We’ve treated ourselves to a new theme, which was modified by a friend of ours (I was owed a favour :razz: )- with the code itself modified by myself and brought upto a Widget friendly stance. The header was also designed (albeit badly) by myself using some new brushes I got for Photoshop - made it somewhat technology come WEB 2.0 looking. I like it…opinions please!

We ditched our other theme, as we found a few errors in it and as it wasn’t mine I didn’t want to touch the structure and f**k it up even further!

*EDIT*: Found a problem with IE…trying to fix it!

I’ve done a bit of reshuffling on the blog, I’ve messed around with some of the code (tidying it up), added an advertising space (for more see here), added new bits and pieces and removed some redundant ones. I’ve been considering making a logo, but I haven’t the time right now, so I’ll probably get around to it during Christmas.

What do ye think of my quicky advertise here button? Not bad for a few minutes in Photoshop (for someone who only knows a bit more than the basics!)

Edit: Robert pointed out that the comment box was near on impossible to see, I’ve since edited the stylesheet to resolve this. Thanks Robert.

I’m back after having a few days rest from blogging and the internet. Mainly as I’ve been focused on a few other projects, and other bits and pieces.

I’ve been busy running around since Saturday, we got ourselves another bus, an Ex-London Transport Leyland Titan that used to work around the Coolock, Kinsealy, Swords area. Ended up being roped into helping out tiling a floor (with big f**k off slate tiles!), and later that evening repaneling a bus…I wasn’t much of a help as I was fucked and wanted to go home…as you do!

Sunday I spent mainly coding and editing photos, and making headers and various other jobs I’ve been putting off for ages! On Sunday, I made the decision to free up my portfolio, by selling most of my projects/websites. A drastic move, and my online income will be severely reduced, but I believe that it would be for the best.

Considering, I will have more time to focus on websites I’m keeping online - futher their development, earning potential and rankings, etc… Monthly expenditure will be reduced, I will recoupe the costs of setting them up (and possibily gain a small profit), I’ll have more time to focus on things other than online activities, such as starting a career, spending more time acquiring and restoring vehicles for preservation, futher my other skills like photography, programming, etc… So selling most of my websites will benefit me for the better.

It also gives me the opportunity to develop new projects futher along the line. I made the mistake many people make, by jumping into too many projects too quick and not having the time to spend developing them properly. Some of my latest projects like Blogger Hub and Impulse Blogger
have been abused and abandoned. They offer great potential, but I simply haven’t the time to spend on them - so these will be my priority to get sold, as they’ve the most potential and could turn a profit :twisted:

The above Blogger Hub and Impulse Blogger will be sold alongside Irish Humour Blog, Joozo.net, LooseHosting, PictureStorer.com, and Whatsmypagerank.net & Whatsmypagerank.org. They’re a mixture of domains, developed sites, blogs and forums, and opened but pretty much undeveloped websites.

Any person who wishes to make a reasonable offer before they are listed for public sale shortly should contact me ASAP. Bear in mind I want quick sales, so sensible offers please!

Had a spare half hour this evening, so knocked up a quick (I mean quick!) website for the domain: www.aarondonohoe.com that I registered a while ago for use as an online portfolio, and maybe a blog…

Has a Web 2.0 header, and buttons I roped together in Photoshop. I suppose it will do for the time being. Comments welcome!

I’ve finally gotten around to getting Blogger Hub active and online! I haven’t been saying anything about it, but basically it’s a new Bloggers Community - the aim is to be for Bloggers by Bloggers.  Although I’m the first to admit that it looks bleak at the moment! I haven’t done any promotion -even though the domain has a PR2 just from sitting around and a pretty good Alexa rank!

The forum basically revolves around Blogging - namely the Wordpress system, but I’m willing to expand should the demand be known. All blogging aspects including earning money, plugings, styling, selling text link ads, free link exchanges etc… And as time graduates, the forums will expand as well the subjects.

I’d like to ask any readers of the blog to take the time to register (and participate!) in the forums - here. We’re just trying to get our feet off the ground, and this is the first step to marketing the forum!

I haven’t been trading domains for a few weeks - mainly through being extremely busy with managing sites and planning out material for the domains I’ve already got in my posession!

Although, I came across an eBay auction last night and couldn’t turn the offer down. Basically, the domains:

WHATSMYPAGERANK.NET

WHATSMYPAGERANK.ORG

Came up for sale, at a steal! I won them both for $7.05, inc. transfer - not bad! They’re prime candidates for a profit, either through development, parking, or re-sale. Well what sort of mini-entrepreneur would I be if I didn’t see a profit in everything I buy!

While on the subject of websites. I’m opening Blogger Hub shortly - I’d say gimme another week! I’ve also to completely design, code and test the websites for the Motor Vehicle Preservation Society of Ireland and Rivercourt Coaches - which as client websites are pretty high on my priority list

Okay, you’ll probably notice that the blog looks a little different today - well, I’ve been busy getting it looking more presentable, with a new theme, making the sitebar look more attractive, and messing around with the Widgets.

One thing, is it took ages! This new theme, doesn’t like Widgets (on it’s current layout), so we had to revert to our roots, and dust off our HTML skills to get the sidebar looking mildly well - if I do say so myself

I’ve gotten rid of WidgetBucks - as I don’t honestly feel I’ll make money from it, and it looked horrible, and flashy. So, I’ve decided to give Adsense another shot - I find that it can fit in better with a theme than Bidvertiser.

And to encourage more RSS subscribers, we’ve dotted various methods to sign upto our RSS feed - such as the new Email Subscription option in the sidebar, which will deliver new posts direct to your inbox! And as usual, the bog standard Google Reader option is available.

Well, I’m a sheep! I’m following the suit, of many bloggers, by enquiring (only enquiring mind!) on a custom style. I’ve had the idea in my head for months - I’ve just put it off, due to my tight fistedness towards money…and my fear of spending it!

But, I’ve been reinspired, due to bloggers like Smemon, and Mark Walsh (a few plugs there for the lads! :wink: ) sharing their experiences with custom themes, and their relative cheapness. Custom themes, when Wordpress wasn’t as widespread when I first began blogging, would cost in the region of $400+ for a basic one! But I’ve been quoted from $100-$175 for a redesign of madringo.com - not bad! Considering, the more individual your blog looks, the better chance that you’ll attract more reoccuring visitors - although as everyone always says, Content is King!

I’ve no problem with forking out the money, as I know I’ll make it back from the income of this site. But, I’ve decided, to give it a go myself first. I’ve a fair amount of experience with HTML and CSS, and some PHP script - I haven’t done much as regards Wordpress. I’ve modified the default theme for other sites, but no made one from scratch.

So I think, I’ll start off by modifying a developed theme to suit my needs - get the hang of the structure of a Wordpress theme, and then give my own a go. But for a while, I’m putting a pre-designed theme up, as I’m sick of the default theme - I believe it’s driving my visitors away in droves!

Well after a long (and happy) relationship with Bidvertiser, we’ve dumped them in favour of WidgetBucks - a new advertising network, which advertises various products and services related to the page their placed on, on a slender, quite attractive widget.

However, we’re only trialing this form of revenue earning - can’t you see I’ve been turning a bit commercial recently . We’ve been credited $25, on initial signup, so we’ve to generate $25 worth of credits on our account for the next payment - this will make or break the service for us.

We know, it’s a bit unattractive (as is our style!), but it will hopefully, contribute to the bills - believe me, I’d much rather have an ad-free site…if it wasn’t bankrupting me in the process (well not really…).

Don’t get me wrong, Bidvertiser was a great system, just their payouts weren’t as high as expected for the exposure. Most of the sites I run, had Bidvertiser on them at one stage, and had a lot of clicks on my account - but I wasn’t earning the money I think those clicks were worth!

So maybe, this new system may work out in our benefit. We’ve tried Text Link Ads, but the Plugin doesn’t like us! We recieved good money from them, but we’ve yet to sort out the blog - I’m sure once we update (you guessed it…I haven’t updated to 2.3.1 yet!) the plugin will work okay, and we’ll be able to run TLA once again!

We’re sorry Bidvertiser - no hard feelings eh?

Just noticed this evening, all my sites are now reading PR0, I got a bit of a shock when I saw the button on this site at PR0 - I thought Google had decided to “sock it to me” and other bloggers, and derank us to PR0.

Upon futher ‘investigation’ I found that any site I typed into the PageRank checker came up PR0. So I’m under the assumption that their datacenters are down - but all of them? :???:

Could possibly have some implications for bloggers, who are required to have certain ranks, and stats to partake in various revenue earning thingys…lets hope this PR issue is solved!

09/11/07: Still down

12/11/07: Reports have said, it was back briefly - but filled with errors!

(Although, I could be bullshitting, and it’s actually my PC that’s messed up…)

So what am I on about, you may ask? Well HostBidder has been around for quite a while on the amature webmaster scene - aiding many budding webmasters, including myself! Another good think for the majority of readers to this site, is that it’s run by an Irish guy, Fergal Crawley.

Bascially, HostBidder’s main focus would be on supplying free top level domains (TLD’s), as well as Money via Paypal, to its members, through points which you accumilate through posting on the forums and participating in ‘Points Exchanges’ - selling your services in exchange for points - View more here.

I discovered HostBidder back in March 2006, but never registered until the following May. When I joined, I knew something about webdesign and web authoring - Blogging, Forums, and Earning Money Online were completely new to me!

It is through HostBidder, and it’s domain registration service HBDomains which madringo.com has been on since June 2006. Surprisingly, earning points to exchange for your domain is quite easy:

• You can earn upto 40 points per day (First 4 posts count as point earning posts);
• Once you’ve accumilated 900 points, you can exchange your points for a domain of your choice from HBDomains;
• You post your request, and within a day or so, Fergal, will authorise your request and your domain is yours;
• The only requirement, is a simple linkback on your website, and posting your thanks in the testimonials page.
• Once your year registration has run up, simply post a renewal request (in good time).

For a while, HostBidder became somewhat derilict! Simply, people were getting their domains and leaving, only coming back when there’s a problem, or their domain(s) require renewal!

But, as part of the renewal scheme ongoing on HostBidder, you can win $250, for making a blog post about your ‘HostBidder experience’, and what they offer. Or alternatively, you can simply do a humble backlink to HostBidder! View more here.

I’ve taken the post option, as I’d like to see HostBidder continue, and prosper for many years to follow!

(BTW, you can find me HERE on HostBidder!)

It seems that ever generous Mr. Cow in association with the nice people at Weborithm are offering to anybody who can persuade them enough - an entire blog redesign worth $449.  How nice eh?

To be honest, I don’t need a blog redesign - considering I haven’t designed it in the first place. I’m happy as it is, but I am trying to generate some awareness (or something along those lines) of the offer - fair competition and all that!

Basically to win, all you have to do is blog about how great you and your blog are and why you deserve a new blog redesign. I suppose the “Because I’m Worth It” catchphrase can come into some moderate use here!

I suppose I better blog about how great I am! Warning, I don’t intend on holding back on being modest - well maybe a little! I was never any good at bragging - I’m not saying I don’t brag…I’m just saying I’m no good at it!

So why do I deserve a blog redesign?

My blog is using the default theme, although I may be moderatly happy with the default theme, I’d be happier with a ‘custom’ one-off design. Like everyone on the net, I want individuality. I find if your blog has an individual flavour, it will help you build your status online and make users stick around - benefiting both yourself and the peeps on your Blogroll.

To be honest, I abuse my blog somewhat! Until recently I didn’t bother to gain it any rankings, market the blog, oh and I didn’t even bother to post. Styles, what styles? The blog always remained bare and unused for some astranged reason. So the blog could do with some TLC - god knows I won’t be able to do it!

Anyways, I deserve a Bovine Blog Redesign - “Because I’m Worth It!”

It’s been just over a month now since I first submitted my website for ranking on Alexa. It went from  2,275,750 then to 821,344 now - which in my opinion is progress of sorts. For a months work, from someone who hasn’t a clue what he’s doing!

Now that I’ve achieved my goal of 6 figures, I want to improve on that! I’d like to get down to around about 500,000 in the next few weeks. Of course like everything, the higher you rank, the harder it will be to improve upon it to the next rank above it.

I won’t be able to do what I’m doing at present, as in sitting back, making no effort for promotion and letting the visitors come to me. I’ll have to go to them, gain more backlinks, comment more on others blogs, and of course write more louring content!

As many say, it’s what you make it! What ever work I put into it, I should get back with my rankings, possibly an increase in earnings from sponsored posts due to my improved rankings, and with better rankings come better prospects of private advertisers!

I’m not going into my ‘game plan’ at the moment, I’ll leave that for another day. However, one of my revised plans will be cutting down on the ‘unrelated’ posts, and creating content that will entice recurring visitors to the blog.

I came across this great little widget known as ‘lijit‘ a play on the word ‘legit’ me thinks, a must have for all social bloggers! It’s a widget for your blog, that allows people to search and find out most about your online presence (such as Flickr, Digg, Technorati, Twitter etc….). A handy little function in my opinion, as it allows your users to find out more information on you, and for you for find out information on your visitors or other websites/blogs you frequent.

As well as gathering all your social network and blogging sites, it also gathers your blogroll and tells you, your blogrollee’s Twitter, Flickr, Digg etc… Handy no?

It’s closely connected with MyBlogLog as far as I can gather, so that must mean Yahoo have their foot in the door if they’ve not invited themselves around for tea already.

But still, well worth checking out and tinkering around with! Lijit! - Visit my profile over at Lijit here :wink:

I’ve been fairly busy for the past couple of hours, mainly with the plugins which aid the blog to run smoothly and help my job of writing much much easier and hasle free - god knows sitting on your arse in front of a PC/Laptop is hard enough…without having everything done for you at the click of a button!

I’ve updated any out of date plugins (Vipers Video Quick Tags, All in One SEO, Slashdigglicious etc…) which have all had new versions compatible with the latest release of Wordpress (2.3).

I’ve also installed some new plugins, such as Post Avatar, which is why ‘Greased Up Deaf Guy’ is at the top left hand corner of this post and maybe a few others. I’ve also installed WP-Cache, but I’m having some difficulties in getting it setup, I’m leaving contacting Customer Support for as long as possible…I want to figure it our myself! Another great plugin I got is Google XML Sitemaps, a must have if you want to get your site a good Google Ranking as it enables it to be crawled much easier (or so I’m told…)!

I know I’ve got too many plugins installed, but I actually utilise ALL of them on a regular basis - I’m sure if I didn’t have them, blogging for me would be a futher chore! At the moment, it’s cushie with the sheer amount of plugins and mods I have running. Okay, it may slow the blog down a little…but what’s a second or two between friends?