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So, What Is The Best Gift For Valentine’s Day

Sire — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:42:11 +0000

Today is the 1st of February and it is also the month of the most important day of the year. Its very important for men and most important to women. Yep, you guessed it, I’m talking about Valentine’s day! It’s very important that men don’t forget it and really important to the women that the men remember how important it is to the women. They may argue the point but I’m pretty sure that most men out there have had to deal will women after forgetting to show their appreciation for them by showing their love on this most auspicious day. As important as it is to the men and women of this world it’s even more important to the marketers and retailers because they’re the ones that capitalize from this annual event. That being the case there is no reason why us bloggers get in on the action. The way to do that is to use our blogs to market to all those blokes out there who, if they know whats good for them, will give their better half something nice on Valentines day. OK, all you guys out there, there is a very good reason too for not forgetting to buy your better half a Valentines Gift. Forget about what I said about Valentines Day on my Load Of Bullshit blog. Forgetting your better half on Valentine’s day can have dire consequences, anything from not getting laid on the night to getting the silent treatment for some time to come. As to those of

you who have yet to score a girlfriend, this is probably one of the best opportunities you will get to show the woman of your dreams how much you think of her. Who knows, play your cards right and you may land your first girlfriend. The problem that most guys, and a lot of women, have is deciding what to give to their Valentine. Well, that’s cool because I have some very good ideas for you and thankfully for you some of those ideas come straight from one of the most reliable online stores ever. Yep, you guessed it Amazon.

The Best Ever Valentines Gifts

Shop Amazon – Valentine’s Day Top Gift Ideas: Great for the astute buyer, this selection includes gifts for men and women, many discounted up to 70%! It has everything from jewellery and watches to power tools and digital cameras, not to forgetthe ever popular box of chocolates.
Shop Amazon Jewelry – Gifts for Every Valentine, Selections up to 70% Off: You can never go wrong with jewellery when it comes to buying a gift for that special woman in your life. There’s a lot to choose from this store, many coming with a great discount. I particularly like this 18″ Sterling Silver Marcasite and Garnet Colored Glass Heart Pendant and at $36.99 it’s a steal. Others may prefer the tear shaped topaz drop earrings or even one of the many rings.
Shop Amazon – Flowers for the One You Love: Yep, one must never discount the power of a lovely bunch of flowers and if you want something that will last a hell of a lot longer then you should consider the ever popular indoor plants. If you’re not sure which one is for you I would definitely stick with the flowers.
Shop Amazon Movies – Valentine’s Day – Romance Movies: There are definitely some woman that are a pushover for a romantic movie and it’s up to you to decide if yours is one of them. Of course, if you’re planning on a romantic night in then there is nothing wrong with cuddling in front of a soppy romantic movie.
Shop Amazon Mobile Electronics – Valentine’s Deals for $100 or Less: Let’s face it not every woman is into flowers, jewellery or perfume and I can safely say that most men definitely aren’t interested in that crap and so I present to you a line of gifts from te electronics department, all for $100 or less. You will find products such as GPS navigators, MP3 players and car radios.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a little naughty on Valentines day and if you’re the sort that doesn’t mind ramping it up at least one day out of the year then you will definitely get some particularly interesting ideas from my Top Sexual Aids blog.

Other Great Amazon Deals

So, tell me, what have you got planned for Valentines day?

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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is! Check out some of the latest Latest Updates

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

Unions, Are They A Necessary Evil?

Sire — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:31:40 +0000

I often wonder about unions and whether or not they are really necessary in this day and age. I know for sure that there are a lot of union members out there who would be jumping up and down if they were to read this post saying that workers owe all the benefits they’re currently enjoying because of all the hard work that unions have contributed over the years and therefore they are a necessity to any viable workforce.

What many unions and their members seem to forget is their jobs exist because of the employer and not the other way around. Unfortunately too many of them falsely believe that they deserve everything they can get and fail to see that every time they receive a benefit it puts more and more strain on the employers profitability. It’s no wonder that more and more companies go overseas just so they can remain competitive on the world market.

Unions Causing Companies Unnecessary Hardship

I get the impression that unions are like a horse with blinkers having one goal in mind and not caring what they have to do to achieve it. Take the latest Quantas strikes that are crippling not only the airline but thousands of jobs associated with tourism, not to mention all the hardship put onto Australians and visitors alike who’ve had their flights cancelled time and time again. But that’s OK so long as they get what they want to the cent. These are the very unions who complained when Quantas took some of their services overseas just so they could get a better deal. One has to wonder how many more jobs will be lost because of union intervention.

What Are The Employees Rights?

Yes, I do believe that employees have rights but what exactly are they?

They have the right to work in a safe workplace.
They have the right to be fairly compensated for their time at work
They have a right to overtime if they’re needed to work past the required 8 hours, or whatever it is in your country.
They have a right to meal breaks

These are the main employee rights as I see them and I’m sure you guys would love to mention in a comment all the other important ones, in your eyes, that I’ve missed. Now let’s look at the employers rights.

What Are The Employers Rights

That the employees puts in a fair days work
That the employee follows company policy
That the employee acts responsibly to other employees and customers

Again, these are the main ones and there are probably others and if you want to add any you can do so in the comment section. When everything is going smoothly everyone is happy and there’s nothing for unions to do. However things rarely run smoothly and when there is a disgruntle employee the unions are usually called in. The problem lies in the fact that they always consider the employee to be in the right and the employer to be in the wrong when this is not always the case.

I put it to you that no employer would ever sack a good employee because good employees are hard to come by and the cost of replacing one is so high. Unions fail to see this and take the employees word which sometimes results in a mass strike until the employee is reinstated.

I feel that employees in Australia have it pretty well. There’s a minimum wage that all employers have to adhere to and on top of that they also get 17.5% loading when on holiday as well as 9% superannuation. There is even talk of raising this to 11%! Personally I fail to see why this extra burden has to be placed on the employer.

The Effects Of Excessive Costs To The Employer

I used to be an employer and as one we took certain things into consideration. The first thing is the huge investment required to buy the business, even to the extent of mortgaging our homes. This lead to the our first cost, paying interest to the bank. Other costs involve things such as maintenance, running costs, rent and among other things wages.

If things go well and the business grows you can afford to increase your staff levels and you don’t mind doing so as long as it doesn’t effect your bottom line. There are even times when you tighten your belt because of a temporary downturn in sales because you feel a certain obligation to your staff, especially if they are doing all the right thing. But then you’re told that there is a national wage rise, that you have to pay an extra 2% super to your staff and they’re increasing the work cover.

The smaller business owner is faced with downsizing which means that someone has to lose their job. Larger business will either increase the price of their products or find ways to save money. This could mean introducing machinery that do the same job more efficiently or even letting go some of their staff. Worst case scenario they move their operation overseas and take advantage of the cheaper labor source.

I personally believe that this is what the unions are forcing on a lot of businesses. It’s one thing to ask for better pay and working conditions,it’s another when they have the audacity to tell companies how they should run their business. That is basically what many are doing. Perhaps they would be better off buying the businesses themselves and running it the way they want and see if there really is enough money to pay the employees all that they feel they’re in entitled to.

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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is! Check out some of the latest Latest Updates

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

Is Google+ All That You Thought It Would Be

Sire — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 04:45:24 +0000

It seems to me that there is a little dissatisfaction around the place concerning Google+ as there are posts appearing around the net talking about how unhappy they are with it all. Personally I still think its a great social media site, so much better than FaceBook and less annoying than Twitter. I used to hate Twitter and almost gave it up until I got my hands on TweetDeck and I was able to filter out all the ‘noise’ so that I would only hear from those that I was interested it. Google+ has provided a solution for all that useless chatter by coming up with Circles. If you have someone that does nothing but talk shit all day long you simply pull him out and stick him in the ‘People Who Talk Crap” circle.

Why People Hate Google+

Boring: It’s true, some people are starting to find Google+ boring and my mate Mitch is one of them. Read his post G+ Activity Seems To Be Dwindling. Mitch would like more interaction but then he always was a talker.
I Just Don’t Get It: Emma Cragg is Nonplussed By Google+ According to Emma, she just doesn’t get or need another social media network. I reckon there would be some internet marketers gagging at the idea of not utilising what could be a major social network.
Privacy Issues: A lot of people are complaining about privacy issues but it seems to me that is a common fault with all social networks. Some say they don’t like the fact that they have to use their real name rather than a alias but I feel that is a good thing because I want to know who I am dealing with.
No Control Over Other People’s Circles: Some people are complaining that they have no control over users adding them to their Circles. I’m sorry but I can’t get my head around that because I was always under the impression that getting people to add you to their circles was a good thing.
Can Only Select One Circle At A Time: I agree with this one. There are times when you would like to interact with several circles but you can only select one or be forced to chat with the whole kit and caboodle.
Can’t Turn Off Notifications: This is a real pain and is the main reason why I don’t interact with popular members because once you comment you get bombarded constantly by updates. The only way you can turn these off is by muting the post but thats like nuking the conversation.

I’m sure I haven’t covered all the issues that people have with Google+ and you may want to add any issues you’re having in the comment section below. What I would be really interested in is whether or not you’re considering giving Google+ the flick because you’re so pissed off at Google+

Oh, if you haven’t already you may want to take part in the poll about your favourite social media site.

Blogging Like Life Is All About Choices

Sire — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:41:30 +0000

No matter where you go or what you do in life you are confronted with choices. You can make the right choice or you can make the wrong one. Unfortunately making the wrong choice has consequences. It will lead you down the wrong path taking you away from what you truly desire in life. However, that path will lead you to forks in the road that once again gives you more choices. Taking the right path can change your fortune whereas taking the wrong one merely increases your despair. Making the right choice isn’t always easy but then the easy choice can sometimes be the wrong one.

Blogging is no different. As bloggers we are faced with many choices.

Choices Bloggers Make

Do we use a free platform or do we host our own blog?
Do we use third party comments systems like Disqus or do we stay with the the preferred default one?
Do we stay nofollow or do we make the choice to reward our commentators and go dofollow
Do we choose to reply to as many comments as possible or do we just sit on the fence and let those comments go unreplied and for all they know unnoticed?
Do we use a paid theme or do we stick with a free one?
Do we allow keywords in the name field or should we insist on a name

Obviously bloggers are faced with many more choices than just these few and perhaps you could tell us some of the choices that you’ve had to make.

My Choice Commentluv Or FlexSqueeze

I actually had my own choice to make, one which came about when I updated to the latest FlexSqueeze theme. As you may have noticed in my last post, When Will You People Get A Damn Gravatar, commentluv was out of action. It worked fine in the last version but didn’t work in this one. There was no way I was getting rid of FlexSqueeze, not after seeing and trying all the new things Ryan has added to it. So, if I had to make a choice between the two I’m afraid CommentLuv would have been the loser and I didn’t want that to happen so I had to find a solution.

After trying the obvious things I decided to make use of Andy Bailey’s CommentLuv Support. Within 24 hours I got a response to the ticket, and Andy, you know I loves ya mate but most of that stuff was way over my head. It did however give me a hint; it had something to do with jquery and that meant either a plugin or one of the scripts I was running. Using Andy’s response as a guide I was able to pinpoint one offending script which was running an outdated jquery and replaced it with one that didn’t use jscript.

The next step was to disable all the plugins to see if it worked. OK, OK, maybe that should have been the first step Anyway, disabling all but the CommentLuv plugin showed that it was definitely plugin related. Then it was just a matter of enabling one plugin at a time until I found the offending one. As it turns out it was the InfoLinks plugin , so I deleted that and installed the script into the footer instead.

As you can see, all is well with the world and I was able to keep both the FlexSqueeze theme and the CommentLuv plugin but only because I decided to choose the harder path by trying to resolve the problem.

Why Google+ Will Give FaceBook A Run For It’s Money

Sire — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:54:35 +0000

I’ve done two posts concerning Google’s +1 button, namely Google+1 Showing Others Their Stamp Of Approval and Which Is Of More Value A Tweet Or Google’s +1? The funny thing was that a lot of people were comparing the +1 to FaceBooks like button and I thought it was so much more than that. It’s still my opinion that Google will factor people’s +1s into their search algorithm.

Google+ changes all that now that they’re live and FaceBook should be worried because unlike +1 Google+ is their direct competition. I’ve only joined Google+ today and already I’m loving it better than FaceBook. While there are similarities it’s features are so much better. So much so that I’ve heard FaceBook are so worried they are working on some major revamping just so they can remain in contention. So let’s look at some of the features:

Circles: This is the best thing about Google+ and is one of the reasons it will leave FaceBook for dead. Once you’ve joined you can organise all the people you follow into ‘Circles’ As you can see I have one Circle just for my Blogger buddies. I’ve also got one for Family, Friends and Acquaintances. You can have as many circles as you want.
Selective Streams: This is directly related to your Circles. When you post something in the stream you can select exactly who sees it. It can be made completely public or you can select a particular Circle or even several Circles giving you complete control of who sees your posts.
Self Promotion: When adjusting your profile you can add as much of yourself as you like thereby selling yourself to whoever is viewing your profile. Make sure when you do this you do not forget adding links to those sites you wish to promote
Google+ Hangouts: This is so cool that it probably has FaceBook and Skype quaking in there boots. Who knows, perhaps Skype sold to Microsoft because they knew this was coming. When youstart a hangout you can invite up to 10 people to have a video conference and it’s absolutely free. Completely unheard of in FaceBook and you have to pay to use this feature in Skype.
Sparks: Is just like your news reader. Clicking this presents you a selection of categories of what’s hot now or you simply type in your search term to find what you’re interested in.

Creating your circle is as easy as dragging the photos of the people you know into the circle of your choice. If they’re not lucky enough to be a member yet you can invite them by clicking on the ‘Add a new person’ icon on the left while you’re in the Circle page. If it doesn’t recognise the name you just type in their email address. Nothing will happen though unless you complete one more step. Click on the Home icon which will take you to the ‘Stream’ page (FaceBooks newsfeed) where you will post something making sure you share it with your new invites. Google will then send them an email of your post complete with link for them to join.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m sure there is a lot more to learn but considering I’ve only just joined I reckon I’ve done pretty well. Heck I know more about Google+ than I do about FaceBook and that’s alone says a lot. If you haven’t joined yet do it now because this is one social media group you don’t want to miss out on.

Have you got anything interesting about Google+ that you want to share with everybody?

How Good Is The FlexSqueeze Theme, Really?

Sire — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:45:20 +0000

Now, don’t you go shaking your head in dismay. Yeah, yeah I know I’ve done posts on Flexsqueeze before, but is it my fault that the FlexSqueeze theme is so good I can’t tell you all about it in just a few posts? For those of you who are not familiar with Flexsqueeze it is the most flexible WordPress theme that you will ever see. One of the biggest features is that unlike themes like Thesis it actually works straight out of the box.

What this means is that you don’t need to know html, php, css or even hooks to get it to do what you want it to do. It’s all done from within the WordPress theme and most of the changes can be done with a click of the mouse. This makes it the theme of choice for newbie bloggers and those who are not technically minded. My About page lists my nine blogs and checking them out will show you that each has its own individual look.

Great For Affiliate Marketers

Newbies aside this theme is great for the affiliate marketer and those bloggers looking to make money online. It’s agreed by many marketers that one of the most important thing to have is a squeeze or sales page and FlexSqueeze have several templates built in to help you design very professional looking sales page. My Become A Lotto Affiliate sales page shows you just how professional a sales page you can produce. Now I’m no web designer but I reckon I did a pretty damn good job with it.

Create Columns In Posts And Pages

Have you ever wanted to create columns of texts in your posts or pages but didn’t know how to do it? I’m not sure whether there are other themes that will do this but as I found out only yesterday FlexSqueeze does. This would be great for those bloggers who want to give their blog a newspaper or magazine feel about it.

This would look really great if you’re intending to have a full width blog without any sidebars. You can actually have two equal columns, three equal columns, four equal columns or an in-between configuration.

I can honestly say that FlexSqueeze has come a long way since I posted this video.

Unique Page Content Slider

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That’s pretty neat isn’t it? It works best if you have a blog width of 650, perfect for the built in squeeze page templates, but I have to be truthful I had to play around with it a bit to fit it into this post.

So Many Other Features

You can separate parts of your post by using neat shadow effects.

You can make your testimonials stand out so that it looks a lot more appealing to your reader or potential customer.

John Doe – SomeWebsite.com

Perhaps you have a really important part of your post and you want to make sure it captures your reader’s attention. You could place it in a colored box! You actually have a choice of 4 colors, blue, red, yellow and grey.

If there are parts within the post that you want to highlight, where you would normally use bold or italics you can now highlight the text in bright yellow

There is so much that you can do. While you can use a lot of these features in your sales pages there is no reason why you couldn’t use them in your post occasionally for those very special post. As you can see having FlexSqueeze makes your blog really unique.

Forget your normal indentations

Select from different styles and colors

OK, I think you get the idea, but just in case you’re still a little vague about what this post is all about, all it’s trying to say is FlexSqueeze Rocks!

If you liked this post then don’t you think it deserves a Tweet or something?

What You Need To Do To Make Your Blog A Success

Sire — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:27:20 +0000

Most people who become bloggers do so with high expectations of striking it rich. You can’t even blame them because the net is full of people promising they can show them how to make a whole lot of money online, saying that all they need is a blog or a set of websites. A few have actually done it and they get a whole lot of traffic because people think if they stick around long enough some of that fortune will rub off on them. Others haven’t come anywhere near making a decent online income but they write as if they hold the key to financial freedom. Unfortunately they manage to fool a lot of people, all those newcomers who come online to hopefully improve their financial status.

Many who fail to reach their dream of financial freedom continue the online life because they’ve come to love blogging. After all it has so much to offer, you get to express yourself, to share your knowledge with others and the interaction with your commentators is truly sublime. Unfortunately the rest will give up in disgust once they’ve come to realise it wasn’t as easy as they were made to believe.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that I have the secret because I haven’t and saying any different would make me as dishonest as all the rest. However, over the years I have discovered certain things that every blogger needs to know if they want to make their blog a success.

Traffic

This is the most important part of making money online and yet most of those people selling their ‘secret to success’ fail to mention it. All they tell you is get your niche online and the money will start to flow in. Start up another ten and you will increase your income tenfold. Unfortunately no traffic means no customers which means no money and ten times nothing is still nothing.

Getting traffic is possible though but it takes a lot of work and a fair bit of time to drive traffic to your site. What makes things worse is you don’t want just any traffic, you want targeted traffic. This means if you have a blog that is selling computers you don’t want people coming over who are looking to buy dog collars.

The way to get targeted traffic is all tied into the keywords you use in your domain name, your headings, blog titles and posts. Even that is not going to work unless the search engines think you have something of value, and the way to do that is by getting backlinks via blog commenting, forums, writing articles but most importantly by writing brilliant content so other will link to it. My post How I Am Marketing My Online Lottery Niche highlights some of the strategy I’m using to market my latest blog.

A Product To Sell

Most everyone will tell you to make money online you need something that you can sell, preferably your own. Unfortunately most of us don’t have that and so we do the best we can by placing Adsense ads on our sites or by promoting other peoples products as an affiliate. I’ve had a bit of success selling products like FlexSqueeze (a brilliant blog theme), Market Samurai, web hosts and a few others. The problem with those products is once you sell someone a product they’re no longer a potential customer, at least not for that product, which means you’re forever looking for new customers.

In my post The Secret To Online Success Is Passive Income I outlined a few methods I used that were making me money on a regular basis. I also spoke about my latest venture, one that I am confident will be my biggest earner because I am now selling a product that people buy on a regular basis, lottery tickets. I am now in the process of driving traffic to Buy Online Lottery Tickets with the knowledge that every time I gain a customer I will make money whenever they purchase a lottery ticket online. I’m also offering others the opportunity to become a MyLotto affiliate giving them the same opportunity to make money online, knowing that I also make a percentage of their sales.

Building Your Brand

At the beginning of the post I said the most important facet of making money online was driving targeted traffic to your blog, well that’s not quite true, there is something way more important. The most important part of your online businesses is YOU! You are the face of your business as everything you do online affects the way others perceive you. That being the case it doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to your blog because if your online profile is suspect you’re screwed.

By everything I’m including blog commenting as this is by far the most popular method used by bloggers to market their blog. I’ve known this from the beginning and I am constantly surprised by the amount of people who fail to use commenting to their advantage. This is probably because done properly it takes time and many prefer quantity over quality failing to see that a lot of poor comments only serves to hurt their brant. If you’re not sure what constitutes a good comment I suggest you read Teaching People The Proper Way To Comment as I used this post to grade people on the quality of their comment.

One thing to remember while online is that unlike the offline world you have time to think before responding to any negative comment, or feedback on one of your products, that you may receive. Never, ever, let anger cloud your replies because once you blow up online you reveal to everyone your loss of control and lack of professionalism. Two posts taking about this subject that you may find interesting ate Kristi’s 3 Questions To Ask About Offensive Content On Your Blog, although you can apply this to a lot more than just blogging.

Social Media

Social media is an important facet of your online business and one that I still have a long way to go as far as online promotions go. It’s also very important as far as branding goes and so you have to be very careful how you conduct yourself when using them. Something that many people fail to realise is that almost everything you do online is open to public scrutiny and that being the case acting in a manner that can be seen as untoward by others can cost you business. So be very careful what you say online or even what you link to. You may think that something you saw online was extremely funny and so you tweet the link to all your followers not thinking that many of them may find it very offensive.

When it comes to social media it’s my opinion that ChingYa would have to be the online social media guru, blog posts like her 7+ Major Tips In Enhancing Your Upgraded FaceBook Page just goes to show the wealth of her knowledge. You could do a lot worse than going over there and learning from what ChingYa has to say.

Phew, I don’t normally rave on like this but I reckon I just had a lot to say, and even so there is probably so much that I left out. This is where you guys come in by using the comment section. What are you doing to make your blog a success? What have I missed out and how can we help each other to attain our goals.

What Is The Best Comment System For WordPress Blogs

Sire — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:48:48 +0000

Yes, the argument for the best comment system for WordPress blogs is continuing but I’m here to tell you, no matter what you read on other blogs, the best comment system for your WordPress blog is the default one. Don’t be like all those sheep out there who install third party comment systems like Livefyre, Intense Debate and Disqus just because others are doing it. Why, because if you do, you will get fewer comments.

I proved that when I wrote my post on how Disqus is costing people comments. Out of 183 people who took part in the poll, 54% said they would not comment on a blog that used Disqus. It would have been higher but some said they would comment if the blogger was someone they knew. So, if you’re a newbie I definitely would stick with the default system. Why the heck would you change when it has all the benefits a commentator would want, not to mention the added benefits from those bloggers who have installed commentluv and keywordluv?

Sure some of those comment systems might have bells and whistles but are they worth it when you consider that it could well cost you valuable comments? Then there’s also the possibility if your third party comment system bites the dust that it would take all your comments with it! Now there is a horrible thought. I’ve had people using Disqus email me asking for help because they were scared of losing their comments knowing that their comments were held off site. Unfortunately I couldn’t help them because I was never silly enough to install it and so I didn’t know much about it.

You may be wondering why I dislike those commenting systems so much. It’s because I refuse to go through any extra hoops when leaving a comment, which my previous post proved to be the most popular reason for not commenting on those blogs. What’s that, I can register for free and then it’s easy to leave a comment? True, but there’s the rub, there is the extra hoop I have to jump through, and then if I delete my cookies, which I do a lot, I have to sign in again when wanting to comment on those blogs. Those damn hoops, I have enough crap to put up with without having more spoiling my blogging experience.

As far as I’m concerned I believe that old saying, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. But hey, don’t listen to me, you go ahead and install it, that’s just one less blog that I need to comment on.

Your Guest Poster Breaks The Rules! Now What?

Sire — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 23:55:25 +0000

Its time for another poll but before we can start a new one we need to discuss the results of the last one. I started that poll on April the 15th and what I was trying to work out was whether or not it was ethical for bloggers to do paid posts? A total of 46 people took part in the poll, 43 saying yes it was ethical and only three saying that it wasn’t.

From the comments left by my readers it was obvious that even though most agreed it was ethical it all depended on how the blogger conducted the paid post. Was he being honest and not intentionally misleading his readers? Did the blogger disclose that he was being paid to write the post? As long as he adhered to these and certain other criteria then doing paid posts was not a problem.

Before we get to the other poll I want to talk about guests posts and the obligation of the person writing the post. Just over a week ago I was approached by someone wanting to do a guest post on this blog. I told him it would be fine as long as he adhered to the following conditions;

Hi Guest Poster,

Firstly I would like to see a guest post that you’ve already done. Secondly the post has to be of original content and related to blogging, SEO or something that is of use to my readers. Thirdly, if I accept your post you will be expected to monitor the comments so that you can reply to the commentators keeping in mind the quality of your replies will reflect on your image.

Other things to keep mind include.

Minimum of 400 words

No affiliate links. You can link to your site from your bio.

I may ask you to edit it if I feel it is needed rather than having to do it myself.
Naturally I expect a pretty good standard, no less than what I expect of myself.
That’s about it. Good luck.

Needless to say I accepted the post but even though I expressly told him that he needed to reply to all comments left on his post I haven’t heard from him since and yes, I notified him immediately once the post went live. So the question now is what do I do about it? That’s where you guys come in. All you have to do is take part in the poll and leave a comment as to why you feel the way you do.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Will Google Penalise You For Using Zaparena

Sire — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:52:52 +0000

It’s been almost three months since using the Zaparena Traffic Network on my blogs and I am very happy with it. Having said that this post isn’t about telling you how great Zaparena is, rather it’s about dispelling some of the issues people seem to have with it, issues that have come to my attention via the comments.

I Don’t Want Near Naked Women On My Blog

This is an easy one because if you don’t like seeing beautiful near naked women on you blog you make sure you don’t select that option.

It’s Against Adsense TOS

This seems to be the main issue people have. Unfortunately I can’t give you an iron clad guarantee that Google won’t penalise your blog for running Zaparena because no-one ever know how Google will react to anything. Something that may be perfectly acceptable today could be totally unacceptable tomorrow. Still, after doing some extensive research I have yet to find one site using Zaparena who has lost their Adsense account.

Image via Wikipedia

Most of the results turned up blog posts warning people against using sites such as Zaparena saying that Google did not like traffic exchange programs. Klaus from TechPatio echoed their concern siting the following Google Adsense article,, Can I use traffic exchange programs? which states the following.

While traffic exchange services may help bring traffic to your site, we don’t recommend using them, as they may lead to invalid clicks or impressions and result in your account being disabled.

As you may already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view webpages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.

We also advise against using third-party tools or services to increase your site traffic, as they may also result in similar invalid activity and your account being disabled. We realize that you may have questions about a specific service and whether it could potentially create invalid impressions or clicks. However, please understand that we’re unable to comment on any particular third-party service.

Let’s look at the part highlighted in red. I can safely say there’s no way that Zaparena generates clicks, artificially or otherwise. Ad impressions, well that’s something else, but if they are going to penalise you for that then what’s stopping them from including things like Stumble, Digg, Twitter and the myriads of other forms of traffic generation.

Now, let’s consider the section highlighted in orange. They advise against using third party tools that increase traffic because it may result in similar invalid activity and your account being disabled. Again, Zaparena does not result in people clicking on your adsense ads, no more so than any other method you’re currently using to generate traffic to your blog.

It seems that the only way we would know for sure as to whether it is against their TOS is by asking Google but they kindly advise us against that because they can’t comment on any third party service. Typical of them isn’t it?

I would also like to point out that Zaparena isn’t your typical traffic exchange program which requires that you surf their sites in order that they do the same for you. There is no such requirement for Zaparena, in fact there is no incentive at all for people to click on a Zaparena ad.

As I said at the beginning I am more than happy with the performance of the Zaparena Traffic Network. I would love to say I was certain that Google doesn’t have a problem with them but like I said at the beginning no-one can know how Google feels about anything. Ask anyone who’s been penalised and is still scratching their head as to why.

If anyone knows of someone who have been penalised because they were using Zaparena I would love to know about it.