After a lot of discussion and many different opinions as to what was going to happen with page rank, it has been updated. Even I was wondering about the return or new update of page rank, but I was not let down. Although some people believe PR status has been diluted because of selling links and everything, I disagree. If you notice, not every active blogger’s page rank increased. In fact, some took a dive, but please do not directly correlate page rank to success.

So, How Did Online Cash Flow Do?

I was very excited to see that the page rank of my blog has gone from 0 to 3! Of course I was expecting a higher rank, but like it stated there was not a 100% chance of that PR4 occurring. Still, I am very happy with the success and growth of this blog.

I checked at a few different sites to make sure, and saw similar results throughout.

What Does A Page Rank Of 3 Mean?

Well, after a little research at www.checkpagerank.com, I noticed a few very interesting things. First of all, John Chow, one of the more influential bloggers in the make money niche, only has a PR4 blog! Problogger is sitting with a great PR6, but there were a few statistics that interested me. A number of blogs that receive substantial traffic, are right around my page rank. Of course I get a decent amount of traffic, but nothing like John Cow or Net Business Blog. Both of those bloggers also have a page rank of 3. Anyways, let’s hope that this PR increase fares well and helps increase traffic and grows the Online Cash Flow community.

Personal Page Rank Opinions

The main reason for the drop in page rank on a number of people’s websites, was because they were selling links. Because of that, a variety of people believed that the page rank status was diluted and would not hold a significant meaning anymore. I disagree with that, and here is why. If you were selling links, your page rank was hacked. If you sold links discreetly or not at all, your page rank increased (if you were taking the proper measures to do so) and I believe that page rank holds more significance now with the threat of decreasing due to selling links. It will be a lot more difficult to increase now unless you are doing it properly or being discreet. Either way, I am excited with the update and hope to see increases in the future.

Did anybody else see changes in their page ranks?

Like the title says, as a blogger you will learn an incredible amount, especially as you begin. Of course you should always continue learning stuff about blogging and how to become better at what you do, but as with most things, there is a very steep learning curve as you start. Not only do you need to know your topic inside and out, but you need to have a post schedule, what you are going to write about, how you are going to interact with the community, whether or not you are going to bias or write opinionated posts, and many other things when thinking about blogging. I got the idea to write about this when I was looking through my previous posts, namely one that was written within the first couple weeks of my blogging career.

Being Extremely Naive

I’m not sure if it was naivety or the lack of knowledge (very similar), but I was very uninformed as to a few features of the blogging world. First of all, I had no idea how the Feedburner chicklet count was updated. As you notice in that post, I write about Feedburner changing the number of subscribers I had. Little did I know, the count reflects the number of people who visited your feed within the last 24 hours, meaning it can fluctuate vastly. However, when you only have 1-2 subscribers, if that one person does not view your feed, there goes 100% of your readers.

I suppose I learned that along the way, and after reading a few bloggers’ posts about their RSS subscriber numbers.

What Can Be Learned?

As a beginner, I would strongly recommend going out there and doing your best. Of course if I was to read a post like the one I wrote a number of months ago now, I would think that person is crazy. However, in the back of my mind I am reminded that I too started there, and there is only one place to go from ground zero: upwards. Taking that into account, it would be extremely beneficial to research about various terms, criteria, protocol, etc. that affect the way blogging (or whatever it is you are doing) should be done. Not only with blogging, but this can go for anything.

Another great example is one related to working out. Maybe people are afraid to go work out in a gym because they feel they will get made fun of for lifting less than some of the “meatheads” out there. However, these “meatheads” did not decide to start lifting one day and throw on all that weight. Of course there will be some people who think they are better than everyone else, but if all of these now elitists had the mindset that everybody starts at the same place (or very similar, depending on your resources) it would be much easier to succeed at what you do.

If you learn one thing from this post, please remember to not be afraid of making mistakes when you are starting out as a blogger. Instead of having the “worried about failing” mindset, try to adapt the “working to succeed” mindset. Keeping that in mind, it will be much easier to work towards a successful blogging career than if you are constantly hindered by the “what if” attitude.

There are a number of different ways you can go about increasing your Alexa rank, but I have noticed significant changes by doing one of a few things. Alexa rank, among a few other things, is one of the more important tools when determining the traffic of a blog. I have read a variety of different things as to how the Alexa rank is determined, and I can personally comment on what I believe is true. Like PageRank, Alexa is a great way to increase the exposure and traffic to your blog.

How Do You Do It?

If you have not yet noticed, I placed a little Alexa widget in the footer of my blog.

As I explained earlier, one of the ways that Alexa rank is determined (and increased), is by the number of Alexa toolbar users who view the webpage per day. Like the widget, the toolbar actively shows you the rank of a webpage you are on. As you visit different webpages, the ranking updates and you can see how popular each page is.

Why Use The Widget?

As I said, the rank is determined by the number of visitors who visit your page each, while using the toolbar. However, if you place the widget somewhere within your blog, Alexa believes that every single person visiting your webpage has the toolbar running. By doing this, you are increasing your ranking exponentially at the beginning.

When I first added the widget a few weeks ago, my ranking was near 800,000. Now, it is less than half of that! Of course the “growth” (shrinkage if you are going by numbers) will flatten off until your traffic increases, but beyond that, it is a great way to get a boost to your Alexa ranking.

Additional Tidbits

Even if you do not care about increasing your rank, it is very interesting to see the ranks of other webpages. What the number generally means, is that there are (insert rank of page) websites that receive more traffic each day than the current one.

For instance, my rank of about 370,000 means that each day there are 369,999 webpages that receive more traffic than me. However, if you look at Google, there is only one page that has more traffic: Yahoo. John Chow is in the top 3000 trafficked websites, and even if you do not care about increasing your rank, the toolbar is a great way to quickly tell how much traffic a website actually does get.

If you notice someone claiming they get XX amount of traffic each day, but see their Alexa ranking up in the 1,000,000 plus range, I would definitely seek more information about their traffic reports. Use of the toolbar extends beyond the basic spectating of ranks, but can be used as a valuable tool to help benefit you as a consumer.

To wrap up my week, I’m going to provide you guys with some (what I believe) interesting content. However, it was not published by me. I usually compile a list of articles to read over the weekend, but I have so many in my list that I decided to read a few now and provide you all with some great material. Enjoy!

I’ve Issued A Writing Challenge - [Ryan Shamus]
Free Trip To PubCon - [ShoeMoney]
Never Be Tired Again - [WebMD]
The Economics of Blogging - [Dosh Dosh]

Enjoy the weekend everyone. Oh, about those new opportunities I have been talking about? I have unleashed one of them. Feel free to check it out here:

I know it’s a paid to click site and all, but I will pay people when they reach $5 payout, and it is a fun project to work out. I recommend you all go take a look! If nothing else, the advertising is next to nothing there, and you will get substantial amounts of traffic. I will post reports on stuff about that in the coming weeks.

Have a great weekend.

As per the Want Something For Nothing contest, I promised an advertisement in the sidebar for 2 months, a ReviewMe review, and a new banner/header redesign. As Richard, Shadowscope’s owner, has declined the design prize, I have added another contest to make sure someone gets it! I suggest you take a look at his blog, some of the writing is very interesting.

General Comments

Having no idea what the blog is going to be about, it was very interesting researching and writing this review about it. First off, the layout is unique, and a lot different than many sites I have been to. It almost seems as though Richard is trying to generate a few additional AdSense clicks with how the main page is laid out.

As you can see, he has placed an AdSense text block above his header. From what I have seen, that is innovative thinking, as many blogs have their navigation bar up there, and some people probably click the ads on accident. I wonder how those click through rates are?

Aside from that, the actual navigation toolbar and items are in the right column. In total, it takes 21 times of hitting the PageDn key (at 1280×1024 resolution) to reach the bottom of the page, and 10 times to reach the bottom of his right column navigation tools. Personally, I believe that is way too much to have on a single page, and it becomes very crowded.

On top of that, I am not a huge fan of the color scheme, but to each his own.

What Made Shadowscope?

Upon researching into his blog a little bit, you can easily find the About Richard page.

I am a 40 years old and am married to a wonderful lady and have three children ranging in ages from four to eighteen. My son (the oldest) has joined the U.S. Marine Corps and is leaving for boot camp on June 18th.

I am a full-time district manager of three 24 hour full service restaurant/diners and basically a full-time blogger as well.

Politically I am inclined to be a Libertarian although I belong to no party. True libertarians do not belong to a political party. Socially I am very liberal and believe in live and let live, while fiscally I am fairly conservative at least where the federal government is concerned.

If you find any of my views at all scary or offensive, please feel free to go somewhere else.

There is nothing like a blogger that comes out and is honest with who they are and what they feel. Of course some information should and will be kept confidential, but to learn a little about the person behind the writing definitely makes some people more inclined to enjoy the work, and some people will stop reading it. After all, you are targeting your writing towards a certain crowd.

About Shadowscope

I did not get a chance to ask Richard about this image, but it appears on his right navigation column on each page. I’m not sure if it is a cartoon depiction of what he looks like, or just an image that he thought adds some personality to his website. I think it adds a nice touch and breaks up the otherwise bland column.

Within the navigation column he writes about the blogs he visit frequently, the bloggers he has met, and the bloggers he wants to meet.

After the long list of that, he includes some traffic statistics. Nearly every blogger is interested in the Alexa ranking, and if you are not, you should be. A 78,000 Alexa ranking is pretty impressive for a blog that is not directly writing about a particular niche. Delving a little deeper into his traffic statistics, he averages 172 unique visitors each day. With some proper monetization techniques it would be very easy to turn some substantial revenues with these figures (unless of course that AdSense “trick” is working already).

It appears that a substantial amount of Richard’s posts are targeted towards his family and friends. This is obvious as he posts a variety of pictures of his children and wife.

What Else

While doing one of my 21 PgDn maneuvers, I noticed a very catching picture on his website.

Why did this picture catch my attention? Well not only is she very cute, but I have a picture of myself when I was little doing the exact same thing: bathing in the kitchen sink.

Shadowscope archives date back to January 1999. Not only is that a long time to have one blog, but the ability to still be blogging nearly 9 years later is amazing. Of course that seems like a super long time because I have only been blogging seriously since May 2007, but none-the-less, that is a great achievement.

That just goes to show you that if you are writing about something you truly care about and believe in, in Richard’s case it appears to be his family, then it is very easy to maintain your schedule and continue writing.

I realize a header or banner redesign is not the greatest of prizes, but it is definitely something that can help distinguish a blogger from a blogger. It adds a little flavor and style to a blog and definitely draws more attention than a simple text phrase. Why am I bringing this up? Well, as you may know, the Want Something For Nothing contest ended this past weekend. As you may have guessed, there was a winner, and the winner of the contest was supposed to get:

1. Free ReviewMe Review

2. Free Header Banner Design

3. Free 2 Month Featured Text Link

However, Richard, the winner, decided he is satisfied with his current design and offered to give the prize back for a redraw.

As far as the banner goes, I am pretty much fine with the one that I have right now, maybe you could do another contest and give the banner to someone else?

Richard

Now, I could have saved myself a couple hours of work, but seeing as how I am trying to be as fair as possible, and I did offer it up in the contest, there will be another chance to win it. However, to win the banner design/redesign, you need to do something a litte different.

TO ENTER:

All you need to do is contact me and write why you deserve the banner redesign. After doing that, simply leave a comment on this thread with something along the lines of “I am entered!” By doing so, you are locked in and guaranteed a chance to win!

This contest will run until November 11, 2007 (11/11/07). Good luck!

There are no restrictions to enter this contest. You did not have to enter the previous contest to enter this one.

As I mentioned yesterday, there will be many more opportunities in the near future. Also, I am sorry for the lack of “content rich” posts, but there will definitely be some great posts later this week.

After assigning the entries to numbers, putting them on pieces of paper, and drawing them out of a hat, it was decided that the Shadowscope blog is the winner of the contest. Richard wrote his entry about the Want Something For Nothing contest and it paid off (literally).

Congratulations Richard! Your review and advertisement will be posted within the next few days, and work on your header re-design will also be underway.

To everyone else who entered, there is another ingenious opportunity in the making, so please do not be discouraged. There is a lot of different stuff to be given away, and I will announce some of my other opportunities. The thing is, there is a lot more advertising to be given away, as well as cash prizes.

Be sure to subscribe to my feed to stay updated so you do not miss out on any of these opportunities.

Also, there has been some thought about removing AdSense all together. The amount of income it was bringing was not very significant compared to other income sources. Therefore, I am either going to use AdBrite, or turn to private advertising. If you are interested in the prices for advertising in the 300×250 slot (primary slot, and used in nearly every post), please contact me.

For those of you who entered, your entries have been recorded. For those of you who are interested in some free stuff and have yet to enter, you can check out the Win Something For Nothing contest here.

Here is what the winner will receive:

The winner will get all 3 of the following:

1. Free ReviewMe Review

2. Free Header Banner Design

3. Free 2 Month Featured Text Link

This contest will run for about another 8 hours (until midnight CST) and then I will compile the entries and make a drawing. I will then post the results sometime next week and work on the review and banner design (if interested).

Best of luck to everyone, and have a great weekend!

After reading about the frequently used methods, and somewhat used methods, of course a post about the rarely used methods was in order. The thing to remember when advertising and growing your business or website, is that what works for others will not necessarily work for you. You need to broaden your horizons and present your ideas to a variety of potential customers. How many people are interested in making money online, but do not have the time or are unsure of where to find ideas?

Rarely Used Methods

Word of Mouth

This one may be obvious, but many people do not advertise their business using word of mouth. Unfortunately, many “advertisers” who use this method come off too strong and leave a bad image for their company or website, which leaves their potential customers with a bad taste. You need to be casual and less forward than a salesmen when you are using this method.

Although it is done incorrectly very often, sometimes telling your friends, co-workers, or family members about your idea can definitely help it grow. As always, think about the exponential effect. You tell two friends and two family members. If each one of them tells two people as well, and you take the chain down until you reach level 5, that’s well over 100 people that heard about your idea because you told 4. Of course, as I tend to do, these are assumed statistics, but you might have a friend who tells their whole class about it. Either way, it can be an extremely effective way to advertise if you market towards the right crowd.

Facebook

(Alexa.com)

Although this is becoming increasingly more popular, still, many people fail to utilize Facebook. Like yesterday when I wrote about Myspace, Facebook is an extremely popular website. Now that anyone can join, it is very easy to build a network and market yourself. Likewise, you can mix this method with word of mouth, especially if you have or build a network of friends and family members on Facebook. When doing that, it becomes extremely easy to market your idea(s) to friends and family, and beyond that, there are many ways to advertise at no cost as well.

Forums

Many people shy away from this method as well. When I explain forums, I do not mean you need to purchase advertising, or plaster your advertisements and spam the users. I simply mean make a few posts a day until you become well known (which is not difficult if you write well and are kind to people), and put a few links in your signature. You can also ask for help analyzing or reviewing your layout or content. You never know, somebody who reviews your website may be interested in the content as well. If you are unsure of what forums to use, I would suggest Digital Point as a great place to start. Otherwise, simply Google “your_niche forums” and you will find a variety of different places to use.

Print Media (Business cards, Newspaper, etc.)

In the online business, it may not be shocking to many why this is rarely used. Similar to the other methods, this can be extremely beneficial as well. I got 250 free business cards, and I set a stack of 5-10 out randomly in various public places (restaurants, classrooms, computer labs, libraries) and if I am sitting around I will notice at least one person each time pick a card up. If you can attract someone to pick up your business card, that is half the battle. The rest is up to them. Especially if you are not advertising directly (trying to sell something to them), but instead informing them about potential ideas and, in my case, what my blog is about.

My Thoughts

I would recommend taking advantage of some of these lesser used methods, as in the end, they can play a large role in increasing your traffic. Aside from that, posting in forums, using Facebook, and talking to people are all 100% free, aside from your time. I think you need to pay shipping on the business cards, but still, that is a great way to do it as well. I even decided to throw in a stack of magnets as well, and those are pretty cool to stick on doors or garbage cans. You would be surprised how well a business card that looks like money would attract someone’s attention.

As promised, here is part 2 of the series (total of 3) about thinking of different ways to promote and gain exposure for your business. Part 1 dealt with the frequently used ways, and here we will touch base on the somewhat used methods. Of course, within part 3 I will explain some of the rarely used methods.

After understanding the differences between PPC (pay per click) and PTC (paid to click) advertising, you can realize why these methods are most frequently used. To clear up any confusion, PPC advertising is advertising you can purchase via AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or Microsoft AdCenter. On the other hand, PTC advertising is where you pay to have your advertisement shown, but the people clicking your ad are actually being paid to do so. With PTC advertising, you will get a lot of clicks for a very low rate, but unfortunately some of the people are only there to make money as opposed to read the material.

If you understand why PPC and PTC advertising is most frequently used, you would probably realize a few of the types of advertising that are somewhat used.

Somewhat Used Methods

Private Advertising

Private advertising is becoming increasingly more popular. However, even at that many people are unsure of the benefits of advertising privately. Many cases people are unsure of the real value of the advertising they are receiving, and do not care about potential clicks per month based on impressions. Another reason that private advertising is not used very often is that many people would rather spend $10 per month on targeted PPC advertising, or even less on PTC advertising and will work on building their traffic from there. Speaking from personal experience, I did not touch base on any private advertising until last month (more than 6 months after I began blogging).

In order to effectively utilize private advertising, I would suggest having a decent amount of content to influence reader’s and make them want to return. Especially if these readers are coming from a notable blogger, it is always a good idea to make a first impression. After all, you only have one chance to make a first impression. Make it good.

Myspace

Whether people use Myspace to spam popular users profiles (I have honestly done that in the past before I started blogging to “promote” various offers - Needless to say, it did not work at all, but it did waste a lot of my time), or post bulletins, it is becoming more popular as well. As you will notice, 5.585% of internet users worldwide visit Myspace each day (Alexa). This may be shocking to some, and before I began researching Alexa daily, it was definitely quite the eye-opener for me as well.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the rarely used methods of advertising. I realize I may have missed some here and there, but these are the big ones. As you may have guessed, there are more rarely used methods than there are frequently or sometimes used methods.

What does that mean for you?

Take advantage of the methods that are not being utilized and maximize your traffic when doing so.