Entries from March 2007 ↓

On Friday I went and saw Reign Over Me   and it was hands down one of the best movies that I’ve seen in a very long time.  I have to admit that I was a little surprised last weekend, when it only grossed 8.3 million in its opening weekend.  Overall I guess that does not suprise me though, because I guess its just not cool to go see an original inspiring movie anymore.

Adam Sandler was brilliant in his role as Charlie Fineman and he really showed just how capable he is in playing a serious role in this movie.  Don Cheadle also put on an amazing performance as Alan Johnson, Sandler’s old roommate from college.  Personally I thought the chemistry between Sandler and Cheadle was outstanding and it was great to watch the story unfold between the two.  This film was a brilliant original story, offering some great comedy along the way, fantastic acting, and a great selection of music that really brought all aspects of the film together.  If you get chance I highly recommend seeing this film.

A few weeks ago my wife’s car need the oil changed so I decided to take it to a local place nearby to get it done quickly.  I usually take it somewhere else, but due to time constraints I decided to take it there to get it done quickly.  In addition to that this establishment had banners up for
$19.99 oil changes all day long.

Ok, so no big deal I took it there and when I pulled up I was promptly greeted and they told me that they would get the oil change taken care of right away.  Now the mistake I made was to just assume that I was getting the $19.99 oil change without having to ask for it.  Man I don’t know why I would think that, could it be because there were only like 4 huge banners all over the building advertising this price.   So about 15 minutes later they told me my car was ready to go and I went to pay.  I was surprised to find out that a $19.99 oil change turned into almost $40.  The reasoning for this is that they put the premium synthetic oil in without asking me if I even wanted it.  They assumed that I wanted this because I was driving a newer car.

How can you assume that a customer wants something when you don’t even ask them?  I did not request the special $19.99 price, because I didn’t think that I had to considering the heavy promotion of it all over the building.   Basically it’s just another way to nickel and dime customers for extra money, for services they probably don’t want anyway.  Oh and by the way how do I even know if they put in the “special synthetic blend oil” and not just the regular oil.

Ultimately I should have specified what I wanted from the beginning, but I was under the impression that at least some people were still honest.  I guess in the end that is the way they like to run their business.    Now is it really worth the extra money to potentially sacrifice the overall value of a possible lifetime customer?  The answer to that is no, but they did get their extra $20 out of me that day so I hope they enjoy it.  One thing is for sure though, no matter how convenient or cheap it is, I will never go there again nor will I instruct anyone that I know to go to this establishment either.

My blog is still fairly new and I’m stilling trying to reach more readers and generate more traffic.  A new site has been launched called Introduce My Blog that allows you to register and post your own entry as to what makes you blog unique and why users should read it.  I think this is another great way for you to try and reach a broader audience of readers for anyone that is a new blogger.  

Readers then can comment and even rate your post about your blog to offer advice and help on your blog.   So if you get a chance go sign up at Introduce My Blog and give a write up on you blog and be sure to post comments on other’s entries as well, because this is great way of building a community of readers for you blog.

 Well starting next week I’m going to be living on my own for the next month and a half, because my wife Amber has to finish up her final clinical rotations before she graduates in May.  She will take our dog Ernie with her as well so the house will definitely be pretty quiet, but that can be a good thing sometimes.

I am definitely going to miss the both of them alot, but I will take some trips to see them since they will only be a few hours away.  Actually the thing I’m going to miss most is waking up at 3am to find Ernie laying on my chest because he wants me to take him out to the bathroom.  Also, I’m really going to miss at hearing him bark everytime a doorbell rings on tv!

It has been a long 3 years of graduate school with my wife but she is almost done and I’m really proud of her and can’t wait to see her get to graduate in May with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy.  Anyways I’m definitely going to miss her and Ernie in the coming month as the house just won’t be quite the same withouth them, but I’m sure it will be over before I know it.

Well I’ve been hard at work on my second modification of the Cutline Wordpress Theme and I decided to build a site around one of my interests which is Nascar. SpeedSpott.com is a blog about Nascar news and my opinions on the the sport. I have alot of stuff that I still want to do to the site, but I’m happy with the way it turned out. If you happen to be a racing fan especially Nascar go check it out and let me know who your favorite driver is. However if its now something your interested in I highly recommend checking it out anyway, because its definitely an exciting sport.  If you do get the chance to check out the site please let me know what you think about the overall look and design of it.

My blog has been live on the web for a little over 2 months now and so far I am happy with its progress. Right now the one thing that I regret most in my early blogging experience is my mistake to decide to run adsense advertising within the content of my posts.  I have to admit I was after the idea of a little extra cash in the beginning, but I don’t feel the same way now.  I really don’t like they way they take away from the look of my blog and the points that I am trying to make with my posts.

I initially started ClarkeW.com to express my thoughts on issues and interests in my own personal life and to be quite honest the small amount of revenue I made was not worth losing potential readers.  So going forward I don’t plan on running any more contextual advertising inside my posts and any other advertising I decide to run will be on the sidebar.

I know some bloggers feel different about how they monetize their blogs and I think maybe it is right for some people, but I am just going to concentrate on creating quality content right now.  I have several other sites in the works that I planning on implementing monetization techniques on and look forward to getting those going in the coming weeks. How do you feel about running contextual ads on your blog?

Usually when I look for domains to register I user either Go Daddy or 1and1 to do most of my registrations as they offer pretty much the most affordable prices.  The other day I happened to be on GoDaddy and if you have not already heard they are are offering 1 year of registration on .info domains for only $.99 plus the $.25 ICANN.  After the first year of registration they renew at the regular registration price of $8.95 I believe.

I really didn’t think much about this at the time, but I got to looking last night and there are still quite a few what some may consider lucrative .info domain names available.  I am not sure how long this offer lasts, but it is a good opportunity to get some domains for a cheap price right now.   Obviously the .info extension is not as well known on the web as a .com, .net, or .org but I still believe they could useful at some point.

I spend a lot of time reading blogs everyday, because there is so much great information out there.  I read roughly around 25 different blogs on a daily basis and they are all pretty much centered around seo, search marketing, web design, website monetization, and technology in general.  I do read some of other stuff not related to these, but probably 90% of what I read is about these areas.

So I decided to pick out 5 of my favorite blogs from this group and briefly discuss them, because I feel the information that they have shared has helped me out a great deal with my endeavors online.  So here is the list of my favorites in no particular order.

ClarkeW’s 5 Favorite Blogs

Shoemoney
I came across Jeremy Schoemaker’s blog early last summer and instantly became a daily reader.  He provides great insights into the world of search marketing, branding yourself, and how to monetize your sites online.  In addition to that his online radio show NetIncome is great and I’ve picked up a ton of information and tips from it as well. 

SEOBOOK
Aaron Wall’s personal blog on SEO that I first came across after purchasing his SEOBOOK a couple of years ago which I highly recommend.  The thing that I enjoy most about his writing is the way he takes SEO and relates it to other aspects of the marketing both online and offline.  Sometimes after reading some of his posts, I find myself looking at certain aspects of SEO, blogging, marketing, and business in general alot differently than I once had.

SEOMOZ
Rand Fishkin’s company blog about internet marketing and SEO.  There are several contributors on this blog and everyone has their own particular style of writing which is great.  In addition to offering great information and insights on internet marketing and SEO they also offer alot of great knowledge on social media  Recently they just launched their new site and I’m a big fan of it as it has several great features to encourage user involvement and they also offer some great free tools available on their site as well.

Pearsonified
I don’t remember how I actually stumbled across Chris Pearson’s blog, but the day I did I believe I spent about 3 hours reading through almost all of his posts on his site.  His blog consists of topics ranging from design, blogging, seo, and several other aspects on life as well.   Great website design is probably what he is known best for and I’m a big fan of his design work as well.  One of the aspects I like most about his blog is that I find his writing to be very inspiring and here is one of my favorite posts on his site - How to Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye.

Problogger
Problogger is Darren Rowse’s blog about helping bloggers make money online.  This is another site that I’ve learned a ton of information from in regards to blog monetization, affiliate marketing, content writing, and so many more topics as well.  To be honest I am amazed at all of the unique quality content he is able to create on a pretty much daily basis. 

So there are my five favorite blogs that I enjoy reading each day.  If you don’t already read them I highly recommend it because they definitely have a wealth of great information to offer.

Well today Shoemoney launched his new affiliate ad system AuctionAds.com. It basically ties into Ebay’s affiliate program and you earn revenue on a CPA basis when someone makes a purchase from the ads on your site or even just opens an account on Ebay. When you setup your ad with AuctionAds you can even select the keywords that you would like to target on your site. It is also extremely easy to setup, I think I spent a total of maybe 5 minutes from signing up and then having the code live on here

I have decided to try it out on here, however I don’t know that it will have that much impact since my blog is not really a highly targeted niche site. I am excited to try it out on some of my other sites where I think it could do really well. Overall I think think this has the potential to be a great service to monetize your sites, so open up an account with AuctionAds and try it out yourself.

Ok, so I get frustrated sometimes and I find that I just need to stop what I am doing and find  something fun to take my mind of the problems at hand.  Well yesterday I came across a great site while I was on Lifehacker that lets you play over 500 classic Nintendo games online for free!  I have always been a huge fan of Nintendo  since I was a kid considering it was the first video game system that my brother and I owned.  When I was younger I always remember people older than me talking about how great Atari was and I never really understood that, but now I do as they felt the same way about Atari that I do about Nintendo.

The actual site is called vNES that utilizes an java programmed emulator to allow online play.  Once I found the site I got lost in it for about an hour as I found so many of my favorite games that brought back a ton of memories.  The library of games they have to choose from is very impressive and I pretty much could find everything I was looking for.   The only drawback I saw at this time was that it takes a little getting used to playing the game with your keyboard opposed to the classic NES controller.

Now that I have given you a great option to kill time when you need a break, head over to vNES and get to playing some classic Nintendo.  I applaud the creator of this site as it is a great resource to play classic Nintendo games.  On a side note, web hosting can get expensive for this type of a free service so there is a section of the site for donations and I’m sure that any donations would be appreciated.