Elijah, Author at The At Home Couple

Free Yourself: Blog Naked

When is the last time you looked at the reflection of your computer monitor and asked yourself, “is my blogging game tight?” If you’re a fashion victim and wear $97 socks while blogging than success will surely come your way. On the flip side, if you are not in any financial position to be wearing platinum encrusted foot gear, what steps can you take to tighten your money making game while feeling good about yourself at the same time? Try blogging naked! If you still have a day job and do most of your blogging while at the office, don’t go ripping off your clothes and chanting “Yes We Can!” while documenting the entire event live on Justin.tv – I really don’t see that going well with your superiors or the psychiatric departments of your countries government.

I know what you are thinking, and I will answer the question for you: yes, I have blogged naked. Now for all you perverts in the blogsphere I don’t blog naked ALL the time – so kindly remove that thought and stop rubbing your nipples. I was talking to a couple of my Bloggerhood brothers and sisters on Skype over the weekend, and some how mentioned that I should probably put on some clothes. This obviously spawned some laughing, disbelief and questions especially from my sushi-slangin socialholic, and human pineapple – BrilliantJeni. Let me elaborate on this a little more…

On occasion I have blogged in my birthday suit and it usually occurs by circumstance, sometimes by choice, for example: It’s night time and I am in bed watching television while Veronica is sleeping. Suddenly I will get a crazy idea and have no choice but to get out of bed and hit the lap top in the living room. On my way to the living room I realize that we had West Indian food for dinner, and I have an overdue appointment with the toilet. Considering I sleep in boxers, it’s not uncommon that I leave the bathroom with my boxers still on the floor – especially when the weather is cooling down and our apartment is 100 degrees Fahrenheit because of our over-eager 1930’s water radiator heating system. This seems to be a habit I’ve developed over the years.

I completely understand that not everyone is comfortable with their booty hanging out, and fortunately for myself I am – unfortunate for others because I was that guy in my late teens that would get drunk at parties, strip down, and start chasing girls around the pool pulling at their bathing suits and throwing them in with their drinks and all. I’m sure that point in my life has something to do with it, and Veronica already knows these stories so if you were thinking of ratting me out – I appreciate the thought.

Anyways, here’s what I want to pose to all of our wonderful readers: I want all of you to try blogging naked – and I don’t necessarily mean with no clothes on. I want you guys to strip down your inhibitions, write about whatever is on your mind, talk however you want to talk without a concern for what people will think about you. Blogging is the closest thing to absolute freedom that you will ever find. There are no censors, no rules (for the most part) and very few forces to intimidate you or make you feel segregated. If you’re cool with taking my challenge literally and stripping off your clown suit and makeup for a few hours while you blog – go for it! For those of you who have big families with children, and friends of children that frequent your home be weary when deciding to do this. We don’t anybody going to jail!

Image Tiffany coming home from high school with a couple of her girlfriends to study, and they walk in the front door only to realize that Mr. Jones is completely naked, minus the hair that blankets his back and the lap top on his… well… lap. “Hi girls, Mrs. Jones left some brownies in the kitchen for you, and I think there might be some leftover hot dogs in the microwave from last night. If you’re going to the mall later and need a ride, just give me a tap on the shoulder when you’re ready to go!” Poor Tiffany.

Cheers,

Elijah

President Of The Blogosphere: Vote Now

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat: I’m fully aware that in the next few hours there will be a new President of the United States of America, and being a Canadian through and through combined with my near zero interest (tolerance) for politricks makes this event fairly low on my list of “things to think about today”. Unfortunately, there is more coverage on Canadian cable television of the American election than there was of the Canadian election a few weeks back (bet you didn’t even know there was one), so I’ve been unwillingly subjected to an onslaught of Anderson Cooper and his flawless hairdo.

Nevertheless, I began to think about blogging and asked myself “what if there was a president of the blogosphere that represented bloggers world wide”? That questions spawned this post, and I’m sure you’re now seeing where I’m going with this.

If you had a chance to vote in your favorite, most influential pro blogger of this current day and age, who would it be? I don’t want to say guru because we’re specifically talking about people who make a living as professional bloggers, or Internet marketers who’ve made such an impact that they’ve crossed over to the blogosphere to share their learning’s and expertise. I’m not expecting a novel, but if you guys would be so kind to give me your vote for who you think would represent the blogosphere the truest, and why you believe so – I’m really curious to see if there are any identifiable trends.

Shoemoney, John Chow, Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse, Ian Fernando, whoever – Put in your vote!

P.S. If I was an American Citizen (I have my residency) I would vote for Obama without blinking.

Cheers,

Elijah

Blog Report For October 2008

Yes indeed – I’m back from the dead! The end of October marks the three month anniversary of our beautiful blog, and all you beautiful people who actually read what I type into this little window every now and then. I’m still amazed by that! For those of you who I don’t talk to outside of reciprocal commenting, October has been an insane month from every angle possible. I’ve faced some of the hardest challenges online over the last 31 days and it’s really showed with the lack of posting – and for that I want to apologize.

On the same token, October showed a trim down of posting on the majority of blogs within my social network, which means that all my ninjas in The Bloggerhood have been super busy either preparing for Christmas traffic, or just trying to end the year with a real bang! Everyone I talk to on a daily basis has multiple projects going on simultaneously, and let me be the first to say that some of these projects I’ve been hearing about are absolutely groundbreaking!

The blogosphere is about to change my friends, and there is a serious movement happening right now. A movement of Average Joes and Simple Suzies that are about to knock all the high ranked bloggers out of the park. I am seeing this movement form right before my eyes everyday, with every email I read or every phone call I get. Things are starting to click and it’s an honor to be a part of this.

October was a pinnacle month for my career online – and I’m now calling it a career because I’ve officially made enough income to report on, so I don’t see myself getting a day job any time soon providing things continue as planned (which they will if I have anything to say about it!) Now I don’t plan to report my earnings every month, but with this month being a milestone I felt it would be appropriate.

Traffic

Now unfortunately due to my severe shift in posting, link building and commenting during October, there has been a decline in traffic compared to last month. I’m not worried at all because I know why our traffic didn’t continue to rise and I also know what needs to be done to bring those numbers back up. Here’s the breakdown not including today:

1379 unique visitors
3527 number of visits
11171 pages viewed
113.77 average daily uniques

Subscribers

As always, Feedburner is fucking up right now and giving me an error 500 when I click on sign in, so I won’t be able to report the exact sub numbers for October. What I can tell you is that last time I checked, which was about 2 days ago we were at 103 subscribers which is a huge increase from the 67 subscribers reported at the end of September. You people are all amazing and I want to make sweet love to each and every one of you. Dudes can substitute the sweet love making for a cold beer and a high five.

Earnings

Time for the bread and butter. As I’m logging into my respective money receiving accounts I can’t actually believe I just typed earnings into my blog, within a blog report post. To think 12 months ago I didn’t even own a blog, or know what an <h1> tag was – it’s a beautiful thing! For the month of October my main focus was developing, establishing and selling start up niche sites. Most refer to this process as Site Flipping. The whole movement of flippers online is really amazing when you think about it – rather than people writing ebooks that teach people how to make money, they’re building niche sites that make people money! I also had a record month with Adsense, by fluke, because a gentleman whom I sold a site to has refused to change the Adsense code out of apparent laziness! This can happen with site flipping, and can be rewarding!

Site Flipping – $1021.00 (6 websites)
Adsense – $16.73 (getting closer to my first Adsense check!)
Clickbank – $27.00 (1 sale)
Amazon – $0.00 (some assmunch returned something)
Pepperjam – $0.00 (because I haven’t earned anything, I get rejected for every decent campaign. Doesn’t make any damned sense!)
Neverblueads – $1.00 (got one lead!)
Prostitution – $13.74 (some old lady paid me to tie her shoe and touch her boob)

Upcoming Projects

I can’t be too specific on my ninja projects for November, but sources tell me that SutieJ likes to talk, especially if you bribe him with coffee and Hip Hop. So find him on Skype and send him a Tim Horton’s gift card (Canada’s equivalent of Dunkin Donuts) and the new Nas album via iTunes, and I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding out what I have up my sleeve for this month. Even better, visit ImWithJoe.com and tell Dready Kruger that you’ve sent, via FedEx, a steaming hot Philly Cheese Steak sammich, and built a giant goldfish out of pop tarts that you will give to him in exchange for my detailed November ninja plans. All it takes is food and Hip Hop to bribe my friends. Assholes.

In short, I have two sites that I will be developing for my own portfolio this month. One of them will be a review/conduit style site that covers various niche markets – chasing after long tail keywords to catch consumers in the “buying” stage for maximum conversions. This is also known as the Conduit Method by some. The second site, which I’m super hyped up about, will be an extension of my blog/ninja skills in the form of providing my services to the webmasters/MMO market.

So expect at least one site launch in November if things go as planned!

By the way, if you’re unfamiliar or have never heard of the Conduit Method, you absolutely need to stop by TheLazyMarketer.com and take a peak at his VIP reports – no bullshit, straight to the point make money techniques that work.

There you have it. I really hope everyone had a great October, and if not, keep pushing forward! I know everyone tells you the same fucking things online “don’t give up” “keep your chin up” “keep testing things out” “it will eventually click” and the fact of the matter is that this is all true. If October was a shitty month for you, and you can’t make a penny online, it’s time to stop sleeping and get desperate. Whore yourself out at the old folks home so you can grab a few domains, and get cracking. Steal ideas from those around you, while pretending to enjoy their virtual company and talk shit about them behind their backs.

Or… Work hard and realize that nothing happens over night. Destroy that dream of getting rich quick and reach out towards like minded people. Discard your insecurities and put your ass on the line, and you’ll be surprised to realize that once you have nothing to loose things start to come together. I promise.

Cheers,

Elijah

Internet Marketing Causes Insomnia

It’s 4:46 am here in Toronto, and after 3 and a half hours of laying in bed with my eyes closed I have given up on trying to fall asleep. I’ve been a night owl since I was a child, always making a fuss when it came time for my mom to put my sister and I to bed, and as an adult I go through these periods of insomnia usually caused by the obstacle of not having enough hours in the day to get things done – even when I’m unemployed and at home. It’s a known fact that excessive amounts of time in front of a computer can put serious stress on your eyes, and cause your brain to have troubles “shutting down” at the end of the night and I’m sure most bloggers and Internet marketers can attest to that, especially if you haven’t reached the 4 hour work week pillar in your online career as of yet. I know we’ll all get there eventually…

The quest to make money online is an addiction. It goes hand in hand with crack, small children and Pringles – once you pop you can’t stop! I bet every one of you can remember that first moment when the veil was lifted, and you came to realize that beneath all the sales hype and push-button promises there was an actual industry of people making a living online, using the same business foundations and marketing fundamentals you were taught in the real world – and that these people were cashing in on something very real, and very possible. That moment when you discovered search engine optimization and what a “spider” was, or the very first time you heard about affiliate marketing and how people make an income promoting products that they don’t even own – it was a beautiful moment indeed!

I can also bet that once the blinders were removed you didn’t sleep for a few days, or months…

I just came up with an amazing idea for a niche product – Dealing With Insomnia: An Internet Marketer’s Guide. Included will be audio tapes of CPU noise, or the soothing sounds of a keyboard typing away with the occasional instant messaging notification. Joint venture anyone?

For real though, I need to snap out of this going-to-bed-at-all-kinds-of-crazy-ass-hours slump that I’m in. Not only is it hindering my productivity and time management, but it’s also not good for my mental and physical health. Regulated sleep is vital for any home business person and is just as important as having a good accountant and getting fresh air on a daily basis – which is another area where I’m lacking. Yes I’ve actually made enough money this month to cover my half of rent and call Visa’s collection department with a payment confirmation number, but at what cost? I’m going to bed between 4 and 7 am and usually waking up between 10 am and 3 pm on a semi-regular basis.

Not good.

Time for a much needed change. Valerian Root Extract here I come!

Cheers,

Elijah

Success Starts With Your Socks

This past Saturday I got together with some friends to celebrate the 28th birthday of my friend Alistair Hill, and if you remember my post on finding local niche markets to dominate, Alistair is definitely a dude who shows great interest in outside-the-box business models – and more recently this whole Internet marketing madness I’ve been engulfed in. I have a great circle of boys who all support each other and for the most part, are all successful in their own way. As much as it may seem to others that we’re a bunch of drunken hooligans when we’re out on the town, genius happens quite frequently at these gatherings and Saturday was no different.

For Al’s birthday we decided to go bar hopping, or what some may refer to as a pub crawl, with more soldiers joining the brigade as the night progressed. Stop number two on the night was a quaint little establishment known as Sharkey’s; A contemporary, low-lit gastro pub with a menu and wait staff that were equally attractive. Joining our original party of three was a handful of other friends who stumbled in from various locations throughout the city, and for the topic of this blog I will be introducing you to our good friend Vic.

Vic is one of those unique, eclectic type of cats that are completely unassuming – especially if you were to see him walking down the street. He’s currently on his way to becoming a full fledged Architect within the next 24 months and has an insane knowledge of music culture. Combine this with a pretty intense shoe fetish and the ability to inflict unforgettable moments in conversation, and you’ll begin to have a brief understanding of why we love it when Vic comes out to play!

The moment of truth…

After two or three rounds of drinks, about seven rounds into the night, the discussion was on the topic of prostitution and goat cheese – feel free to be creative and figure that one out. Vic jumped in changing the direction a little by asking us all a question, “Do you know what sets apart the upper class of society from regular guys like us?” Somehow I knew there was undeniable substance behind Vic’s train of thought as he began to tell us about a professor at school, and how he’s recently noticed that he never wears the same pair of socks twice. Where normal guys go to Wal-Mart and grab the 24 pairs for $13, upper class dudes have a more refined taste in foot comfort and tend to pay upwards of $97 for a 12 pairs of Gold Toe Windsor wool socks which they will never wear twice in the same week, or month for that matter. The moment of truth at the table hit pretty hard as Vic concluded that his professors level of success is because, and I quote:

“His sock game is tight!”

You heard right! His sock game is tight, and having a tight sock game is vital to success in today’s business world. Now let’s think about this for a minute. Will buying $97 socks improve your chances of running a profitable business online? Probably not. If anything, spending that much money on socks will guarantee your future bankruptcy status and ensure that your wallet is forever empty. Symbolically speaking, this particular individual is one who believes in the “dress for success” theory and your only as good as you look because we all know in the real world, first impressions are everything.

Maybe it’s the attention and care for minute detail, or the strive for perfection that has set the threshold of sock quality so high? I think it would be safe to say that someone who cares that much about their feet would naturally expect supreme quality from their business and personal life, and those are the type of people you would want to be surrounded by when you’re first starting out. I’m sure you’re getting my drift, or at least I hope you are!

You can’t expect to take care of business if you don’t take care of yourself. Treat yourself to a nice dinner every now and then, or go out and buy that golf club that you’ve had your eye on for the last few months. Don’t be stupid and put yourself into more debt, but at the same time don’t fixate on spending $60 that you hypothetically “don’t have” because if you really stop to think about it, when will you really “have” the money to spend? Never. Sacrifice is absolutely necessary to budget and create surplus, but don’t cheat yourself completely – live your life to the fullest, and surround yourself by things that make you happy. Make sure your “sock game is tight” and everything else will fall into place.

According to Vic.

Cheers,

Elijah

51 Free Online Webmaster Tools

I haven’t been posting on the weekends for a while now, but as I was surfing the Sitepoint.com marketplace doing my daily seek and destroy exercises I stumbled upon a start-up site for sale FreeOnlineSeoTools.com – which I originally encountered a few days previous. Why am I telling you about a site for sale that’s not even mine? It has nothing to do with the site being for sale! I’m letting you guys know about this site because of the 51 free online webmaster tools it gives you. I’ve spent the last few minutes testing out a handful of them, and I must say that the majority of these tools are super resourceful and easy to use – just finished submitting TheAtHomeCouple.com to 23 high traffic web directories and 19 of the top search engines in a few minutes using the cool little submitter tools on the site!

Here’s a list of the cool tools available to Ninjas everywhere:

Backlink Checker
HTML Encrypter
Link Analyzer
Meta-Tag Generator
HTML Optimizer
Ping Script
Search Engine Listing Preview
URL Shortener
Website Status Checker
Countdown Generator
E-mail Image Generator
Javascript Hit Counter
IP Locator (country)
Keyword Click Value Tool
Valid Link Checker
List Cleaner
Website Resolution Viewer
Firewall Scanner
Single-Level Sitemap Creator
Text Website Viewer
Unix Time Converter
Automated Directory Submitter
Automated Search Engine Submitter
Fake Rank Checker
Google Banned Checker
Keyword Density Checker
Keyword Suggestion Generator
Link Popularity Checker
Link Suggestion Generator
Multiple Keyword Search Engine Position
Multiple Website Search Engine Position
Multi-Rank Checker (PageRank and Alexa)
No-Follow Finder
Reciprocal Link Checker
Search Engine Position Checker
Search Engine Saturation Checker
Site Spider Viewer
HTTP Header Viewer
Browser Details Tool
Alexa Traffic Rank Checker
Online Calculator
Anonymous Email Script
HTTP Header Extractor
Reverse IP/Look-up Script
MD5 Encrypter
Meta Tag Extractor
Site Rank Checker
Source Code Viewer
Website Speed Test
Spider Viewer
Domain Whois Retriever

I’m sure these are not the best tools available for free on the Internet, but I’m also sure that at least a handful of these tools work just fine! Bookmark FreeOnlineSeoTools.com and visit it whenever you build a new niche site, need to do some research or simply feel like stealing a competitors meta information – it’s all at your finger tips!

Cheers,

Elijah