Derek Ang

Does your linking strategy helps?

This is a common question. Does building links to your website really helps? Yes! Its helps alot. This month, i had been spending a couple of hours to build links for my blog and now i am starting to see the results.

Link building Strategy 1 - Submitting to link directories:

Building links to link directories is a MUST for every new websites, because google like one-way links and theres ton of free directrories available in the internet that does not required reciprocal links. So if you ask me, which type of link should i build? One way link? two way link? or three way link? I would definitely suggest one way links. Building links through directories is not an immediate effect, you may be submitting your links for hundreds or even thousands of directories, but did not see any results. Don’t be despair, you will definitely see the fruits for your labor, thats what the research and case studies said. For me, i had been submiting to around 200 link directories per month, averaging 7 links per day. Reason that i choose NOT to submit to large number of link directories per month is because its looks “weird” to google. Google may penalised your site due to suspicious avtivities? who knows? Another reason is because i am lazy. LOL. Currently, i do not see much results for this strategy but i am 100% sure this strategy works!. For a list of directories that i had been submitting my blog to, check out here.

Link building Strategy 2 - Using wordpress themes to build links:

For those of you who follow my blog, you will know that another link strategy that i had come out for my blog is to distribute wordpress themes. Currently till now, Blackwire Premium wordpress theme had been downloaded couple of hundreds times(around 300+) and its still increasing. I had predicted 10% of the users will infact use it. I think this is a pretty good result for my first wordpress theme and i am planning for another release soon. I am having emails telling me, i am not a web designer, can i still use this method to build links? how long does it take for me to learn how to design a wordpress theme. Well, the world is full of alternatives.

1) You can sponsor a wordpress theme. Just for around $20(current market price?) you can get a link from themes by wp designers.

2) You can buy the full theme with all rights. ( check out webmaster forums for prices, i am sure you can get a pretty decent one for $80+)

3) You can start learning how to design wordpress themes. Coding looks pretty simple, mainly all html and some syntax of php( which is explained fully in detailed at wordpress.org).

Current Status For Derek-ang.com

• I am getting around 100 to 200+ uniques according to cpanel awstats.
• Alexa ratings of 728,315 ( The lower the better). I am sure it will be decreased soon.
• Google pr of 0 ( guess it will be around pr 3 in the next google update, lets see)
• Technorati blog ranking of 58,325 with 111 authority. My aim is to bring this blog to the top 10k.

 

Have you upgraded to Wordpress 2.5?

Hi folks, wordpress 2.5 is available for download now!. If you had not upgrade to 2.5 yet, do so now! Here’s a list of features in version 2.5x

New User Features

• Admin redesign (see WordPress Interface Guidelines)
• Widget-based dashboard
• You should be able to have any number of any widget
• Undo for comment editing
• Search for both posts and pages 1435
  • What do people want from this?
  • How do the best plugins implement it?

Developer

• Use $wpdb->prepare everywhere
• Switch to expect unescaped data for internal functions
• XML-RPC refactor
• Plugabble media buttons

The admin panel in version 2.5 looks really great! See below for a preview of the admin panel

Why woman live longer than man?

Have you ever wonder why woman tends to live longer than man? Read the below abstract:

Studying people who live 100 years and more leads Harvard researchers to conclude that menopause is a major determinant of the life spans of both women and men.

Women’s life span depends on the balance of two forces, according to Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at Harvard Medical School. One is the evolutionary drive to pass on her genes, the other is the need to stay healthy enough to rear as many children as possible. “Menopause draws the line between the two,” Perls says. It protects older women from the risks of bearing children late in life, and lets them live long enough to take care of their children and grandchildren.

As for men, Perls believes “their purpose is simply to carry genes that ensure longevity and pass them on to their daughters. Thus, female longevity becomes the force that determines the natural life span of both men and women.”

In my own opinion, woman tends to live longer because they are not easily agitated. (Is that true?) Man, on nature are the other way round. Surveys had found out that majority of the man in the world rides motorbikes and thus most man are involved in deadly accidents. Also, the percentage of man in the millitary forces are more then that of woman, so, its more possible for man to died in war than woman?

 

Blackwire Wordpress Theme

Theme Name: Blackwire Theme

Description: Blackwire is a web 2.0 professionally designed premium wordpress theme that is available to the public for free. It is xhtml and css validated. Comes with psd files.

Theme Screenshot:

Theme File Size: 920Kb

Theme License: GPL

Theme Demo: http://www.themes.derek-ang.com

Theme Download: http://www.derek-ang.com/themes/blackwire.zip

Damn Funny Video!!

Hi guys, here to show some funny video about japanese pranks… LOL

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What has gotten into the heads of internet marketers in dp?

First of all, i am not an internet marketer. I am just writiing my views from the perspective of a customer. Browsing forums like digitalpoint for ebooks, has been one of my habits. I myself prefers to read ebooks or buy books online to going to the bookshop to buy books, because it saves time and its very convenient. Recently, i had been browsing through the forums for some ebooks and something caught my attention. Theres  a thread, someone is selling his ebook for just $1. WTF is that? Why is this guy pricing his products at such a low cost?

What has gotten into the heads of those internet marketers in dp? Pricing of products is a major factor that determines the sales. Customers normally won’t go for products that are sold at high cost. So, you might have thought, “Ok! i will price it at damn lost cost to attract more buyers” You might had done some simple calculations in your head.

Total revenue expected: $20000
Price of ebook initially:$40
So, you would have to sell 500 copies of that ebook to reach that target.

How many people are willing to pay $40 for an ebook? Maybe not much. So you lowered the price of the ebook. I agreed you should lowered it. BUT, heres what you done:

Total revenue expected: $20000
Price of ebook NOW :$1
So, you would have to sell 20000 copies of that ebook to reach that target.

You might had thought that by pricing it at just $1, you get definitely get more customers, and it will be easier to reach that target. You might be half right. But is it worth it?? Will you able to make more by pricing it at slightly higher price? Let me tell you how the customers think. By underpricing your products too much, you might get negative effects.

1. Your sales decline. Normally, people will believe those products are of low quality and they won’t buy it. They will have this type of thinking “This product must sucks! If not why are they pricing it at such low cost?”
2. You are not maximsing your profits along with the effort you had put in. ( you are selling something that you probably can sell for $20 for $1) You are earning 20 times lesser then what you should earn intially

So back to questions. Why do you think customers buy ebook for? As a customer, let me tell you this. Customers buy ebooks to learn more things, they go for quality content. And, you can be assure that, no matter how much the ebook cost, if its reasonable price, they will buy it. So by underpricing your ebooks at “$1″, will makes your ebook looks “cheap” and of low quality. And this is a serious problem because you know customers goes for quality.

Pricing a product may seems to be simple. BUT, in fact, it requires alot of brainstorming and research so as to maximise the profits. Pricing of a product might lead to your product sucess, but may also lead to failure. Thats what i thought..

List of web directories

A short but useful post today, i had been browsing through the forums and found out that alot of members are actually looking for a list of web directories for their link development. I had taken some of my time to compile a list of web directories. You can download at directorylist.pdf Cheers to everyone!

Do you make mistakes that lead to failure?

Was browsing through the net and find this list. Its a list of failures of famous people in the world.

1. Einstein was 4 years old before he could speak.
2. Iassc Newton did poorly in grade school and was considered “unpromising.”
3. When Thomas Edison was a youngster, his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. He was counseled to go into a field where he might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality.
4. F.W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his boss would not permit him to wait on customers because he “didn’t have enough sense to close a sale.”
5. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
6. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he “lacked imagination and had no original ideas.”
7. Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade and had to repeat it because he did not complete the tests that were required for promotion.

I believe everyone made mistakes in their life. Me too, i make alot of mistakes in my life that lead to failures. Failure in friendship, failure in personality/character etc. Do you guys really experience failure before? Failure that leave a scar in your entire life, failure that leave a scar in your character.

I don’t know about yours, but for me, that mistakes that i had made, i could still remember clearly despites after long years. As the saying goes, “Time can heal wounds”, i only believe in that partially. Yes, time can heal phyiscal wounds, but can time heal mental wounds? Can time heal mistakes? My answer is “NO”. Why? any prove?any evidence? Because time did not heal my mental wounds, did not heal my mistakes. Well, when  a person makes mistakes, people tend to remember it, despite all the good things that he had done. It was like, you are a white paper, just one mistakes in life, make your paper stained with maybe some black ink. This ink will be on you forever and that white paper wont be “white” ever again. A recent e.g will be edison chen incident, i am sure when i mentioned edison chen, people will straightway think of his sex scandal with numerous actress. Did you guys think of how much he contribued to the charity? How many great pieces of work he had done for past few years? Similarly, if you were once a traitor under certain unwanted circumstances, how will you feel like everytime people thinks of you, they think of  ”traitor”? Even though you are forgiven for that mistake, you could not forgive yourself? Have you ever feel this before?

Life is all about regrets, its all  about mistakes. Once we make a mistake, we must be responsible for that mistake that we made for the rest of the life as this little mistake that you made will follows you in your entire life, into your dreams. Thats the power of mistakes. 

Paid blogpost

As you can see, I had added a paid blog post category in the blog. By doing so, i would like try more alternatives ways to make money off the blog.

So what is the deal? You, the advertiser send me the article that you want to publish in the blog after making the payment. Your articles may only contains 5 links and one image. And, only 2 paid posts are allowed in this blog per day, others will be queued. Anyone who is interested in getting a paid blog post can contact me using the contact form in the blog.

I aim to earn a stable amount of $10 per month for a kick off. Currently for the month of march, the blog earns $3 up to now. From one sponsor ad, and one paid post. $7 more dollars to hit the target!

Adding video to your website is easy!

Web video is becoming very popular these days. Earlier it was quite costly
for a webmaster to afford vidoes on a website. But with the advent of the latest
streaming video software, one can easily afford cool videos on a website. It is
said that videos on a website can boost your sales or your conversion but it
is still a controversy.

You have to test it yourself and figure out if video really works on your site or for your niche. Not all niches are video friendly, however some niches can definitely benefit from web video. The easiest way to add video to a website is to submit your video to video sharing websites like youtube or metacalfe and then these websites will give you the piece of code to put on your website. Once you put the code, voila! the video shows up on your webpage. However if you want to have total control of your videos, the best is to use some popular streaming video software like Coffee Cup or EasyFLV.

These software specially EasyFLV gives separate solutions like single track video players, multitrack video players and free flv converter as well. If you feel you need to add videos to yourwebsite, get started today!

Visit www.easyflv.com now!