Business Blogger

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written a post. That’s a good thing though, as far as I’m concerned, it means I’ve been busy putting together some killer sites. Patting myself on the back here. Anyhow, Neil, one of my online buddies has just launched a new blog, very cool stuff. If any of you have a blog you know how much time it can take to actually put a quality post together so hop on over there because he has definitely put some thought into his work.

So if you’re looking for an internet marketing consultant in the Dallas area you’re in luck. Neil has spent some time (told me about it a while back) on launching this blog and his business so you know it’s getting done the right way. You can also follow Neil on twitter for those of you that are into twitting or whatever it’s called now.

Alright folks that’s about it for now, did I mention I love Texas? I forgot to mention that one important fact. Everything is bigger in Texas, right. Ok, I’m done, nope maybe not, just a couple more words and this post will be finished. Have a great weekend everyone.

It’s been an entire month since we launched the contest to kick off Business + Directory. It was a great month for us being that we had a solid turnout and met our expectations concerning the number of entries. This was the first contest we have ever set into motion on this blog and it was a successful one to boot.

Now on to the important stuff that everyone really wants to know. Who won the contest? Drum roll please…..The first place winner is Jon Lee who actually just got his entry in before the end of the month, congratulations Jon and good luck on beating out your Jon Lee Google twin. Second place goes to Kiwi Pulse who I see on Blog Catalog from time to time. Congrats you two, some unexpected goodies are coming your way.

For those of you that submitted thank you for making the contest a success. It was truly a great feeling after we surpassed our goals. It makes this month that much easier, well not really, but thank you. We have some more stuff up our sleeves so stay tuned to your local internet business blog for more details and up to date plans on internet business domination.

Just wanted to give everyone a contest update. The prizes will be given out soon. If you haven’t already entered don’t waste any more time. Enter now.

We Are Giving Away $500 Cash and a BFG NVIDIA Graphics Card. All you have to do to win is blog about this contest. It’s that easy.

As part of our site launch and February promotion, Business+Directory has decided to offer free reviews for the entire month of February. (We must be crazy!) To enter this contest all you have to do is give away links at our directory, something everyone already wants. You get to give away stuff to win stuff.

Please follow these 3 easy rules in order to qualify for the Prizes.

1. Link to this contest page so that others will know how to join.
2. Link to Business+Directory telling your readers about the February promotion.
3. Original post must come from your blog so that we know who to send the money to. Post should be at least 250 words using your own unique writing style, please don’t cut and paste from this post.

One person will be chosen for the Grand Prize of $500 Cash (via PayPal) via randomizer software. You can advertise your blog, buy that new Ipod you’ve been wanting or buy yourself a new set of tires. The runner up will take home a brand new BFG NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT OC 512MB PCIe with ThermoIntelligence Graphics Card (shipped via USPS), chosen via randomizer. This card allows you to connect two LCD displays for all you multi-tasking users out there and comes with a HDTV adapter and HDCP capability for high definition video.

This contest will last the entire month of February. Submissions will be calculated after the contest ends and prizes will be awarded during the month March.

Update: Contest requirements have already been exceeded. Prizes will be paid out the beginning of March!

Disclaimer: Review times for the Directory will be extended during the month of February. Contest must receive fifty entries or more for prizes to be paid out, so tell your friends. You must have a PayPal account to receive payment, free to set up.

Well the economy looks alright but what about Google? It’s a known fact that Google has seen dramatic changes in click-through behavior since they changed their ad hot spots. Straight from the mouth of one of the largest Google publishers on the web: “The CTR on text ads declined about 60% in the last 2 months with Google’s changes.” Markus Frind is looking for new advertisers and digg looks as if it has stopped using Google ads altogether. Where does this leave Google?

Well this little image tells you exactly where Google is at. It’s the first look at Google’s new Adsense test layout. It seems as if Google’s Adsense conversions might be affecting their pocket book more than they had anticipated (someone should get fired). Google is now testing Adsense boxes in which the user can click through on every single piece of text in the ad. A lot different than the current Adsense model which lets the user click on either the title or the URL of the ad. My guess is if this doesn’t work they will quickly move back to making the entire ad click-through. As I stroll over to Engadget I notice that they have done just that, what a coincidence. I do notice that landing pages fed with Google Adsense have not changed as of yet.

Maybe this is a special publisher deal, although not likely. This is probably just a few tests for Google Adsense to see what’s next. They have some tough choices to make and their stock price depends on it. The choice for Google has come down to one of relevancy or money. I think they are on the right track, but who am I to judge?

There are many questions that can be raised about the economy and the situation that it’s in as of right now. Many wonder where we are headed in the near future. Since Ben Bernanke announced the possible stimulus package, reporters all over the world are questioning what will happen in the morning when the U.S. markets open up.

The markets overseas seemed to have gone into panic mode with many markets over the world taking a hit on the possibility that the U.S. markets will do the same. Do we need to face the truth and admit that we are in a global economy? The world is connected through our economies and more than ever today thanks to the internet.

While the world seems to be in a stage of panic over the state of business throughout the world we should we should step back and take a look at the positives in business and especially internet business. According to the Philadelphia BizJournal, internet business and the venture capital sector is looking pretty good.

So what will happen in the morning? That’s the question on everyone’s mind at the moment. You can be sure that our business interests and everyone else’s around the world are at stake. Will there be a big hit on the stock markets? Will people start to frantically pull their money out of the markets or will it be just another day at the office. It will be interesting to see.

This year is scheduled to be a busy one with some big plans for our internet business blog team. The plan is to cover more interesting newsworthy stuff that’s going on in the internet business world. One of the most exciting things we have going on this year is the upcoming launch of our business directory. A little something we have created for the B2B community.

This is very exciting news for us since the project has been going on behind the scenes for quite some time now. We have been working very hard to create a community resource that will be of high value to the business to business community. On top of this we have a few other projects going on behind the scenes that will be keeping us on our toes. It will be a very exciting new year for business indeed.

Because business on the internet is growing at such a rapid pace there is a new market that many businesses are not yet aware of. With internet ad budgets going up faster and faster each year, most have realized the value the internet can bring to their business. The truth is businesses of all kinds are finding their ways onto the internet for the first time, realizing the potential market they had been missing out on. There are new and exciting businesses being developed daily that provide value to businesses all over the internet. We look forward to covering these business launches and providing our readers with valuable business related news and discussion.

While I was setting up my twitter account today I thought it would be a good idea to head over to Blog Catalog and see if any of my contacts were doing the twitter thing.

While I was there I noticed that they have started to nofollow all blog links. Before it was the feeds that they nofollowed, which is understandable, in my opinion. Then they moved to redirects on the feeds. Now your blog URL is completely nofollowed. WTF? I thought this network was built by bloggers for bloggers? Maybe it’s just me but are you that page rank greedy that you have to nofollow all the blogs in your network, trying to reroute the PR? Of course I’m just speculating here, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.

As my way of saying thanks to Blog Catalog I will now take down their widget from my front page so that I don’t mistakenly pass any PR to anyone I don’t trust. I instead will just have it posted on my Blog Catalog page which was an earlier post on how I dropped Blog Rush for Blog Catalog. What to do now?

Many people know that I provide a link to those that comment on my blog. Those that provide more comments on this business blog than the other readers automatically get a link to their site on the front page and every other page for that matter. Unfortunately I have come to the revelation that this just doesn’t work any more. I don’t know what has happened recently that has driven so many spammers to start commenting on this blog, but it has forced me to take away the top comments section, until further notice.

I have put too much time and effort to give away a front page link to a spammer for the short time that it goes unnoticed. On top of this it makes my blog (that happens to be business related) pretty irrelevant if I have a link to a crap site (not business related) from my front page. I don’t have enough time to sit here and monitor every spam comment that I get and I expect most of you feel the same. It’s too time consuming, so thanks internet spammers for ruining the fun.

So, apologies go out to those that actually provided valuable comments. I may decide to link to those in future posts instead of using the front page links. Anyhow, that’s my rant for the day, goodbye to the top commentators plugin.

Oh, if any of you have not read the post on blog rss promotion you should definitely jump over and do so. It’s a very valuable post that provides many free resources. Until next time.

In the business world the internet seems to be the great equalizer, at least for those that get business. Just because you can set up a business blog does not make you an entrepreneur, nor does it make you a blog writer. I don’t claim to be a great writer, in fact this blog has helped to hone those skills, but I do claim to be a true business junkie. I pick up a good business book and can’t seem to put it down. I think of an idea for a business, beat it to death in my head and if it has the possibility to work I will beat it to death on paper in the form of a business plan.

These things about me aside I do think that the internet is a fantastic place for business and a venue that levels the playing field. What makes the internet a great place for business?

Domain names: You can pick up a great domain name and immediately be playing ball with the big boys. It’s like doing business in the big city versus that of a small town (good domain vs. bad domain). Your domain name can make or break your business, plain and simple. Money can buy a great domain name and creative thinking can help you to come up with the same. Your business depends on it.

The internet itself: What a great place to do business. You can sit anywhere in the world and be able to play on the greatest piece of real estate available, your domain name. Yes, I do think domain names are very important.

You make your own strategy: You make or break yourself (for the most part) on the internet. For instance, you can promote yourself and your business through so many venues on the internet for free that you could essentially make something from nothing. With free hosting, free layouts and free promotion how much money does one really need to get started? Ah the price of a domain name and your precious time.

I’m not naive enough to think that people are going to spend absolutely nothing on promotion and rise to the top quickly, but if someone were to create a business out of nothing this would be the place to do it. OK, enough rambling, but for those of you out there that are asking; What is the best way to make money on the internet?….I have the solution. Stop asking the question and start learning about the internet and domain names, read business blogs, etc.

Doing business and using the web to launch a product is a fantastic idea, that is if you can knock it out of the park. The people at Buckley’s are doing a great job of mixing business and humor while using the internet to convey their message. Well, at least it got me to blog about it.

What happens to Google’s Golden Goose when it gets caught playing with Google fire (buying links). I don’t know but let’s find out. Let’s see what actually happens. Here is proof that Business.com is buying links. Not linking out here, so they don’t remove them with lightning quickness. I’m sure you can go to Forbes.com right now and check for yourself.

The Golden Goose gets caught!

So what happens now, do they get a slap on the hand, do they get their page rank reduced, or do they get kicked out of the index completely like John Chow?

Yes it’s true Google has changed their logo, um, errrrrrr, what? Don’t ask me why, I thought the other one was just fine. See for yourself here at Google.gov.cn. Apparently they’ve gone into the textile business and merged with Datang Sock of China?

Apparently they lost their domain name to the Chinese? I couldn’t tell you one way or the other, just thought this was a little interesting to say the least.

What’s next for Google in China? It’s probably because they have Baidu-inc resting on their server and pointed to Google.com!

Well I remember a while back that I made a post about Google.gov. The thing is I still get pretty decent traffic out of the post but I noticed that Google doesn’t have it anywhere in the serps. HMMMMMMMMMM, that sure is odd because I can remember just a few weeks ago I was getting visits from Google on the post. I’d like to ask Matt Cutts about this one. Ha! Dear Google are blogs just considered news sources now, which become irrelevant within just a few weeks? Is it algorithmic or editorial?

What would Aaron Wall have to say about this one considering the recent Anti-Google claims? From what I can tell the post is not supplemental.

Anyhow, what the hell is this? Google.gov.cn

It’s true Google has gone Gov, I was right all along, just not with it’s host country. Google have you sold your trade name to China to get in on their textile industry? They are growing by leaps and bounds, anyone own any Petro China? It is the world’s first trillion dollar company. Do you still have rights to the Google name? Can anyone use it now? What gives? What happened to your logo?

So many questions, so little time.

Well it’s officially time to remove the blog rush widget from the site. I think it’s nice to have streaming content on the site, although I think people have already become “blog rush blind.” It’s not that they owe me a ton of traffic or anything, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that the traffic they do owe me comes in once a week, one visitor at a time. How many visits do I give to other blogs? I would rather just write about things I see going on in the blogosphere rather that have a widget dictate that at this point in time. As I said I think it’s just “blog rush blindness” that’s killing the conversion rates. I would be interested to see what other guys like Shoemoney have to say about it considering they have a ton more traffic to work with.

Anyhow, goodbye Blog Rush - Hello Blog Calatog.

By the way, if you are a member of Blog Catalog and post this little widget on your site, your site moves up in the rankings there. They have a healthy amount of traffic and also a great group of people to network with. I will keep you updated as to whether or not it works out better than Blog Rush did.