Life and Times of a Brit Living in the Philippines

My Life Crashed…

August 8, 2012 by Joseph 39 Comments

In a sense, this post is a re-intro to my blog since I’ve been AWOL for weeks now.

There have been some big changes taking place in my offline (and online) life, which is why I’ve been absent. What’s more, over the past week or so, I’ve been pretty much unable to get online, which certainly does not aid my business. Fortunately that issue is now remedied.

I don’t want to go into too much detail right now but put it this way – I’ve spent the last 3 years living in Kuching, in Malaysia, having left the shores of the United Kingdom. Well, that now is no longer the case. I have parted company with Malaysia, and now want to move onwards in pursuit of fulfilling the “next” stages of my dream – the internet marketing dream that is.

What does this mean?

Well, slowly but surely, I’ve come to the realization that making more and more money online simply puts more and more pressure on my butt to make more and more money online. Its like a vicious circle.

You start out by making 10 bucks in a month.

You raise that up to making 100 bucks a month.

Then you are looking at 10 bucks per day.

Then, up to 30 bucks a day and starting to approach a full time online income. Seems like a whole lotta fun at this stage and things are getting exciting!

50 bucks a day comes and goes…

80 bucks a day…

100 bucks per day – oh yeah baby!!

150 bucks a day…

200 a day… on and on and on and on…

Check Your Google Rankings Because Google Have Rolled out Another Update

April 25, 2012 by Joseph 28 Comments

Check Your Google Rankings Because Google Have Rolled out Another Algorithm Update.

Oh no, I hear you mutter (or cry in anguish perhaps!).

Here we go again – another mess up of the rankings perhaps?

Another round of dumping of our webpages?

Have you checked your site’s visitor stats today??

Here’s the facts from the horses mouth about this search engine update which was rolled out yesterday – 24th April 2012:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

I popped on over to Jon Leger’s forum to check out what he’s seeing.

For the query: make money online (110,000 global monthly Google searches), there’s this site ranking top 10…

http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/

Huh? There’s no content on it!!

Actually, here’s my own search results for when I did the “make money online” search in Google…

What Comes After Build My Rank? Back to the 9 to 5 Grind?

March 21, 2012 by Joseph 128 Comments

I’m not usually the one to jump on the bandwagon and start writing about a big event in history such as the downfall of BMR. But in this case because I’ve been a heavy user of BMR and also because I was earning a pretty healthy income from my affiliation to the BMR service (thank you very kindly to all those who used my affiliate link over the past 18 months or so!!!), I feel obliged to discuss this matter to some degree at least.

As you probably know by now, BMR is no more and they’ve closed their doors entirely.

Why so?

Because Google have apparently de-indexed a large part, if not all of the network of sites.

Thus, no more gaming the system a la BMR. Bummer!!

So what can we as gamers of the search engines now do?

Well its becoming apparent that the game is becoming more tricky to play.

Should we thus give up and return to our 9 to 5′s?

Well, if that thought appeals to you, then yes – why not.

But for most of us, the thought will be totally unappealing.

If I were to get a job as a toilet attendant here in Kuching, Malaysia, I’d earn about 4 RMG an hour. That’s about $1.30 US, or about 1 euro, I think. But if I were to get a job as a toilet attendant in the United Kingdom, I suspect I’d get paid around 6 UK pounds an hour, which is about 7 euro or $10 US. However, I prefer to live in Kuching, so the toilet attendant option is, well – not an option, is it?

Sorry for the diatribe.

Here’s the thing though, and I don’t want to make this a long drawn out post, so forgive me for merely making a mention of this without going into detail…

Does Google want to rank new sites that are unproven in terms of attracting visitors?

No, I hear you say.

Does Google want to rank older maturer sites that have something of a track record for attracting search engine visitors?

Yes, I hear you say, correct?

Now, I’m not sure about you, but for me – when I’ve been intent on getting top end rankings in Google (more recently) I’ve sometimes come a cropper. In fact, more often than sometimes. I’ve pushed the boat out just a bit too far, and I pay the penalty for doing so.

Why so?

Beware the Internet Marketing Thieves!

March 20, 2012 by Joseph 47 Comments

A post with a difference today. And you can tell as you read through that I’m pissed about this matter!

I bought an info product today that was being affiliated by a very well known and thoroughly respected internet marketer. I trust this person pretty much implicitly (although I’m now starting to question their motive) and they were saying that they had made some nice profits by using this system.

Thought I would check the product out for myself and see if I could make something of the offer.

Well, 40 minutes into reading the eBook, and I’m starting to smell a big fat rat.

I Made a Mess – Google Dumps us Down the Rankings!

September 14, 2011 by Joseph 92 Comments

Time for a quick post I’d say!

Well, guess what – we made a mess of it, so I can put that planed windsurfing holiday to bed for now because I am no longer jumping up and down for joy

Who’s we?

Me and Chris is “we” – my young protege (for want of a different word) who hails from Texas in North America and is aiming to achieve an income of over $4,000 within 12 months from a start of zero.

Previously, in a post towards the end of last month, I was shouting my big gob (mouth) off about him making $4,600 for last month, which would have been 8 months into the project – a full 4 months shy of our target date.

Well, we/ I got our/ my come-uppance and guess who is responsible… Do I hear you say “Google”?

You got that right!

In actual fact, not quite – its ME who is responsible and not Google. Its me who is responsible and not Chris. Me, Me, Me!

I’m supposed to be the “tour” guide. I’m supposed to be leading by example, but fact is, I took my eye off the ball, very much down to the reason that I was happy to shout my mouth off about how well it was all going, and also partly because I was and am so busy with many other aspects to my business. So the blame lays at my door step – not Google’s and not Chris’ either.

So, what went wrong?

Good question!

Our top earning site got dumped from the rankings! And believe me when I say top earning, I mean TOP EARNING. I think that site was making around half and perhaps a little more of our total monthly haul. They say to never put all your eggs in the one basket. Well, we don’t, but its just panned out that way is all.

My communication with Chris got to the point of us both emailing each other about how we were going to invest our money in the months and years to come. Where it would have been wiser to be focusing on who was doing what with regards to working on the websites.

Living and “Enjoying” the Internet Marketing Dream

February 15, 2011 by Joseph 43 Comments

I know I’ve been pretty quiet as of late on the blog here. Well, I kinda figure, if I’ve got little or nothing to say, why say anything?

Where am I at right now?

As you no doubt know if you’ve been reading my latest posts, my eBay income is in tatters and there is little doubt in my mind that its not going to come back to former glory either. In fact, this shake-up thing is also affecting some of my new sites.

Now I can work out why goog did not particularly appreciate my eBay sites (even though I do not agree with their sentiments), but its totally unclear to me why they would shake-up the newer sites. I am hoping however that this is merely a goog re-assessment of the rankings. And nothing more than that.

I am hearing that there are a lot of SEO and internet marketing folks up in arms at the moment due to the goog shake-up. And yes, I too can commiserate. But the only thing to do is to re-focus and try to move your business forward the best you can. For sure, have a good old moan about

google and how horrible and unfair they are, but that’s not going to change anything. We’ve got to pick up the pieces and move along as swiftly as we can. After all, Yahoo! and Bing only receive something like 17% of all organic search, while Google gets almost all the rest.

You may have noticed something of a new look on the blog here? If not, best put on your reading glasses, LOL! The header graphic is from a photo I took of a local Sarawak (Malaysia) beach called Damai. Damai is very typical of the idyllic tropical look – swaying palm trees, golden sandy beaches and azure blue ocean filled with tropical fish. On this particular day – when the photo was taken, a storm was swiftly moving in from the South China Sea. I think it represents the internet marketing ups and downs perfectly. It accentuates living the so-called internet marketing dream.

But at the same time, it qualifies the IM roller coaster ride – one moment its gorgeous and the sun is shining very brightly and then next moment its very stormy indeed!

The image was developed into the current header graphic with help from Andrew over at WeBuildYourBlog

My Life Crashed…

What Comes After Build My Rank? Back to the 9 to 5 Grind?

Beware the Internet Marketing Thieves!

I Made a Mess – Google Dumps us Down the Rankings!

Living and “Enjoying” the Internet Marketing Dream

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