Full disclosure
I have been involved in the “paid to blog industry” for some time now, and one important thing that has been heavily debated from the start is if the bloggers disclose that they get paid to write the reviews they publish. From the start leading companies like PayPerPost did not require this, but after being criticized from a lot of different people involved in the blogosphere they now seem to have adapted this as a requirement, which is the only right thing to do.
In my opinion this is a must, and I personally disclose on a per-post level that a post is sponsored by adding “This blog post is sponsored”. By this I fully disclose that I have been paid to write the review and my readers are not tricked in any way.
Matt Cutts discuss this from time to time on his blog and you can read more about it in his article about, Hidden links.
What is your opinion? Is a line of text enough disclosure? Please add a comment to this.
Another look at PayPerPost
Now I have been a member of PayPerPost.com for over a month and I have had the chance to write a few reviews from opportunities I have found in their system.
My experience so far is positive, although I feel that I sometime would want better pay for my reviews, since a lot of them are at a quite low level. I probably have to improve my blogs ranks to increase my income level. I have earned a little over $100 now and this coming month will be a good month I think.
PayPerPost has got an excellent community spirit and they reallly take care of their bloggers and advertisers. I have tested to advertise through the PPP system and the results has been quite good, I have recived both some traffic and relevant backlinks and that is as we all now important, so I would recommend to use PayPerPost if you want to advertise on blogs.
Words of encouragement
Sometimes a couple of simple words can ecourage a co-worker, employee or even a family member. Below is a list of simple words, that can make a big different.
1. I know you would make it
2. What an amazing improvement
3. You get better and better each day
4. This is the best so far
5. Very well done
6. Excellent, you are a quick learner
7. It is so fun to see your improvements
8. Today you have performed very well
9. Your progress is admirable
10. Now you have succeeded again
Why do I write this simple list with sentences that everybody knows of? Because that very few people use them. Do not forget to encourage people around you.
The Real Andreas Bard
Jacob over at Zero To Med tagged me to present to you who I really am. I am sure most of you know me quite well by now, but here you got some new facts, and maybe some old.
I am a 22 years old but soon to be 23 years old man that lives in the beautiful country Sweden, and there are no polar bears here I swear, even though the climate is not very warm, at least not as warm as I want it to be.
I have no high level education, and everything I do in my companies I have learned myself by working online for the last 7 years. I finished school in the summer of 2003, after I had attended what we call ”Gymnasium” here in Sweden, 3 years where you preper your self for more studies or work. I studied Economics and Business but when I graduated I got no real use of it because I need to keep on studying to get real use of it.
I love to play basketball and other sports and love to be outdoors with my friends and family. I have never played in any higher divisions, because I have never felt I have been in sports to compete but to have fun (or maybe because I am not good enough).
My biggest dream except from starting my own company that I have had since I was a kid is to be a musician. I love music, both to play and listen but I am to afraid to ever let someone here me perform. But who knows what happens in the future?
Me and my wonderful fiance Elin are now trying to get pregnent with our first child, and I am really looking forward to it and I hope that I am able to be home 100 % the first year.
So there you have it, enjoy.
A look at BoxedArt
When I first started of with my online business and was learning to code html and design I was looking for inspiration and resources where I could get help. After some months struggling I found a development library called BoxedArt.
BoxedArt offers you full membership access with unlimited downloads for a full year at the very low price of only $99.99, that means a small one time fee and not per download like on many other services like this one.
What you will find in their library is an absolutely amazing collection of website templates in different colors, shapes and sorts. The designs has got a very high standard quality wize and you are most definately to find something that fits your needs among the thousands of available templates on the site.
What I found was great for me when using BoxedArt.com’s service was that I got a great portion of inspiration to build my own things and also to use their templates to improve or edit them turned out to be awesome training for me. So if you want to improve your designing and coding skills and also increase your inspiration level, I am sure you will find much value of a membership with BoxedArt.
Another advantage of BoxedArt is that they cover so many areas of templates with everything from flash templates, valid css templates and web templates to logo templates, banner packs and product boxes. Whatever you might need, they have, and for you that want custom designs that are exclusive to you they also have a section for that.
As if what I have mentioned above is not of value enough they also offer you a tutorial section with lessons on for example, Optimizing Graphics for Web Output and Changing Colors in Graphic Elements, this sure helps out if you are a novis with no or only a small amount of knowledge in this field.
My favorite content of the site is the Product Boxes part, where you can find nicely designed boxes for you to package your digital products with, I have used it and it definately brings value to the selling process.
Fellow Entrepreneurs Wrote (5)
You know the deal by now, so here they are.
Jacob over at Zero to Med has a big heart, and that he shows by Fighting against Leukemia. I just made a donaition, and if you wan to do that too, please click here. Every dollar counts.
David Lithman just published an interesting article that now is debated among his readers and fellow entrepreneurs. It fun when people get engaged by something you write, and you can also read my opinion over there. The article is about, Blogroll Anchors and if you as a blogger should use your name/your blogs name or an anchor text to improve your SE rankings. What do you think?
Most of us web entrepreneurs have sold or will sell a website or domain sometime during our business journey and it is not always easy to know where, when and how you should sell it, so here you have it, When to Sell a Site written by Nate Whitehill.
Current Promotions
The last month I have had some promotions run for this blog to improve it popularity, some of them has been successes and some of them total flops, but I believe that they will get going soon. Here is a look at how they are doing.
This one has been a great success. My ranking has dropped from over 150 000 to now under 100 000 (96027) and I have gained like 20+ backlinks from this, which of course help a lot.
This one is no success at all, with only two contestants so far. I will now extend the end date to the first of June and add a cash prize of $30 and a Sponsored Post Link worth $12 to the winner. With this you get a Review of your site ($40), cash ($30) and a Sponsored Post Link ($12), which sums up to $82.
All contestants will get a permanent backlink from this blog in the post where I present the winner, so no one is a loser in thos contest. To enter the contest go to:
I want to buy a blog
I want to buy a blog for an “experiment”. If you have a blog that follow the requirements below and want to sell, please contact me.
- Must be more than 3 months old (since first post)
- Must be a quite general topic of the blog
- Must have at least one post per week the last 3 months
- Must have a Page Rank of 3 or more.
Contact me at info@andreasbard.com or comment here.
Page Rank Update
Google has been updating their Page Rank system the last days and now it seems that it has settled unfortunately there has been no real good news for my part, only some of my smaller sites increased, but this blog still has a rank of 4.
AndreasBard.com - PR4 -> PR4
YourSpace Arcade - PR4 -> PR3
BlandadeKlipp.se - PR2 -> PR3
Next time I will make sure that I am going to get a rank of 5, it will sure help me a lot when selling ads even though Page Rank is not the most important thing.
Link Directory with a twist
It is not a unique concept but BigWebLinks.com was one of the first to adapt the idea of letting you bid your way to the top of a web directory. On a normal link directory there is a very big risk that your link is not seen by a single soul once it is burried among the thousand of others links and the only effect you would gte from that is for Search Engine Optimization purposes, but with this concept you get a chance of being on the number one spot, which of course is a great advantage.
Other advantages of this link directory is that it has a Google Page Rank of 7, which is very unusual and a big benifit for you if you want to increase your own Page Rank. So the ones the makes the highest bid for placement are also shown on the front page and will by that not only get traffic but also effect from the Page Rank strength this directory has got.
This blog post is sponsored
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About Andreas Bard
My name is Andreas Bard and I am a web entrepreneur, writer and blogger. On this blog I write motivational articles and aim to help you on your way to success with your business venture.
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