As I wrote a few weeks back about someone declining their prize, I decided to hold another contest to win the banner redesign. As it turns out, Nick from road2graduation.com is the winner. This was a very easy raffle to make, as there was only one entrant! I will let everyone know about the new design and how Nick feels with it.

Congrats Nick.

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!

If you are interested in getting something for nothing, this is the place for you. Although you need to do something (I figured it was a more catchy title than Want Something For Very Little), it is very simple and the rewards definitely outweigh the costs.

Is This A Contest?

Of course. I haven’t held a contest for a couple months and decided it would be a great time to provide my readers with an opportunity for some free stuff.

What To Do?

If you are interested in participating in this contest, all you need to do is link to this post in any single post of yours. You can use whatever anchor text you want, but the link must be set to this post. If your trackback does not show up, I would recommend sending me an email to be sure you are entered properly. Here are a couple examples of what you could write:

I love making money online. It is so cool. I also love free stuff.

Contests are cool because when you enter you can win a variety of different things.

As you can see, it is very easy to do and you can easily implement this link in any post you write.

Each post will be counted as one entry. If you have multiple blogs, feel free to enter multiple times.

Alright, What Do I Get?

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

How Long Do I Have?

This contest will run until October 20th. At this time the entries will be recorded and the winner will be selected.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to make sure your post is entered.

Test king caters to wide range of students by providing a variety of courses beginning from Cisco and Citrix to name a few are 640-822 and N10-003 respectively. The Microsoft tests such as 70-271 and 70-284 are quite popular. Test king is also involved in preparing students for the tests. These tests enhance the student’s performance and test them on the past papers. The prep-tests in line are VCP-310 and 156-215. Another prep test gaining a lot of popularity among the candidates is 220-601.

With the completion and success of my first contest, I have decided to hold another contest, with a bit of a different twist. With the idea of the last contest, the reward was for a free website review. Understandably, some people are not interested in a website review, but instead in a reward like cash, or other tangible objects. This is where my new contest idea comes into play. For the sake of this contest, I have turned on complete moderation of comments so I can filter through them before publishing. Do not worry, if you submit the correct answer first, you will be rewarded the $5.

What Is The Contest?

The contest rules are very simple, and the goal of this contest is to have a little fun, while rewarding readers for viewing Online Cash Flow. Here are the rules:

I will pay $5 via PayPal to the first person who answers this riddle correctly using the comment form on this post.

Here is the riddle: Put together a coherent English sentence that uses the word “and” five (5) times consecutively.

If you think you can answer this riddle correctly, leave a comment and I will filter through the results. Depending on how quickly it is answered, that will determine how quickly the winner and result is posted as well.

Good luck to everyone!

As the month of June is becoming closer to being over, I figured I would make note of the free website review drawing I am holding yet again. Especially being that this is my first contest, I would like to provide the opportunity for as many people as possible to be eligible for this blog review (or website). I will quickly explain the rules for those of you who have not seen the original post:

The rules for this are simple. You must publish the most content based comments until the end of the month of June. By content based comments, I mean they must be on topic and have some relation to the post you are commenting on.

There you go. Those are the only rules you need to follow in order to win a free website review.

In addition, I will be adding another contest at the beginning of July. This one will contain a bit of a different twist. Keep posted.

NOTE: The idea of the contest has been changed. After some conversation and brainstorming, I have decided to try a different route. Take a look. I have also resubmitted the post so it is at the top for everybody to notice.

As I have not held a contest yet, and to show my appreciation to the blogging community, I have decided to hold a drawing for a free website review. I have noticed various types of contests, raffles, and drawings on other blogs so I decided I would give it a try. There is nothing to lose for you, and a free website review to gain.

The rules for this are simple. You must publish the most content based comments until the end of the month of June. By content based comments, I mean they must be on topic and have some relation to the post you are commenting on.

If you are interested, all you need to do is actively participate in discussion via comments here at Online Cash Flow. I have taken a screenshot of the current count and that will be taken into account when making the final tally. (The current comments will not be counted). If there are any questions please ask me. Also, I have the final word as to whether or not your comment is sufficient to be included in the total count. Please make it easy on me and produce comments that are not spam-like. If I happen to be the Top Commentator, the next highest will receive the website review.

Good luck to everyone.

Note: Anybody is eligible to enter and win. Contest from June 9 until July 1.