Video: Getting Started with Adsense
July 28, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
John Chow doesn’t use Google Ads anymore but it is still a good way to get started making money on your blog, even though you may not want to rely 100% on Adsense. Watch the video and see if it makes sense for your website:
Would you buy Home Depot (HD) at these prices?
July 15, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
The current housing market may be wreaking havoc on the stock exchange and everyone working in the real estate industry, but home improvement stores such as Home Depot could possibly turn a nice profit from it. The housing bubble is in the process of a remarkably loud pop as it bursts, scattering its financial debris over nearly every type of business. Home Depot stocks have been under increasing pressure during the past year, losing nearly a quarter of their value. This may lead a wary investor to wonder if it’s too risky to invest in Home Depot.
As with any investment, one must figure out whether the risk of buying Home Depot stock will be less or greater than the reward. Since it’s inception in 1984, Home Depot has had an average return of over twenty eight percent; it’s one of a decreasing number of stocks that has rewarded its investors for the high risk they’ve taken. However, most of its growth occurred early as it opened stores in every major city of the country and grew rapidly with the demand for its goods and services.
Although the market doesn’t favor many stocks at the moment, Home Depot is still considered an attractive investment since its current price is much less than it’s expected to make over the lifetime of the corporation. The company’s earnings have proven steady over the past twenty-odd years and a 14% increase is expected over the next five. This is a very important figure to consider when deciding whether to buy a stock. Another is the rating of the stock, where it is on a scale of conservative to aggressive. Home Depot is nearly in the middle, leaning more toward the conservative end which makes it a very good risk when you consider past performance.
Home Depot looks for steady profits over the next few years, even though they are influenced by economic swings. Perhaps that is also a good sign; as the housing market stumbles and fails, homeowners are choosing to stay where they are rather than buy new houses. Companies such as Home Depot are seeing an increase in remodeling materials sales and a higher demand for installation services than ever before. As the demand from commercial builders wanes, consumer purchases are steadily increasing. So, while its initial growth spurt is behind it, Home Depot seems to be a safe and profitable investment for the future.
So, with a current PE of a little over 10, does it make sense to invest now or not?
Disclaimer - InvestorBlogger does not currently own this stock, though he did briefly own it and lost money on it during the dotcom bust years ago! He is currently considering investing in some of the Dow Stocks especially with the current sale… and is waiting for an opportune entry point. Any suggestions? Article was provided by Anuj and his team of writers.
June Income Report on InvestorBlogger Dot Com
July 1, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
It’s July 1st, we’ve reached the half-way through the year, and the stockmarkets are in a dive, ad revenues are falling, and oil is way up! How are we doing on InvestorBlogger? Well, in some ways it’s a very mixed bag.. here goes…
Background
In June, as many of you know, I spent nearly a week re-arranging the sites on my server as well as cleaning up the server, but server problems continued with nearly 24 hours of outage in June alone!
To that end, I’ve spent quite a bit of time setting up my primary sites on their own hosting with a fair amount of punch to each. I’ve been using several hosts, including BlueHost, and HostMonster to name but two. I’m now looking at a third ‘meatier’ host for one of my other clients… and my own blog(s). This has sapped my time, commenting and online socialization somewhat as I spent most of the time working on the sites,… I’ve still 2.5 clients to go as well.
Results
Grand Total: $11,101.00
As you can see from the numbers, I’m only recording the actual categories that have any income at all. This month, affiliates didn’t produce much income at all.
* Bank Interest: $28.71
* Dividend Income: $107.11
* blogging: $63.75
* Advertising: $149.68
* hosting = $131.15
* Consulting = $113.10
* Total = $593.51
This brings my grand total to a shade over $11,101 for the months since I began blogging about my journey to wealth. It’s still pretty impressive, but I’m now setting higher goals and looking at ways to boost traffic to the site in the coming months.
Traffic
In 2008, June traffic was of course DOWN on previous months, but compared to 12 months ago, it showed a healthy 50% jump, and the traffic is fairly resilient. In fact, Google Search is now sending more traffic than ever before. Other traffic is down as I’ve been less aggressive promoting my site on social networks that I typically used to. Once my sites are migrated to new servers, I’ll start doing more of this. Total page views are a little over 1920 from over 1260 visits. It’s a far cry from John Chow, isn’t it?
PayPerPost vs. SocialSpark
This has caused me to rethink my stance of 2007. While I’m not ready to abandon my stance, I feel that it’s only a matter of time now before I do.
TLA income is now reducing, and that has been my biggest reason NOT to switch policy. It’s pretty impossible to do Payperpost now anyway because of their stance on links, and my relative lack of PR. In fact, if I get PR back, then I can’t do Payperpost as you are not allowed to accept no-follow links (PPP’s choice). If I keep my stance, I can’t do PayPerPost at all, because of the lack of PR rank (PPP’s choice) and the serious competition for opps (PPP’s choice). In November 2007, and subsequently, it was possible to make a choice, but right now, Payperpost has backed me into a corner, and shows no signs on standing down on any of the three problems it has caused me:
- 1. Opps requiring PR;
- 2. Not requiring no_follow;
- 3. and Inpost non-disclosure (coercive non-disclosure).
It’s now seeming very silly of me to continue to ‘co-operate’ with PayPerPost when the issues that I face are the result of decisions that PPP made. I will very likely go totally no_follow on all my links, shortly; a decision that I will not reverse again. In fact, I stopped doing PayPerPost in January, because of conflicts with my existing advertisers; and it’s ironic that a company that helped me to develop my blog is now the single thing holding back the development of my blog.
Top Five Articles in June
- 10 Reasons Why Adsense Sucks for your Blog
- A Man With A Plan
- Asus Eee PC 900 with Vista
- Weekend trips around the NE Coast of Taiwan
- and Harley Davidson Launches in Taiwan
Challenges
Unlike JohnChow, I didn’t set out to make money solely from this blog. Rather I set out to describe my journey to wealth, along the way noting what worked and what didn’t work. The biggest challenge I face is simply lack of time; I don’t have enough hours in the day to build up my wealth in other ways, though if I were working full-time as an employee, this would be a bitter pill to swallow. As a part business owner, I find it easier to accept!
The second challenge is sheer lack of technical skills in the area of server management and configuration. I know what I want to do, but since I’m an Arts major, I find it quite frustrating to try to fix things that go wrong. Don’t get me wrong: I do know how to fix a whole host of problems, but when it comes to networking and the Internet, I’m a relative newbie!
All of the other challenges result from these two alone! So I need to find new ways to face this!
Blogging For The Money: Don’t just do it for the money! Enjoy it…
June 23, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
It’s true, I’m not a mommy blogger, nor even a mommy, nor even a woman… but can a ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ blogger make any money with SocialSpark? In this post, I’m sorry to disappoint some of you! After using SocialSpark for about three months on and off, it really depends!
It depends on a number of factors, some of which you can control and some of which you can’t. I offered several projects on PayPerPost a few months ago, and I found some Mommy Bloggers who were trying to do that! Let’s welcome Roselle, who gave me a great write-up on her blog! Thanks,…
Have a good audience, or get one!
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you will already likely have a good audience, but for those of us starting out, getting our blogs noticed can be a nightmare! But to get a better chance of posts, finding an audience for your blog is going to be very much the core task. If you have a better ranking or status, you’ll find it much easier to find good opportunities! Also, having a good audience means that you will be understand your blog’s purpose.
Choose the right niche!
When you start blogging it’s quite likely that you haven’t got a clear focus or niche to work on. Worse, after blogging for a while you find that you want to refine your niche even more! Don’t fret: perhaps you are just discovering your true interests. blogging like that really helps bloggers to find their true focus. But do be aware of the more popular or more focused niches, and try to find your niche early!
Don’t just blog for the money!
The challenge when doing Social Spark is not to blog for the money, get the money and run! You have to really work at your posts to capture the essence of the opportunity, refine it, and work it in to the theme of your blog, the interest of your readers, and the requirements of the advertisers. I’ve actually purchased a few and found that some posts were really poorly written - didn’t engage the reader, but simply filled the MINIMUM requirements! N! After writing 181 opps over the past couple of years on many blogs, I’m now beginning to understand how to do this.
Show commitment to your blog!
Oddly, this is perhaps the one thing that beginning bloggers don’t think about: SHOW commitment to your blog! Be proud of it, dress it up, tidy it up, care for it … it’s YOUR BLOG, it’s YOUR BABY! There are a number of ways you can show your commitment:
- #1 buy your own domain name - nothing shouts ‘amateur’ more than http://***.bravejournal.com or http://***.blogspot.com - It’s only $10! Yes, $10!
- #2 use a theme, any theme, NOT the default theme on your blog. Try to personalize it even a LITTLE!
- #3 keep an eye on your grammar and spelling! It irks a lot of readers to see words “spled rongli”.
- #4 get an email address or contact form on your blog, anywhere, somewhere…
People are going to be dropping by your blog, so you really do want to try to put your best foot forward, right? Who knows where your blogging adventure will lead…? A new house, a new job, a new life…? If you think this is for you, sign up with SocialSpark, and try it out!
The DEAL - Would you buy an extra car parking space?
June 17, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
I was emptying the mail at school today, when I picked up a flyer that had a picture of a car on the front. I scanned the Chinese, immediately noting that they were offering parking lots for sale in our building. So I began to wonder if it’s a good way or not to make a little extra cash.
The DEAL
Quite simply: one parking lot is available for approximately NT$550K. That would allow you to park one car there wherever the lot is located in the building.
The Opportunity
Once purchased, you would be able to rent out the lot to whoever you can find. If the lot is located on the B2 floor, you could probably rent it for NT$2000 per month. For the lot located on the B3 floor, you might manage to earn about NT$1700 per month.
The Costs
There are of course costs associated with this kind of purchase: transaction and other one off costs. When the deal goes through, you’ll face the challenge of finding customers, too. On a regular basis, you will need to pay NT$200 per month in building fees that are applicable to all car parks in the building. There aren’t any upfront taxes I’m aware of, other than the requirement to report your income.
How much can you earn?
Over one year, and assuming you cover the building fees, you’d likely earn about NT$18600 or so. This would amount to a gross return on investment of 3.38%. Additionally, you may be able to sell the car park at some future point in time, which might earn additional growth in the value of a carpark. If your client pays the building fees, then you could make an additional NT$2400 pa., earning 3.81%. You may also be able to purchase the lot at a slight discount of 5%, improving your ROV nicely to about 4.01%
What is the highest interest rate?
I’ve been searching for ages, and I’ve found that the highest interest rate you can get at the moment in Taiwan is approsimately 2.65% for a 12-month CD at the post office. There are occasional offers marginally better than this, but since the Post Office is govt. backed it’s likely that this is the best you can get.
So, if you bought it straight up, your gross margin would vary from the minimum of 0.75% to a more respectable 1.36% vs. the post office rate.
There are a number of assumptions in this scenario that would warrant further note.
- Could you rent the space out for 12 months EVERY month? It’s not likely, there are times the lot would be empty for sure, as you wait for your next client.
- Rental units in this area of Tamsui are generally undersubscribed and there is a reasonable supply of spaces BUT several of the lots are above ground, and as property prices spiral, it’s likely those lots would be turned into apartment blocks which may or may not have open access parking.
- The population in Zhuwei is certainly rising, and quickly, so this should also help property values in the medium to long term.
- There isn’t a big office space market here yet, though, so finding a renter would likely mean that the renter is himself renting an apartment without a space. Many in our community do this already.
- I’d certainly be happy to have another source of income from a parking lot; perhaps even two lots would help me reach a personal goal.
- Mortgage such a lot might help improve returns on the purchase, but with mortgage rates nearly at 4%, it’s unlikely that you’d see much benefit. And rates are rising.
A final note: Taiwanese are happy to buy apartments and car parks for rental and rent them out at rates we would find worthwhile doing. For example, people buy a house @ NT$5 million and rent out the house for less than NT$15K per month. The amount wouldn’t even cover the mortgage if it was over 50% of the total. It’s a math that has ALWAYS puzzled me.
Would you do this deal? Let me what you think…
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