Just as I was going to remove John Chow from my blogroll, I figured out why I like it. It’s the networking. So many people read that site and order ReviewMe’s, I get more from the ReviewMe’s and comments than I do from his actual content now.
A site called Community Spark ordered a ReviewMe from John Chow. Here is how the site is described:
Community Spark is a community building blog. I aim to keep this blog updated with advice on how to build successful online communities whether they are forums, blogs, chat sites or social networks.
Looks like a great site to me, so as I was going to remove John Chow from my blogroll, instead I’m going to add Community Spark. Hopefully Community Spark will be able to help me out with my forums. I read a couple of posts…great advice.
Later,
JBSlife
A while back a posted about my advertising for Country Music Forums (you can see that post here). I had said that I secured two adds. One of them was with Text Link Ads and the other was with BlogAds. I really like both services, but my Text Link Ad converted on a higher rate. Let’s take a look at both ads and see why?
Text Link Ad on the9513.com
The 9513 is a country music blog that I purched an ad on through Text Link Ads. This was my ad that converted rather well. My ad is just a link that says “CountryMusicForums.net” inside the blue oval in the picture above. I is right below the header of the site and looks like part of the sites navigation. The graphics of the site also show that it is definately in the same niche as my site.
I will be running this ad for at least a couple more months. At $20 a month, I can’t go wrong. I am going to try some different text. I thing “Country Music Forums” or “Country Music Message Boards” would be better.
BlogAd on Twangville.com
My ad on Twangville.com is through BlogAds. The cost was $60 per month as this is a larger site. It didn’t bring me too much, but their are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it is in the premium sponsor section (it looks like an ad). The second reason is my own fault. BlogAds recommends changing the ad image so the ad does not get stale. I didn’t do this and I really think it would have helped. I will continue with the ad and see what I can do with it.
Overall, I am very pleased with both of the ads. It is very hard to get a start up forum going, so every member I get is important to me. Forums are started by a few dedicated people. I have a couple, a few more and this forum could get going.
Stay tuned for updates…and if you like country music, JOIN!
Later,
JBSlife
After being in Southern California for almost nine years, it’s time to move back home. My family and I will be moving to Wisconsin in less than a month. With our second daughter now a month old, California is just not meeting our needs.
Due to the current housing market in our area, we’re unable to sell our condo. We’re looking to rent out our 864 sq. ft. condo for around $1300. $1300 is also the amount of our monthly mortgage. Hopefully we’ll be able to sell it after a couple years.
The picture above is the place that we rented. We get the whole lower flat as well as the basement and a 2 car garage. It sits about a mile away from my new job and is has a small yard. I’d say it’s close to 1200 sq. ft. The basement isn’t much, but it’s the same size as the house and has a washer, dryer, and sink. We will be renting this place for $850, that should give me enough room to buy a new grill and some beer.
It also has a seperate room that we can set up our ecommerce business in. I’m told we can write off part of the rent then. If anyone knows anything about writing off business expenses, let me know. It’s a subject that I’m really going to have to start researching.
Later,
JBSlife
Google seems to like me right now, most of my sites went up in PageRank. Here is a list of what happened with my sites.
This seems like a great increase to me. If anyone knows anything about the most recent Google dance, I’d love to hear about it. I am starting to link all of my sites together to create a more cohesive portfolio. Beyond that, I didn’t really do anything to that I thought would bring such a broad PR increase accross my sites. Let me know what you think about this.
Later,
JBSlife
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