, catchy domains expire.

domain-captureGoDaddy allows you to "back order" domains, which basically means "order now, get it later". Each order gets you a "credit" which lasts for one year and can be transferred to other domains. GoDaddy will attempt to secure your domain automatically, and they will inform you when it’s successful.

When you backorder a domain name, the moment the previous owner decides to let it go you’re the most likely person to get it.

For example lets say the domain name ProfitBlogger.com expires one month from now. If you backorder this domain and I don’t renew it when time’s up, you get the domain. If I do renew it however, you get to apply the "credit" to other domain names that you want to get. 

The trick to using this method is to determine the expiry date of a domain, and the only tool you need to use is WhoIs.sc – make sure the domain name has less than a year to go. Once you’ve backordered a domain, no one else will be able to do it via GoDaddy so that’s a bit reassuring!

Some domain names I’ve secured with back orders:

  • PLRBlogger.com – $18.99
  • BlogSecret.com – $18.99

I also have several active backorders for domain names expiring within the next 6 months.

Buy Deleted Domain Names

When a domain expires and it not backordered by someone, it becomes a deleted domain. You can find thousands of such domains at DeletedDomains.com. This site used to be free, but now you have to pay XX a year to subscribe to their service. When you do you’ll be able to wade through thousands of domains deleted in the past 24 hours up to a year ago.

Use their search function and subscribe to alerts based on keywords you want in your domain. You have to be quick, or the good domains usually get bought by squatters.

GoDaddy’s Domain Name Aftermarket

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Domain squatters sometimes decide it’s time to cash in, and they start looking for buyers. GoDaddy’s Domain Name Aftermarket (TDNAM) is where you’ll find a lot of these people selling off rather good domains for pretty cheap. They do it through three methods:

  1. Buy Now – The owner has already listed a selling price. Meet it and the domain is yours.
  2. Offer /Counter Offer – The seller has a suggested price. Make and offer and he can counter or accept your offer.
  3. Highest Bidder – Bid for the domain name. If you’re the highest bidder, you get it.

Although it requires you to search and browse through many crappy domains, you do get to find gems in here.  The trick is to use the search feature properly, and also add desired domains to your "Watch List" to monitor price changes and bids.

Some of the domain names I’ve secured with from TDNAM:

  • IncomeAutomated.com – $10
  • ProfitResponse.com – $10
  • PLRSecret.com – $10
  • AutopilotBlogger.com – $5
  • AutoresponderProfit.com – $100

* To use TDNAM you have to subscribe to it, which costs $4.99 / year

Buy Domains From SitePoint

sitepoint

SitePoint.com is another place you can buy domains. With this site however negotiations are strictly between you and the owner, with no third-party help. Domain owners usually buy a listing here and go to great lengths to convince you that their domain is worth the price.

You can buy domains with no traffic, or a little bit of traffic if it has been used and promote before. You can also buy domain names with the entire website.

Make An Offer They Can’t Refuse, Via Sedo

sedo

Sedo.com is quite like GoDaddy’s TDNAM, but you’ll find really good domains here and they usually also cost a lot too.

Even if a domain is not for sale on Sedo, you can still benefit from the site. They have a feature where they help you to negotiate the purchase of domain names from the current owner. You remain anonymous until the sale is completed.

You make an offer for the domain, and Sedo conveys that to the domain owner. He can then counter your offer, accept it or reject it without further negotiation. Start low but not too low, and counter offer as much as possible till both parties are satisfied with the price. If you start off with a ridicu
lous price you’ll
get no response, so be realistic. Some domains are worth a lot of money, and the owner probably knows it :)

They also send you a "domain appraisal" report as part of the service.

Domains I’ve got from Sedo:

  • BlogProfit.com – $700
  • ProfitBlogger.com – $1,800

Article Marketing Automation – One Way Links and Top Google Rankings

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Article Marketing Automation is a tool created by Daniel Turner and Marc Lindsay. Based on the age old concept of article marketing but with a new twist, Article Marketing Automation is set to become one of the most important tools you can have as a profit blogger.

In case you didn’t know, article marketing is the act of writing an article (usually between 200 – 800 words) and allowing other people to publish it on their sites. The purpose of article marketing is to build your recognition and brand name, as well as to get many links back to your site.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization and blog traffic, Google often takes into account the amount of one-way links pointing back to your site to determine how popular your site is and how highly it should be ranked. Of course no one knows the exact formula, but links definitely play an important role.

Article Marketing Automation promises to automate the process. Here’s what you can do with the system:

  • Get Instant Blog Content – By submitting your blog, you can start to get content. Depending on the amount of effort put in by the other member who wrote the article, it can be up to 30% unique to your blog which is a really good thing.
  • Get One-Way Links – By upgrading your account you also get to submit articles. In your article you can links to not only the blogs you’ve listed in the system, but to your other blogs, sites, YouTube videos, social bookmarking accounts, and more.
  • Avoid Duplicate Content – You can use the site’s article spinning features to change whatever you wish in your article – the heading, words, paragraphs, the source box, links, and anchor text.

Article Marketing Automation is easy way to get free content to your site and grow it naturally. You have access to an ever growing exponentially expanding network of sites to post your content. They’re aiming for 60,000 sites in the network.

The site includes advanced training, with videos and a PDF Guide, with more advanced training planned.

Truly Unique Articles Using Article Rewrites

I’m pretty jealous of this idea because I had a similar one for a long time, but not enough resources to do it. Basically, the AMA system allows you to create one article, and re-write this article many, many time to create as many unique articles as possible:

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This is great for both the article owner and the blog publisher, as more unique articles means there are more chances of Google recognizing it as a unique, and therefore more valid backlinks to your site. If you’re just publishing the articles, you can preview the articles first, and then choose to approve or reject them. All this is done with a clean AJAX interface that is easy to use.

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Two Sign-Up Levels – Free / Paid

article-automation-2Article Marketing Automation allows you to sign-up both as a free or paid user. As a free user, you can add one of your blogs to the network and get free content which is submitted by other members within the system. As a paid user you’re upgraded to “Article Submission Level” which of course means that you can also submit your own articles.

To sign-up for free, just create your account using the sign-up form but don’t make a payment. You’ll still get your membership login details and you can readily add your blog to the network.

Without doubt, this is one of the best blogging and SEO tools I’ve ever come across and I couldn’t do it any better myself. I highly recommend you try it out for yourself.

Sign-Up Free / Paid Here: Article Marketing Automation

Top Free Blogging Tools That Help You Blog Better

When you start blogging for fun – the underlying platform, availability of tools, etc. are the variables you seldom care about. I remember the time when I started off with a blog on blogger.com, 3 years ago. I registered for the service with a random name which I do not remember today! I still cherish those memories when a single comment dropped on to the posts made me happy!

But as you advance, your desires grow symmetrically. Talking about bloggers who write frequent which involve a considerable amount of research,there are a lot of indispensable tools which they can’t afford to miss. This list is endless and depends on the kind of niche one concentrates on. However, I would like to throw light on few tools/applications which shall prove to be a boon to your blogging desk, irrespective of the niche you write for.

Here we go:

Microsoft Windows Live Writer

WLW 

By far the the best blogging tool one can ever think of! You name a feature and its there. With the addtional support of tailored plugins, this is a must have blogging tool for all you bloggers out there. It is a desktop application which runs on MS Windows platform and makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using your current blog service. You can configure nearly all blogging platforms on this, giving them a more powerful, intuitive and appealing interface. Some of the key features it incorporates include – WYSIWYG editor, Photo publishing, Map publishing, Writer SDK, etc. Once you start using it, I am sure you’ll never look back! You can download it for free here!  

Zemanta

zemanta 

We’ve already seen this beautiful tool and its features in one of our earlier articles. This Firefox/IE addon understands what you are blogging about and suggests you related pictures, articles, links and tags to make your posts more vibrant. If you believe in rich content, you can’t afford to miss this free-to-use tool!

ScribeFire

 scribefire

Okay, so you are a non-Windows blogger and hence unable to use MS Windows live writer. One of the best alternatives for WLR is Scribefire. This is a Firefox addon which sits within your favorite web browser and allows you to write without closing or minimizing the browser window. You can work on multiple tabs up top without disrupting your text entry section below. It is compatible with Windows and Linux, both. You may add multiple blogs to the panel – just select the blog you wish to write on and there you go. Do try it out!

CoLT

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There are a lot of instances when you need to copy-paste a link/URL to your editor from a website. At times you need to selectively copy the text, leaving behind the underlying URL. Or may be you need to copy both the text and the linked URL at the same time. With this magical tool, your right-click options get the veto power! This makes grabbing the URL, text, or both parts of a link fast and simple. This allows you to concentrate on the context rather than your mouse clicks!

Automation of repetitive codes with text replacement

automation-texter 

There are tools available for the different Operating Systems which lets you define text substitution hotstrings which, when triggered, help replace the hotstring with a larger piece of text. Just by entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into the panel, you can save a lot of keystrokes while you write posts. It also helps you write without less spelling mistakes and typos. You may get your tool based on the OS you’re using – Texter for Windows, TextExpander for Mac OS X, or Snippits for Linux.

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Importance of Residual Traffic From Blogging

You’ve probably heard that blogs are a great way to get traffic fast, and in massive truckloads. But what you need to understand is there are two very different types of traffic when it comes to blogging:

  • Active traffic – The increased, slightly volatile amount of web visitors you get when you are actively writing content, leaving comments of other people’s blogs, and getting your content into Digg, StumbleUpon or other social bookmarking sites.
  • Residual traffic – The decreased but relatively stable (over long periods of time) amount of web traffic that you get as a result of your past linking campaigns, search engine rankings, and visits from people who have already bookmarked your site. Traffic from StumbleUpon can also be somewhat residual in nature.

Of course, those definitions are my own.

Some time back I created 3-4 blogs on music marketing and electric guitars and wrote content for all three of them. It was fun and although a lot of work was involved, I kept on doing it. Then as my business in other niche markets like blogging and WordPress started to get bigger and more profitable, I also ran out of time. A few part-time writers and bloggers filled in the void, but soon enough all three blogs went dead with no new content published since September 2007. That’s close to a year now.

I eventually combined all three blogs into a single blog by importing the content, but the new blog was just as dead. I assumed therefore, that the amount of traffic this blog would be getting was pretty low and didn’t bother to do anything about it.

residual-traffic

To my surprise, when I checked the statistics a few weeks back I realized that this blog was actually getting between 5,000 – 10,000 unique visitors a month. Since I had no Google Adsense or any affiliate marketing links on it, all that traffic resulted in zero income for me. I was basically sitting on a gold mine and didn’t realize it.

My point with this whole article is simple: blogs continue to generate traffic even after you abandon it.

Sure, the traffic would not be as much as when you were actively writing and commenting, but it’s still a lot of good traffic that probably isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. A lot of people think that when you stop blogging you’re doomed, but I think it’s important to realize that while active traffic is inspiring, residual traffic that your blogs get are just as good in terms of making money online.

And at the end of the day, it is residual traffic that is going to help you quit your job and make money full time on the Internet. There are several tactics you can use to turn this traffic into cash, which I will cover in later articles.

Top Social Bookmarking Plugins for WordPress

Today, the blog-O-sphere has led us to socialize to an extent one would have never thought of. Thanks to one of the most innovative technology of the century, the Internet. Blogs no more confine ourselves to writing posts and getting feedbacks or comments. Web 2.0 involves much more than just that. With the advent of technologies like Ajax, XML, Django framework, Python web development, etc. the way people work on the Internet has changed dramatically.

Moving on to the topic of discussion today, we shall have a look at one of the popular ways in which one can promote a blog post. This is known as Social Bookmarking. We shall review few of the top social bookmarking plugins for WordPress. I feel socializing a blog is somehow adds more value to the posts as compared to employing direct SEO strategy. Such plugins allow your visitors to evangelize your blog posts by sharing it.

1) Sociable Plugin

sociable

Use this awesome plugin to automatically add links below posts to popularize it on social bookmarking websites like Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc. The admin panel allows you to choose any number of social sites from around 100 listed networking sites!

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The plugin gives you a choice to decide on pages where you wish the social sites icons to be shown. You can keep it on full-posts, static pages and even in the RSS feed. The plugin is showcased as a “share and enjoy” badge just after the post.

2) ShareThis Plugin

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As the name says, you may use this plugin to allow the visitors to share a post on your blog to several social bookmarking websites. They can also send your post to friends and their peers via email! This plugin is a good option if you’re looking for an option to track sharing statistics.

sharethis It is by far one of the most widely used sharing or bookmarking plugin across a plethora of blogs in the blog-O-sphere.

3) Social Bookmarks Plugin

social-bookmarks-plugin

This is yet another WP plugin which adds an array of XHTML compliant social bookmarking graphic links at the end of blog posts, allowing your visitors to submit them with ease to a number of different social bookmarking websites.

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The plugin can be customized from within the WordPress admin panel. The plugin uses a stylesheet named social_bookmarks.css which can be modified to integrate it further with your theme.
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