BlogRush doesn't like us anymore, do they still like you?

Well about a month or so ago, blogrush hit the scene, and spread like wildfire across almost every blog i came across. Great idea, bring more people to everyones blogs so we all benefit, awesome, we're always cool with that. After awhile, it was apparent that they were overloaded with new members signing up, spammers of course joining in, so they had to get things cleaned up. At first they were rolling out more features like a better selection of colors for their widget and such, cool, integrating colors is great. Next up they talked about TONS of new categories coming our way, good deal, we can pin point what section our blog should be in even better. THEN the big one, they were doing a massive clean up, totally MANUAL reviews of sites, etc. Welll that sounded great, cheaters and scammers suck and make it harder for those of us who bust ass because we have to, and because we can't afford to have our shit shut down and lose it all. Anyway, Blogrush's big cleanup hit, and it seems like a LOT of people, (including us) got left out in the cold. Now it's fine if certain blogs were kept out due to a violation of their terms or something, but we run a variety of blogs from this one, to cell phone news, to reality TV, to an entertainment site, and not 1 of them has been approved. It would also be nice if they gave us a REASON for not being approved, other than "You're not approved." I've read some places saying that money making blogs were hit, well this blog is just a record of what we're doing to make money, a business journal if you will, so we really don't know what's going on with this new strict stuff. Either way, we had Blog Rush on all of our blogs, and were looking forward to seeing it help us even more, but who knows if blogrush is going to keep all of us out, or if they will realize that they might be going overboard in the strict department. Odd thing about all this is, we received an email from BlogRush saying we were IN....but then upon logging in to blogrush.com, all our blogs show up as not approved. So who knows what is going on, but hopefully it can be fixed and it can still be a helpful program!

BlogRush.com, One Step Closer to the Traffic We Need to Our Blogs?

As some of you have read before, I enjoy learning about the various ways that other people are making money on the net, either with web sites or blogs. These days I mainly check out Shoemoney.com and Johnchow.com....2 of the biggest money makers on the net. So when I hear both of these guys endorse something, I know its at least worth me looking into it. Some, or actually a lot of the programs they use are strictly meant for the big time sites and blogs that are pulling in hundreds of thousands of visitors, but a few weeks back I read about BlogRush.com on JohnChow.com in passing, and didn't give it much thought. Then after seeing that ShoeMoney had also mentioned it, I gave it a look. Turns out the program is free, easy to install, and is all about bringing bloggers traffic, and traffic means money, so of course that grabbed my interest. Basically you sign up, which takes no time, pick your category, and that's really about it. You install their widget on your blog, and you're done. The widget shows headlines from other blogs in your category, and thus your headlines show on other peoples blogs. You earn credits each time your blog is viewed, and credits mean your headlines get shown more and more on other peoples blogs. Also if people sign up for blogrush via the widget on your blog, they will be "under" you, and they will also earn you credits for more views to your blog. All this basically means that it's set up to bring your blog the most traffic possible. All this seems like a great program, and after reading about the recent work they're doing on it to improve it even more, such as adding more widget colors, adding more categories to put your blog in, and manual approval which will weed out spammers and blogs that are trying to cheat the system, the people behind blogrush seem to be all about keeping everyone informed, and listening to what the members want. I'm looking forward to see what this program can really do, once its been going for a good while and they've added all the features and fixes that they want to have going. If your interested in checking it out, just look at the blogrush widget on the right, and click on the "Add Your Blog Posts Free" to sign up.

Making Money with Blogs to Build Income. Learning Adsense, Drawing Traffic, and More!

Since things aren't exactly explosive on the Google front for my cell phone site right now compared to a couple of months ago, and since Google really can't be controlled, and can pick you up and drop you as it pleases, I've been working more with the few blogs I own, including this one. Along the way, I've come across blog mogul sites like JohnChow.com and ShoeMoney.com, which are the top dogs who have worked their way to the very top of the online money making world, and their blogs are a major part of that. When I first started blogging, I created a blog for my cell phone site, and it was basically to aid my main site by writing content about cell phones, and linking to the phone order pages on my main site. Since then I've opened a few more blogs and have invited some others to blog on a couple of them, covering various topics like entertainment and reality TV. Then I opened this blog with G.C. basically to record our path to making it in the online business world. So with all this going down, we've picked up so many different aspects of making money online, and doing it with various sources of income. Blogging itself has turned out to be one of the biggest potential money makers out there. Of course, this sounds like the easiest thing in the world, you do blogs, you make money, bam! Of course there is the part about learning adsense and how to maximize it, how to get incoming links to your blog and why, getting your blog seen in the first place, etc. etc. For me it's one of those things where you can see the big picture (that seems to be a trend with most businesses I'm involved with), but you can also see the long long road ahead, and what has to be done. I myself wrote a blog awhile back about doing the work or never making it, and today I ran across a good blog by rkelley on ShoeMoney's site, about getting off your ass and working. The article basically puts the point across of just how hard is it to actually make money with blogs and only the few who actually put major effort in will ever make it. I've spent a descent amount of time between my cell phone site and college classes trying to learn anything I can about making some more money with the blogs to make ends meet. Of course Google Adsense is the most popular way to get some income coming in from your blog. I've recently taken a look at Joel Comm's Adsense-Secrets.com, which has some great tips on learning about placing ads, color schemes, and a lot of other aspects that are big factors in making money with Adsense. I'm really hoping the blogs can bring in some more money with some time and good content, and with all this potential, who knows how big things can get. I know there are bigger programs out there like Kontera and ReviewMe which can also big money makers once blogs get to a certain level of traffic on a monthly basis. Here's hoping that this will be one of the blogs that will one day have floods of traffic and I can sit here and blog about successful blog building, and share my tips on what I've learned in making money with blogs.

Going Back to College to Improve My Online Business...Finally Some Direction in College!

Last week I returned to college (via online courses) for the first time since 2002. I graduated high school in 1999, then took a year off, and started community college in 2000. At the time, I had no clue why I was going other than "college is good," therefore i just went and took basic classes, with 0 actual plan in mind. I surprised myself by getting an A in English 1, (prob the first A I'd gotten in a class since the early 90's) and did pretty average in the other classes like History 1, and a class in Microsoft Excel which I took just because I had a mild knowledge of the program from learning it in high school, so i signed up to take that class online. I took a full 12 hours in the first semester, then dwindled down as time went on, until I took time off again in 2002 due to burnout. I was just going and taking classes, with no degree in mind other than just something general, and I was also involved in the wrestling business at the time as a referee and manager, so weekends had distracted with the travel, doing shows, after parties, etc. My focus was off, and I knew if I kept going, I'd blow more money and get a less than stellar grade in more random classes, nothing really clicked, so i just "took time off" again.

Anyway, looking back to 1999, that was the time i started noticing the idea of "Making Money Online." I've already stated here in past blogs about my experiences with some companies, and I've also talked about my current telecom business, and my various other projects such as making money blogging, etc. I've been fairly successful with these ventures, but after some time, I started thinking about more and more ways to enhance what I already knew and was working with. My fiance began taking classes last summer for the first time, and I'd been helping her learn about all the different financial aid that was out there and ways to obtain it. After seeing how well the financial aid system is set up at our county college, and then stumbling across the E-Commerce certification that the school offers, I finally saw the opportunity to enhance what I was already going with my business online. I could finally take classes that go hand in hand with the things I do daily with my website, blogs, etc. Talk about a difference! 7 years ago I was bored to death with random classes, and now I'm taking Marketing and web page design classes which will enhance, and even teach me totally new things that I can apply, and see results with in my now chosen "Career" of working for myself, on my own time. The schedule for online classes are great, and very laid back, more my style.

For anyone who is working online, or has a certain interest they want to enhance, I'd definitely recommend finding out about financial aid at your closest school. Not only are you enhancing what you're doing or learning something new, but the government will even pay for it as long as your not already banking at a current job. There are even more opportunities out there with loans on top of grants if needed. This was an awesome opportunity for me to jump on in my transitional period of dropping my shitty unreliable day job to totally focusing on my own company, which will now eventually be backed up with a college education. It's an investment I couldn't afford to not take.

Riding the Google Coaster.

As a person who is trying to achieve success with a website, it is essential to take a on google as part of your life if your depending on getting a steady flow of traffic to your site to accomplish your goals. There are a ton of search engines out there, but Google is the king by far. In the year I've ran UltraCellSaver.com, we've had so many ups and downs with google. When the site first went up, it seemed as if we were in google right away, and everything was great, and then, GONE. Then the learning process begins, learning of the "Google Sandbox," which will keep your website out of the google ranks simply due to being new, and proving its a legit site, not a spam or illegal site, etc. Then once out of the sandbox, optimization. What does google like? What does google not like? What does Google penalize you for? The roller coaster seemingly never ends, as Google seemingly constantly changes their methods. Hours upon hours of testing and experimenting with different on page factors is the only way to halfway figure things out. Our site has been running for a little over a year, and certain things we've determined are definitely beneficial to any site such as incoming links to your site. We've compiled lists of directories out there and have been hard at work getting listed all over the net as much as we can, and that's something that any website that is looking to grow needs to do, plain and simple. But as we've learned, incoming links are GREAT, but are only half the battle. The on page factors play such a huge part, and almost every engine looks at different factors when determining your sites rank. Everyone wants to be on top in the google ranks, but google is seemingly the hardest to figure out. We've had some good week long runs of coming in on the first page of results for our targeted keywords, then a week later, we're gone again, and back to the drawing board to see why we're being penalized now. Luckily we've gotten ourselves back into google on a few occasions, recently having a great 2 week run in great positions in google, but now we're back to trying to figure out what we could be penalized for now. Google is definitely a learning process that will be on going as we attempt to settle into a nice spot that will let our site figuratively "Get over the hump" and continue on at a steady pace. Eventually we'll tackle the google monster and get off the roller coaster once and for all! The only approach I can suggest, is learning the way things work, avoid the shortcuts and cheats, because taking a chance on Google taking you out of their engine for good, is not a chance worth taking.

Ryan Shamus dot Com Review!

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I Never Want to Retire

A lot of the personal finance advice found on the 'net is geared towards one common goal: Retirement. In many cases more specifically, Early Retirement. Mostly this consists of maxing out IRAs and 401(k)s and amassing enough wealth in mutual funds to live off a percentage ( commonly 4% per year)of the nest egg.

This method makes some morbid assumptions. For one, you will have to die in X number of years. Now it IS possible to only "touch the interest." However, you will have a very restricted budget and inflation will still eat away at the principle. Being strict with a budget and investing wisely will allow many to outlive their money ( or in the case of many planners, die broke). However, there are many variables that can't be controlled, such as future inflation, health care, and tax policy. I am not too worried about this aspect. If I had a couple mil in the bank, I would feel comfortable taking early retirement. But why would I WANT to?

There is ( mostly) only ONE reason: You have a JOB/career that you absolutely HATE. You work only for the sake of working while looking forward to eventually retiring on a fixed income.

In My Humble Opinion, if you are a "general-specific" skilled person who uses his intellect and takes advantage of modern technology- you can earn a living doing something that you ENJOY that is not physically taxing. Personally I do things that I would enjoy doing even if I were not making any money to do so. Technology will change, but I could easily see myself still tinkering with the same type of things when I am 80 years old. Of course I could come down with Alzheimers or Dementia at some point in my life, but there is still a small risk. I will probably be able to do enjoyable productive work my entire life.

This is because most modern production is not dependent on PHYSICAL LABOR. I have 2 uncles who REALLY can't wait to retire. They make great money and have awesome benefits. But Their BODIES are wearing down. One climbs up poles and works in trenches. The other works in extreme heat and has to crouch, stoop, and crawl on the job. They can't wait to reach the age/time on job required for full Pension.

Me? I don't want no stinkin pension and I never plan on joining a trade union. I don't care about Social Security either.

Retirement is basically INSURANCE against your body breaking down and becoming occupationally incapacitated. Don't get me wrong. I will take advantage of this insurance in the form of IRAs, 401(k)s, disability coverage- or whatever is offered to me. However, being incapable of productive work is not a GOAL of mine.

I would rather enjoy the PRESENT while also planning to keep active until my mind no longer functions. There are many alternatives, like:

Being Self-Employed and take many vacations

Take "mini-retirements" in between jobs. ( Get laidoff? Take your severance and relax for a few months)

Telecommute and work efficiently. Get more stuff done in less time and enjoy the rest.

Be an Entrepreneur and work on many different projects in your lifetime. Gone are the days of working for one company doing one thing for 30-40 years. You may never do one thing for more than 3-5 years. That's fine and it could be lots of fun.