How do I promote my blog?

This is a common question and one which is actually quite tough to answer. My first point is going to be that you need to grow your readership 'organically'. By this I mean don't go for one of those surf-exchange programs - they are pointless if you want to build up long-term readership. We are going to look at ways that will bring genuine readers to read your content.
The second point I am going to make is that before you think about promotion, for goodness sake have a blog that is worth reading otherwise you will be wasting your time dragging people in to read your bad content... Once you are happy that your blog is something that your potential readership will actually read, you are ready to start promoting:
1) SEO - people have written complete books on Search engine optimisation, but with just a few techniques, you can corner the market for your niche. Reading the articles on livewyre.NET on SEO techniques will equip you for basic optimisation which is probably covers 90% of total optimisation. For blogs, I would look to make sure that 'tags' are set within the blog template, and that all my titles are 'search engine friendly'. Look at this title for example 'How do I promote my blog' is a phrase that I anticipate may be typed into google frequently, and I stake my claim to that phrase by using it as a title. Beware of using titles such as 'search engine optimisation' because the competition for that phrase means that you will never get a result.
2) Links - backlinks are important, although I have seen that PageRank is not so important for Search engine results as it used to be...Links make up your PageRank and are helpful if not essential to get visitors. you can get free links from a number if directories, or you can canvass other sites to see if they will add your link in their sidebar or links page, but I get so many of these via email that I rarely even read them.. every so often though, if you are determined you may earn yourself a valuable link. I would not pay for links personally, but you may find that it is worthwhile.
3) Commenting - this is a free way of getting links from relevent web pages. Commenting on blogs within the same niche or on forums is a good way to get your link in front of people who may be interested in your site. Often news websites will also allow you to comment, but do remember not to waste your time on a site that does not allow your post your URL - many sites allow you to add your link and then link it to your name - so when someone reads the comment, they might click on your name and be taken straight to your site or a relevant article on your site. Even if the site is using 'no-follow- links to stop Google bots following links, you can still attract visitors by getting them to click on the link.
All-in-all, promotion can be hard work and building up visitors can take an awful long time - but in the long run, you should see your readership increase, and maybe even some of those readers will begin to read your RSS feed.

It is important (especially if people are reading your RSS), to keep fresh content on your blog, if you don't regularly update with new posts, your readership will drift away. You may define your own timeline by planning to update twice a day, daily or weekly -but whatever timescale you choose, your visitors will expect you to continue at that rate, so try to pick a pace that means you regularly update without making it too slavish a task. Work at your own pace, but once the pace is established, stick with it - and always have a post 'up your sleeve' for when you are running out of ideas. I sometimes post three or four posts and then date them so that they appear every few days so that I have some 'breathing space'. This is easy if you post several items in a mini-series (like this one... covering blog monetisation and promotion...) as you can write a large article and then split it up into smaller post-sized sections.

eBay guides

There are many ways to get your message across on the world-wide-web, and one of those ways which has been less than fully explored are eBay reviews. Sometimes, when you have bought a product on eBay, you are given the opportunity to review it, and there are thousands of valuable reviews in all sorts of interest areas.
I have been asked to review a hard-disk that I bought, but you will find things as diverse as a liporexall review, or reviews of video games, CD's and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Can you earn anything with a Blog?

It's a question that I see often, from both complete novices and also from those who have been blogging for a while but not thought about how to start monetising a blog. I just answered a question like this on a forum and that prompted me to think about monetisation.
I came up with three basic ways of monetising a blog:
1) Paid posts - the main focus of Munny4Hunny.com - the reason I started the blog was that I heard that you could make money with paid blogging and I wanted to find out if this were possible. Suffice to say that it is, although the online world has changed sufficiently for it to be less profitable now. Even after the peak of paid blogging, there is still a reasonable amount to be made, enough to buy yourself the odd treat from eBay...
2) Contextual adverts - Adsense is the king of contextual ads, but it could take a very long time to reach payout. In order to be successful with Adsense, you need several sites all displaying relevant adverts that you visitors are likely to click. To make people click, your ads need to be closely related to your content, ie. the ad content must be attractive to your visitors. To make money, you ideally need to be in a niche with a high CPC (cost per click) rate. If you get the combination right, you may reach payout on a monthly basis, but you will probably need several sites to do this.
3) Affilitates - like contextual adverts, these need to be closely related to the subject of your blog or site. Your ideal affiliate will fulfill the needs of many of your visitors. Most affiliates are selling a product, so ideally, this needs to be a product that your visitors will desire - some will play per click, but most pay commission per sale - and it can take a long time to come to fruition, nevertheless when it does, you tend to get a great return for very little effort.

Once your monetisation is in place, you will need to promote your blog - a subject which bears clarification (although I am sure I have addressed it any times before), but I will save my pearls of wisdom in this department for another post....

Embarrassing bodies

Embarrassing bodies is the title of a TV show currently showing in the UK, and the problems that people are willing to expose in front of cameras are often frankly shocking. A whole gamut of conditions and complaints that you would normally keep very well hidden are exposed for the world to gawp at. They have covered everything from simple hemorrhoids relief to odd-shaped body-parts, odour problems and severe skin conditions. The great thing about this program is that for those watching with similar ailments, they can get good advice in the privacy of their own home by watching the TV. More than that though, they also get the feeling that they are not the only ones who are suffering.

Showing your age

There is a whole industry devoted to NOT showing your age, an industry that produces face creams and treatments in a confusing array. We are left thinking 'Do any of these treaments actually work?' However, the more poignant question is maybe 'Does it matter?'
People seem willing to part with significant amounts of money to prevent the years from taking a visible toll. Certainly there is a medical need for people to get fit and lose weight, it is less certain however that there is an equal need to have less wrinkles...

The speed of weight loss

Whether you are looking to lose weight fast or over a longer term, there is no doubt that there are significant health benefits to controlling wieght and arresting weight gain. In a world that is becoming increasingly obese, it is only too obvious that we need to change our collective attitude to food and more significantly, to exercise.
There is a whole industry devoted to aiding weight loss, but it all boils down to a change of lifestyle ultimately.

Good and Bad Antivirus Software

I have a number of PC's that I use both at work and at home. In general I use two laptops for work and two desktops for home - there are reasons, but I'm not going to start explaining right now...
Anyway, my second work laptop is useful for doing certain tasks a lot better than my 'normal' laptop, so I kind of inherited it when someone left the firm. When I first got it, it had a 2006 copy of Norton Antivirus installed (not being updated, but I left it on anyway). I added some other security software so it would be safe to use and sure enough it worked OK for a while although every month it would try to persuade me to sign up for Norton again...
A few weeks ago I had it at home and Firefox stopped working, I tried IE, and that was still working until the next day when I got it back into work... after all sorts of windows updates and IE/FF re-installs I was getting nowhere. Never mind, Dreamweaver FTP was still working, so I could use it for that, and 'Radmin' was working (links to another PC via the internet). After a few days, FTP was no longer working and I am beginning to feel that this laptop is becoming increasingly useless, then I thought 'hang on - why don't I remove Norton?' so I tried uninstall - it wouldn't work, so I had to use my working laptop to browse for 'norton uninstall tool'. Eventually I found an up-to-date copy and Eureka! the problem was fixed and I was back on the 'net. Let that be a warning to Norton users... if you don't renew, Norton can screw up your PC...

Whilst I was browsing, I came across the new Microsoft Security Essentials - free software from Microsoft - yes FREE! from Microsoft!! for all those with a legit copy of windows XP/VISTA/7...
It is supposed to update itself with virus definitions, so you can just load it up and let it look after your PC without giving it a second thought. You get the usual warnings about possible conflicts with other software, but I have run it alongside Malware Bytes and AVG Free without any obvious issues yet.

So that's the good and bad of antivirus (Security Essentials also covers malware...), Norton is the badddie and Microsoft are the goodies...

Looking for work

Looking for employment is a difficult enough task at the best of times, the current economic climate makes it all the more difficult.
My (off-line) career has been very varied, but I have managed to stay employed in some capacity or other for all but a few weeks of my working life. I have found that temporary work is a good way into permanent employment, and would always seek to take any job whilst planning the next move rather than spend my time job-seeking during working hours.
My argument is that employers want to employ someone who is working (at least in some capacity) in preference to someone who is actually labelled as 'unemployed' especially as they length of that unemployment stretched from weeks into months.

January Earnings

At last!
I have completed my new reporting spreadsheet and I have a good report to share as my first of 2010, and the first in the new format which includes ALL my internet earnings not just blog earnings as previously. Also, to make the spreadsheet even more true to life, these are not potential earnings racked up in this month, they are actual amounts received, sometimes for activity within this month, sometimes for activity from the previous month or more.

I have included receipts and outgoings so that profit can be calculated, and this month has yielded a profit of £156 - note that I am also reporting in £UK instead of USD as previously.
Income was made up of £49 from blogging and £123 from my 'cassette to CD' site, outgoings are all from the cassette to CD activity.

New Camera

My camera packed up over Christmas, it was about four years old so I was not too upset about it, and in fact found a nicer (working) camera of very similar specifications and vintage on an internet auction site for just £5.50. However, imagine my surprise when a week later someone gave me a virtually new Samsung camera that they had no use for... I had done them a favour converting some old videos to DVD's, and they gave me the camera when they heard my old one was broken. I have kept the £5.50 camera and given the Samsung camera to my wife as she has never had a digital camera of her own (even though the Samsung is actually far better than my cheap camera).

Zip it up!

One of my favourite blog subjects is free software, over the years I have highlighted a number of freeware programs on Munny4Hunny.
I live (in a PC sense) by the creed that more or less any type of software you need can be found somewhere for free, and my latest 'find' has been a file zipping program which I have found extremely useful. One of my online activities involves converting analogue sound into digital format which tends to take up a lot of hard drive space especially after a few edits. I use a 500GB drive to store the files which holds a lot of data, but I also like to back everything up and my backup drive is only 250GB... My solution has been to 'zip' all my files and store the zip files as a backup - this has saved me approx 50GB of storage (both on my internal hard drive and my backup). I searched for some zip programs and a lot were limited trial, but 7-zip is totally free, and has lots of options for higher compression and even zipping to the exact size of a DVD for those who plan to back up onto DVD (where the resulting file will need to be fitted onto more than one disk), and as this is my ultimate goal, I can see how valuable this option is.
I would have liked a greater compression rate such as some of the RAR programs offer, but nonetheless, this software seems very easy to use and certainly does what I wanted and more...

St Valentines

St Valentines day approaches, and if you want to avoid your own personal massacre, you might be considering gifts for her or him...
Wine, chocolates, flowers and smellies are the staple supplies so why not use your imagination and come up with something original this year? Trinkets and jewelery needn't cost the earth, and will last a bit longer than chocolates (at least in our house where chocolates have a very short half-life)

Driving down costs

The US economy has officially risen out of recession and has now reported a growing economy for two consecutive quarters. The latest figures suggest a rapid rise, but this has to be seen against a background of more than 12 months of decline. This means that although we have seen the worst of the recession, we are still some way below the level we were about 18 months ago. The need to cut costs is still a reality for most families, and with competition keen, it is a good time to look for a lower life insurance rate, or loan rate or car insurance. Keeping outgoings at a minimum will help to keep your family afloat whilst the economy stabilises again.

Strategies

I am still thinking through my strategies for the coming year. January is a great time to review how you are going to progress with a project, and I really need to sort out where I am going with my online earnings. GoDaddy are great at forcing your hand by offering discounts, but because they do it all the time, you can always let a deadline for an offer expire, safe in the knowledge that there will be a new one along next week...
Currently, GoDaddy have an offer on '.com' domains, my problem is that I am not sure whether I want to go for .com when I am monetising my latest project through eBay - I have set my eBay widgets to UK eBay, so I probably want to concentrate on '.co.uk' domains. Maybe I should think about duplicating the site on a .com and put US eBay widgets on it??
I am thinking about dividing up one of my websites over several domains - this site has three distinct elements to it, so I am considering whether I should move some of the pages over to a new domain. Coupled with this, is my concept of moving all of my hosting onto a new multi-site hosting package which would open up a lot of new possibilities for me including free subdomains (in theory...).
I am spurred on by the GoDaddy offer to think out exactly which domains I need (or at least the closest available ones), and hopefully that will prove to be the incentive for getting things moving for my new hosting package - all of this would be so much simpler if I didn't have a full-time job and lots of other responsibilities to boot...

Life Insurance

Many of us put off thinking about a life insurance policy because it is not a pleasant subject to think about, nonetheless we should think about how our dependents will survive if we should not be around to provide for them. Life insurance should take into the consideration of the impact of such a change in circumstances from a financial point of view.
Sometimes an existing mortgage, loan or pension may have a built-in element of life insurance. To assess the cover needed, you would firstly need to assess how much money would be required. You can offset any other payouts that might be triggered (such as mortgage protection etc..) and the figure you are left with is the level of cover needed.

Fighting Debt

By now, I was really hoping to have cleared all my credit debt from the last few years but I seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut lately and the total is just not going down at all. Of course Christmas doesn't help, but even so, I should have been able to clear the debt by the end of last year anyway.
The graph on the left shows how the majority of my debt has reduced over the last few years (green line) mostly through transferring into interest-free accounts and using any windfall payments to reduce the debt. Annoyingly, I no longer have an interest-free account and all the debt is on my regular credit card (pink line). I think I will have to employ my previous tactic of placing it all on a 0% card again and making sure I pay off my regular card every month. This all goes to show just how disciplined you have to be to pay one of these darn things off. Looking at my graph, there was a point last year when the green and pink lines crossed - this signifies a point where there was just £300 on each card - happy days...
Writing this has just decided me - I will get a credit report done first as I probably have a couple of extra accounts open that should be closed especially as I have opened three new 0% card accounts in the last couple of years. I learned early on that a prospective lender will look at how much potential credit you can draw down off your existing cards before they will consider extending any credit to you, so it is important to ensure that you close all your old defunct accounts. When I have closed all the accounts I don't need, I will look around for another interest-free credit card as that seems a really effective way to pay off debt without accruing any more interest - and then by the end of the year, I am sure I will have paid it off....finally...

Getting to sleep

Missing out on sleep is an occupational hazard for the parents of small children, and first-hand experience tells me that the excitement of Christmas can mean many a sleepless night is had before everything returns to normal. Some people are able to simply take sleep deprivation in their stride and catch up on sleep when they need it, others do not find it so easy to 'cat nap' and often turn to a natural sleep aid before seeking medical help from a medical professional.
The advantage of natural aids is that they are less likely to have any long-term negative effects, and do not pose a potential hazard to little fingers that might find them...

Cholesterol Treatment

Cholesterol is one of those health buzz words at the moment, mainly because it can effect anyone no matter what their size and weight. However, it often becomes an issue as we reach later middle-age/ early old age, and it would be sensible to have a cholesterol test during this time just to check that you do not need any cholesterol treatment or adjust your diet to bring down your cholesterol levels.
High cholesterol can affect your heart, so it makes sense to check out your cholesterol level to see if you need to change your lifestyle accordingly.

Google 'gaming'

Changes are taking place in the world of Google, now they are looking at how they can improve on 'apps' that give local information. I have come across reports about apps that can identify pictures taken from a mobile phone camera. The app can recognise a logo, shopfront or landmark and give search results relating to what it can 'see'.
This is a tremendous leap forward in how Google can continue to help people to find what they need, but it has caused a stir amongst webmaster and journalists that are concerned with writing about SEO. However, my take on it is that really it is up to Google to come up with a way to integrate the information that is already there, so in the long term, webmasters are not required to jump every time Google comes up with a new concept or search hysteresis. It seems to me that webmasters are in danger of forgetting that Google has a clientele (primarily the technology-aware general public) to serve and therefore have a duty to bring your website to the attention of their clients where relevant. The idea of gaming the results to get yourself in a high position regardless of relevance is a short-term tactic. For those in for the long-term, my advice is to keep on doing what you are doing and let Google worry about getting your site into the search results - there is still no replacement for good content although there are naturally small things that you can do to make sure your site is optimised. Optimisation is still based on the basic tenets that it always has been, with noticeably less emphasis on PageRank (off-page optimisation), and more emphasis of the following on-page tactics:
Content, content, content - unless you are planning a landing page only (shame on you...), you should really spent the majority of your time on producing good content. I wouldn't even be overly concerned about keyword density because if you write naturally and informatively, your keyword content should be naturally correct.
Tags - it is so simple to add title, alt, keyword and description you would have to be crazy not to do it despite the fact that it is not considered 'sexy' - you would be far better employed doing tags than designing a flash animation for your visitors. It is still a webmaster crime of epic proportions to have a page title come up as 'home', 'index' or 'untitled' no matter how good your page looks if a visitor ever actually found it.
URL's including keywords - still a winner for search results and will continue to be - any page that does not have a keyword in the URL may be a page wasted.
As long as the oh-so simple rules of on-page optimisation are behind what you are doing, I believe Google is obliged to seek you out and put you in the search results... THAT after all is their job, it is not as many believe, Google's job to 'police' the internet.

Diet Pills

Seems like every week there are new diet pills and slimming aids, the latest I have come across is the adipex diet pill although it is apparently based on an active ingredient that has been around for over 50 years as a slimming aid.
Like all supplements and medications that are not prescribed by a medical professional, caution should be exercised when considering using them. If you are considering this type of medication, make sure you read the research into all the pro's and con's beforehand..

Ebay still rocks...

Despite all those who are less than complimentary about eBay, I have to say that I have had a couple of bargains lately and cannot say enough about what a great service it is. Sure, they charge for all transactions and sometimes you don't get as much as you would like for your old cast-offs, but all-in-all I believe eBay provides a great service to buyers and sellers alike.
This is of course helped by the fact that so many online earnings are paid via paypal, so spending on eBay is a bit like spending monopoly money - For the most part it never goes anywhere near my wallet or bank account.
Sadly my old 3.2 megapixel camera died, and I got another from eBay in really good condition for £5.50!! I also bought a brand new 2GB MP3 player for £6.99, and whilst it is no iPod, it certainly does the job and is a really nice item.
I think as long as you are sensible and thoroughly check out sellers, that eBay can be an invaluable part of anybody's life. I certainly buy more than I sell, but on the occasions that I have sold items, transactions have generally been smooth - I have ended up with a few quid in my pocket and a bit more space in the loft... I like the way that eBay has evolved and improved over time and will continue to use it as long as it is there...

Website linking

PageRank is the rating assigned to your site by Google depending on your 'off-site' optimisation - in simple terms, the more links you have coming into your website, the better your ranking. More importantly, the more relevant the linking site (to your own content) the better.
One of the easiest form of getting incoming links into your site is to do some directory submission. This is the relatively simple task of entering your website details into a directory of websites (within a relevant category).
You can trawl the internet looking for directories of course, but there are some sites and software that can help you to speed up the process by automating some (but not all) the tasks.

Eczema treatment

Modern medicine may have defeated the fearsome illnesses and diseases of the past, nonetheless as a species we are now plagued by allergies of which Eczema and Asthma are the most common. Often these two allergy-driven illnesses can be found together, although it is not uncommon for them subside after a number of years. There are both effective eczema treatment and asthma treatments readily available usually in the form of creams for eczema, and inhalers for asthma.

Slow start to the year

The British weather is prevailing against the spirit of endeavour... we are giving in rather easily to the snow that always brings us to a stand-still this time of year.
I had meant to be in a position to demonstrate my new earnings reporting spread-sheet, and whilst it is drafted, I have yet to finalise how I am going to report different types of costs - I am planning to report income as just a single figure regardless of the source. Talking of which, I have had a few cassette to CD conversions to do this week which will certainly boost earnings for January.
The main sources of my online earnings will be:

• cassette to CD conversions
• paid blogging
• adverts/banners
• affiliates
  
• participation in forums/surveys etc..

This last one will cease when payouts are reached in the various sites, I don't plan to pursue the few cents that can be earned via these methods for the future. I am also hoping to off-load some domains, but they will obviously be one-off events if I can manage to do it...

Car Insurance

The current trend is to find the cheapest car insurance that can be found online using comparison sites and the like, but a word of caution... Are you sure that your cheap insurance will adequately cover you? Services like carinsurancelist.com concentrate on offering great value for money inclusive policies that won't leave you high and dry.
For instance a colleague of mine recently bought insurance online and paid a bit extra because he was getting 'free' breakdown cover. Imagine his dismay when he broke down 200 miles from home to discover that the service only tows your car within a 20 mile radius...!
There is nothing wrong with finding the best deal and the cheapest insurance as long as that insurance covers all eventualities.

Blackheads?

It's not a nice subject I know, but do you have trouble getting rid of blackheads? I can't say it ever presented too much of a problem for me personally although plenty of people do suffer problems with their skin. One of the issues I saw recently highlighted on a TV problem I saw, was the long-term damage that can be done to your skin if skin problems are not treated in the right way.

Skin can end up being severely pock-marked and need laser treatment or other procedures later in life in order to smooth out the skin again. Most people may end up with just a few marks, but the more severe cases can lead to bad scarring.

A new resolve

I don't 'do' New Year resolutions, but I am going to use this coming year to achieve some goals which will serve to point me in a more defined direction and be a bit less hap-hazard. My focus on earnings will change although I am resolved to carry on with some paid blogging, some opportunities will be falling by the wayside.
I find now, that there is little to be made from surveys and when I have been paid out for the ones that I have started out with, I will drop them. I think I am just about done with PPP and anything related to IZEA, they are no longer the creme de la creme that they used to be, they have reverted in my opinion to the lowest common denominator. Fine for those happy to fight for scraps, but the uncertainty of whether a post will be accepted along with a hefty minimum payout indicates the general demise of paid blogging. I am not bitter, I have been along for the ride and have enjoyed every cent...
In contrast, PayU2blog are much better for me, they make few demands, pay out twice a month without fail and have so far sent me over $1000, which is far more that I have earned from any other program. In fact it was just last month that the one thousandth dollar from PU2B hit my PayPal account...
Total earnings for December were less than $40 in total, but I have been concentrating on other things, not least of which is my new earnings spreadsheet.
I will be posting about total online earnings from now on and not just blogging, the spreadsheet includes expenditure as well as earnings, and this time, the money doesn't appear until it actually arrives in my account. So for instance, my actual blogging payments for December were over $65, this is because the majority of online earnings are subject to delayed payments.
I have completed the first draft of my spreadsheet and can start publishing figures from it soon, but I think I need to tweak it a little to make it easier to identify the different sources of income and the different elements of expediture (more for my own purposes than for the readers of this blog). When I have defined these a little better, I will start publishing some figures - it will be nothing ground-breaking or breath-taking, it will just serve to make my online earnings a little more transparent.

At home in the snow...

I love the snow, and as it happens, I am off work until Friday anyway this week, so I am not losing any work time. However being confined to the house tends to make you look around and assess your surroundings, and with sale-time in the shops, it easy to start formulating plans to spend heaps of money to improve your home.
I love modern furniture, but I live in a house that has some charming features that are just short of 100 years old. I think the comtemporary look can be pulled of in an older abode, if you can strike the balance right, however with a limited budget, we will need to be very creative.
Having said that, there is still some plastering and other seni-structural work to be done before any new furnishings can be bought, but rest assured, by the end of 2010 I am quote sure that our home will be a step closer to perfection...

Happy New Year

A new year is about to unfold and I would sincerely like to wish any readers of this blog who happen by, a wonderful and successful new year. I have taken some major online business decisions this year and plan to expand operations in my chosen path in 2010 in order to build a continuing passive income.
I will naturally be reporting outcomes on this blog. My major decision this year is to do less blogging and build more websites, along with the plan to gather all my online earnings into a single report which will also be the basis for reporting my income to the tax authorities. This will replace the monthly 'blogging-only' earnings report that I have always posted on this blog.
I am not one for New Year resolutions, but I am resolved nonetheless to tidy up my online dealings and cut off some of those branches that have not borne fruit.
Happy New Year to you and yours, may the new year bring blessings and joy to you and your families.

One of the Good Guys

My parents have an RV and love to take it all over the country and on the continent too. I have discovered a new service today that I was not previously aware of. The good sam motorhome towing service offers roadside assistance specifically for RV's. These vehicles are becoming more and more popular all over the world and it makes sense that you need a specifically tailored roadside assistance package that offers more than the standard vehicle cover.
I will be checking to see if my parents have thought about this type of service when I see them tomorrow (they drove their RV down to visit us earlier today).

Insurance a necessary evil

Everybody hates having to pay insurance because not only is it an expense, it is an expense that already acknowledges that something is going to go horribly wrong at some point during the year...

New Year is as good a time as any to sit down and get the all important insurance quote for your vehicles, your home and contents and maybe even your traveling (should you be fortunate enough to be planning any travel...).
One of the huge advantages of the online world is that things like insurance are now ultra-competitive which means that most of us are paying less insurance than we were a few years ago.
My golden rules for insurance are:

• Do we really need it? (Home and car are no-brainers, everything should be looked at long and hard)
• Have we got the right level of cover? (there is little worse than paying out fpor an insuranec that doesn't actually help you out when things go wrong..).

Happy shopping

Christmas Eve

Relax!
I never mind working on Christmas Eve, because by then, it's really too late to do anything and we rarely receive any calls from clients other than to pass on seasons greetings...
I fact I took last week off work, and went into work for this week because I knew the pressure would be off.
So take it easy today, and just prepare for a day of food and fun, that's my advice. Make sure that you have whatever you need ready, in my case that meant chopping up a few logs this morning to make sure we have a festive fire running through the week... I also have a well stocked 'cellar' that will ensure there are enough bottles of red wine to see us merrily through the season.
If you are a regular or just happen by this blog today... MERRY CHRISTMAS, spend some quality time with the ones you love over the next few days.

On the Treadmill

As Christmas turns into New Year, how many of us will be taking to the treadmill in a desperate attempt to regain our usual trim shape?
Home gyms are increasingly popular especially since gym membership can be so expensive. I don't find the gym to be a great place to get fit, but I think I could be more enthused if the gym equipment were actually in my own house...
The reason I can't get on with a gym is that although you may be in a room with lots of other people, you don't really have any interaction with them, and have to be self-motivated to get any results - I prefer partaking in team sports where the exercise is just a positive side-effect of the game.

Still looking for PageRank?

I am starting to come round to the conclusion that PR is a bit of a self-fulfilling dream... after all, what is it's value?
Does it get you SERP (search engine results position)? seemingly not as I have several sites with little or no PR that achieve first-page results for specific targeted key-words.
Many of us were slave to PR when we started blogging, and the weeping could be heard from afar when Google slapped us all for trying to 'game' PR with viral schemes. Some desperately hung on, determined to show their contrite hearts to Daddy Google by refusing paid posts and removing 'do follow' from their blogs.
Did it make any difference? Did traffic cease or did our sites disappear from the search results? Maybe there were some short-term effects here and there, maybe Google has learned some lessons and maybe there is not so much money being thrown at paid bloggers, but not an awful lot has really changed.
I am promoting a new site at the moment, and have concentrated almost exclusively on 'on-page' optimisation - the type of SEO that doesn't rely on outside links and therefore is not affected by PR. My conclusions are that you can certainly get ranked on page 1 without PR- and most of the time, I am only held off the top-spot by Wikipedia... So I leave you with this... What is the value of PageRank?
And my answer is that you really only need to think about it if you are competing for a very highly sought after keyword. You may easily get SERP for a cleverly thought out associated phrase with virtually no 'off-page' optimisation at all. Of course, if many of those who sponsored posts took this view, they would stop paying for links except for those sickeningly 'popular' recurring promotions (I leave the themes of these to your imagination), so I hope sponsors will ignore my views and continue to send interesting and varied opportunities.

The goose is getting fat....

We are 'stocking' up already for Christmas, and I have already consumed a couple of packets of mince pies. I am looking forward to a very long break as I take all my remaining annual holidays in the next month - in fact I worked out yesterday that I was due to spend just eight days out of the next thirty one in work...
After all the indulgences of the coming festivities, a good supply of weight loss pills, headache tablets and hangover cures will no doubt be consumed too. Excercise is hard to come by as local sports centres and gyms seem to take extended yuletide breaks too. Nevertheless when five-a-side football resumes in January I will be raring to go, hopefully freshly kitted out with new Christmas socks...

Earnings for November

I almost managed to break the $100 barrier again this month would have been a much-needed boost. PayU2blog remain the best earner and I particularly like the un-demanding way in which they operate. I was disappointed with IZEA this month as I had my first ever offer, after I had jumped through all the many required hoops (including anchor texts, embedded video etc.. etc...) for a $20 opp, it took them ages to tell me they couldn't accept the post as it was adjacent to another paid post. Admittedly it's in the t&c's (terms and conditions) but really... who reads those???
Having been much busier with my other online exploits this month, I have seriously neglected my other blogs and need to catch up with posting (either that or get rid of the domains...)
I have even managed to flog some stuff off on eBay this month (a 'previously enjoyed' CPU and motherboard) and there is plenty more where they came from...

Notebook computers

Every so often I dream about buying a new PC and if I were buying one now, I would definitely consider a notebook computer to add to my current collection of desktops.
Notebooks or netbooks are like cut-down laptops offering the kind of features that you are likely to need on the road combined with long battery-life.
If you have a desktop PC to do your main computer-related tasks, then a netbook would be the ideal tool giving you portability and access to email and internet on the move. Those with very specific needs may find that a notebook actually fills all their computing requirements ie. youngsters or the elderly who may only require a browser and email access to stay in touch with friends and family.

Office Furniture

I recently completed a Health & Safety at Work course, and one of the first things we will need to do is to do workstation assessments with each employee. This assesment will take into account, the available light, the equipment used and the office furniture at each work station.
Posture can be critical where the wrong furniture or equipment is being used. For instance, I learned that an emplyee must not be alowed to work on a standard laptop computer if a significant portion of the day is spent doing computer-related tasks. It so happens that I use a PC most of the day, and normally have two laptops on my desk. I have now bought a separate keyboard and a laptop 'Elevator' which allows me to use the laptop at the correct height. I just need to get myself a new desk and then perhaps I should encourage my colleagues to get the proper equipment after all the course was not just meant to enhance my own working environment...

Hair Supplements

This Christmas, you can add another idea to the growing list of potions and creams for the lady in your life. Not only is there a dazzling array of anti-aging creams, shampoos and smellies, you can now buy your hair supplements separately instead of bundled with a shampoo.

We are all familiar with the adverts for hair products which not only offer cleansing but also vitamins, strengtheneing etc... well, now you can use your favourite shampoo and add the good stuff regardless of whether your chosen product has all the vitamins that your hair needs.

Free Icons for your posts or website

One of the things that can make your website or blog stand apart from the crowd in terms of professional apearance is the images that you use. Visual impact is important for a website almost as important as the content itself.

One of my current favourite free resources is the 'DryIcons' website where you can download free sets of icons for use on your sites. The standard of artwork is very high, and they have a vast catalogue of free icons. All they ask for in return is a name-check and link on the pages that you use the icons on. A sitewide link covers you for all eventualities and is a small price to pay for such a fantastic free resource.

They have icons for all occasions, and they come in sets which allows you to give a uniform appearance to your site by having a common theme throughout the images. I have used quite a few if these images on this blog and certainly plan to use them for future projects.

On Line Learning

I think we all recognise that all the modern innovations and technology introduced in the last couple of decades do not give us more leisure time. In fact innovations have raised expectations to the level where so much more is possible in the working day, that we spend even more time working to meet those expectations.
Speed of communication and transfer of data has increased exponentially over recent years to the level where there is little need to travel to work or even travel to learn.
Bringing together the ability to learn remotely, and the need for learning brought about by the technology itself, are remote learning courses that offer the same standard as the universities.

Despite the inbox full of spam offering bogus online qualifications, there ARE reputable institutions that are harnessing the power of the internet to bring a genuine online degree within reach of those that, for one reason or another, are not able to travel to a college or university. The courses are the same standard as those offered to a physical body of students, the method of communication is different, but the learning itself still requires hard graft!
Having said that, those who engage in this type of learning are usually self-motivated and therefore are likely to 'enjoy' the learning experience. Also being in an environment of your own choice is conducive to the learning experience.
Motivation for learning varies from person to person, there are those who simply enjoy learning to add to their own knowledge, others may be pursuing an online teaching degree or some other work or career-related qualification.
We can conclude that certainly since I was at school, both the methods and the motivations for learning have changed considerably. Traditionally remote learning was popular enough via correspondence courses, and bringing remote learning into the online world has actually made it less remote with the added ability to 'chat' with fellow students and teachers.
Western Governers University has a leading online education program which is both affordable and accredited - the two most important characteristics for online qualifications.
The university was created out of the desire of 19 Western State Governers to pool resources in 1995 and build their own academic institution, and in this respect is totally unique. The institution was set up with distance learning in mind and began accepting students in 1999. The university is a non-profit organisation serving 12,000 students.

The Year draws to an end...

I can't believe that we are close to December already, just a few weeks left to Christmas and time to sign off 2009. This has been a year of challenges in the paid to blog world, and one that has asked some questions and demanded some answers.
I have always felt that money making on the internet is never static, you can't keep to the same old formula because the goal-posts keep moving. Whatever worked yesterday is not guaranteed to work today. This is why the 'get rich quick' schemes cannot work, quite simply if it's arbitrage or something similar (and it usually is...) Google are too much on top of it to let it happen. In fact, most of the get-rich-quick schemes are mostly about selling the get-rich-quick scheme on regardless of whether it works or not. (I'm not saying that arbitrage doesn't work, but no-one can guarantee you a high return from Google Adsense).
However, if you are prepared to put some work in and look for the openings, there are small amounts and sometimes reasonable amounts that can be made. If you are pursuing paid-to-blog, then you must have a fair number of blogs to play with and a fair amount of time on your hands to complete posts. If you are prepared to push the boat out a little more, then are plenty of different directions you can go in. I know of people who have moved on to create their own 'paid-to' sites, those who are relying on revenue from Adsense and keywords, and those who are more or less full-time writing - having moved on from blog-posts to ebooks and larger writing projects.
The problem with the schemes for sale is that you are ineveitably ploughing someone else's furrow, the internet for me is all about trying to make your own way, it is the entreprenuers play-ground - just make sure that is is not you that is being played with!

Personal Heating

You may think that the electric blanket is a thing of the past, but in fact it has evolved into a plethera of new heated devices such as heated clothing, pet blankets and footwarmers. An electric warming device is the perfect gift for the female in your life as we all know that their thermostats are a little off-kilter...

If your devotions are towards a furry friend, then there are a whole host of heated devices for every shape and size of dog, cat or rabbit. Nobody needs to be left out in the cold this Winter...

Smokes for Christmas

The general trend over the last ten years or so has been against smoking in general, and cigarettes in particular are in decline. However, cigar-smoking is generaly seen in a completely different light. The cigar-smoker smokes for pleasure rather than habit, and is unlikely to inhale the smoke and tar. The majority of cigar smokers are occassional participants unlike cigarette smokers, and an occasion like Christmas and the New Year always brings with it, it's fair share of Swisher Sweets or Royal Coronas.

Started my present buying already...

I have a plan this year which will ensure my present list is whittled down as quickly as possible this. I reckon I will be buying about one-third of my gifts online (eBay), one-third will be some well-priced items from the local super-store and the final third will be made up of cash and gift vouchers - sorted!
I have bought the first few gifts today, will do my online shopping in the next couple of weeks and have booked a week off work prior to Christmas during which I will get all the vouchers.
I hate the last minute rush to get the last few gifts and am determined to be ahead of the game this Christmas...

Car Accessories

It amazes me how the world of car accessories has evolved since I started driving some twenty-odd years ago. At that time, a pair of fog-lights and some go-faster stripes were about as distinctive as you could make your vehicle without indulging in full-blown customisation.
Nowadays, there are a whole array of sophisticated ways in which you can personalise your own vehicle. From headlights such as the ones pictured here to special chips that can optimise the performance of your vehicle's engine without making any physical adjustments. If there is a boy-racer in your life, consider car accessories for their Santa-sack next month.

Not much blogging going on

This month has seen a bit of a slow-down in blog-activity for me, but I have recently had a bit of a flurry of activity in my other online pursuits. This reinforces to me the need to have several 'strings' to your bow if you are serious about making money on the interenet. It seems as if activity in some areas can go through very barren patches. Even though visitor figures remain steady, direct enquiries, affiliate sales and contextual ad clicks can vary for no apparent reason.
One of the strings I have is a service that converts cassettes into CD's, and it seems like there is always a little more activity before Christmas, and then in the new year, it often goes deathly-quiet.
Affiliate sales aften appear on flurries too, I will sometimes get a batch of high-yeilding commissions, and then nothing at all for months on end. Annoyingly, after I got paid for my latest affiliate sales commission, my bank lost my cheque... Fortunately shareasale.com, my affiliate partner will re-issue the cheque (after 90 days), and I got the bank to compensate me for the loss...

Coffee for Christmas

A few Christmases ago I won a lot of coffee beans in a raffle - so much so, that I still have most of them at home... I only have a cafetiere at the moment, and am really hoping that Santa will bring me a nice coffee machine this year, if only to clear the back-log of coffee beans in our kitchen cupboards.
There is a lot of choice when it comes to buying espresso machines and prices for the really snazzy ones can go into thousands of dollars. I will be more than happy with a reasonably priced one (assuming Santa or one of his helpers actually reads this blog..)

Locked in!

One of the recurring themes of this blog is my successes (and more often failures) with DIY projects in my home. Well, this week I noticed that one of the doors I had previously refurbished had a handle that was playing up. It had always needed to turn anti-clockwise to open, and suddenly it wanted to be turned clockwise...
If this happens to you, CHANGE THE MECHANISM!!
After a couple of weeks of this, I shut the door behind me today to discover that it would not open again... particularly 'inconvenient' as I was actually IN the bathroom. No amount of manipulating could persuade the door to open - I calmly went through all the options, but eventually I resorted to kicking in the antique door (see the broken panels in the picture) as there was no-one else in the house and I was going to be late picking up my daughter.
I got a cut hand and cut ankle for my troubles, but I learned a valuable lesson about taking particular notice of door handles that don't behave themselves. The next time I come across this, I will be immediately removing the door-lock.

Cleanse that Colon...

I must say, I have resisted the trend towards Colonic Irrigation and Detoxification with a passion - I really am not a fan of messing about with my body as long as it appears to be functioning reasonably well. However, I realise that I am old-fashioned and stuck-in-my-ways and some people actually thrive on this type of stuff.
I am about as keen as I am on Aromatherapy and Homeopathic medicine, which as you might have guessed is... Not very... Of course, if you are not keen on having a tube stuck where the sun don't shine, you can still apparently in the words of the Carlsberg Ad, have probably best colon cleanse in the world... by cleansing your own colon with medication. I would be hesitating to actually buy this as a gift... If you think buying someone soap might indicate that their hygiene isn't what it should be, what are you 'saying' if you buy them colon cleanser??

Addiction

Addiction seems to be a symptom of our 'over-successful' society in many ways... A few decades ago, addiction was seen as belonging to the down-and-outs of society. More recently addiction has been seen as a symptom of success. Although since the sixties, the world of Rock & Roll has been synomynous with addiction, this has now widened to include all of the entertainment industry and even the world of business and high-finance, trickling down to the high street and suburbia.
Far from carrying a stigma, a period spent in drug rehab is considered almost obligitary as part of the trappings of success.

Quiet November

November is quiet...I was thinking to myself, of course I am only referring to opportunities for paid posts and suchlike - there is no way that you could call November with the whizz-bangs of fireworks, and occasional torrential rain 'quiet' in the literal sense.
I am spending more time on my SEO projects at the moment and am happy to report pleasing progress in terms of SERPS achieved, and regular traffic figures for my latest project which I am hoping to turn into a regular earner...
Funnily enough, one of my other projects (turning cassettes into CD's) is turning up a few new clients lately, so that is all helping to add to the supplementary income - which I have promised myself I will be properly reporting at least by the end of this year. (currently I only report blog earnings on Munny4Hunny - I am revising my reporting procedure so that it will be easier to combine it with all the internet earnings that I declare for tax purposes).
I am honestly thinking of spending more time on SEO stuff than blogging although I will always retain a blog if only to keep the world informed of my latest schemes.
I currently have four active blogs and three websites to run, apart from the work that I do in the world of 'real work'. The reason I am leaning towards SEO and the resulting income from affiliates and adverts, is the more passive nature of the model - blogging necessitates a certain level of regular updating which, if you are not full-time, is difficult to fit in with other committments.

Are you ready?

November is all about burning... burning fires and fireworks for bonfire night, lighting fires to heat the house in the cold November weather and weight-loss for those that need to burn fat in preparation for the Christmas feasts ahead.

To be fair, most people indulge over the festive period and then begin the weight-loss program in the New year, but those forward-thinkers (those that had all their presents wrapped up in October) might be thinking about how they can be in good shape ready for Christmas.

I am not much of a forward planner, but equally, I don't like to leave things to the last moment either. I have a week booked off work 10 days before Christmas which should give me enough time to get all that I need done in plenty of time...

Online shopping

Whether you are looking for a new purse, a weight loss product or a car... modern man is turning to the search engine before the catalogue or the showroom. Basically, if you do not have an online prescence, you are not maximising your client-base.

Having said that, it is worth noting that not all online sellers are honest and reliable. Especially when deciding to purchase pills or medicines online, caution should be exercised to ensure that products are safe and properly reglated.

Online purchases are set to rise in response to the recession, and in turn this will lead to a major decline in the high-street shopping experience. Already the choice in major shopping centres is restricted to the high-end retailers who are the only ones that can afford to have a physical presence on the high street or shopping mall.

Catching up with web 2.0

Do you remember the fuss about web 2.0? Was it just internet snobbery distinguishing between sites that were up to 'the mark' and those that weren't??

To an extent, I am sure that was true, ie. if you didn't have the right stuff on your site, then you were branded old hat. Now that the fuss has died down, what was it all about, and will there ever be a Web 3.0?
Of course the danger of coining the phrase Web 2.0 which had vague and varying definitions, was that someone would come up with 3.0 and 4.0 which would be equally unhelpful. In essence Web 2.0 was more about interactivity than any other single issue, and the introduction of social sites such as Myspace and Facebook have proved the point about interactivity being where the future of the web should be focused.
However, this does not mean that sites that do not have 'whizzy' embedded applications and scripts are not just as valid for gathering information and advertising services. Those sites that were relatively one-dimensional were made to feel that they did not belong to the internet, and that was where the snobbery came in.
The internet is nothing if not 'democratic' in the truest sense of the word, and there is room for all types of websites within the framework of the worldwide web. Despite the hype, Google does not care if your graphics are flat or if there are no moving images on your homepage, in fact SEO and perceived Web 2.0 aesthetic requirements could be actually diametrically opposed to each other in many cases. SEO is still basically about content and links - if you don't get those right, you may as well stay off the web altogether.

October Earnings

October has been a good month for earnings, I have had some new avenues to explore and had some bonus posts to do for PU2B which helped to take me well over the $100 mark for the month.
Much of this may be 'one-off' earnings, but hopefully the revenue stream will continue. In the meantime, my 'under wraps' SEO project continues to take up a little of my time, and is now starting to look certain to cover at least hosting charges if not return a small profit at the end of 12 months. I am happy that this project is hitting targets in terms of SERP gained (I am usually in the top three results for my keyword), and am managing to gather a steady stream of traffic. Not only that, but my visitors tend to stay on the site and visit several pages indicating that they are discovering useful information. In essence most of the site is completed, I just have one more area to develop, then next year I plan to buy an 'unlimited' hosting package so that I can repeat the project for similar keywords.
The site in question is monetised through Adsense and eBay affiliates in the main, but I probably won't be able to talk publicly about the actual keywords I am targeting until the rest of the project is in place.
I am looking at how I can streamline my operations a bit and thinking about getting rid of some domains in order to free up some commitments (blogging can be quite a time-consuming commitment) and realise some cash for other projects.

New earnings from Linkworth

The banner advert sponsorship I sold last month, sadly did not continue into this month. However I had my first earnings with Linkworth (although not enough to reach the $25 payout). Linkworth now offer a very comprehensive range of products for you to use, as well as the 'normal' paid post opportunities, they can provide banners, rotating ads (if you can cope with the scripting), contextual ads, and 'in content' ads (the type that creates links from selected keywords in your site content). I am becoming increasingly interested in how to use Linkworth to maximise earnings, especially now I need a few more dollars to reach payout...
I have been fortunate to find a few more revenue streams this month, plus I have had some bonus opportunities from PayU2Blog which should put me beyond the $100 mark this month.

Work in the bathroom

You can tell a lot from looking at someone's bathroom, and there is not much good that you can learn from ours... We have been in the house for about 12 years and have hardly touched the bathroom. The little touches I did when we moved in are looking a bit sad now, and the bathroom remains one of those areas of the house that you want to be happy for visitors to use...
Aside from the new ceiling and the bathroom lighting that I fitted, I gave it a lick of paint (much of which is now flaking off) and made a nice tongue and groove bath panel. However I am more than conscious that this is one room that remains in need of a major overhaul.
At least I have renovated the outside toilet this year, so if I did start a major project in the bathroom, we would at least have some relief...

All you want for Christmas

The worlds most popular music player is no secret, the iPod is now synonymous with digital media in the same way that the Sony Walkman was with music cassettes. Christmas is coming and you can bet that the most visited sites on the internet will be those offering deals on ipods and iPhones and all the rest of the cutting edge Apple products.
There are so many variations of the iPod including the smaller 'nano' that they have been able to name a range as the 'classic' already... The product is so well developed, that it is already a modern classic in every sense of the word.
Technology and design are what makes the iPod so desirable, and to be honest I believe that the coolly under-stated design probably has more to do with it's popularity than the technology. After all, you can get media players that are more compatible with the all-too-common MP3 format at a much cheaper price. You can bet that Apple will be exploiting this brand-image with newer and better products for years to come - but for this Christmas, we salute the iPod - a truly modern classic.

New paid to post program

I have recently been pointed in the way of a new service which works in a completely different way to other paid post services. Rachel from the TurnOnePoundIntoOneMillion blog highlighted 'SeoBlogReviews' as a new paid posting service, but initially it is difficult to get to grips with.
I dutifully entered details of my blogs and the prices I would accept. A little later I got some emails which offered some lower prices, so I accepted some and rejected others that I felt were too low. At this point there were no actual opps., but soon after I was asked to accept a specific task. I duly did so, but for ages I heard nothing. Then with no warning, I was paid for the review, and only then did I get the specific requirements (Actually I had already spoken to Rachel about this and she clued me in that I would probably be asked to do 300 words and three links - this meant I had already written most of my review and saved it ready for publication later). There was a time limit attached to the conditions, but what impressed me was the fact that they were confident enough to pay out BEFORE I had actually published a word of the actual review.
Payout before publication takes some beating... I have had two more opps sent my way and have tentatively completed a draft post for each in the hope that I will be paid for those too...
Read my end of month review in about 10 days time for more details on this months earnings.

Bits and Bobs

If you have ever sold stuff on eBay, you will know that you will get the best price if you articles look good, have the original packing and all the plastic knobs that the item came with. I am in the process of placing numerous objects on eBay, but I like to make sure the goods are presented in the best possible light, sometimes that just means cleaning them up, sometimes it means a small repair or searching the internet for just the right knob or handle to bring the item right back into A1 condition.
I have some baby things to sell including a stroller and a lovely wooden high chair. The major drawback with the chair is that there are some wooden knobs that have come away from their plastic housing, and I think it will need a night in with some araldite or supa-glue before they are ready to grace the pages of eBay.
I have a 100% feedback record and I intend to keep it, attention to the bits and bobs and good packaging is the way to keep your customers happy!

Good posture at work

I have recently completed a Health & Safety at work course, and although your fist reaction might be 'how dull..' there was actually some very interesting things to be learned. One of the major topics was concerned with the individual workspace particularly in an office environment where the type of office chair used can be very significant, but would apply to a factory worker or even classroom chairs and desks.
I discovered that if you use a PC for a significant part of the day, then because of the positioning and the inflexibility of layout, you should NOT be using a laptop as your main computer. This is something I, and I am sure many others are doing on a daily basis.
One of the first things I am going to insist on once our new H&S policy starts to roll out, is a new chair, a new desk and an independant USB keyboard for my laptop, and maybe even a separate screen too. It is surprising how much your seat, your desk and your desk layout can affect both your long-term health and your day-to-day performance.

Rationalisation

I have been trying to consolidate my online life into activities that pay and those that don't and am coming to the conclusion that a lot of what I do is wasting time that could be more profitably spent.
I am seriously considering off-loading a couple of domains that do not yield very much to concentrate on those that are a bit more healthy. To this end I may be posting about domain-selling maybe in the New Year...
I am considering jacking in surveys altogether once I have reached payout on the main two that I do, plus there is a (low) paying forum that I spend too much time on. In fact my new long-awaited method of posting earnings should be able to demonstrate those projects that really are a waste of time. A big plus is that I have never sold a domain before, so that in itself may be a bit of an adventure.
My new regime should see me making more through passive earnings and doing more 'background' activities related to SEO. Rest assured. I will certainly retain munny4hunny and continue to post about my online earnings journey...

Christmas is coming

...And a frugal Christmas is will be, that doesn't stop me dreaming about LCD tvs and a blu-ray player in my stocking though...
What I particularly love about these flat-screened TV's is the way you can have them on the wall or in a place that your old cathode ray tube set wouldn't go because it was just so bulky.
I live in hope that we will end up buying a Nintendo 'Wii' for the family at Christmas, then realise we will need a new telly to play it on as our old one really isn't up to the mark...

Renew your filters!

There are certain jobs that get left and left, but once you complete the task, you get a great sense of achievement. The modern household is full of filters, furnace filters air-con filters, vacuum filters, water filters, oil filters and keeping track of them can be a tedious task. But when you get around to changing or refurbishing that filter, the air is cleaner, your appliances run better and more efficiently, in general your quality of life is improved just by changing that filter. My recommendation is that you place a marker on your calendar at the point when your filters should be changed, that way you don't have to walk around coughing and spluttering, wondering why the Hoover isn't picking up and dust, the furnace is cold and the air-con smells so bad...

Exercise!

So you want to get fit and have been thinking about (or even started) a regime of having a run every now and then... along come the chilly mornings and the foggy nights and somehow the attraction of going running gets less attractive by the day. Why not add to your home gym with a couple of treadmills??
If you like a bit of competition with the other half, his and hers treadmills has to be a great way to keep fit without either one of you disappearing over the horizon leaving the slower one eating dust..

Earnings September 2009

This month continues the trend of failing to break the $100 barrier and also the trend of PayU2Blog as being the best earner...
In fact I had nothing from other paid to blog schemes this month at all, the rest of the income coming from advertising in one guise or another. One of my blogs attracted the attention of a potential sponsor who paid for a post which I have categorised as 'miscellaneous', and also for a banner which comes under 'advertising'. Hopefully, this relationship will continue and the banner can earn me a monthly amount. I am (very) slowly building up my latest contextual ads project and hope to be able to report a small profit which will enable me to repeat the trick a few more times building up a residual passive income (not that websites are genuinely passive as they rarely stay entirely static..). I am happy with the 80-odd dollars I have made, and am continuing to think about a new way of posting results which will reflect money that I have received rather than earnings which are due. The new results will (if I ever get round to doing it) reflect all my online activities rather than being limited to blogging.