J.B.Slife dot Com

I can’t think of any better way to impress my friends than with the Beer Launcher. Invite them over, sit down, turn on the TV, and use the remote control beer launching refrigerator to toss beers at you. My review of this concept: 24 out of 24, I give it a full case.

Edit: I had to remove the video. It was causing a popup to appear in IE that said. “Please click OK to continue loading.” This was due to the flash embed from MetaCafe. Below is a link to the video instead.

Video of the “Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator”

Finally, it looks like the AdSense spider is coming to the blog a little more often. My blog finally started displaying business and revenue related ads. Right on topic, that’s what I was looking for.

I really don’t know how AdSense works, but I have many sites on one account (as you’re supposed to). My other AdSense sites all display ads from my niche, gymnastics. Since this site was brand new, it appeared that my ads were being based on content from my other sites.

If you have sites about different subjects, I would hold off on AdSense until the site has some nice content. That way the Google spiders can get a better idea of what your site is about. I’m not talking about waiting forever, just a week or two (whatever it takes you to get some decent content). You don’t want to end up with a business (revenue, money) blog displaying ads for gymnastics leotards.

Fresh content is a problem that every webmaster experiences. What do I mean? Fresh content is hard to come up with sometimes. I started this blog to force me to write, something that I’m not very good at. It’s a skill that is essential if you would like your site to have large amounts of traffic.

Brochure Websites

Many companies put a website on the net and think this is enough. A website is more than a brochure. Even if you just update your company calendar on a regular basis, something needs to be changed. If a surfer stops by your website and they enjoy the experience, they will come back. If you site is different when they come back, they will be encouraged to come back again.

Example Please

Sure…my ecommerce site does quite well. When I change the homepage at least once per month, it does better. I can display (rotate) more products. Over the past few months I have gotten very lazy and my site has slowed down a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it does well. However, it could be doing much better.

Start a Blog (even if it’s just for practice)

Like I said, I started this blog to make me write. I have always been a math and science type (a geek), I need help in the writing department. Forcing myself to post everyday is helping me tremendously with my other sites. I have noticed that I don’t think so much, my thoughts are starting to come naturally.

Make sure you read your posts at a later date, though. Reading your old posts will help you find mistakes and develope as a writer. Good luck and remember…CONTENT IS KING!

If you have a vBulletin website and your not using vBadvanced CMPS, then your not achieving your sites full potential. vBa CMPS (Content Management & Portal System) is a free module with a great support base. Here are the features that I have found very useful.

• Integrated Dynamic Homepage
  
  • The vBa CMPS hompage pulls the look and feel straight from your vBulletin setup. You won’t have to worry about integrating the homepage into the rest of your site. Turn it on and it’s ready to go.
  • vBa CMPS comes with many modules installed. These modules allow you to have great dynamic content right on your homepage. Some of these include: news, news archive, latest topics, stats, todays birthdays, mini-calendar, and much more. New modules are created everyday, vBa CMPS is a widley used vBulletin addon. Most developers try to include a vBa CMPS mod if it is possible.

• Easy to Create Custom Pages
  • Creating new pages for your vBulletin site has never been easier. Just click on “add new page”, type the custom content that you would like on that page, click on the modules that you would like to surround it, and click save. That’s it, your new page is up and running.

• Left Column On All vBulletin Pages
  • I also use vBa CMPS to add a left column to my entire site. The directions are included step by step right in the vBa CMPS docs. My left column is home to the menu, recent posts, and whatever I would like to promote on any given day. The recent posts mod in the left column has greatly improved page views on my site. As soon as a post is made, it appears at the top of the recent posts column. It’s just a great way for members to see what is going on all the time.

Tutorials?

I’m a little busy right now…my second child is due on March 28th, but I am going to start doing some nice step by step tutorials for you. As soon as I get a screen capture program installed (any suggestions), I can really get down and dirty with the tutorials. For right now, get vBa CMPS installed on your forum. Until next time…

Happy St. Patty’s Day! The evil John Chow reviews some fine dining establishments on his blog. I don’t really do the fine dining thing, so your going to hear about beer and BBQs on this blog. Whether it’s beer, a new grilling tip, or a review of the hottest new stainless steel beauty; my random blogs are great.

Beer Time

I moved to Oceanside, California 8 years ago. Shorty after arriving I discovered that Southern California is full of great microbrews. Stone Brewing being the best of the best. I have had all of their normal production beers and many of their specialty brews.

Stone IPA the an absolutely outstanding India Pale Ale. Here’s a blurb from Stone:

Deep Golden Color
An “India Pale Ale” by definition is highly hopped and high in alcohol (ours is 6.9% alc./vol.).

Medium Bodied Refreshing Ale
Light-medium malt character with a heavy dose of over the top hops! Two full weeks of “dry hopping” give this beer its abundant hop aroma and crisp hop flavor.

100% Natural
Only Barley, Hops, Water & Yeast are used.
No Additives
No Chemical Preservatives
No Pasteurization
No Adjuncts (rice/corn)

6.9% Alc. Vol.

As you can see, its got a little kick. It’s very hard to review this beer, it’s perfect. Golden, crisp on the tongue, smooth going down; Stone IPA is the very definition of a India Pale Ale. This beer is so good, the bottle is even perfect.

No Labels

Stone has very unique bottles for their beer. Each bottle has a gargoyle and the bottles are paints. That’s right…no labels. If you find yourself hooked on the gargoyles, check out the Stone store. You won’t be dissappointed.

Thoughts…

Don’t think so much…I drink to eleviate that problem. Try Stone IPA, you’ll like it. I do have other brands to review, but look forward to these two from Stone:

• Stone Ruination IPA - 7.7%
• Vertical Epic ‘02 - It will never be made again and it’s all gone.

Until next time…Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I currently have 3 people in my AGLOCO network, me and 2 direct referrals. I haven’t really done much to try and get sign ups, but a comment at JohnChow.com has inspired me. I asked if anyone was getting any sign ups. Here’s the response from Church of Jacin.

Hi, Justin. I sure am.  I decided at the beginning of February to dedicate $1,000 to my Agloco campaign. I had zero signups. Today I have 463 direct signups and 714 total in my network (you can see these numbers from the AGLOCO Top Gun recruiters list). Using PPC, I’ve paid about $2.48 per direct signup (I’ve had 2 million impressions and 8,796 clicks.) I’m just a little over the $1,000 goal and, with the recent announcement of the delay in the Viewbar, I’ve decided to spend another $500 through March.

I will soon catch John on direct signups. Then I hope those in my network will start producing like John’s network has — lucky, evil mogul!

I have always said, “It takes money to make money.” I’m going to dedicate $200 to getting some AGLOCO sign ups. If I can get at least one conversion for every $3 spent, I will spend some more.

This is more of a challenge to me than anything else. If I can’t use money to get people to sign up, then I’m going to have to re-think my marketing ways. Wish me luck and…

Retire Early…Get Paid To Surf!…Join AGLOCO!

For all you Star Wars freaks out there, the post office is coming out with a R2-D2 mailbox. The mailboxes will be completely wrapped with R2-D2 graphics. All this is to help Star Wars celebrate it’s 30th anniversary. I hope they put these in places with security cameras, seems like something that a true fan would definately need.

Check out the website at:

http://www.uspsjedimaster.com

Star Wars Mailboxes

I have AdSense on my main vBulletin forum, however, my registered do NOT see them. There is some logic behind my decision and it seems to be working well. My members are happy and I’m still earning profits from AdSense.

Why no AdSense ads for registered members?

• Incentive to Register
  • I have a great module install on my board, Welcome Headers. Right in my welcome header I state, “The Google ads disappear once you are a registered member.” As soon as I started this strategy, my registration rates went up.
• Most CPC traffic is from guests
  • A majority of my AdSense profits come from guests on my site. Some of it came from members, but not too much. The longer the member is a part of the forum, the better they get at ignoring the AdSense. That’s when I started thinking of ways to get more guests. Of course, more members equals more content, which equals more guests. By offering the incentive of an AdSense free site, I started building more members (and content) quicker. My site had more pages indexed and more people found my site from the search engines. These guests clicked on ads and I started earning more money than before.
• Other ads work better for members
  • While my members do not see any ads right now, they will be seeing ads in the future. I have made the desicion to start the direct sale of highly targeted graphical ads. These ads will be companies that I approve and possibly solicit. I know my members and I know where they will shop. The graphical ads will be based on traffic and I will not start selling the ads until I have reached 1000 registered members. I have set this as a goal to reach by the end of 2007.

John Chow tells people to spread out their advertising. He says, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” This is great advice. I am thinking of my members and my guests as completely different animals, two completely different types of eggs. You can’t put dinosaur eggs in the same basket with chicken eggs. When they hatch, one of them will be destroyed.

I cannot have my members or my guests destroyed. They both play a very important role in my site. By treating them differently, profits can be maximized.

Sorry about this, I said I was learning. I have unchecked the “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” box. Now you can all tell me what you think. If you are having this same problem, it is under:

Options > General

I am in the process of installing the threaded comments plugin so we can get some good conversations going here at jbslife.com.

Sorry, this is a brand new blog and I’m learning. While I do slack on many things (because I’m a slacker), I know I can’t slack on content. I have been very proficient at my blogging because I know I must have content. After all…CONTENT IS KING! Now I have realized how boring my site looks. Yes I know, I need images.

Lesson of the day…

Put images in your blog, lots of them (I should really listen to myself).