Archive for the ‘forum’ Category

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Sep 17

The following is a paid review, but is completely my own opinion and is not at all influenced by being paid.

I recently signed up for Pay Per Post, a blog marketing site which has been gaining and gaining in popularity with bloggers as a way to use a blog to make a little (or a lot) of money. It’s also very popular with internet marketers as a way to drive traffic to their sites! If you’re already writing, and you already use products and surf the web, why not make a little money while doing so, right? I’ve been experimenting and learning about online business for a little while now, and have not had much success. To be fair, I’ve also had a lack of focus and not spent my time where it might make the most impact. I’m trying to change that, because - as you see from my last post - I am edging my way back to my original career goal (since high school or college) of becoming a professional pilot.

Since flying isn’t cheap (my first flight in nearly four years lasted nine-tenths of an hour - that’s .9 hours or 54 minutes - and cost $115.64!), I’ve newly refocused my online ambitions to help me pay for the cost of flight training. I figure that if I can make $30 per day, every day, from my online businesses, my flight training will be nearly paid for! With that in mind, I am refreshing my interest in Pay Per Post, starting with this post. I hope to be able to use it to get a good start on my goal of $30 per day. If I am able to make more than that through Pay Per Post (and/or other advertising, donations, etc.), I will increase my flight time commensurately.

Up to now, I have found Pay Per Post to be pretty easy to use. It was very easy to add this blog to my account and get started. I actually got an offer for $30 to review a site - which I was pretty excited about, but then I got distracted and forgot to actually post about the site. The offer was susequently rescinded - unfortunately it happened on the day I remembered and was going to post about it! I ultimately would like to add some of my other blogs to my account at Pay Per Post (blogs like environmentastic! and Teacher’s Forum, but Pay Per Post requires that you have 10 approved posts before you can add any more blogs to your account. I wasn’t aware of this (or I had forgotten), and I was a little frustrated trying to find out how to add another blog to my account… you actually have to do that under the “my posts” tab. That was a little confusing to me, and then frustrating that once I found out where and how to add another blog, I wasn’t able to until I did more posts.

Other than that I think Pay Per Post is a really nice site to work with. It’s easy to learn, use, and navigate, and it has already given lots of people another stream of income! I know Tyler Cruz (visit his blog) has had some success with it… I hope I can make enough to start subsidizing my flight training soon! If you’re interested in making some money with your blog (even if only a little), check out Pay Per Post.

Have you used Pay Per Post? What did you think about it? Let us know - leave a comment!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Aug 12

I’ve been kicking around some business ideas for quite awhile now. Third Floor Cards is a site that I started and then put off for a long time… and it’s one that I would still like to see up and running with a decent site and some good business running through it.

But the most recent one that I have started is The Teacher’s Forum. Currently, it is a dull yaBB forum with a generic look, but it is functional and up and running. So far the only registered members are me (administrator) and my wife, Jill. There are three posts. Two are introductions in the “Break the Ice” section.

We’ll be continuing the design of the site to make it look less generic and more eye-catching when people first come to the forum, but this brings up two questions:
1) Is yaBB (a freeware forum software) the right software to use for this forum, or should I use something more “well-known” throughout the forum world like vBulletin? I’d have to buy a license for the vBulletin software.
2) What is the best way to encourage people to be the first ones to post on a new forum? I’ve thought about using a service like ForumShock to jump start it, but is there a better way?

In beginning to answer number 2, I will be offering free “upperclassman” membership to the first 50 people to register and introduce themselves (in the “Break the Ice” section) on the site. However, I don’t have any kind of paid membership level (yet), so they’ll be taking it on my word that the site will, in the future, have that capability. Which begs the quetion laid in 1, above again - is yaBB the right forum software for the site?

I also spent some time yesterday listing The Teacher’s Forum on search engines and free site-listing web-pages to help bring up the site’s “link love,” as so many search engine optimization (SEO) gurus (like Rae Hoffman and Jeremy Schoemaker) call it.

Any other suggestions and help would be appreciated! Leave a comment if you have any ideas…

And if you want to register and be among the first 50 people to get your free lifetime “Upperclassman” membership, I certainly won’t shed any tears over you posting and helping to get the site active!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

Theme Design by Deeogee. Sponsored by Key West , Florida Keys, Dry Tortugas