WiseBlogging.com

Finally another blogger-vs-blogger contest going on two months after the Shoemoney vs JohnChow competition (if you could recall). This time it is between two young Internet entrepreneurs Tyler Cruz of TylerCruz.com and Gyutae Park of WinningTheWeb.com who come head to head to see who gets the most votes from the readers. The loser will pay 3 lucky voters who voted for the winner $100 each (that’s $300 of cold hard cash in total).

I thought it’s gonna be the same old boring contest whereby you’d be required to subscribe to their RSS feed, find clues or enter the contest daily etc, but this time you are only required to write a 300 words blog post about this nasty contest and link to them, and you will stand a chance to win $100 via Paypal and total of 3 winners will be selected. Now, if you think that you’re not gonna be able to win the $100, read on.

On top of $100, you get guaranteed freebies too
For every voter who enters the contest, you will get some freebies from the gunners too:

Tyler Cruz: Anyone who votes for Tyler Cruz will receive 150 Entrecard credits and a link back to your blog from TylerCruz.com.

Gyutae Park: 100 Entrecard credits will be given to 10 voters only and first 50 voters will also get a complimentary Winning The Web t-shirt.

Now if you don’t have an excuse not to take part in the contest, do you? Get the freebies as a belated Christmas gift, will ya?

How to enter
Follow the simple 3 steps mentioned here if you vote for Tyler Cruz, or here for Gyutae Park. However, you will have to act quick, as you only have until Monday, January 14 2008, 9PM ET to submit your vote.

Who I vote for
So, here’s my entry. Who do I vote for? Errr… you can probably tell from the nasty piece of graphic that I photoshopped, yes, my vote goes to Mr.Tyler Cruz.

Why I am Voting for Tyler Cruz
1. The main reason is because, Tyler Cruz is losing at the time of this writing, Gyutae Park is leading with 30 votes while Tyler Cruz stands at 14 votes. I prefer helping someone behind rather than someone ahead. The satisfactory feeling is magnificent when you make a successful strike back, and I wanna be part of the victory.

2. Look at the freebies each of them offering, which one attracts you the most? Of course, Tyler Cruz’s. I wouldn’t know if I’d be guaranteed the 100 Entrecard credits and the complimentary t-shirt offered by Gyutae Park as it’s number limited.

3. Both of them teach you how to make money online from the comfort of your home, without having to wear a business jacket (but Gyutae Park wears one) and pay attention to your posture and gesture. I’m truly inspired by TylerCruz’s cartoon mascot, it clearly delivers a message that you can still enjoy playing your favorite games (although I do not encourage gambling), drinking the finest beverage of your choice, sitting comfortably in whatever position you like while making piles of money online, unlike Gyutae Park. Well, I’ve had enough of 9-5 rat race, I’d very much prefer t-shirt and jeans, no more business wear please, making money online is supposed to be fun and relaxing.

and the list goes on….. other lame excuses that I could think of:
4. I don’t know how to pronouce ‘Gyutae’, but ‘Tyler Cruz’ is so much easier. (DUH!)

5. Tyler Cruz’s feed readers (1129 readers) outnumbers Gyutae Park’s (315 readers). If both side of the feed readers were engaged in a gang fight, Tyler Cruz gang would definitely be able to win the fight. (too much of Facebook fights.. PEACE)

6. WinningTheWeb.com looks like another John Chow dot com. (one or two is enough)

7. Gyutae Park is wearing a business jacket but he’s only giving away t-shirts. ( I want that Gioxxxx Armxxx suit too)

So, guys and girls, let’s vote for Tyler Cruz, that’s it. I’m waiting for the 100 dollars green note. Tyler Cruz, declare me as one of the winners please. I need that $100 to buy the Winning The Web t-shirts please. =p

Sorry for the asskicking graphic and harsh words, no offense, Mr.Gyutae Park.

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Looks like Google is giving an early toolbar PageRank update of the year 2008. In fact, I noticed the data center was reset to zero while I was doing a random check yesterday. I thought it was a system glitch or something, so I didn’t pay much attention to it until I realised today that one of my blogs read a PR of 5 (from PR4) on the Google PageRank extension in my Firefox. I’m not sure if the toolbar PageRank update is confirmed, but there are certainly several reports across webmaster forums about the update.

I then did a PR check on all my blogs, and very much to my surprise that WiseBlogging was also updated to PR4 from PR3, although not much of linking work was done. Whereas, the other two blogs of mine remained at PR4. In conclusion, I’m now having a blog with a more respectable PR5 and 3 blogs with PR4, not a bad start for the year 2008. This early PR update allows me to reorganise my editorial calendar and restrategize to maximize the earning of my blogs.

Remember during the last PR update when many websites had their Google PageRank reduced due to paid links and cloaking, Google also booted them from the index. I’m expecting to see more sites being ripped off their PageRank value in this update. If yours was penalized, I’m sorry to hear that, but PageRank drops doesn’t really mean anything. Who cares what Google thinks about your site quality. It might negatively affect your ad revenue, but hey, who says you can’t make money without Google? Always explore other monetization options that do not require an outdated quality indicator like PageRank. Frankly speaking, most advertisers do not even look at PageRank value of your site, and some of them do not even know what a PageRank is. =p

Has your PageRank been updated? What does it mean to you? Share with us.

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I started this blog with a very simple intention of sharing my experience, knowledge and tips with all my beloved family members and dear friends who are interested in making money online by blogging but don’t know where and how to kick off. I was very aggressive and active in updating this blog initially, hoping that they would come visit, read and learn. However, it’s rather disappointing that most of them just visited once or twice ever since the blog was established in June 2007. I had to email/message and beg them to ask me any questions/difficulties they might have, but nobody asked me a single question, nobody seemed to appreciate that. I’m wondering why this is happening. Is this the procrastination that’s hindering them? Or was I being too aggressive in pushing them to blog? I don’t know. Hey, I’m not selling you anything, am I?

However, when I introduced this to another two friends of mine, JY and Jeepang, during our recent casual conversation, both of them created their blogs the very next day. If you look at their blogs, you can see that both of them put in a lot of effort in building the blogs. Take JY for an instance, on the day he created his blog, Phone Lover, he spent hours on msn with me asking questions, tricks and tips about blogging. He took the initiative to explore the Blogger platform, compare with other blogs, learn from other blogs and most importantly he asked questions. JY is a young teenager who is a very talented fast learner, he is willing to learn and experience. He managed to catch up what I taught and put it into practice. JY updates his blog regularly (as advised by me), and he’s targeting to write at least a post a day. He’s already having 20 posts in just 23 days, at the time of this writing. Man, he is going to be a very successful blogger in the near future, that’s one thing for sure.

Now let’s talk about the other friend, Jeepang. I had lunch with him recently, and he asked me a lot of questions before creating his blog, Malaysian Antiques. Jeepang, in his 40s, is not as young as JY, and he has limited knowledge in computer and internet, therefore, it might seem a little difficult for him to understand and absorb what I tried to teach. But hey, he managed to create a wonderful blog. I was surprised that he could come up with such niche blog, although it’s not the first of its kind, it is definitely very rare of its kind. I’m happy for him.

So, for those who are in love with procrastination, or most probably you’re rather busy with your daily work and family, I think I shouldn’t have forced you to blog. I know not everyone enjoys writing. However, to JY and Jeepang, you two earn my respect, and I’m giving you two a linkback in this blogpost, and also a sitewide link to your blogs. I’m also going to give you more linkbacks from my other blogs and it should be sufficient for you to gain a nice PageRank in the next PR update. Kudos to both of you.

Lastly, my advice to you all, blog wisely, not hately. Do not make blogging a burden to you, make it a hobby that you really like and enjoy doing, only then it will become a habit to you, a habit that rewards you with long-term income and success, see you at the top!

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The company that I’m working for often sends its employees to training programs, both internally and externally. I personally think that it’s a good long-term investment in the employees as well-trained employees are able to improve or at least maintain the company’s readiness to respond to the market. I was recently asked to attend a 2-day external training on “Handling Customer Complaints”. The trainer, Dr Allen, was indeed an experienced speaker and the content was very informative. I learned something new and during the whole course I was trying to relate it to blogging, hoping that it could add value to what I’m currently doing. To my surprise, the findings were of satisfactory and here are some points that I think you can apply to your blogging model.

1. Do what people don’t do
You probably remember Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart which generated $245 billion in sales last year. He was once asked what his secrets to building the multi-billion retail empire were, and one of the rule of thumbs that he shared was “What people do, you don’t do; What people don’t do, you do“. In today’s blogging world, it’s getting difficult to make money from it as it has become more competitive. What other bloggers are already doing is no longer as worthy because it doesn’t deliver the uniqueness of your blog. Therefore, if you wanna stand out of the crowd, then do something that other bloggers don’t do, this way you will most probably be the first to capture the major market stake. A very good example would be John Chow, he was the first blogger who gave away prizes while converting visitors into RSS feed subscribers, and it created amazing results in his feed count leading to an increasing income. So, start thinking something that the rest are not doing and be the first to do it. I’m yet to experiment this golden secret, let’s try it and let me know if it creates opportunities and increases your online income by any chance.

2. Help others help yourself
“When you help others achieve what they want, they will help you achieve what you want“. This is yet another important factor that should be added to your blogging model. It is extremely true that when you help others solve their problems by providing tips, how-to’s in your blog, they are inclined to like your blog, they bookmark your blog and they begin to visit your blog more regularly, thus, you gain the readership and automatically the money rolls in. Maki from DoshDosh is the best example in this aspect, it is not difficult to notice that most of his making-money-online blog posts are always full of unique information, tips, how-to’s that you hardly see elsewhere. Maki constantly does a thorough research on the topic that he’s writing about, and that’s why he gains the reliability, popularity and readability from his audience. In simpler words, do not hide what you know or are capable of, help yourself by helping the rest SINCERELY.

3. Be relational
Dr Allen also raised an essential point that we should really take note of. He thinks that today’s business models are moving towards a transactional mode. Take fast food outlets for an example, you go to the counter, the girl at the counter takes your order, you pay the ticket, leave with your food and the relationship ends right there while the girl at the counter yells “NEXT”. They are no longer serving customers, in fact they are “processing” customers, and they forget that a good service delivery is what keeps customers coming back. How does it relate to your blogging model? Don’t just write, post and hope to earn a fortune from your blog. You might get a few dimes from some random clicks, but your audience is not going to return for more. In fact, you should personalise your blog, your blog is not a robot. Care about your readers, reply their comments, ask what they want, appreciate their visit, they are your friends, they aren’t your competitors. According to a statistics done by Dr Allen, only 5% of the people who purchase your product or service would give you feedbacks, compliments and complaints, while the remaining 95% would be indifferent. Therefore, if you want to find out what you have done right or wrong, what you need for improvement, what you can do to gain more readers, how you can add value to your blog etc, you should also conduct surveys on a regular basis, ask your readers and get more feedbacks out of the remaining 95%. Be relational, not transactional.

These 3 tips may not earn you your first million, but they are of essential importance to building a different and popular blog. Tell me what you think and do let me know what you’ve achieved after applying these strategies to your blogging model.

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You have probably already heard of ShoeMoney.com and JohnChow.com, or you may not have heard of them, but they are undeniably one of the most influential money bloggers that give valuable tips and complete guides to making money online. “ShoeMoney vs JohnChow” has become the hottest topic in the blogging world. They were having a breathtaking RSS feed competition recently to see who recruited the most new RSS feed subscribers in the month of October 2007. Winner would then be granted bragging rights and a link on the other person’s blog.

In order to win the once-in-a-life-time competition, both of them came up with a win-win marketing scheme. They gave away a ton of prizes, including cash prizes, to new feed subscribers. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Who doesn’t like prizes? Therefore, I entered the competition too, and of course I subscribed to both of them, meaning I had greater chances of winning those crazy prizes, even a small prize as a consolation would surely mean a lot to me (I hardly win something). To my surprise, on only the second day of entering JohnChow’s RSS feed, I won a prize! LOL I won a free wiki page worth $100 on Million Euro Wiki. Check out my name in the winner list here, look for “admin-reviewcolumn”, that’s me. Glamour! I’m currently still in the midst of updating the wiki page that I won, you can check it out here.

And it seems like my luck didn’t just stop there, it came and stayed. I later won a prize from ShoeMoney’s too. Now you can call it SPLENDID! ShoeMoney gave me a $650 worth of full SEO analysis from Seonext.com, check out my big name in the winner list here.

The competition ended at the end of October 31, 2007 (US or Canada time). Who was the winner? Both of them were the winners, as they claimed. In fact, ShoeMoney’s RSS feed count was 18,003 with 7,170 recruited during the competition, while JohnChow managed to pull in 4,691 new readers giving him 13,276 in total subscribers. During the competition of the century, JohnChow was once in the lead and ShoeMoney almost gave in, but ShoeMoney managed to gain 4,403 readers on the last day making him the winner. However, both ShoeMoney and JohnChow agreed that both of them were the big winners as the whole point of the competition was to gain their RSS feed readership, and now that their purpose have been fulfilled, no one really lost in the match.

I personally think that it is a good marketing strategy to gain more readership by giving away prizes, I might consider this in the near future. Meanwhile, ShoeMoney and JohnChow haven’t announced the winners of their grand prizes. I’m just hoping that I will win the grand prize from either one of them. Please give me one of those, finger crossed.

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