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1. CAPITALIZING RANDOM WORDS
Do you know how annoying it is when you write like this: “learn how to make money online by Using This free Guide”? No? It makes it seem as though you’re a first grader just learning to write.
Annoyance Factor: Red Alert!
Most Commonly Found… on splash sales pages.

2. NOT CAPITALIZING ANYTHING
writing like this is for angsty emo kids on myspace. i really hate this style and so does pretty much everyone else.
Annoyance Factor: As annoying as an angsty emo kid
Most Commonly Found… on Myspace and blogs written by “rebels who don’t follow the rules.”

3. HUGE CHUNKS OF ITALICS
Why would anyone want to read a huge block of italics? Making your words all slanty may seem cool at first, but eventually you’ll have your readers start suing you for the neck injuries caused by tilting their heads.
Annoyance Factor: That biker that cut you off at the intersection
Most Commonly Found… used for long quotations.

4. VARYING FONT SIZES
Some people think that using ten different font sizes in one paragraph adds flair and emphasis. It doesn’t.
Annoyance Factor: Not finding your favorite cereal at the grocery store
Most Commonly Found… on splash sales pages.

5. NO SPACE BETWEEN IMAGE AND TEXT
Not as much of a writing as a formatting thing. Your image and text should not overlap - unlike chocolate and peanut butter combining to create delicious Reese’s, pictures and words don’t flow together to create a commercial candy masterpiece.
Annoyance Factor: The ticking of your clock at night.
Most Commonly Found… on the blogs of ignorant Wordpress users.

6. ASKING TOO MANY QUESTIONS
Two questions per post is okay, you know what I mean? When you start to exceed that number, you’re just starting to sound annoying.
Annoyance Factor: Not being able to think of a blog post
Most Commonly Found.. on philosophical blogs.

Posted by Max Miroff | 20 Comments »

Ever wondered what price you could scam some poor sucker into buying your blog? If you like money, you’ve surely investigated at least a few site value calculators and have most likely found them to be horrendously undervalued. After all, your .blogspot domain with two visitors per day is definitely worth more than ten bucks. Here’s a comparitive look at some popular site value calculators so that you can see just how much your blog is(n’t) worth!

SITE VALUE QUICK LINKS (FIRST IS BEST, LAST IS WORST)

1. CyberWyre
2. Estibot
3. DNScoop
4. Your Website Value
5. SmartPageRank
6. Site Value Calculator
7. Website Value Calculator
8. Business Opportunities Site Value Calculator

THE DETAILED SITE VALUE ANALYSIS (FROM HIGHEST PRICE TO LOWEST)
Business Opportunities Site Value Calculator
Blog Badly Was Worth… $29,920.62
Those with low self esteem should start with this absolutely useless site value calculator. It grossly overprices your blog. If you can honestly find a seller that will buy your website for this amount, you’re the greatest marketing genius in the world. Seriously.

Estibot
Blog Badly Was Worth… $5,700
Now we’re talking! Still a bit overpriced, in my opinion, and it showed my estimated daily traffic as being 1,000+ (it’s really not that high). Another self esteem booster.

CyberWyre
Blog Badly Was Worth… $5,181
Another search, another overpriced calculator. CyberWyre bases value purely on backlinks, PR, and Alexa.

DNScoop
Blog Badly Was Worth… $900
The price range where I think Blog Badly belongs - at least $3000 - was skipped entirely in favor of a much lower value. At least it’s got some fancy graphics along with it along with accurate backlink statistics.

Your Website Value
Blog Badly Was Worth… $563

Much too low. It bases its stats on weird stuff like “Depth Potential” and “Friendliness.” How can a robot know how friendly I am? For any site valuation bots viewing Blog Badly, I have but one message for you: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. That’s an extra $1500 right there.

SmartPageRank
Blog Badly was worth… $311
I’m doubting the intelligence of SmartPageRank. Their one redeeming quality is fancy graphics, much like DNScoop.

Site Value Calculator
Blog Badly was worth… $299
This is pretty much an exact copy of SmartPageRank, except it undervalues my website even more. Curses!

Website Value Calculator
Blog Badly was worth… $103
I’m pretty sure someone is playing a joke on me. There’s no way Blog Badly is this cheap - it made more than that last month.

The Average Price Of Blog Badly… $5,372.20

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?
Blog value calculators generally suck. Still, they’re pretty fun to play with

Posted by Max Miroff | 19 Comments »

Alexa rankings were once fickle things - changing on a whim. 50,000 visitors with no toolbar on one day? Your rankings tanked. 100 visitors with the toolbar? Hello, Top 100k!

Sadly, this mildly amusing fluctuation has been replaced with a more reliable system. That’s right: new Alexa rankings.

“We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

You gave us many other suggestions as well, and we are working hard to implement them. We won’t tell any secrets just yet, but you can expect to see new features rolled out over the coming weeks and months.”

What does this change mean for you? It means that blogs and websites with high percentages of web-savvy Alexa toolbar users will follow the route of the Hindenburg (you know, the zeppelin?) whilst sites with high quantities of traffic will actually get the rankings they deserve. The big question on everyones mind is namely the following: “will it work?” Blog Badly’s ranking shot down 100,000 points after the update, so I’m not complaining. Still, there’s sure to be ripples around the net either shocked/amused/scared/happy/outraged about these changes. For example, John Chow’s ranking went up 14,000 points while John Cow went up over 80,000 points.

Is Alexa ranking still mostly meaningless? Yes, but now it’s slightly better - and at least they’re trying to make their rankings fairer. Of course, you have to forget all the things your first grade soccer coach told you: effort isn’t all that matters. Webmasters want fair rankings and people want reliable knowledge. Lets hope Alexa can shape up and provide both.

Posted by Max Miroff | 9 Comments »

In our capitalist society, being a greedy bastard isn’t always bad. Money is what runs [insert your country here (unless you’re from a communist nation. If so, well, sorry!)]. In fact, renowned economist once said, “Give all of your money to Max Miroff and you will become rich.”

But I digress. Lets go back onto the point of great niches for making money online.

#1 - Get-Paid-To Websites
Blogging about websites with programs that pay users to complete offers is an extraordinary way to make money. That’s because these GPT sites (here’s an example) generally have referral program that get you a percentage of your referral’s, referral’s referral’s, and referral’s referral’s referral’s (are you starting to see a pattern?) earnings. In short, you get residual income (the fancy phrase for “becoming filthy rich”) from other people. This niche is also pretty popular with readers because people are ready to believe anything that involves them getting money online.

#2 - Product Reviews
This niche is profitable in three ways - affiliate sales and getting free products from companies that want their items reviewed. All you have to do is write about the latest cool gadgets or best kitchen spice racks to try and rack up some sales through your affiliate links. If you build up a reputation as a great blogger who has lots of readers, some companies could even send you some free schwag for you to write about as well as pay you to plug in their service or website. Now that’s the good life.

#3 - Make Money Online Blogs
The main reason this niche is profitable is because of all the affiliate programs surrounding it. Much like GPT sites, you can get paid a fraction of what your referral makes. Get your money for nothing (get your chicks for free?). Anyway - don’t you see all those big Make Money Online bloggers showing off their mad earnings? Exactly.

Now fulfill all your blogging dreams of extorting your readers with these amazing niches!

Posted by Max Miroff | 9 Comments »

If your articles suck so much that no one on StumbleUpon wants to thumbs up them you’re just not getting any traffic from StumbleUpon, then you might want to try this little method of getting free thumbs up, reviews, and traffic (hence the title) for your articles. Now I’m not guaranteeing anything (read: no suing is allowed), but this might work for you.

ONTO THE FREE STUMBLEUPON GOODNESS
There are currently three sites in the Google results for this search (This is the secret, btw). Each of these sites offers you three free automated stumbles a day with whatever review you want - a pretty nice sum. All you need to do is spend a few minutes filling in the reviews and a captcha and VOILA! Stumbles for free!

Posted by Max Miroff | 8 Comments »

Too lazy to code another section or add a widget for 125×125 ads? Try these themes that already have them built in! Unlike other theme lists, this one is actually practical if you want to sell ads on your blog.

Simple Red - Download - Preview

Slick Blue - Download - Preview

Black And White - Download - Preview

WP-Polaroid - Download - Preview

True Blue - Download - Preview

WP Premium - Download - Preview

Blue Green Harmony - Download - Preview

UPDATE: For some odd reason, the images might not be displaying. I spent a good ten minutes screenshotting and cropping those babies! Grr!

Posted by Max Miroff | 6 Comments »

Homeless people and advertising. Much like the fusion of chocolate and peanut butter to create Reeses candy, this combination (”Dude, you got your homeless person in my advertising”?) may not seem practical at first. Still, have you heard of anyone not liking those creamy, chocolatey, peanut-buttery candies (This message brought to you by Hershey’s)? I didn’t think so.

Think about it this way: it’s a cheap way to get your website out to thousands of people. After all, most hobos live in crowded urban areas with thousands of people passing by them every day. For pure CPM rate, hobos can’t be beat.

WAYS TO GET A HOBO TO ADVERTISE FOR YOU
There are three different ad formats you can try out with homeless people: t-shirts, cardboard signs, and yelling.

T-Shirts
The easiest and cheapest way to get advertising from homeless people is by giving them a t-shirt with your URL and a catchy slogan on it. It’ll cost you about 15-20 bucks per shirt and will still put your brand name in front of people. Commuters are bound to stop and wonder why a homeless person is wearing a nice, clean shirt with a website on it. All you have to do is find a willing hobo and offer them your shirts.

Cardboard Signs
This is slightly more expensive and time-consuming than free t-shirts because you’ll have to pay an ongoing rate and make sure the homeless person is actually using your sign. Just get a sturdy piece of cardboard and make it attractive, then pay a hobo to carry it around.

Yelling
Not recommended - most people will just think the homeless person is crazy for shouting out “GO TO BLOGBADLY DOT COM AND LEARN TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE THE EASY WAY.” It is not recommended.

If anyone would seriously consider doing this (it’s a good idea! I promise!), I’ll be glad to cover it on my blog as well as the traffic effects and reactions. Get out there and advertise with hobos, you lazy bum! After all, who wouldn’t want their brand name associated with homelessness?

Posted by Max Miroff | 16 Comments »

Feeling tired and don’t want to write a “real” post? Is it 11:55 PM and you still haven’t posted for that day (you do know you can just change the time of posting… meh)? Are you simply idea-starved? Then try using any one of these formats to write a post in under twenty minutes!

1. The Top Ten List Post
Additional details below each bullet in this popular social media optimized (SMO) format are optional but generally accepted as necessary. These types of posts can do very well on Digg and StumbleUpon, especially if they have pictures and/or videos. Make sure your post title includes numerous preposterous claims as well as exaggerations. After all, internet marketing isn’t about telling the truth.

2. The Post Apologizing For Not Being Able To Make A Real Post
This post is the ultimate irony - apologizing for not posting in a post. It’s only suggested use is when you’ve stopped caring about quality, but it is also acceptable if you decide that American Idol is more important than your blog (note to self: American Idol Blog? Hm…)

3. The Monthly/Weekly/Daily(?) Compilation Post
Go over your blog statistics in an effort to impress your readers with your mad earnings (~$5) and traffic (6 visits/day). Try to list blog stats for the previous month as well - it makes it seem like you’re improving.

4. The Paid Blog Review Post
It’s an easy job: you get paid to write what you think about a website. You really can’t go wrong. In fact, if you mask it well enough, your readers won’t even realize your blog isn’t remotely about credit card refinancing, mortgage lenders, payday loans, plastic surgery, or financial aid!

5. The “About Me” or “About My Blog” Post
While most blogs have a page on their blog dedicated to this type of post, some decide to write about it as well! This is a fairly simple task because all it involves is talking about yourself.

6. The Link Love Post
Just link to a bunch of different blog posts with short descriptions. Use other people’s content for your own benefit - it’s all the joys of content scraping with practically none of the penalties!
7. The Generic Niche Blog Post
For every niche (except maybe Extreme Mountain Jumproping), there are cliché posts which have been gone over so many times it’s not even worth posting about anymore (except when you REALLY need to write something). In my niche, this could be a post about “making money with Adsense”, for example.

8. The Controversy Post
Print out the faces of ten random bloggers in your niche. Tape them to your wall and throws darts blindfolded at the pictures. Write a post dissing the blogger you chose through this clever scientific process. Remember to include a photo of the aforementioned blogger that you graffiti’d.

9. The Image Post

10. The Off-Topic Post
This is for extreme cases in which all of the above options fail. Just write about your dinner or something - it seems to work for John Chow.

Posted by Max Miroff | 18 Comments »

In the blogging world, it’s important to be concise. After about 500 words, things start to get repetitive (unless you’re some sort of crazy internet marketing guru who has 9,627 ways to increase traffic to your site) and dull. Shorter posts let you show your opinion without boring your readers. In short (pun intended), they are better at conveying a message to viewers and are more interesting to read.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

Forums are great places to spam promote your blog. Take Digital Point, for example. Because the majority of the people there are internet marketing newbies hoping to find someone that will take them by the hand and lead them to online salvation, they’re eager to click any link promising “instant SEO success” and “millions of visitors to your website on under 2.3 seconds.” It doesn’t matter if these claims are true or not - I’m actually pretty sure the people clicking on them know that these are all false claims but they like to pretend. Newsflash (are people still allowed to say this?): instant solutions like that don’t exist.

But lets get off of this tangent and onto forum marketing.

STEP ONE: BUILD TRUST
Lull other forum users into thinking you’re actually a helpful member by posting informative replies to their questions. If you start to promote immediately, you’ll probably get either banned or (even worse) negative reputation

STEP TWO: THE PROMOTION BEGINS
Begin citing your blog as a source for your replies. For example, every time someone asks for a good advertising network I mention Adsdaq (I honestly believe it’s awesome) and inconspiciously include a link to my Adsdaq review. Just like that. Since forum threads can rank highly in search engines, you’ll get indirect organic traffic.

STEP THREE: CREATE A THREAD
Post a discussion on the forum about the topic of one of your recent posts (for example, here’s one I made). Add a link to your post telling users that they’ll get more info there. Since you’re technically not spamming your site, the discussion won’t be deleted. Aren’t loopholes fun?

Just rinse and repeat to get some nice traffic to your blog.

SOME MORE TIPS

• People love controversial topics. Tell people you hate Google and love Answer (you monster!) or that you think content isn’t king.
• Add a link to your blog in your signature in big red font. Telling people it cures cancer is optional.
• Talk about your successes. People will always congratulate you, even if it’s only earning your first dollar. I’m not kidding - it’s kind of sad.

Now go out there and spam some forums promote your blog!

Posted by Max Miroff | 15 Comments »