In Continuation (Retiring a Millionaire)

The previous article simply discussed one way of retiring with a cool million bucks, instead of foreclosure. If one is 26 years old now, he needs to save 1,667 a month to be able to generate 20,000 annually. While that may be difficult on the initial years, the increase in earning capacity as time goes by will make a 20k annual savings a lot easier. And since a million bucks will not be as valuable after 40 years, as it is now, it would be wise to throw as much money as possible into savings accounts to be able to end with more money come retirement age.

In some of the next articles, we shall be discussing diversifying assets (savings) in order to safeguard oneself..

Retiring A Millionaire

Do you want to have a packed luggage and retire a millionaire? A yahoo.com article teaches people that from the age of 26, an annual 20,000 savings (in any currency), at an annual interest rate of 10%, will give out a cool 1 million come retirement age. However, what if you are way above 26? The article says that it is still possible. Of course, the amount of annual savings will have to be increased.

BACK TO BASICS: PAGE RANK EXPLAINED (2nd part)

This is in continuation of a previous article.

Since Google is the dominant search engine at this point, the competition is for websites to land on top of Google’s results. A website selling DVD’s would want to be on top whenever somebody types the following keywords: “Movies, DVD, online DVD store, and related words”. Imagine if your online store would land on top of searches for every item that you have on sale? Billions… nope, trillions of sales, even!

So the trillion dollar question is:

“How does Google determine who lands on top of its searches?“

In my amateurish mind, I strongly believe that PageRank determines your visibility on Google’s search engine. As the devil directly puts it: ”PageRank continues to play a central role in many of our web search tools.”

How will your site/blog get a high pagerank? How does Google determine a blog’s pagerank?

In am not very comfortable, but feels the need, mentioning that I am running a PR-7, two PR-6’s, one PR-4 and this blog. I initially have no idea how I got those page ranks but after reading lots of articles, Googles explanation and my own scrutiny of my sites, I now have a good idea.

Let us start... I have read from an SEO consultant's blog (forgot his name and site) that backlinks form the backbone of Google’s page rank system. Visiting Google's website in search of an explanation, this is what I found.

GOOGLE SAYS: In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

MY INTERPRETATION: it means that whenever a page links at your blog, Google counts it as one vote.

GOOGLE SAYS: it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

MY INTERPRETATION: If the page that linked to your site is “important”, there is an additional point for your site. The page that contains the explanation did not define “important” but in my belief, “important” means a page that has a lot of incoming links. Another way of putting it is, “A page is important” if a lot of pages links to it. So, if a page that has a lot of incoming links (e.g. www.johnchow.com) links to you, Google will probably count it as an additional point.

My example is my PR-4 site. I initially had no idea how it got that rank but when I checked my incoming links, I noticed that my blog is linked in the sidebar of a PR-5 blog. Therefore, my blog is linked in every page of that PR-5 blog. To make things more beautiful, that blog has so many pages.

This is probably the reason why a lot of sites buy incoming links, especially from High PR sites. Buying links speeds up the process of getting promoted to a higher PR. I used to want incoming links from other blogs in the hope of getting visitors of that blog to visit my site. Now, I know better.

I have read in some reputable blogs that Google frowns upon links to pornographic and violent sites. I have also read that Google is starting to penalize, sites that sell links. Such are supposed to be counted as deductions and will adversely affect a site’s PageRank.

There are many other factors that determine pageranks. As Google explained: “we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis.”

But in my experience, what I wrote above were the main reasons why my sites got their page rankings.

BLOGGING TIPS FROM THE MCT NEWS SERVICE

Before I continue with my amateurish explanation of the Google page rank, here is a simple article about blogging which I find useful.

Enjoy!

BACK TO BASICS: PAGE RANK EXPLAINED

A blog has a greater potential to make money if it has a high pagerank (Check your blogs' pagerank here). Get paid to blog programs (like payperpost) and sites that pay bloggers for advertisements and links (textlinkads), determine the rate by which a blog will be paid based largely on Google Pagerank.

WHAT IS A PAGERANK?

In my last several months of blogging and Internet surfing experience, I have read quite a lot about Google Page Ranks from a number of "Experts". Some try to be highfalutin about it and there are those who showcases their technical expertise by using too many jargons. the end result is a confused reader.

Well, in an attempt to be helpful to professional bloggers wannabe (like moi'), let me try to present the simplest explanation that I've found. And where did I find it?

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: drum rolls :

.... from GOOGLE!!!!!


Here's what they have to say:

PAGE RANK EXPLAINED:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.

Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

I cannot claim expertise in this topic but I have a couple of high page rank blogs (PR 6's and 7's) and a number of low ranking sites to have an idea how its done. I will try to explain what I know in tomorrow's article. For the meantime, go and write that nice article in your blog for today.

... soooo tired!

Ciao!!!!

A WORD OF CAUTION

I have written about Craigslist, oDesk, CAD Ground and a few others. Honestly, it took a while before I started featuring sites that advertise work opportunities because I had to be cautious. I had to avoid getting you, dear readers duped by unscrupulous individuals who will contract you to work for them and leave you hanging after you've delivered.

MY ADVICE:

Always be careful. There are a lot of legitimate job opportunities in the net but there are also a handful of fake ones. My advise if for you to ask for a reasonable amount of down payment and partial payments as your work progresses. That way, the client will not be able to run away. By the way, make sure that all details are agreed upon before you start working. Get a detailed agreement drafted and documented by both parties before you get down and start doing the assigned task.

BEWARE:

What prompted me to write about this is a collection of articles featured in buzzfeed. They have recently posted several websites that wrote about fake advertisements posted at Craigslist.

HERE ARE SAMPLES:

$1/month Rent in the West Village! The Catch? You Must Make Me Cookies Every Night -by jossip.com

Beware Rental Scams Operating on Craigslist.com - by kasperhauser.com

The complete list is in this link: FAKE CRAIGSLIST POSTINGS.

BLOGGERWAVE: Won't recommend this.. at least, NOT YET!

Before I enlisted with Bloggerwave, I've read a number of bloggers complaining about the site's delinquency. After that, Bloggerwave posted an announcement apologizing for the delays in payments which they blame in some back room errors and start up/ growing pains.

I even posted a copy of that statement in this site.

About a month after, I enlisted with the program and did one paid post (July 2007). Until now, I am YET TO GET PAID.

At this point, they have reformatted the site's layout and I am unable to login to my account. Whenever I click on the "FORGET PASSWORD?" link, the site simply loads back the login page.

There may still be some growing pains being experienced by the company but they have to do something about it ---really fast! The very least that they can do is to reply to our complaints. At this point, my impression is that the site is in such a big mess.

At this point, I would say that Bloggerwave is an example of a business model that entrepreneurs should not emulate.

Until, they have responded to my complaint (sent through the site) or acted on my unpaid post, this article will remain here.

THIS IS WHERE I MAKE MONEY ONLINE

Apologies for the absence, dear readers.

As previously mentioned, this site is where I store the leads that I pursue. As an outsourcing consultant, I use the job opportunities listed here in helping BPO firms look for business. I also use the same leads in helping people find their suitable employers.

As a businessman, I use the same leads to great effect. During free time, I also get paid as a blogger (not in this site). This is where some of my blogging income comes from:

1. Payu2blog (received payment already)
   
2. Payperpost (received payment already)
3. Sponsored Reviews(waiting for the first payment)
4. Bloggerwave (STILL WAITING for the first payment) - 29 August 2007
   
5. Smorty (received payment already)
   
6. Blogsvertise (received payment already) -- just 1 day delayed
   

Please stay tuned. I will be posting regular updates. I have other sources of online income and it will be featured soon.

LATEST HOMEBASED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: Where do I get my tips?

It just occurred to me that people are probably wondering where I get the tips posted on this blog. For now, I will write as I think and simply update this article from time to time. Here are some:

1) WEB BROWSING: I normally search Google and Yahoo. Eventually, I intend to use more of the other search engines when I am able to verify their usefulness. At this point, Google is the most dominant search engine and most websites are scrambling to get into the the top spot for a variety of keywords.

2) OTHER BLOGS: There are a lot of other blogs that teaches us where to find new opportunities. What I do is check the tips and try it out for verifications sake. Initially, I intended to write reviews of the various home based business opportunities but I backtracked a little bit. There are a lot of positive things to write about so I will try to write about the programs that I believe will give the readers the best yield.

3) GOOGLE ADS: I cannot click on my own Google links because that is a violation of the ADSENSE terms and will get my banned. However, I can copy the links in those ads and paste it in another browser. Believe me, I've found good opportunities from the advertisers in this site. I also check the Adsense ads of other sites. In the same manner, some authors of other blogs click on my Adsense advertisements in search for the latest online money making tips.

Let me point out that not all advertisers provide good opportunities. Let me rephrase that, not all advertisements are suitable for everybody. Some advertisements will work well for some people but fail the others. It is a good thing that Google's Adsense advertisements change every time a page reloads so rest assured that there is fresh content all the time. Geesh, I never thought that I will like clicking on those ads. I found them annoying during my early Internet days.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: Let the buyer beware

This is one money making scheme that you should never even think of joining. In brief, this type of scheme comes in many names and variants. However, the overall system remains largely the same.

An unsuspecting/ gullible person will be offered to invest or buy a membership into a certain organization. In return, he/she will be given a percentage of the investment/membership dues from the people that he/she will bring into the system. The ugly thing about this kind of money making scheme is that the investors/members makes money from the membership fees/investments of their recruits.

Some variants will have them selling products but the commission that they make from the sale is not at all attractive compared to recruiting new members or investors.

Another variant is offering huge returns to short term monetary investments. People, beware!!! You will probably never see your money back.

A sad fact is, a lot of people are victimized because they are recruited into the scheme by people that they know. A relative or friend may come and give juicy testimonials that the system works. Some of them may even have made some money using the scheme. The problem is, when the said money making scheme has become too large, the operators will suddenly disappear, leaving the investors to face the wrath of their recruits.

This scheme has victimized people from all walks of life. I have read about doctors, generals, successful career professionals, businessmen and others who have fallen prey.

In the internet, a lot of this things have reportedly surfaced, closed and resurfaced. Don't be victimized.

PAID WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

With so many bloggers all over the web, a database of online money making opportunities is a precious commodity. That is one of the main purposes of this blog – to help people find work and business opportunities online.

The latest addition to the countless lists in this page is Bloggerwave, which is currently looking for bloggers who will complete short paid writing assignments. People should be pleased to know that the page offers short writing assignments and pays bloggers at a predetermined date after completion of the task. Another good thing about this site is that it requires bloggers to disclose the sponsored posts to their readers.

For example, may I disclose that this post is sponsored by Bloggerwave and this site will be paid $10 for this short article.

John Chow: Online Money Making Guru

Having started blogging a couple of years ago (approximately), he decided to monetize his blog last September 2007. His income rose from $352 (purely Adsense) on the first month to $11,702.66 (multiple income sources) last April. The blogging community eagerly awaits his income declaration for May 2007. Such a rapid success made John Chow one of the top authorities on how to make money online.

Being so generous in sharing his tips on how to increase online revenue, he has become a household name. He also acknowledges those who review his blog through a link in his popular site.

No wonder, his blog tops Google searches for the term Make Money Online.

LATEST HOMEBASED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY (BLOGGING): GENERATING A MINIMUM OF $500 A MONTH FROM ADSENSE

The previous post was intended for those who's been blogging for quite sometime. It's a little complicated and newbies might find it scary and discouraging. Well, don't despair..

Here's a short article from a blog that earns a minimum of US$500/month from Adsense. It explains his Adsense technique in very simple terms. Please read the article here.

LATEST HOMEBASED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY(BLOGGING): Market your Blog in 2007

This is from somebody who easily earns six figures (US$) per year from blogging. For a newbie in this thing, the list may be overwhelming. I would recommend that you look at the recommendations and initially focus on the easiest things to do. After that, you may gradually work on the rest of the list. Here it goes...

Problogger.net recommends the following (Please read the detailed article here):

Get Your Own House In Order

1. Write well, write consistently, don’t give up.
2. Become an expert on something.
3. Design is more important than you think
4. Get Your SEO On.
5. Publish full feeds.
6. Do interviews with other bloggers.
7. Break important stories.
8. Have a contest: Or, have regular contests, which encourage participation and buzz in your corner of the blogosphere.
9. Publish original research.
10. Put out Press Releases.
11. Work your long tail.
12. Answer your comments, in your comments, and off blog.
13. Spend time to create links and trackbacks.
14. Get Your MyBlogLog widget and work it, work it, work it (in a nice way).

Getting the Word Out

1. Join a blog carnival.
2. Join blog network.
3. Participate in forums.
4. Participate on larger blogs in comments.
5. Join Blogburst.
6. Participate in Darren’s contests.
7. Submit to blog directories.
8. Submit to Google sitemaps.
9. Submit to article directories.
10. Get interviewed.
11. Get listed on a news aggregator, or blog aggregator: Like Techmeme for technews, or Tailrank for blogging news.
12. Create free stuff for yourself and give it away: Like ebooks, digests of your favourite posts, pdfs, and so on. Make sure to include a link back in the document, back to your site.
13. Create free stuff for other people: the same, let them distribute it, get a link back.
14. Pay for pub.

Connect, Connect, Connect

1. Make friends with other bloggers.
2. Guest blog.
3. Volunteer, intern, scut-monkey your way into a blogger’s graces.
4. Get hired.
5. Network in person.
6. Join virtual groups.
7. Cross promote.

Make Social Media Work For You

1. Facebook.
2. Join Helium
3. Yahoo Answers!
4. Create a Squidoo Page Lens.
5. Use MySpace Marketing
6. Get Dugg / Netscaped / Reddited / Stumbled upon.

LATEST HOMEBASED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY (BLOGGING): SELLING AD SPACES

At this point, we already know about Adsense, Bidvertiser and a few other sites selling advertisements and sharing pay per click revenue with the websites that host them.

Let me point out that there is no stopping you from directly selling advertisements. www.talkingpointsmemo.com generates thousands of dollars per month from selling ad spaces. On top of that, he also make a lot from Adsense. A few years ago, Time Magazine mentioned his blog as among those that makes thousands of dollars from Adsense.



Check this link to view his advertising rates and check his blog. Count the number of subscribed ad spaces and try to estimate his monthly earnings.

Let me remind you that before you sell ad spaces, you must build your regular number of site visitors. It will give you a good credibility and enable you top command good rates.

There are many ways to do it but nothing beats quality posts and a regular update.

LATEST HOMEBASED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: Get Paid to Read Emails/Ads

"In some countries, $126/month may be too small. But looking around the net, I've gotten the impression that the cost of living in some areas are low enough for $125/month to become an acceptable home income (on the side)."

There are a lot of paid to read emails or advertisement programs running in the internet. One receives an email and clicks on the links to advertisers contained in the letter. This is an easy money program but the income it can provide may not work for everyone.

THE SYSTEM IS SIMPLE:

1. Open an account - earn a singing bonus ($5~10 depending on the program).
2. Refer friends - earn a royalty fee for every new sign up ($0.01~ 1.00 depending on the program).
3. Make Money by reading emails/advertisements sent to your email account (Usually $0.02 / mail).
4. Make money every time a referral reads emails/advertisements (usually, $.01/mail).
5. Earn from your referrals, referral (2nd Tier) reads emails/advertisements (usually, $.01/mail).
6. Payout is after you have earned at least $25.00

ANALYSIS:

I ran an experiment and signed up on a number of programs. Here is my assessment after a couple of months:

For the purpose of analysing the long term sustainability of the program, do not factor your initial earnings (sign up bonus). Try to forget about it, for the meantime.

For you to make $10 in direct income, you will have to read 500 emails. Your direct referrals should read a combined number of 1000 emails for you to earn another $10.2nd tier referral should have processed 500 emails to deliver that last $5.

That’s 2,000 emails for you to make $25.

PROPOSED STRATEGY:

1. Enroll in 10 programs and get 10 active direct referrals
   
2. Get another 10 active 2nd tier referrals (recruits of your recruits).
   
3. Reading one email advertisement per day will require 13 days before your earnings qualify for payout.
   
4. In a month, you would have made $66 dollars.
5. On the second month, enroll in 10 more programs and get 10 active direct referrals and another 10 active 2nd tier referrals. Reading one email advertisement per day and you would have made $120 dollars by the end of the 2nd month.

CONSIDERATIONS:
In some countries, $120/month may be too small. But looking around the net, I have the impression that the cost of living in some areas are low that $120/month is an acceptable income. Among other issues, you will have to address matters such as failure of the site give you credit for some of the emails read. It's up to you to decide. Should you have suggestions, please let me know.

WAYS OF COLLECTING MONEY FROM LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS

This is beneficial to BPO's and most other companies.

Doing business these days require a good means of collecting payments. The old way of receiving cash on sight (over the counter) is limited to personal or face-to-face transactions. Nowadays, there are instances where that system is simply not practical. Clients who order via the internet, phone transactions or those physically located in far locations will find it very inconvenient to pay using the face-to-face method. Businesses who rely solely on this system are bound to lose a lot of clients.

These days, payments via credit cards and bank transfers have become the norm. from the sellers point of view, using the two systems may be inconvenient. Bank transfers are costly and time consuming especially for international clients. The use of credit cards are convenient in some parts of the world but for companies located outside the US and Europe, getting a merchant account that will allow the collection through credit cards is a very difficult, if not impossible task. It is also worthwhile mentioning that for countries with difficult systems for getting credit card merchant accounts, the number of consumers with credit cards are also relatively low.

This hurdles to doing business have created the need for alternative payment systems that will incorporate the use of direct transfers, credit and debit cards and online systems for payment and collections. The global business community which were used to names like Visa, Amex and Mastercard has now been introduced to new players.

The most visible company in this field is Paypal followed by e-gold and moneybookers.

At the moment, paypal does not allow the acceptance of payments for some countries but moneybookers and e-gold has the flexibility that will enable the members to collect money in most, if not all parts of the world.

To get a free Paypal account, please sign up here.

To get a free moneybookers account, please sign up here.

To get a free e-gold account, please sign up here.

BPO & Work at Home Jobs

Browsing through the internet, several work at home ads can be found. A few require do not require a membership fee in order to gain access to (online jobs) but a big majority does. Some membership fees may be as low as US$5.00 but there are those that can go to as much as US$199.00 or even more.

Through the years, a lot of news articles claim that fraudulent advertisments are all over and that unsuspecting viewers have easily fallen victims of unscrupulous sites.

This site will publish vacancies that are personally known to the author/s to be in actual existence. This blog will also post advertisements found through the net but all of it will be accompanied with short notes/ reviews. The authors of this site will also browse through, but not limited to Google advertisements and will try conduct verifications and authenticate some ads.

Ads that are personally found to be truly reliable and those that were verified and authenticated by reliable sources, will be accompanied by this site's "Seal of Approval".

Check this site regularly and tell your friends about it.