This blog post is proudly sponsored by Webmaster Forum.

A week or two ago I posted that I had a new site in the works. Well today I can say that I am 95% done with it and ready to launch it so to speak. I’m proud to introduce to you my latest site on Fishing Lures. The site is aptly titled after it’s domain, lureoftheday.com.

The domain and title are pretty self explanatory. Everyday I plan to review a new fishing lure. They are going to be very simple reviews. Only 100-300 words. I’ll give a quick overview of the manufacturer, the product’s attributes (such as size and colors) and it’s functions. Like I said, very easy.

I plan to make money from this site via Adsense and Amazon.com affiliate sales. I’ve never made a sale through Amazon before, so I’ll be quite excited if this works. I’ve heard Amazon doesn’t pay well, but that they are the easiest to sell through because everyone knows who Amazon is. People trust Amazon, and are more likely to buy from them.

My Lure of the Day site still needs some cosmetic work, maybe in the header and the sidebar. I also don’t like the way Amazon only offers these vertical affiliate ad units. They stick out. I need to find a way to work them into the post, similar to how I have the picture at the top of every post.

Fishing Lures doesn’t get any traffic yet, but I expect some soon as I have already started my link building campaign. Ultimately what I’d like to do if write up 5 reviews on a Monday, and just timestamp them to post at 7:00 AM everyday, this way I don’t have to worry about the site all week. I can just market it.

Well that’s pretty much it for the new site. It’s sort of an experiment in a way to see if I can make any Amazon sales. Wish me luck!

My good friend Ramon, from Online Marketing, is at it again. This guy has a web site factory at his house. He’s always cooking up new money making ideas. His latest project, 9MB.com, a Webmaster Forum. The forum is about anything webmaster related and there are already some interesting posts.

9MB.com started a very nice contest on their new forum. The total prize amount is $200, and you can also win advertising on the forum itself. That’s one of the largest contest prizes I’ve seen in our community. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that pie?

Best of all, everyone can join and it is easy to participate. The site is new and the contest just started today, so if you are quick you will have a good position. No need to worry about someone with 1000 posts already locked in as the winner. Everyone has an equal shot to win something.

The Grand Prize winner will win $100 + 1 month of free advertising.

What are you waiting for? Head over to 9MB.com now. If you haven’t registered, you can do that here.

For more info about the contest, check out the official contest details thread.

This blog post is proudly sponsored by Webmaster Forum.

The following tip is best for webmasters who run forums or sites that have a membership of some sort. It might work with a regular site that doesn’t have a high percentage of returning visitors if you apply it correctly.

I’m not going to tell you to write and e-book…that would take way to long. I used the following method on my old site Historum and the membership sign up rate skyrocketed during the running period!

There are thousands and thousands of free e-books on the internet for you to enjoy. The traffic/membership building tip I want to share with you is simply redistributing free e-books as a package. You download your favorite 20 free e-books, zip them all up, and give them away as a ‘hot item’ or ‘deal’ for signing up. Generally the members on the site (or prospective members) won’t know that these e-books are free anyways.

Here’s an example. Say you run a forum on History. Go to Free-ebooks.net and hit the ‘history’ tab on the left sidebar. Scroll through all the history books that you find interesting. Download each one, and be sure to write down the book title (you will want to provide your site visitors a list of the book titles). After you’ve picked out your favorite 20 free history e-books, use Winzip to zip them all up into 1 file.

Then on your forum or website, make an announcement somewhere saying “Sign up today and get 20 free history ebooks!!” Make it in big bold red letters. You have to make it stand out. On Historum, I gave the 40 free ebooks out to anyone who posted ‘I want em!’ in a specific thread. It probably had 100 replies.

When you’re out promoting your forum/site be sure to let everyone know you have a free e-book deal going on.

Yes some people might sign up just for the books and never come back, but some of the people will stay. I had so many people thank me for the ebook offer. People started discussing their favorite e-book. It’s great and you can do this for almost any topic. Just google search your keywork + free ebook.

Just be sure not to pass the ebooks off as your own. You didn’t write them, and you don’t have ownership of them. E-books are copyrighted just like a regular book. Don’t sell them either, you’ll get in big trouble.

If anyone actually uses this little promotion tip, let me know if it works for you.

This blog post is proudly sponsored by Graphic Design, a premier graphic designers community with photoshop resources, tutorials, and more.

You read it right. I’m looking for a new car. My current car, a midnight blue 1999 Acura TL (image link), is pushing 100,000 miles and is going to start costing me more in maintanence then the car is worth. So I’m thinking about trading my vehicle in while it still has some value (around $6200 according to Kelly Blue Book). Thanks to my car’s navigation system, it will hold some value even with the high mileage.

Mechanically, I think I could get around 150,000 miles out of it. But I just don’t want to wait that long. The car is nearly 10 years old, has some scratches on it and the interior is getting worse everyday. It’s time for an upgrade.

So what kind of car am I going to get? Well, I’m not sure yet. I haven’t even begun to shop. I’m probably looking for something 2-3 years old (2004 and newer) with 20-30,000 miles on it. I’m not about to spend all that cash on a brand new car. Not worth it to me. I used to want a truck (F-150) really bad, so I could go offroading again, but with the way gas prices are these days and the fact that trucks get like 15 mpg on the highway at best, I’m probably looking at a car.

So here are a few cars I will check out within the next month or two before I make a decision.

2005 Acura TSX - My fiance Katie drives a TSX. They are awesome cars. They drive fast, handle great, and have a luxurious interior. I wouldn’t mind picking one of these up if I can find a good price.

2004 Acura TL - The TL is as close to perfection as you can get in a car. Maybe I’m partial to TLs because I’ve driven one for so long, but it is just an awesome car. It might be a little on the expensive side, but if I can find one with 30,000 miles on it, I might get a decent price.

2005-6 For Mustang - Katie is pushing me to look at the Mustang. I don’t know if I’m ready (or my insurance is ready) for a sports car. They’re nice looking cars, but I really don’t know what to expect from a Ford. Mustang’s are surprisingly cheap if you stick with a standard one and don’t look at the Cobra models.

2004-5 Infiniti G35 - I really like the G35 Sedan better than the coupe (ya I’m weird like that). I’ve never driven an Infiniti or been inside of one, I just like the way these cars look. I always see people trick out their G35s with rims and dark as night tinted windows. I’m more of a standard kind of guy. But I think a G35 Sedan might be had for a decent price.

So there’s my current list. Of course the list could change after I get quotes from dealers. I’m trying to keep my payments low low low. I’ve been lucky enough to never have a car payment before, so I don’t know how well I’ll adjust to having an extra couple hundred dollars a month to pay.

Back in my youth (probably 6-7 years ago), I used to be into skimboarding. I still love it, I just don’t have a board anymore. Skimboarding is quite common in Florida where I live, but some of you in Europe, Canada, or up North might not really know what skimboarding is all about.

It’s like surfing, but you run into the wave from the shore instead of waiting in the water for it. It’s a very, very tough sport to learn. It’s also like skateboarding on the water, except you have a softer cushion if you fall (although falling on a patch of shells is not fun). I have many scars on my legs that remind me of my days skimboarding.

I was nowhere near as good as the guy in this video though. He’s obviously a pro. My friends and I used to head to the beach everyday after school and every day on weekends so we could skim. I wish we had waves like this guy has. Looks like a lot of those are from the west coast.

Skimboarders have a ‘no fear’ attitude. And when I look back at it now…we did a lot of stupid things. I’ve skimmed in thunderstorms, I’ve skimmed at night time, I’ve skimmed with bloody legs. I remember this one time there was a shark in the water and everyone cleared out, and this skimmer there was like “F’ It!! You gotta skim!!”

Check it out:

From hockey to lacrosse equipment, you can get everything sport-ish from the world wide web. There are sites selling golf carts, golf bags and golf clubs. You can place orders for your basketball shoes in the baseball section, and your purchased entity will be delivered to you free of charge in no time at all.

If you’re an Adbrite publisher like myself, you may have noticed some of your money is missing from the March Payment. Adbrite rolls on a 60 day payout period, so yes we are just now getting March’s payments.

Check the image below (click image to zoom in). Look under revenue, then payment amount.

 

Notice the revenue earned is $186.28 and the check amount is for $162.65. That doesn’t look good to me. Where’s the missing $23?

At first I though it was Adbrite sticking it to us with a new fee. I did some research but couldn’t find anything on it. I decided to email them, and much to my surprise they did email me back within 24 hours. Here’s the response:

Thank you for writing in, we apologize for the delay. We have determined that you were not issued a payment because we were unable to collect payment from all your advertisers. We realize this is very inconvenient; however, it is stipulated to publishers when they first sign up that they are paid on a net-60 basis if all payments are collected on time. Once we have collected these earnings, they will be added to your next payment.

Anyone want to place bets on whether or not Adbrite ever collects my missing $23 ? I’m leaning towards no. Sounds like a scam to me. Adbrite should collect their money up front before they display someone’s ads, right?

I know of one other person this has happened to this month. If it happened to you please leave a comment so I can get an idea of if it’s common, or somewhat rare.