WebGrrrl.net, Home of Lorna Timbah On-line » Life online

Paid posts are out of my life

Lorna — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:40:14 +0000

I’ve tried to quit paid postings for quite some time now. However, I realized that paid-to-posts are a blogger’s answer to quick money, and the temptation to fund my sudden shopping splurges get the best of me at times. So, I succumbed to several paid posts, which I would receive by the end of the week and nicely be more enough for me to have my lunches at fancy restaurants for a week or two.

After going through my other online income sources for last month, I finally decided to put my foot down and stop paid posting programs for good. It’s a liberating decision, because finally I don’t have to work so hard to earn money online. My sudden repulsion to go online while I’m pregnant certainly wouldn’t help if I rely solely on paid posts.

Of all my online earnings, paid to post programs are the only online revenue streams that constantly need my effort and time. The rest are all passive income. I’m so glad that AdSense, Chitika and TextLinkAds are working out for me; these programs have really spoilt me. I love passive income!

I’m glad I’m so good at organizing my posts with paid links, so cleaning out those pages were easy peasy. So, don’t expect to see anymore of my paid posts here.

@webgrrrl’s got new feature: Twitter Lists

Lorna — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:50:29 +0000

Honestly, I have no idea what to do with Twitter Lists as of this moment, but it’s nice to see that the option is made available for me to use once I figure it out. A post in Marketing Pilgrim suggested that it could be treated like a blogroll, i.e. collection of favourite Tweeters based on a theme. The trouble is, as pointed in another of their posts, having such lists will probably attract a bunch of whiners. For example, if you create a list of WordPress Experts and I don’t see my Twitter handle in that list, then doggone it I’m swearing you and your Twitter followers off to Twitter hell! It’s kind of in the same lines as people who whine that I’m not following you anymore coz you don’t follow me even though I’ve followed you and read your boring tweets for days and you still don’t care, nyeh nyeh boo hoo.

Yeah, whiners.

I created a list called Blogging Fu, just for the sake of it, although I have a feeling that I might be deleting that one soon. Since Twitter did say that I shouldn’t tweet about it yet, why bother having one?

I wonder if anyone of you reading this blog are seeing this option? Are you planning on using it, and how?

Reminiscing the growth of WebGrrrl.net, and how would you describe your blog?

Lorna — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:08:20 +0000

Have you ever looked back at your old blog posts and think, dang, I am good! Those were not the words I would use when I did exactly that these past couple of hours, but it’s close enough.

It’s now a little past 4 years since the inception of WebGrrrl.net in September 2006 (I bought the domain name a little later, though, around November 2006, I think). She’s grown up quite nicely since then. One thing I like about this blog is that the content is more focused. Still, I’m a little disappointed that I lessened my ranting that would have included anything non-WordPress, non-blogging, non-Internet, non-Web related. No regrets, though.

Except that there are a few posts that I wished I hadn’t posted. Namely ALL those posts concerning the Malaysian reality show sensation Akademi Fantasia. Blech.

The rest of my posts, I like. The few impressions I get when I read back on my blog posts were:

I can be damn funny… some times.
Wow, those sites/links/plugins/whachamacallits really are cool… I wonder how I found them in the first place?
I can be SO good at monologue-ing.
WebGrrrl.net has personality.
WebGrrrl.net rocks!
I am so full of myself.

I hope you love your blog as much as I do mine.

Update: So 2009-2006 = 3 years. So I didn’t exactly get an A in math. So sue me.

Lack of blog update equals better visitor retention and traffic?

Lorna — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:53:00 +0000

I’m not making this up. At least on my blogs (WebGrrrl.net and my other niche sites), this seems to be the trend.

Take a look at WebGrrrl.net’s Google Analytics one-year comparison for the month of September. My blogging activities were considerably more last year than this year, yet I’ve noticed a marked improvement on the bounce rate. In Google terms, “a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert.” Looking at the stats, this means that once a visitor reads one post from my blog, there is a 99% chance that the visitor will stay in my blog and go read the next post, instead of going to other sites.

I’m surprised that WebGrrrl.net was able to achieve a low bounce rate, due to the fact that the blog content isn’t well-focused. I take bounce rates seriously especially on my niche sites, because this means that my visitors are digging deep into my blog content, hence the chances of them clicking on my ads are higher.

One stats you don’t see in the screenshot above is my traffic sources. Visits from search engines to WebGrrrl.net have increased by almost 20%, and I’m seeing a similar improvement with my currently-idle niche sites. Everyone who’s into monetizing their web sites know that search engine visits are like hearing your shop’s doorbell ring every time a paying customer comes in.

I’ve yet to really sit down and study all these data I’m getting, but if it’s anything like the advice Grizzly gave, saying that you make more money by not updating, then there should be a big fat nose-inflating grin slapped squarely on my face.

Oh, wait. Yeah, there is

A blog aggregator admin’s dilemma

Lorna — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:49:22 +0000

I’ve started a series on how to create a blog aggregator using WordPress at Blogging Fu (I finally got around to doing my first post, whoopee!). As the self-appointed administrator to the first Sabah blog aggregator Giuk.net (OK, not really self-appointed but I got the approval from its domain owner, mrBadak, to be one), one of my responsibilities is to verify each and every application that got through the registration form.

I verify the following manually before adding it to the blog aggregator:

A working blog feed: I don’t really care whether it’s a full or summary feed, as long as it’s a legible and well-formatted feed according to the popular standards such as ATOM and RSS.
A link back to Giuk.net using the exact HTML codes and keyword link.
Some form of content that could indicate to me that the blog owner is definitely a Sabahan.

Matter #3 above drives me crazy. I do a lot of blind-guessing on this one, because:

The blog owner may blatantly declare that (s)he is a Sabahan, which I can accept at face value, regardless of the fact that it may be a big, fat lie; or,
The blog contains posts with that certain Sabahan flair (e.g. dialect, Sabahan slangs, expressions of the word bah strewn about), which would also convince me, although that can be easily faked; or,
The blog owner is someone whom I’ve personally met or know, which rarely happens and is my safest bet in ensuring (s)he qualifies for the aggregator (and which, BTW, would be a good reason for you to turn up for the upcoming Sabah Bloggers Gathering this Hallow’s Eve).

Help me, peoples! What would be a good way to verify that the blog owner claims who (s)he claims (s)he is? Gimme your bright ideas, I beg of you!

Have you personalized your Facebook yet?

Lorna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:28:00 +0000

I pwnd WebGrrrl yet again, this time in Facebook. Where it used to be a long unintelligeable URL is now just http://facebook.com/webgrrrl. Facebook officially rolled out this option around the middle of this month which enables you select a profile name (sort of a user ID if you will) that you can use to invite others.

If you have a Facebook account and very often go under a pseudonym, you need to heavily consider registering that nickname to avoid other people from misleading and disguising themselves as you.

No idea how to go about personalizing your Facebook profile address? Easy. Just go to http://facebook.com/username, get logged in, and type in the user ID you desire. Hopefully your chosen ID hasn’t been taken by anyone else.

No related posts.

giuk.net logo design competition

Lorna — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:10:00 +0000

This short post is a heads-up to mrBadak’s announcement on his blog concerning the logo competition. Please hop over to his blog for more details.

We currently do not have any prize in mind, other than a permalink from giuk.net to your site. Do you? Add your comment here or at mrBadak’s site, and we’ll see what we can do.

Post Scheduling blunder, aww shucks

Lorna — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:41:09 +0000

I just realized I didn’t have a post for June 7! I did schedule an article for that day, but I forgot to publish it, having it still set on Draft mode. The silly thing was, I was working on two posts to show up, one in this blog and the other is my maiden post up at Blogging Fu, and even that was still set as a draft!

And both were suppose to be such cool posts

I’ll reschedule them to another future date. In the mean time, I’ll also cheat a bit and schedule one newer article to appear as the June 7 post, so that I won’t feel too bad about missing that one day.

Sheesh.

Keyword Academy, where are you and what’s going on?

Lorna — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:56:57 +0000

It all started when I noticed that PayPal tried to deduct my monthly subscription to Keyword Academy multiple times, whereby two of the transactions got through. So I e-mailed Mark & Court using the e-mail address stated in the PayPal details.

Their response was pretty fast, i.e. within the same day I sent my query. The last e-mail I received from either of them is this:

Trusting that action was to be taken, I waited. Since then, I had not logged into the Keyword Academy members site, being busy and all.

So I was surprised when PayPal sent me an auto-notification saying that my subscription was cancelled due to insufficient funds (boy, was I glad I was using a debit card!). This meant that not only was PayPal still trying to deduct my balance, but Mark and Court didn’t actually look into solving my problem.

Now, I realize that the deduction were PayPal’s error in the first place. But even after a week since my request for refund of one of my payments, there was none coming from either of the guys at Keyword Academy.

I waited still. I finally received an e-mail from them.

Too bad it was an autoresponder! Nothing about the subscription problem was mentioned. I replied to that e-mail, and sent a couple more over the next few days.

By the way, before any of you cry “scam” over this, let me be frank with you and say that nothing about this program is a scam — they’re very legit and give good information about how to build your site right to make money. However, their response so far leaves little to be desired.

What the heck is going on, people (and in people I mean Court and Mark specifically)? Did my e-mail fell into your Spam folder? How long does it take to refund a measly $33? Reply already!

Is my frustration obvious enough for ya?

No related posts.

“Secure your domain name” scams: been there, done that

Lorna — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:26:50 +0000

The main thing that have prompted me to buy all WebGrrrl domains under the major TLDs is because of this very reason.

My first encounter with the domain name scam is earlier this year. I received an e-mail from some Andy guy claiming to be working with Hong Kong Network Service Company Ltd (which is actually a real and valid company from what I’ve researched). The e-mail read something like this:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are Hong Kong Network Service Company Limited which is the domain name register center in Asia. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register “webgrrrl” as their domain name and Internet keyword on . Since after our investigation we found that this word has been in use by your company, and this may involve your company name or trade mark, so we inform you in no time.

If you consider these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and it is necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon. Thanks for your co-operation and support.

My first thought when reading it was, ooooohhhh, I’m famous! I’m there! People want me! People love me! WebGrrrl’s cool! I’m cool! … and other such thoughts that would make your head explode with pride.

I should have deleted the e-mail right away, but it didn’t occur to me at first that it was all bull. So I replied the fella back, saying “yeah, WebGrrrl’s all mine” or something to that effect. Around the same time, I gave way to my paranoia and bought webgrrrl.org, while webgrrrl.com was still owned by someone else (who, by the way, offered to sell it to me about 2 years ago for the cheap price of US$100++). ONLY after I bought the .org did I suspect that the e-mail was a scam. I decided to trash it.

A couple of days later, I got a reply from him stating that since I didn’t follow up on him, he’ll continue with registration of the .asia — and other dots to that effect — on behalf of his client. Oh really?

Since that day, I’ve been eyeing on the .com version, patiently and quietly waiting through the extra 3-month holding period even when it was expired way back in March.

Then, a week before the .com domain was available, I began receiving more domain name spams. One was from InTrust Names, with the following e-mail:

Domain Sale Notice:

webgrrrl.com is coming availabe for sale in a few days.

Since you own the domain webgrrrl.net, we thought you’d be interested in webgrrrl.com.

If you do have interest in acquiring webgrrrl.com, please fill up priority notice form availble here:

the domain is available for purchase.

Another e-mail followed suit a couple of days later from Zip Domains:

Our company specializes in acquiring expired domain names to help individuals and businesses protect their brand online.

The domain name WEBGRRRL.COM expired recently and we were able to secure it.

We noticed that you own WEBGRRRL.NET and felt that you may be interested in acquiring the .COM version of your existing domain name.

It is available for a one-time fee of only $49.00 USD.

To purchase or learn more, please visit /buy.php?domain=webgrrrl.com

Do you know how these companies scam you? They’ll ask you to fill in their forms, including payment options and so forth. Once the domain is available, they’ll buy the domain el cheapo, then charges you at least 50% more than the actual price, and lastly reassign the ownership of that domain to you.

Why would you want to pay that much for something you can do by yourself and cheaply?

My months of obsession with WHOIS came to an end yesterday, when the domain was available for sale around 10.00am GMT+8. I immediately grabbed it through my GoDaddy account and coupon, and parted with US$7.15 to be the proud owner of that coveted .com.

The moral of the story: patience pays.

I love happy endings, don’t you?