Sod Star Trek. That’s what I say. Who wants that prozaic super CGI’d boring old predictable space movie? Even if it has Sylar as Spok. Moon – now that looks like a good old space movie. Lookit – here’s a trailer:

Damn cool. This is space from my childhood. Big chunky machines. Lots of squares and giant industrial like blocks and chunks. That’s what space exploration is all about – utility, not fancy nokia flip phones with cool gloss sheen finishes. Those things wouldn’t last a tick in real space. You need something big. Built from titanium. Utilitarian. That’s what you want. None of that scrawny sleek modern ipod looking junk you find in Star Trek.

Sam Rockwell’s Moon looks like something you might have imagined exploring while playing Moon Patrol. If you’ve never played Moon Patrol, then you’re probably too young to be reading my blog. I gots adult language on here and stuff.

So, I thought I would play around with posterous. For those of you who are woefully behind the times, Posterous is a new blogging platform. Well sort of a mix between blogging and microblogging….but really with an emphasis on blogging from your email client.
Posterous is pretty smart, just write it an email, attach images, music, videos….whatever you want, and it figures out what to do with it all. I like it. Check it out on my new blog How to make money online with posterous.

Why do I like it? Well, it lets you create blog posts quickly, without bells and whistles it’s true, but still, sometimes speed is of the essence. Now posterous currently doesn’t have a lot of front end features. There’s only one template that I can see. Which in a way is pretty good, because you spend your time worrying about the content rather than what your blog looks like. See, I think too many bloggers out there on wordpress get swamped by the plethora of free wordpress themes and spend so much time faffing about with the look and feel of their blog, that they forget to put any words down whatsoever. Another reason I like posterous is because it is kind of perfect for creating backlinks to your site. If you are the kind of online marketer that runs multiple sites, and if you are trying to make money blogging, then you probably do, logging in and out of accounts all the time gets tedious. Blogging by email though, that’s pretty cool. See for every site you set up, you can post to a different address to create your blog post, so, for example, I’ve set up a second posterous blog underdogblog.posterous.com. Now to post to my first blog, how to make money online with posterous, I just email post@posterous.com from my email account, to post to the second blog, the underdog blog at posterous, I use a different send to email address post@underdogblog.posterous.com.

So now, I can see you thinking – hey that’s neat. One email address, multiple blogs, I can update my entire farm from one email account. Hey. That is neat. Check it out.

(or where I tell you how I like to sign up to free “spam free” ebooks everyone offers to build their list)

Yearg – I forgot to add my aside into my post about having food in my fridge yesterday that turned out to be more about a fable than anything else.  Bad me.  I won’t do it again.

Oh well.  Never ye mind.

So you know how every blog and his dog has a little “sign up to our newsletter” or “give us your email and get a free ebook” type of thing?  They always say “don’t worry, 100% spam free”.  But you just know they will email you with “special offer” after “special offer” jiminy-jam packed with affiliate links.  Well, here’s what your grandma doesn’t know about THE LIST……They are all completely automated.  I bet most so called web-entreupreneurs who are faking it till the make it never even look through their list to see who has signed up.  I bet most of them just leave it on autopilot.  You know what I like to do?  I lke to sign up with strange names.  I like to see if anyone checks and weeds me out.  On blogs I really don’t like, I’ll put in something mildly offensive – just because I can be an asshole sometimes.  On blogs that I feel ambivalent towards, I’ll use something like Detective Van Halen,  or Humpty Dumpty.  Sometimes I like to put my name in as “just another sucker waiting for your marketing crap”, but that gets scuppered now and then when people put a limit on the length of your name.  On blogs I actually like to read, I don’t usually sign up

Obviously I’m using a spam email addy for all this.  But I check it now and then for fun.  I’m still waiting for the savvy marketer to look through his sign ups, notice me and send a humourous email back signed with an equally crazy name.  See, if that happened, then I would know 2 things:

1. That dude/lady has a sense of humour
2. They actually check their list from time to time

The presence of 1 means I might actually like the person and that they might not be full of shit like most make money bloggers trying to build a “money is in the list” list out there.  The presence of 2 means they might actually try to personalise something towards their readers.  You know what though?  I’m still waiting.  So far, nadda, nothing, zip…….If you find me in your list – send me an email.  I ain’t gonna buy your snake oil, but what the heck, maybe you’ll make a friend.  A cynical friend……but hey I’ve been know to give backlinks to my friends

Now, you know what, I think we need a series of “What your nan doesn’t know about the internet“.

(or where I tell you how to get more hits for keywords by using it in your anchor text)

It’s no secret that I think organic search results are the way to go for making money online.  The social web is great, and fun, but I don’t think social traffic converts well.  I mean, you guys are reading this right?  Most of you browse here from other blogs that I’ve left a comment on.  How many of you feel like throwing me a little affiliate bone and buying some cool web hosting?  yeah…..none of you?  Hmmm that’s my point entirely.  See now if I ranked really well for the search phrase “where can I buy cool web hosting”, then I bet I would make a lot more money, even if my traffic halved.  Why?  Because people browsing this page would already want to buy something.  They would be looking for a product.  You lot are just looking.  Buncha of tire kickers, the lot of you (but I still love you all, please leave a nice comment….I will bribe you if I have to….what do you want? ).

Yeah, so how to get all important organic search traffic?  Backlinks.  That’s the way you get up in the ranks of the old backrub search engine….erm I mean google.  You know, I offered a link to someone a while ago, asked them what anchor text they wanted.  Their reply was “I don’t care what anchor text you use”.  Really?  I mean really?  you don’t care?  You should care!  you should care a lot!!!  What if I link to you with the phrase “cunty the sardine”?  You going be happy with that?  Is that what you want the big G to associate your site with?  Really?  That’s an anchor text you want?  Man, sometimes I wonder…….tell you what, someone offers me a backlink with my choice of anchor text, I thank them profusely and consider carefully what I want to rank for.  That’s what I do.

With that in mind, it’s always interesting to see what organic search phrases you are ranking for.  Take them, analyse them a little and decide which ones you want to rank better for.  I mean, might as well capitalise on traffic right?  So, what have people searched on to get to me?  Well, some phrase are just bizzare.  I mean someone actually found me with the phrase pavlov vodka. lol…..have to chuckle at that one. Another reader hit me from using wealthiest adsense. Wow. That one I wouldn’t mind more of. That one and a few related searches could bring in a tidy profit if handled correctly. How about wordpress theme. Woooooosh……that could bring a rush of traffic. Might not be profitable given the vast expanse of free wordpress themes out there, but still. My favourite so far: the best and worst way to make money online. That’s the money baby! Give me that one. Then I paste up a thin affiliate site with a bunch of reviews of some cool products….give a few “editors picks” and hey presto.  That would really turn this puppy into a cash blog.

Pay attention to you anchor text. If someone offers you a choice…..grab it with both hands!

(no really, insults get results apparently)

So, who among us can forget Avon Blake.  The little upstart crashed into the blogging world in September, promising to give away a free version of Thesis theme that was coded by Chris Pearson.  Well, actually what Avon promised to do was rip the code, make a few tweaks and release the theme.  He was greeted with both hostility and admiration in the blogsphere, and given a few good links from posts on UpstartBlogger (that’s a PR 7 at the moment from what I can tell, so pretty good quality links).  He got tons of traffic, promised an iphone givaway….and then, after a few more posts went silent.  We are still waiting for his invasion.  A lot of people commented on his first blog post, telling him not to steal code, giving him instant notoriety.

Oh code, people are so possessive over their code, but code wants to be free.  Personally, I think anyone who codes and says they haven’t “borrowed” (and by that I mean stolen) bits of code from others is lying.  If you’ve ever coded a “hello world” or a “bubble sort”, you have stolen some one else’s code.  Plain and simple.  I like the idea of free software, it is the only way we progress……this quote in particular

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

Which I have grabbed from the GNU homepage.

Oh crap, off topic again, so Avon came a-calling and seems to have left.  Well, for all I know he started his 9 other blogs and is making a killing off them. (as an aside, de might have left his theme too late though, I notice Revolution has gone open source)  Maybe he is making money online blogging…..spurred on by Upstartblogger who encouraged him to start up his blog in the first place.   Now and then his blog changes a bit, so I guess he still has it on the backburner.  Recently he got a slap on the wrist from the lawyers at Random House because he promissed to give away a copy of the four hour work week.  Lol…….The irony of this just makes me laugh.  Maybe his invasion will come.  Maybe not.  Maybe he has realised that the make money online niche is over-saturated.  Everyone who wants to make money online seems to start a blog about it.    Avon was going to smash the established order.  He was a punk.  A rebel.  I looked forward to him slamming the A-listers, calling them out, establishing a new order, telling it like it is.  I’m waiting.   I have him to thank though, because he was the straw that broke the camel’s back and got me to start this puppy up.

Now a new upstart (and again linked up from the ultimate upstart of upstarts, UpstartBlogger), Hannah.  Great domain name – HannahSolo.  She grabbed her traffic by insulting Darren Rowse, commenting on his blog and telling him, essentially, that he is full of shit.  Telling him he was running a scam.  Well, she didn’t get the same response Avon got judging from the comments on her blog, but still, she has grabbed a slice of traffic.  I hope this one keeps going.  I hope she keeps blogging.  I hope we haven’t been swindled yet again with a lot of bluster and then no follow through.  I think Hannah should drop by every A-lister and tell them to get stuffed……and write about it, and get a following and then promote a product   Oh the irony that would entail.

I wonder if the new way to mdake  a name for yourself in the blogsphere – or in this little niche of the sphere is to insult people to get an initial run of traffic.  or maybe it’s just a style, born out of people who read upstartblogger…..or maybe Ashley Morgan is getting together a little army of young bloggers to take the power from the established bling bloggers.  Or maybe Avon and Hannah are related to Ashley.  Or maybe they are Ashley lol…..who knows.  If this were hollywood, Avon and Hannah would blog, against the odds of the A-listers trying to silence them, dodging site hackings, insulting all and sundry, eventually they would become aware of each other, fall desperately in love and marry at the wordpress headquarters, with Ashley Morgan riffing in the background with some Miles Davis influenced version of “Here comes the bride”…….   if there’s a tear in your eye, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.

edit….oh I’m too late….the linking has begun.  Hannah has found Avon.

Maybe it is just youthful exuberance, maybe this is how kids can make money these days.  I don’t know.

Maybe I should insult someone to get me some traffic.  Who should it be?  Who is worthy of my insults?  Which pro-blogger needs to be randomly critisised and told they are full of shit?  All of them you say?  Fair point.

(or where I wonder how many times we can sell the same thing)

2008

1983

Proof that you really don’t need an original idea to make money.  And if its true in the world of entertainment, then I don’t see why it isn’t going to apply to the make money online world.

Let’s be honest, if you want to make money from your blog or website then the formula should go something like:

Niche + Content + Traffic = Money for free!

Yeah, ok that’s slightly simplified, but essentially there isn’t anything more complicated about it than that.  Find yourself a niche – you need something that gets good search volume.  You need a niche that you can monetise by contextual ads, affiliate products or your own products.  You need some content – something that will get the context sensitive ads working (if that’s your route), or some sales copy if you are affiliate marketing or selling your own product.  Then, to make money online for free, you need traffic.  More traffic is better.  But you need specific kinds of traffic as well.  Social traffic is fun.  Watching people comment on your blog is very satisfying, but basically, doesn’t really convert to sales very well.  You need organic search traffic.  You need people looking for a sollution to a problem.  In fact, so important is traffic that you can almost do without content if you get enough traffic.  Of course G would never allow that.  You would get slapped.  Probably.

Not to say that making money online is simple, but the formula for it is fairly simple.  And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  I can’t tell you the number of products I see in the mmo niche that are selling exactly the same thing.  How to get traffic.  And the answer itself is: Good solid backlinks.  Article marketing?  it’s about backlinks.  Hubpages?  Squidoo?  backlinks!  Comment Kahuna? Backlinks!  Conduit method?  Backlinks!  30 Minute Backlinks?  it is about backlinks!  at least that one is honest enough to tell you.  The industry is a one trick pony.  We re-package and re-sell methods of getting backlinks.  Heck the less scrupulous don’t even do that.  They simple tell you how to set up a blog……”oh install wordpress, write about what you love, comment on someone else’s blog, watch money come in”  Bollocks.  Nothing without backlinks.

So many products just rehash the same thing again and again and again, I’m thinking about writing an e-book myself.  I need a snappy title….. “Absolute Underdog Ultimate Online Wealth Guide“.  That sums it up nicely.  Then I need a long-ass sales page.  With testimonials from a bunch of people you’ve never heard of.  Why the fuck that makes people more inclined to buy, I’ll never know.  But it seems to work.   Then a nice big “buy it now” button.  Price of only Thirty Nine Ninety Five.  Why?  Oh, I don’t know, cause I like the number.  Then, when people start buying, I’ll set up an affiliate program…..Promote my book, sell it for me and keep 30%.  Yeah! (You know the best part of affiliating out your e-book?  that’s right – backlinks!)

The book itself – oh simple – the first 10 pages will be about how great I am.  The next 10 about how blogging is the future.  The next 10 about using social media.  The last 10 will tell you how to build backlinks……5 pages on “the hard way”  and 5 pages on “the easy way”.

I rekon if the Hoosiers can rehash the same old same old, then I can too.

Make money online for free selling the same thing everyone else is doing.

(or where I figure out what my blog is about)

hang on…..I’m still thinking.

on a side note, you know, I have had demonstrated to me how important backlinks are.  The right backlink from the right blog can do absolute wonders for you.

(or where I do a Friday roundup)

cave subcanem

Man, you know, I’m jealous of Joe’s continued sponsorship on his vids, so I decided to go one up and get me my own brand of vodka….lookit, all canned up for you and everything.  Please note particularly how I have worked very hard with the manufacturer to ensure only web 2.0 colours are used.  Now I realise neat vodka in a can isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it is Friday, so I think we can make allowances. Besides, if you just want to go ahead and make white russians out of it, I ain’t gonna stop you. Just don’t drink on the underground or Boris’ll have your nuts ok? (yeah if you don’t live in london, you won’t get this)

So nobody allerted me to blogactionday despite my post where I promise to donate all my earnings for october and november to charity(and challenge you to do the same). Damn. Shows you how on the ball I am and how new to blogging I am. Oh well – next year, I’m all over it. On the plus side though, Adam, WordVixen and BrialliantJENI have all blogged about my post, which has almost tripled my visitors for the past couple of days, so thank you to all three of them for getting the word out. Clog Money, like batman, is supporting from the shadows and Kouji Haiku is also supporting the idea. Check out the permanent link love for these guys on my page Charity starts online. Looks like SuiteJ is down for an honorary 37 bucks as well ’cause Jeni says so. By the way, Clog Money is hosting a clogpetition (that’s a Clog Money Competition) where you can win a flip camera….all you have to do is profess your love to the Clog Man!

So that’s made us all feel warm and fuzzy and stuff…..what else happened? Damn Upstartblogger lambasted Tim Ferris‘ Four Hour Work Week and Elijah gave us his thoughts on trash talking. Then in an absolutely brazen move, Avon Blake posted that he is giving away pdfs of the Four Hour Work Week. Damn, I have no idea how he is getting around copyright law, but that kid has balls the size of…..I don’t know what, but he has ‘em. Not only that, but this week, I managed to somehow compare washing my bathroom sink to making money online. It is a bit of a wordy post, but the crux of it is to really consider what products and ebooks and advice you need to get money flowing like water into your wallet. Well that’s what I took from the post anyway, but hey, interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. Anyhoo, I realise that given my self-confessed meagre online success, it seems a bit hypocritical to dish out mmo advice to anyone but the newest of noobs, so next week, I’m going to start writing about some things that I actually know something about. What could it be you say? What could the Underdog actually know about? maybe I’ll bark up the wrong tree….maybe I’ll tell you why I don’t like Buddhism…maybe I’ll delve into the depths of the human condition….maybe I’ll just have another Underdog Vodka.

Hope to see you then.

(or where I pontificate on sink design and how it pertains to making money like water on the internet)

Underdogblogger's Sink

Stick with it……This is my bathroom sink. I hate cleaning it. And I’ll tell you why. See, my bathroom sink has a design floor in it. There is a spot in front of the plughole that seems to pool water. More importantly, when I’m cleaning my bathroom, this spot pools dirt infested water. See, I live in London. We have very hard water here. Limescale is the enemy! And to effectively remove limescale without using industrial strength bleach and other nasty chemicals…..which I really prefer to keep out of my household as much as possible, you have to apply a little elbow grease.

Oh, how you taunt me you debris collecting area

I’m not afraid of mucking in. I’m not afraid of scrubbing a little. I think it builds a bit of character. I mean – I don’t trust anyone who isn’t at least prepared to clean up their own shit. So I use one of those little scourers to clean my bathroom. A nice eco-friendly cleaning solution (take your pick) and a little bit of scrubbing with the scourer takes the limescale right off. Problem is, little bits of limescale and scourer debris form and pool right in front of the plughole.  Yep – right there – lookit right where the green arrow is pointing. It’s a pain to wash down the plughole. You have to sort of push it with your hand or sponge to encourage those little devils into the waste pipe. That isn’t how it should be. It’s a sink…by definition, water (well anything liquid really) should just roll downwards into the waste pipe. I know the debris are composed of little bits of solid, but they should be carried by the water…..they aren’t that heavy.

Stick with it, this post gets better….
So, there’s a design floor in my sink. Bad! I don’t like it. I went looking for a new one, ’cause these little things do bug me. But you know what. I couldn’t find anywhere that actually had a working model for me to test. Nowhere in my local bathroom specialist shop (erm ok, Wickes and B&Q) could I test a working bathroom sink. Sure, they look pretty. But they don’t have running water plumbed in. How can I test them? How can I see if they are better than mine? I think this is a fundamental floor in bathroom sales. They should have a few different sinks plumbed in, and give you the option of running your routine on them to test them out. You know, brush your teeth – check the toothpaste is properly propelled down the hole by the force of the water. Do a little cleaning, make sure it scrubs up nice and that the debris are propelled down the plughole. That would be cool. I could get behind that. Heck, I would have bought a new sink if I found one that worked! But no. All I find are various dry, though very sparkly looking bathroom sinks, just waiting to be swapped for cash. Hmph…not impressed.

Now water flow is very difficult to model. And I expect your average budget sink is not designed with complex water flow models on a CAD system. I expect they are made in a roughly pleasing looking shape that basically tapers towards the plughole. So I’m on the lookout for the most sharply contoured sink I can find. That should do it.  That should sink the damn debris.  Oh-hohohoho.  C’mon not even a small chuckle?  Geez, lighten up.

Stick with it……

The very notion that you can make money online by purchasing a product which you cannot test out is the same….erm ok, not the same, but take a small leap of faith. All the products look shiny, just like the sinks. They all look like they will help funnel piles of income towards your wallet much like the sink looks like it should funnel whatever is thrown into it down the plughole. But, internet traffic is like water; pretty tricky to model, pretty tricky to predict. So the system cannot be foolproof. Imagine what it would be like if the pros took an about turn and started allowing you to test the methods before you paid up, much like I want to test out some sinks before I hand over my dosh.

Hmmmm.

Stick with it………

There’s an interesting thought. Do you think they would still be wallowing in money? I’m not so sure myself. I suspect, much like my sink, much of what is out there would do nothing more than trap money tantelisingly close to your wallet, but not actually in it, much like my sink traps debris oh-so-close to the plughole, but doesn’t actually deliver the final push. See, the sink is like the search engine….the water represents internet traffic and the tap – erm the tap is the spark of life that makes these people exist and by pure serendipitous circumstance sit on their pc looking for your webpage…nevermind, the tap isn’t important….Let’s consider the golden egg of internet marketing – organic search traffic. You want the tap to open, traffic to flow into the sink of the internet and be funnelled into the plughole that is your webpage. Yes! No! Wait – I’m not saying your webpage is a plughole or in any way shape or form equivalent to a sewage transport mechanism. But yes, you want that traffic like water flowing into your plughole-like webpage. What you don’t want is for the traffic to get stuck, the debris to sit there, next to your plughole-like webpage, but not actually in it (can you be in a webpage?). Now whether we are selling a product ourselves, affiliate marketing a product or relying on adsense, organic search traffic will be our golden egg. Crack that little bugger and you will have golden omelets forever. Social traffic is nice – the community is cool, the people are fun, but they ain’t gonna make you rich. Well I suppose they might if you build up enough trust and rapport with them and then flog them something. But then it would have to be of real value – well it would for me. I wouldn’t want to sell some crap to my friends, even if they are only virtual buddies. I’m not saying all internet marketers would sell their grandmother, but it is the sort of industry where your morals can quickly slide out from under you. If you dabble in selling a weight loss product you don’t believe in, or a method you don’t follow, or some dating site with a webpage that preys on people’s fear of being alone, then your morals are on perched on top of a banana on a tiled floor, and getting heavier by the minute….pretty soon; morals; flat on back. Anyhoo, back to the old sink and plughole. Given that we want organic search traffic, what products or courses should I purchase? The ones that could teach how to get organic search traffic.

Stick with it…..

Consider that piece of software or that ebook you are buying. Is it the most sharply contoured method that will have traffic and money flowing into your pocket almost as quickly as water flows into the plughole? Is it my ideal sink? Or will it simply take your money and leave the traffic sitting in a puddle, much like my sink takes leaves my cleaning debris? So much of this industry is funded by continually placing fear into people’s minds. Making them believe that they are only one more secret away from being an internet millionaire.
Bullshit.

But then, I’m not making millions flogging another ebook you don’t need. So I don’t really know what I’m talking about

I do know though, that bathroom sink design needs to be re-thought. Maybe I should do away with the sink and just have a big pipe. I don’t really ever run water into my bathroom sink anyway. Its only job is to catch my toothpaste when I spit and get a little dirty every week so that I have to clean it, and go about my struggle of washing down the debris.  At what point will the sink of the internet become the plughole?  When will the search engine be the internet?  Maybe I should be the search engine.

Now while I’m on the subject of water. Here’s something bizarre. I don’t really get modern art. Kind of like I don’t get freeform atonal jazz. I just miss the point. But there is this artist who placed an istallation in a museum shop. The piece? A bucket of water. ” Wow” you say?  “Deep” you say?  “Symbolic” you say? Here is the bizzare…to get the water into the bucket, he employed a plumber to run a pipe from the nearest bathroom to the shop, filled the bucket from the pipe and then had the plumber remove the piping again so there was no trace of the bucket filling. Hmmmmmm. Much like the relationship of this anecdote to the rest of this post about making money like water, I just don’t get it. I told you, I know some strange stuff.

Now, try not to use the phrase “Stick with it” in conversation today…..

(or where I tell you how to make money)

The internet is awash with people telling us how to make money online, how to make money for free, how to make money blogging.  You can buy ebooks by the bucketload.  You can join masterclasses and online academies by the shedload, you can purchase video courses by the shitload.  Everyone and his donkey will try and tell you the secret method this and the advanced method that.  BUY my NEW PRODUCT! “Bought, you bought it, bought, you bought it”! (aside – first comment to identify the song being referenced will get some link love…..not that my link love is worth much, but what the fuck, yours probably isn’t either if you’re reading this).  But among the flotsam and jetsam…..well really just jetsam because information does not float around the internet as a consequence of the sea of information…..or maybe it does, maybe google creates flotsam.  But we get sidetracked into pedantry.  The internet is awash with jetsam – for this is what it is – items jettisoned by every savvy marketer out there; for you don’t really believe they would give away their best secrets do you?  You do?  oh.  ok.

Now where were we, floating among the jetsam are some interesting things.  One such thing is this video which will teach you, among other things how you can turn $1,000 into $100,000 and how to make money out of nothing:

Oh man, you didn’t really believe me did you?  Especially after reading that bit about the flotsam and jetsam.  Still, I hope you watched the video, because with all the crap going on with the financial institutions in America, it is interesting to see why and how those institutions are failing.  The base they have built is false.  The money they lent you never did exist.  In fact, I would say the first ten minutes of this video are so important that everyone on the internet should watch them.  The entire concept that banks lend you the very money that you will be paying them back and in doing so create money from nothing is at once disturbing and enlightening.  Not to mention one of the greatest robberies of all time (leaving out the priceless treasures in the British Museum which must count as the second greatest heist of all time).  Understanding the institution we are buying into while trying to make a crust online is, in my opinion, essential for our overall sanity, perspective and balance.

Money does not exist, except when we create it as debt.  Which begs the question, why are we all still here, chasing after it?