Wordpress Blogging Mastery Malaysia

Olive Riley, one of the “world’s oldest blogger”, an Australian woman made her last internet blog post in her blog at http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com with a message about singing “a happy song” in her nursing home at the ripe old age of 108.

It had been reported that she passed away peacefully on July 12 and thousands of her Internet friends as far as Russia and America including family and friends will be mourning for her.

Read more about the world’s older blogger is dead from this article.

Whenever I provide information about Google Adsense in my Wordpress Blogging seminars, many of the attendees draws a blank when I ask them how much they know about Google Adsense program policies.

So I took some time off to write a short Summary on Google Adsense policies here for the benefit of my students and attendees.

Google Adsense starts off the first paragraph with this - If you fail to comply with these policies, we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account.

Invalid Clicks and Impressions

• Google reserve the right to disable any account at any time.
• If your account is disabled, you will not be eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.
• Please note that we may change our policies at any time, and pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, it is your responsibility to keep up to date with and adhere to the policies posted here.

Encouraging Clicks

• Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest.
• Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited.
• May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language.
• May not place misleading labels above Google ad units - for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”.

Site and Ad Behavior

• Sites showing Google ads may not contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation, change user preferences, or initiate downloads.
• Any AdSense code must be pasted directly into webpages without modification.

Ad Placement

• Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
• A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
• Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.

Another Make Money to monetize from your blog content.

Join Kontera in the month of July 2008 and you stand to share 100% revenue with them.

For veteran bloggers, you know what this means, don’t you. We get to keep 100% of the advertising revenue generated this month.

For newsbies, Kontera is an in-text online advertising solution for advertisers as well as publishers like myself, bloggers and webmasters. You get to monetize your content from in-text links without sacrificing your valuable webpage real estate.

They use the Pay Per Click model to pay publishers.

To join Kontera, read more from this article.

Have you logged in to check your Google Adsense accounts yet?

I have got the latest news from Google. They are retiring from Google Referral Program.

If you have not downlaoded your Referral reports of your accounts yet, do so before the last week of August 2008.

This week, I took some time off to attend Stuart Tan’s Internet Marketing gathering at his Adam Khoo Learning Centre in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur.

Stuart Tan gathered his first group of subscribers from Malaysia to attend this last minute meet. He was accompanied by Malaysian Edmund Loh, Vince Tan and Simon Leung from USA. They drove down from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to make this meet up happen.

As soon as I got Stuart’s email about this event, I replied to say I would be there. I was there to get some Internet Marketing tip from experienced marketers on topics I wanted covered.

They were Google Adwords, Social Media, Pay per Click campaign, Private Label Rights and a host of other topics.

We ended up having a late night snack at a nearby restaurant, as everyone was tired by then. And opportunities to network with the “IM Guys”.

I went to Borders last week to get the last copy of the current batch of Problogger “Secrets for Blogging Your way to a Six-Figure Income” book written by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. It costs around RM75.85 in Malaysia.

The first chapter, Blogging for Money discusses the basics like What a Blog is, the difference between Blogs and Websites, how blogs can be a Money machine, is it right for you, how Blog Advertising can work for you, Blogging strategies and Search Engine Optimization for blogs.

The next chapter talks about Niche Blogging, how to choose a profitable niche topic and Niche Analysis. I particularly like Niche Analysis. It would help newbies to find the niche they want to get into and how to research related keywords for the topic.

Setting up your Blog in Chapter 3 covers the basics of setting up a free blog like Blogger. It also covers differences between hosted and self-hosted blogs, choosing a Domain name, customizing your Wordpress blog template.

Subsequent chapters coverered topics like Blog Writing, What is good content, 20 types of Blog posts, How to Comment on blogs, when and how to Make Money from Blog Income Earning Strategies, how you can buy, sell or flip blogs, the pros and cons of joining Blog Networks, how to build readership with Blog Promotion and Marketing your blog via Social Media and Linking strategies.

The last 2 chapters covered Secrets of Succesful Blog and talking about creating something worthwhile with your ideas.

Overall rating I would give for this book is 8 out of 10. I feel that this book should spend more time elaborating on the use of Social Media and its impact on driving and promoting traffic to blogs rather than touching the surface of the topic in only 4 pages inclusive of diagram. I do not find many bloggers sharing social media strategies on the internet, and I wonder why that is.

What is your opinion of this book? Have you read Problogger book yet? If you have, share with me your comments below.

Have you downloaded the latest browser yet? Mozilla has just been launched in the updated version a week ago.

I noticed the new look in the Firefox Search box browser that looks like the above. In the previous version of Firefox 2, the Search box browser only displayed the website’s URL.

The new Firefox 3 Search box browser displays both the website’s URL and the Title too. Some find this rather annoying and took up too much space. However, you can revert back to the old look with an extension.

On the same note, you can Bookmark (marked by ’star’ button) any site you visit on the new browser straight away. You do not need to go and open up Google Bookmarks to add a bookmark in the future.

The other interesting features are the Go back one page in Green button, Go forward one page in Grey button and Home page with a house icon button.

Last week, I wrote an article at Malaysia Parenting blog about “Can A Man Survive on RM3,000 Slary in Malaysia“.

I had not expected a reporter to call on me to ask permission if Malay Mail can publish my article on their BlogSpot section of the newspaper on Monday 16 June 2008.

So I told Malay Mail its alright to go ahead and use the story to publish. I was also sent a set of questionnaires to answer along with it.

Due to the increasing raw oil price hike in the world, everyone has been affected by this, including any normal salaried man in Malaysia who is the only bread winner of his family. Most of us cannot even survive with even both partners working hard. Some of us even resort to “moonlighting” aka holding 3 jobs at the same time to make ends meet.

I count myself lucky because I have learned how to make some passive income from the internet via blogging, coaching and training. I am glad that I did what I did then. Be grateful for what we have.

Happy 5th Birthday to Wordpress since its first released with original version 0.7 on the internet.

Wordpress is five years old on 27 May 2008.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WORDPRESS AND CONGRATULATIONS!