Last week I was sent an ebook (I will do a review of it next week) that had the same sort of make money online, live from anywhere sort of theme as many books that are floating around out there. After reading through it though I actually came away with a lot of new knowledge and I was really impressed. Sure, I would have scoured the internet to find most of the information but, in some cases, I wouldn’t have even been sure what to search for. In short, I was impressed.

This got me thinking about the review I left for Nomadic Matt’s ebook last month. I still don’t think it’s a bad review but it wasn’t as glowing as perhaps it should have been. After reading through the other ebook and being impressed by all the new things I was learning about keyword research, link farming and other possibly shady SEO tactics, I thought more about Matt’s book. I feel like I was a bit too hard on it because a lot of what he had written wasn’t new to me. I wasn’t as impressed as someone who would have been getting this knowledge for the first time and I forgot about what it was like back when I was first learning all this stuff.

So with that in mind I am going to put a little push on to sell some of Matt’s books. He is running a contest that offers a free ipod Touch (or a flight or camera of equal value) to the affiliate who sells the most ebooks in October (which is an excellent marketing move on Matt’s part - take note!) In an effort not to come across as a total sleeze who is suddenly recommending his book now that there’s a prize involved, I have decided that if I sell the most books in October and win his contest, I will have Matt send the prize to someone who bought the ebook from my website, drawn at random.

So if I’m giving away his prize, what’s in it for me, you ask? Well I will still get 50% of the ebook price as my affiliate commission. Plus if someone buys the 400th ebook through my website, that person gets $100 and I get $75. It seems like a pretty sweet deal all around. So to be clear, this prize will only be awarded to someone who buys Matt’s ebook from my website if I also sell the most ebooks in October. For this to work, enough people have to buy the ebook through this link.

Among other things, Matt’s ebook outlines setting up a blog, details different types of revenue streams and, the part that I think is its strength, goes into a good amount of detail about search engine optimisation (SEO). It is aimed mainly at beginners who have a travel blog and might want to earn a bit of cash out of it but I think even people who have been at the web game for awhile will find it useful. As someone who’s been doing this for awhile I found the information on article marketing especially helpful.

So there you have it. Good luck to you, good luck to me and lets see if Matt can give one of you an excellent prize! To buy the book click here.

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About a week ago I noticed Nomadic Matt Tweeting about a drop in comments on for posts he had written while travelling that were about specific destinations. Articles about things like the Paris sewers or cities were getting fewer comments than the posts about more general travel topics and issues.

This is something I’ve noticed on this blog a bit too… the more specific the place I’m writing about, the fewer comments those posts seemed to get. This seemed a little odd to me at first because I would have thought that on-location first-hand ‘reporting’ and photos would have been something that to set my blog apart. It would be more personal than the usual online guides that are out there for each place, and it would seem logical that people who like to comment about your proposed travels would like to comment even more once you actually start.

But after thinking about it a bit more it sort of makes sense to have fewer commenters for destination type blog posts.I think people comment on blogs posts they can either relate to or have an opinion about. When you start posting about specific places and writing about what you did there, there’s not a lot to be opinionated about and the only people who can relate are the people who have been there too.

On the other hand, posts about general travel related topics or things like preparing for a trip are things that a lot of people can relate to. I would guess that most people who are into reading travel blogs are people who have travelled or who want to travel and are preparing and general travel topics are something people who have been can relate to and people who are going can offer up an opinion about, at least.
When I read a post about ‘this is where I am and this is what I’m doing’, unless the person is doing something truly amazing in that place, it doesn’t grab my imagination in quite the same way as a post about general travel topics like The Downside of Long Term Travel or 24 Travellers to Inspire You and I’m not as likely to leave a comment.
What do you think? I comment on posts I can either offer up advice for or have an opinion on or sometimes even if I just want to tell the person that I liked their posts and what they’re doing. What makes you comment on a person’s blog? Are destination guide type posts usually something you will offer up a comment about if you haven’t been there?

I’ve always been curious about what compels people to leave comments so… er, leave a comment?

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I am not a blogger. I love writing on this blog but, at the moment, I think one is about all I can handle. It amazes me how people out there are able to publish several blogs with quality content and, while I wish I was one of those people, I’m not.

I currently have Nerdy Nomad focused mainly on earning online and web development stuff and have another blog, Wanderstruck, that is purely travel updates for family, friends and stalkers. I think two blogs is one too many so I’m thinking seriously about scrapping Wanderstruck. It sort of sucks because I love writing about my travels but when I don’t feel like writing, that blog looms over my head and seems to nag at me to keep it going, even if I don’t feel like I have something interesting to say. I hate having a blog that never gets updated but I hate it even more when I feel pressured into writing for the sake of writing so I think I’m going to close down the operation.

Because I still want to document my travel tales, I am thinking about taking Nerdy Nomad in that direction a bit more. It won’t mean that all of my internet geek stuff will be replaced with travel posts, but it will mean there will be some interspersed in there along with photos from my travels. I won’t write something on every place I go like I have been trying (and failing) to do over on Wanderstruck, but instead I’ll write travel stuff when I feel like I’ve done something interesting enough to warrant a post.

What do you guys think about this? Are most of you here for mobile working/internet/web development stuff or would you find a handful of travel posts each month along with photos to be an interesting addition?

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I wrote a while ago about applying for a writing job on another blog and I got the job! The blog is called Location Independent and is about working remotely while living anywhere you want in the world. They cover loads of topics but they’re looking to me to stick to sharing my internet marketing knowledge and maybe chime in now and then about locations that are good for people who work remotely.

I finished my first article for them a few days ago: Back to Basics: 8 Ways to Make Money on the Internet Pop over and take a look if you’re interested. I’m going to write a whole series that will be similar to the first posts here on Nerdy Nomad and will post the links as the articles are published.

At £15 per article and about two articles a month, this won’t be a huge moneymaker but it is a great way to reach a new audience and hopefully get a few more readers over to my own blog. Plus, the people over at Location Independent are dedicated to taking their blog to the next level (whatever that entails) and it could be a great opportunity to tag along for the ride if things really take off for them.

I have lots of ideas so writing shouldn’t be a problem for me. My biggest concern is that I’ll find it hard sticking to a schedule after being a slacker for so long. I’m really looking forward to the collaboration though and I don’t think this small amount of structure will be too much of a shock to my system.

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I was Twittering the other day and came across a tweet (is that what they’re called?) by Lea Woodward from Location Independent, a really good blog about taking your work with you on the road that I’ve been following for a while. She posted looking for contributors for her blog and I replied asking for more details.

I’ve written a few articles here and there in the past for small amounts of money and I’ve enjoyed it. I’m not interested in taking on a lot of paid writing projects, but I think having one or two on the go will be great for a few reasons.

• Money - Extra money is never a bad thing… that’s all I can really say about that.
• Diversifying my income streams - Most of my earnings are split between one affiliate program, ever diminishing Adsense earnings and paid links and I’d like to branch out a little bit more, even if just for a small amount each month.
• Publicity - By writing on other blogs associated with the working and travelling niche, I can work towards establishing myself as a bit of an expert in the area which might come in handy at some point.
• Backlinks - Getting inbound, one-way links from an established, popular blog will help my own blog with PR and search engines. At least that’s what they’re supposed to do.
• Sky is the limit - If a popular blog continues to do well I can write articles, forget about them and ride the wave of their success by reaching new readers and having very strong backlinks.
• Gets me into a routine - Normally I wouldn’t be too interested in being accountable for producing a set number of articles per month but I think a little bit of structure can be a good thing and I’m willing to give it a try.
• Force me to focus on my niche - Writing articles on living a location independent lifestyle will mean that I’ll have to know a lot about it. I think there are a lot of things I can write already but I would look most forward to doing some research and expanding my knowledge in this area.

I know loads of people who would dream about being able to make a living through their writing. I’m not one of them. I like writing but it’s not something I would want to spend day after day doing and certainly not under the pressure of having to make a living from it but I think throwing a few writing projects in here and there will be a big benefit to this blog and to my business overall.

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I had loads of free time in June and did a wee experiment to see if commenting on other people’s blogs more than usual would have any sort of imapact on the number of visitors and RSS subscribers for Nerdy Nomad. I figured it was a pretty sure bet that commenting more would lead to higher traffic, more subscribers and more comments on my own blog which turned out to be the case.

On the flip side, I also wondered what sort of an impact not participating much in the blogging community would have on my site. I spent July travelling around and maybe left a total of five comments on other blogs over the course of that month. I was fully expecting that not commenting would have the exact opposite impact of commenting lots and was really surprised to see my traffic and RSS numbers rise substantially despite my month long vow of silence.

• RSS Subscribers - At the end of May my subscribers were at 129 and with all of my commenting they rose to 158 by the end of June. Now at the end of July they’ve jumped up even more and are sitting pretty at 225.
• 45n5 Top 100 Blog List - I started at 234, moved up to 205 and now I’m at 191. I had been up around 170 before Google dropped me from PR4 to PR3 which affected my ranking.
• Comments - I had 55 comments in May, 148 in June and 104 in July.
• Traffic - I jumped from 42 unique visitors per day in May up to 58 in June. July saw a further jump with an average of 62 unique visitors.

So… what does this all tell me? Not much! I’m confused. My best guess is that once you get the word about your blog out there, it takes a while for everyone to catch on and you can see the benefits of commenting for several months.

Who knows. Any thoughts? How did your blogs fare in July?

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A month ago I decided to run a little test and see what kind of an impact commenting on other blogs would have on Nerdy Nomad. I was even keeping track of how many comments I had left and on which blogs but I seem to have lost that file somewhere into the abyss that is my disorganised hard drive.

Here are the results. I know you can hardly wait.

• RSS Subscribers - My feed subscribers rose from 129 to 158, a jump of 29 people. Hello new people! It took me ten months to get to 129 so I’m really happy to see it jump by so much in a single month.
• 45n5 Top 100 Blogs List - I jumped up 31 places on this list from 234 to 205. The list uses Page Rank, Alexa and Technorati stats to come up with some sort of system of rating blogs. I’m not sure how meaningful it is but I’m pretty competitive and something like this is a good motivator for me.
• Comments - I went from a measly 55 comments last month to 148 in June. This could be attributed to me having made more blog posts in June than in May, but a jump this big has got to have more behind it that just that. There have been lots of new faces and I know that many have found Nerdy Nomad through my comments on other blogs. They’ve told me so.
• Traffic - My visitor numbers rose from 42 to 58 uniques per day and from 85 to 140 page views per day. This seems to be a pretty big leap forwad too. I am guessing that my page view rose more because people new to my blog spent some time sifting through old posts which is cool. It’s always nice when long forgotten blog posts get a bit of reader love.

Obviously any number of factors could have had an effect on my improved stats but I have to think that leaving more comments and getting my name out there has been a large factor. Things have actually jumped up by a lot more than I expected. But stats aside, becoming more active in the blogging community has been rewarding in a lot of ways. It’s a great way to meet to people, exchange ideas, find new blogs and it’s even better when more and more new people find you.

As great as I think commenting on other blogs is, I doubt I’ll be able to devote much time to it in July. I might even not leave a single comment on another blog and see how that effects my numbers. Ya, let’s do that. So in July, no comments from me. This might be a stupid move and all of my hard work might go down the drain, but I’m curious to see what happens.

So are you guys surprised with the results or are they pretty much what you would have expected? I’m happy with my little experiment but lets see what July has in store.

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Since I started travelling in January I’ve pretty much stopped reading most of my favourite blogs completely. It’s sort of strange because I really do like reading blogs but it just seems like my time is completely taken up with working on my own sites. That, and Facebook. Way too much Facebook.

So I thought I would try to motivate myself to participate more in the blogging community by turning June into a bit of a test to see how much of an effect commenting on other blogs really has on this blog’s stats. My RSS feed had 129 subscribers on June 1st and this is what I’m most interested in increasing. I just submitted to the 45n5 Top 100 list a couple of weeks ago and am currently ranked at 234. This list uses Technorati and Alexa stats to rank blogs so I figure tracking my ranking on this list is more meaningful than keeping track of those stats individually. Last month I had 55 comments and I’m curious to see not only if that will rise, but also if I’ll see comments from new people. In May this site had a daily average of 42 unique visitors and 85 page views.

I have a list of about 30 blogs that I genuinely like reading and am going to attempt to interact with them a lot more. I’ve got some make money online ones, some self improvement/motivational type blogs and a handful of travelogs on there so my main interests are covered. Some of the blogs are new discoveries, some are old favourites, some are really popular, others are smaller, but all of them are blogs that I consider to be interesting and well written.

Lets see how far ahead participating in the blogging community really pushes a blog in a month with some cold, hard figures!

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It looks like I’ve fallen victim to the difficulties of keeping my blog updated. It’s not because I don’t have time to do it but that I’ve sort of lost touch with the blogging world for now. It’s difficult to write about blogging and earning online when I don’t have much time to check out other blogs, message boards and tinker with methods of earning online.

I’ve got lots to report on the travel side of things though and am still amazed at how easy and cheap it is to get online here in Bangladesh! Work as a volunteer is really great and rewarding and the people here are really cool. It rained today and I managed to get some little things done on my Wanderstruck site which is encouraging but I’ve still got loads to do. Luckily we’ve got two more days off and I’m planning to hit the site building thing really hard tomorrow.

I’m hoping to finally get this sponsers/fundraising page done so I can put the word out. I’m hoping that other bloggers will be interested in writing a post about what I’m attempting so it will be interesting from a marketing aspect to see if I can generate a bit of interest from around the web. I think I’ll make it my aim to get included in those weekly round-up type posts that bloggers tend to do.

On Friday a bunch of us are planning to head to the Sundarbans National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and apparently home to Bengal tigers. We’ll be attempting to bribe our way in in order to avoid having to hire an official boat and armed guard. I think we’ll be taking our interpreter with us who knows which strings to pull and we’ll see what happens. Should be pretty funny if nothing else!

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As usual I’m a bit behind on the goings on in internet world but better late than never, I guess. A couple blogs that I read on a regular basis have been sold and it seems as though there are plenty of others that have been offloaded recently as well. I’m not really sure what to think about this flurry of blog sales. Part of me is confused, part is annoyed and part is impressed.

• The confused part - I don’t read that many blogs regularly. The more I like what the blogger is doing or has to say or the more interesting I find them, the more likely I am to become a regular reader. Based on this, I wonder why people buy blogs. Sure they’re getting a design that is up and running but they could pay a lot less for a much better custom WP design. True, they’ll be adopting a set of regular readers but how many of them are likely to continue reading? Lots of incoming links is a good thing I guess but that’s not hard to do with some serious commenting. I figure if a blogger is good they should be able to start a blog on their own. If they’re crap then people won’t read the blog anyways so it’s a big waste of money.
• The annoyed part - I think blogging is about building relationships and when the author sells the blog it sort of feels like a very nerdy betrayal. I thought he loved me… I guess I was just another notch on his RSS belt. *sniff*
• The impressed part - I have to give kudos to anyone who can create something from scratch and turn it into a saleable item in a few months. Even though the whole process leaves me feeling used and abused, I can’t help but admire them for it.

Are there are people out there who flip blogs like real estate? It might be an interesting thing to look into if you’re a talented writer and know how to turn a new blog into an established one pretty quickly. I wonder if they’d be able to continue attracting readers to their new blogs after each sale. I would be unlikely to read a blog knowing that the author plans to sell it in a few months.

I wonder how many more blogs will be sold during this mini-frenzy? I would feel strange selling my blog, I think. I would need bucketloads of money to sell any of my websites and I’d have a hard time letting go of them because of the zillions of hours I’ve put, in. I guess everyone has their price though!

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