Charles Lau

I was looking through my blog to see which page has page ranks. I realize that the reviews for King Normar and Preblogging have page rank of 3 as well. I was puzzled why there are page ranks somewhere inside and it only happens to my reviews for King Normar and Becky. The rest are of page rank zero. Hey Becky, did you do something to this review to increase the potential of traffic to your site? Hehe, I’m just joking… But I really wonder what’s going on with these two pages.

As I blog further, I think this blog is more received when I am talking to website review related contents. Sometimes, I just wish to ramble a bit though. And rambling something like this kind of thing really makes me wondering what’s happening.

Blogging has become a hobby to me when I first wanted to do it as part of my full time internet business venture. I really enjoy reviewing people and hope video reviews will keep on coming in. Many people asked if blogging can really make money for them… Well, I can tell you it sure does make money for me… It really depends on different people’s endeavors to get it to work properly.

Some people really don’t understand how blogging can become a career even though they come to my site and to read about it. And, they make a big fuss out of it. However, I can understand their agony that they will not really do anything about it because it’s not a Singapore fashion yet though there are a few prominent bloggers now from Singapore.

Page rank has made me feel more rewarding than just making money online. Seeing something which pops up where I never seen some numbers from my site before, it really excites me a lot! Hope you guys get your rightful rankings too!

If you have noticed my sidebar showing the number of posts I have published and the number of comments people has written, I feel especially happy when my comments have finally exceeded the number of posts I have done. Everyday, it’s a challenge for any new blog out there to create a buzz in their blog so as to invite someone to make some noise in the comments. And each day the posts are published, the comments tend to lose out easily.

The Ethical Way of getting comments
Sometimes, it makes me wonder why a blog gets to be commented. Where I see John Chow’s blog having so many visits and yet the percentage of people commenting is just bearly 10%. So for a blog to encourage the commentators to make some noise, it somehow requires some skill on our part as bloggers.

So how ethical can a blog be ethical in getting people to comment in his blog? As I focus more and more on my contents and following up with another commentator who happens to write in, it seems like it’s growing in numbers naturally now. Thank you everybody for your support in commenting in Charles Lau dot Com. This blog is basically a blog for everyone of you as it is writing reviews about all of you…

The CashQuests way
Though I don’t think she did it this way on purpose, her way of disabling comments all together at the initial stage is simply getting people to come in and enjoy the posts she has published, rather than handling the unnecessary mess the commentators might create in her blog. As a result of her quality postings, she finally released her blog for comments and it burst like crazy now.

The Rajawang way
Though I find it funny to have such a way, he is making a contest amongst the top two commentators in his blog. Though I only see 18 readers in the RSS feed, I see the top 8 commentators can go as many comments as 41, 38 and 17. It’s like a blog which is encouraging the crowd to make some noise at his comment box. And he seems to have managed it well with the commentators in his blog.

The John Cow way
Somehow, I always get to see quarrels and commotions in his blog comments. People are simply start taking sides and scolding each other. And it creates lots of crowd and people watching the comments grow by itself with lots of reasonings and side comments and even some stories trying to tarnish another blogger’s reputation. While such a mess is hard to manage, John Cow seems to take it well in his hand.

The John Chow way
I think he started it all about the blog contest. Simply write your comment at his blog and you get one chance to win some prizes in his blog contest. People have been enjoying winning prizes at his blog, and they keep on writing in their comments. And when John Chow shows his monthly earnings, another massive comments come in again. Basically, he’s leading the crowd to where he thinks is interesting enough to keep them coming back.

The Problogger way
Problogger always writes quality posts in his blog. And that really lets us learn more about how to get our blog to the next level. And because of his quality postings, people simply write in to say it’s good! So this blog comments belongs to the “good feedback blog”… A blog which attracts bloggers like everyone of us to come and read if there’s anything we have not applied properly in our blog.

Conclusion
Whichever way you are trying to adopt for your comments to exceed your posts, it is always good to let it grow much naturally as possible. It wouldn’t be nice if you can only get massive comments today, and no comments tomorrow… right?

I was working on my internet stuff on sunday which was so bright in the morning and raining in the afternoon. I started to wonder if anyone of you who has just started your blog like myself 4 months ago, having difficulty getting in traffic for your new blog in your new blogging career. And because I just got my first page rank juice, I thought of writing something about this topic to share with all of you how blogging works in my own opinion.

At the very initial stage, blogging is really very lonely. My friend, Aaron, found that blogging on social networking sites are much better than having his own blog. That’s because every time he published his blog, he will get to see people coming in to see it because of the notification feature from the social networking sites to his network and beyond. But blogging your way in a protected area simply gets you nowhere if you wish to take this blog seriously.

First of all, when you blog in a social networking site, you don’t have the power to publish your own ads. You might still be able to push some of your affiliate links and having your own “space” blogging away. However, it seems not going to be long when you start to feel unjustified for not able to put advertisements banners and links on your blog.

But again, when you start writing your blog with your own personal branding, you must treat it as though it is your very own hobby. Something which you have to take care of just like taking in food no matter how busy you are. Writing a blog can take about the same time as taking your dinner outside. Or, it can be just a few minutes… Or, you could blog away using your mobile phone too. Whatever it is, you have to blog as though you have a lot of readers watching.

Next, don’t forget to let Google know about your blog! Or else, your blog will take long period of time before your site is being indexed or even to get some page rank. Updating Google is just about submitting your url to Google, or submitting your sitemap to Google or even just to tell Google about you! And remember to keep on writing your contents like nobody’s business… The more frequent posting you do, the more Google likes you!
Socializing around the blogosphere… If you don’t socialize, who on earth will know you? Your blog will be just like another article site if you don’t socialize around enough. And sometimes, article sites may not contain unique contents which sometimes make me suspicious of their source…. No doubt you will still attract new traffic more and more… But the good old traffic might not come back again…
If you just keep on writing and writing, you should be safe enough even though you don’t socialize around. You should get at least 1 page rank in the next update…

Google seems to have answered my question by his action. I was asking when the page rank is going to be known and here it is. I am very excited to find out about my first page rank being revealed. It is my first time I have a page rank which is three! The highest I had before I got my own ex-company’s website to page rank of one. I wish to thank all the bloggers who emailed me to congratulate me…

Page Rank Spillover
I was curious to find out some of my friends’ page rank since there seem to have a huge change everywhere. I found out that the blog – which my friend Sunny recently sold his blog to Vinay – has spilled some page rank juice.

His original url http://www.desinotes.com has a page rank of 4.

But he has a “duplicated” content at http://www.desinotes.com/index.php which has a page rank of 2…

To care about Page Rank or not?
Recently because of Google downgrading some of the famous blogs’ page ranks, these bloggers seem to have some prejudices towards Google for doing such a thing to them. While I don’t know what they did exactly to have that page rank downgrade, they seem to be telling the world that page rank doesn’t really matter so long as you are making money consistently. On the surface, they seem to be right… But come to think about it again… They seem to be trying to appeal to their many readers to make sure their readers align with what they are trying to say. I can still remember many of these blogs which display their high page rank number proudly in the past…

Ultimately whatever it is, a page rank is still a good start to give an impression to the readers about how this website is faring by the trusty Google.

A friend told me that page rank is not really as important so long as you are making good money still. I think there’s more than just saying that. A good page rank is possibly bringing you in with more new and fresh traffic from the untouched areas in the world. Page rank is not important only when you know how to capture the fresh market’s attention to become your old customers and it leads more towards viral marketing which is even more important than search engine marketing.

In my opinion, viral marketing is more important than search engine marketing simply because it is a better way to be introduced by the more familiar friends of theirs and it leads to faster conversion of prospects to customers.

So how to get your own page rank?
I heard from a good advice from my friend from http://www.iamboredr.com to focus my blog on contents again and again. I have not really been aggressive like my good internet pals John Cow, Carl Ocab or Matt Jones in their marketing efforts to bring their blogs into the next level. I merely focus myself on my contents, and socializing myself to get to know more bloggers. And it takes time and patience to get everything matured. Of course, more page rank doesn’t mean you making money enough as your full income at all. Of course, I did some marketing at the initial stage when I am still starting out in my blog adventure. I have done some guest postings before… I have bought reviews from Cash Quests before.

Boasting too much about your page rank in your website?
I think Google is punishing people who are boasting too much about their page rank. One very obvious one is from a blogger I have reviewed, asking for people to write reviews about him to get free links from a PR5 website. Now, his website is PR2… http://www.everydayweekender.com/pagerank-linkback-batch-15/

I also start to see many blogs stop boasting about their page ranks… But page rank is still being used as a guideline for many other areas in the arena of business and personal. For example, if I wanted to do business with the person from this website and his page rank is zero, I would do some more further checks such as web archives, whois and even country-check and which Internet service provider he is on, before I proceed since the website is almost the only exposure I have from this person.

That reminds me of the $10,000 lucky draw scam I mentioned to you all previously. I think it’s really a scam since there’s no deposit of $10,000 and there has been unknown morning calls to my mobile which seems to be from that lady from China when I am too busy at work to answer her. To all of you especially from Singapore and Malaysia, please take note of this scam calls directly to your mobile!

Anyway, I am glad to have a better PR juice now… Though I had some hope it was going to be PR4, I think PR3 is quite a good judgment for my blog which is started since June 22nd. Cheers!

Last week, I just had a corporate culture shock since my first job in 4 years. Though this is not new to me, I never expect it to be worse than I thought. I can tell you that the only time I remember this thing happens only when I attended seminars in Singapore. Now, I can tell you that this is just Singapore style. Ok, to all my friends and readers from US, Canada and other countries (including Singapore), asking too many questions in Singapore means you are incapable! What???

Any one of you attended Singapore’s seminar before?
Most of the seminars (in fact it’s at least 99%) held in Singapore are always very passive on the audience side. I always get to see the usual no response from the crowd where the speakers are asking if there’s any questions. And when the speakers are stepping down from the stage, Singaporeans will then start to ask the speakers one-on-one… I always thought this is just because Singaporeans are shy by nature… But I was totally wrong when I started my sales job! In my opinion, the reason why Singaporeans refused to ask questions during the seminar is because they are afraid of losing face.

I believe many American speakers might have a very big culture shock when they found their audience very “obedient” in Singapore! The event organizer has to inform the speakers about getting the response that they need….

Dear Speakers who are coming to Singapore to give your talks,

if you wish to have some response, you have to ask for it! And the question you ask must be easily answered with a “yes” or “no” from everyone of us here..

And if you tried to ask “Any question for my presentation?” where you require individuals to stand out and ask…

Please expect to see the audience looking around if there is anybody who wishes to ask questions…

And also, please expect to hear some noise and see nobody asking you anything!

But, don’t be despair!

Because when you are off the stage, please expect to see Singaporeans approaching you… The real business comes from here!

Asking too many questions makes you look unprofessional
Ok, I actually don’t really agree with this… But it seems like a common thing in the mass. So, I tried to find out more and arrived to this meaning. Whenever I always ask questions everywhere I go (be it stupid, silly or just crazy), I meant it well to give my understanding a boost. But it turned out that asking questions is making the answerer feel you are not professional and hence losing your own face… Hence, if he is answering too many of your questions, he may feel losing face because of your “shameless” questions.

Asking questions is making myself look inflexible?
Haha, I am catching the actual meaning of this topic more and more now… While I may ask silly questions, I don’t mind being commented as unprofessional so long as I get the result I want. If I don’t ask you, I will ask somebody else anyway. And if somebody else don’t answer me, I will then look around for answers.

I remembered Aaron once told me about what a Singaporean told him when Aaron asked him too many questions about the trip to overseas for further studies. Aaron squeezed so many details from him until that Singaporean refused to tell him anymore and said that he should go and feel the experience himself and try. While I know Aaron is a very result-oriented person, he dislikes to waste time trying out things. If he can just tell him what he wished to know, isn’t that going to give him an edge to learn even more about something else? Instead of spending the time doing the same mistake again, we could have spent even more time making other mistakes not yet known…

In Singapore, maintaining your “face” is the most important thing in life
Ok, “face” means reputation in translation from Chinese word. Yes, reputation may be important to us. What’s the link in your reputation with your inquisitiveness? As I go deeper into my findings on the Internet, I found this UK website talking about Singapore’s Language, Culture, Customs and Etiquette in doing business. While I am not sure how the copywriter from UK manages to inteprete Singapore’s culture, it seems quite true anyway after I had bumped into my first barrier.

Being Street Smart in Singapore?
The whole idea about being street smart in Singapore is probably to keep quiet and act smart. Being street smart seems to be referring to someone who is a very solution-oriented person… It sounds like you are a knowledge base, ready to tell anybody anything that they need. And if you start asking questions, it makes you look “unprofessional”…

Oh come on… Just answer my questions… If I am wrong, I will change… I am very professional person, ok? hehe

I was standing beside my boss, listening to the client telling us what he wanted while he tells the client whether it is possible to do it that way or not. It reminds me of why a business can be more successful than the others. Just imagine a partner who always wants to get something done while the other partner keeps on stopping him because of certain restrictions here and there. It simply makes the business grow faster.

Dreamer + Practical = Successful Business
While a dreamer pushes the company to what he thinks the company can go towards, the practical person limits the dreamer because of certain limitations in life. And as the practical person limits the dreamer, the dreamer keeps on “testing” the system till it works… The practical person might find it a nuisance to hear a dreamer who says something unrealistic… But that’s how the practical person can be pushed to do something more than ever.

Big Picture, Small Picture
It’s like looking at big picture or small picture. When you look at the map (big picture), you might have mapped out your directions to move from one place to another. But come on! You have to look at the streets for traffic conditions, weather conditions and probably how to get there by road signs.. That’s where the small picture comes in…

Both pictures are equally important… Without the map, you might not get to where you want easily… Without doing it physically, you wouldn’t move to where you are going… Hence, if you are just holding a map in your hand, you are only a dreamer… But if you can take the map and start driving to move from the start to the end, you are moving towards your goal more effectively…

It is not easy to be both
It is really not easy to be both type of person… While you are a dreamer, you still have to think of practical limits… If you have practical limits, how can you be a dreamer? A practical person basically has limited creativity because of the realistic world he is in.

Choose one path and go!
The only thing to do is to choose the type of person you want to be, and move… Go!

This is another Make Money Online Blog I am reviewing today. And I wish to thank Johnathan for giving me a chance to review this blog. This person is an Internet entrepreneur who has been around doing Internet business while most of us (including myself) haven’t even had a computer to play with. Till 2007, he is already working with the Internet for 14 years! Oh by the way, I have only been playing with Internet for 9 years…

Let’s have a look at the video review before I carry on with my comments about Cman.

Blogspot looking like WordPress
While he is still using blogger.com to do up his blog, he never fails to use it with lots of flexibility. He is able to display advertisements and a three column on top to show some introduction for his first time readers. The only thing I don’t like about blogger is that they don’t seem to be able to integrate their comments well with the blog, forcing the person to do some frames to contain the actual comments. And I wonder how he captures the number of comments on his blog which seem to be inaccurate and hence, I didn’t mention it in the video review.

Great Advertisement Price! Grab it while it lasts!
He has probably the cheapest advertisement on earth that I have seen. Everywhere is priced at $10 or below. He is probably trying to capture the market before moving on to the next level. This is usually the case. If you are interested to advertise, just look for him to fill up the space. I am currently seeing a post frequency of 1 per day… and with a technorati authority of over 400, it is very likely that he is going to work on this blog as a Online Money Expert given his status as an Internet Entrepreneur.

True Affiliate Marketer
Looking at his categories, he has quite a good focus about his blog. Talking along about affiliate marketing, blogging tips and tricks, blogging news, contests, contextual advertising, General, make money online, profitable productive blogging, profitable productive posts, SEO, site reviews, tips and tricks, traffic building and viral marketing. Though the actual posts don’t seem to be capturing my attention, I can see that he is a true affiliate marketer from the way he writes his blog with affiliated links. For example, in his latest post about savings in restaurant where he stated that it is not a sponsored post, I can see an affiliate link there which can be quite misleading to all of us who are in the make-money-online industry… But I believe his landing pages for working out his affiliate marketing must be quite ok to bring in income for him, based on the way he did up his blog.

About his Advertisements
One more thing I have noticed while looking at his advertisements. There is no Google ads inside… But there are Yahoo Ads and Bidvertisers…. Blogspot not using Google Ads seems a bit weird to me though… since Google has made it a smooth transaction for anyone to put up google ads on blogspot.

About the LinkBacks
He seems to have joined a lot of different link activities to bring in the traffic by placing a link to linkmarket website. And he has started a program called Viraltags… Well, I am not sure if they are healthy activities since they seem to be served to cater to the needs of Google looking for websites with lots of linkbacks as votes.. Charles advises “Do try to refrain from such things as much as you can, ok?”

Newsletter
He’s giving away free newsletter! Though I have a feeling that this newsletter might not work well on blog as opposed to a normal landing website, one of my blogger friends (not sure if it’s appropriate to mention his name) told me that it’s good to capture the market while your blog is online anyway. This is a good way of capturing some more leads for people who are interested in making money online which is what a lot of internet marketers love to do to create their own mailing list… While in actual fact, a blog is as good as a mailing list where RSS feed subscribers turn out to be more important than mailing list since we don’t have to maintain the list while working on our blog. It’s like a stone killing two birds… This blog serves like a newsletter while it generates unlimited traffic from the search engines for its unique content.

Conclusion
I think this blog is pretty ok for a good exposure in the near future. But probably need some more amendments. If you could make your blog look like Etienne Teo’s blog, I think that will be fantastic! There seems to have a missing touch in using blogspot, making your blog a little unprofessional from others. Add that with your usual contents, I think your blog might go much further since you have been doing a lot of homework to get this blog up… Yes I can see lots of effort in it… If you can, I suggest you engaging Etienne to help you in your blog structure since he’s really good at blogger.com codes… (that’s if he is willing to help…)

Thanks Johnathan for sponsoring this post!

There seems to have a new change on the page rank algorithm nowadays. While many of us are expecting a page rank update recently and have a very positive thought about it, it seems like it is not as positive as we have thought. Many websites have been lowered in their page ranks. Andy Beard gives us an insight of the different sites and their changes. So now, what happens to all of us with zero page rank?

We have been wondering what the new page rank algorithm is going to be. It no longer seems to be related to the number of linkbacks you have on your site. Google seems to have evolved to come up with a better way of searching the Internet again. Although Technorati has a high page rank of 8, it is only a directory of our blogs indexed in it… So, it is almost impossible to search for something and have it shown on the Google results.

What’s the good thing behind a good page rank now? A website with high page rank is probably one with high regards from the Internet community. How does Google calculate their new page rank algorithm?

It seems like John Chow has been given a lot of linkbacks in the shortest period of time. My best guess is that Google is calculating the page rank according to the acceleration of the number of links over time. Because now, the number of linkbacks are reducing.

But come to think of Problogger.net with a lower page rank too… It puzzles me too. Who on earth are having an increase in their page rank nowadays? For those of us with zero page rank, it is very hard for us to do any reverse-engineering to understand…

Google, when’s my page rank coming?

I am working in a System Integrator company where we are value added reseller for all the various computer parts and piecing them up together. I’ve been reading and explaining to customers about the various computer stuff. Starting to get my feet wet about the computer stuff nowadays. I think this is a fantastic challenge to do as there are always new and unexpected happenings to handle. I feel as though I am doing my own business there.

Something very interesting about working there is that I realize that whoever has done business before (like myself who has been working on for 4 years), we have an edge from the rest of the employees. We somehow just think differently… We just want to do something to bring the company to that extra mile… I realize it has nothing to do with what position you are in. Whether you are boss or not, it doesn’t matter actually… It’s that attitude of yours and your learning curve and social acceptance level…

I told a friend of mine that I had never felt so good getting lazy salary before for so long… A pay that depends on boss… And it seems like a good combination of my life now where I am learning and making money for my boss, and I am learning and making money online as well. And the money can be rolled to make my girlfriend happy by treating her out for great food and places. Doing business is to be in charge of getting your own pay in one way or another with risks to bear. Since I am not making lots of money online now, I don’t have much money to risk either… So this is a good chance to start working out for my family planning too.

We have a lot of synergy working together to bring in the money for everyone of us to survive. I must thank my good friend Aaron for suggesting me to look for a sales engineering job. Since I am set to do online business already, it doesn’t harm to do some tangible sales outside to bring in the money. I hate to see my cashflow hitting so bad while I am having difficulty working online full-time for a while to understand the technical business side of working online. Now, I am better versed online while I am still working out my websites.

Alvin, we should go for some golfing one day to discuss more about IM! Don’t worry, you will find your new office pretty soon!

Etienne has been suggesting me to add some of the friends and blogs I read into my blogroll… Yup, I have added him… And now, I have a guy called Meltdown Tchykiosky who has been approaching me for it… I am thankful for his approach! I also remembered another guy called Catur PW who has been approaching me about it… And also another guy whom I am going to review him soon… So many more in the past even though I don’t have a blogroll started at that time… I didn’t wanted to start because of the idea of my lack of knowledge about what can do and what cannot do according to the law of Google…

I have noticed Kee Yit has been writing really interesting posts about her own life… Her blog isn’t related to make-money-online topic but her life is interesting enough for us to read more about it… One good thing about reviewing other people’s blogs is that I get to know new friends every other day…

Talking about blog review, I am currently preparing another paid review which will be up soon after I am done… If you are interested to get your blog reviewed at $10, just come to this review-you page and find out more.

It is so important to keep reading to improve yourself. In my opinion, reading is a form of exercising your brain, and your memory can also be improved much better as well. Selective reading is also as important because reading the wrong materials can simulate the unwanted “experiences” that your body is self-installing without actually doing them all. Reading the blogs is also a way of expanding your horizons as you get to see different points of views of that same matter from different people from different countries!

While starting your own blog is as important and to tell the world who you are, reading other people’s blogs can be really good in both knowledge and socializing on the Internet. It improves your networking circle which is especially important if you are doing a business.

From the beginning when I started my blog, I always thought that blogging is just about writing as though you are already an expert. And that’s why I may not take in 100% of what those bloggers out there are teaching about making money online. However, when I read further into their blogs, I start to absorb a certain theoretical experience which the blogger is experiencing through himself. Instead of just being certain about that piece of knowledge from one source, I get to see many sources and to have my own judgment about the various things I am learning from.

It is not about reading other people’s blog for fun, and to write comments for the sake of socializing. It is about reading it and understand other people’s point of view about certain thing and open up your own horizon. This will start to get you set for even more things ahead because of your understanding of something in different points of view.

One situation, there are multiple points of views. While I am looking at a situation, I like to choose the best view to look at. And once I have chosen it, I will go through the process of rights and wrongs since that is supposed to be the best way of doing things.

Have you been reading?