The traffic has really dropped down. I believe that the big upswing was a result of the article that I posted on Digg.com and Reddit.com. It seems that the traffic from that site really peaks on the next day and then tappers back down the day after that.
 My plans at the moment are to post an article to those sites weekly with the goal of trying to get an article on the “popular” page.
Get paid for recommending things to your friends and readers. Amazon has an associate program that you should sign up for.
If you are using WordPress, then you should download two plugins:
Now-Reading – This Plugin will maintain a list of all the books that you plan to read, are reading, and have read. You can post reviews and give ratings. The books show up in your sidebar. Also, it creates links to Amazon using your associate id so that you get a commission if anyone buys the book.
WP-Amazon – This adds a “Insert from Amazon” link below the article edit window. It allows for you to search for products on Amazon and to insert links to those products in your articles with your associate id.
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I broke the default WordPress layout when I tried hacking it to put the Google ads and Google search into it. I have found several layouts that either support Google AdSense directly, or have spots open for it. Here are some links to them:
ProBlogger Clean theme for WordPress
 Here is the one I am currently using:
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I have dreamed about building a wireless network in my community that would allow for our neighbors to connect to one another without depending on a internet connection, it would allow for wifi devices to operate all over the neighborhood, and it would allow for us to share our network connections to improve reliability and perhaps performance.
I have looked at MIT’s RoofNet project. It looked interesting, but required a lot of time to research and get going. A new company called Meraki Networks is planning to release some products to make it possible for people like us to create such a network. www.meraki.net/products.htmlÂ
Look at this Google Analytics report! What this shows is how easy it is to generate significant traffic to your site in a short time. My biggest question is why so many of them are coming from ActiveWin.com?
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With the little bit of promotion that I have done, the number of page impressions is up to 293 today. That is up from about a dozen two days ago. Also, the ad revenue for yesterday was $0.20 and today it was $1.90!!!
If you don’t have Google AdSense on your site, you need to sign up today and start raking in the dough! Also, consider taking some of your major posts and submit them to digg.com, reddit.com, slashdot.org, shoutwire.com, and similar sites. They can drive a lot of traffic your way.
Why do we like Google? Is it because they are the “do no evil” company? Is it because they are not Microsoft? Is it because they make our lives easier through their search, email, and other services? The fact of the matter is that a lot of people from users, to developers, to workers, and to investors like Google. Heck, even I like google! (Look at the ads.)
But I am wondering if we are creating the very thing that we feared in Microsoft, that is the fear of world domination. Microsoft has a very aggressive business and so far successful business. Microsoft has managed to make the majority of desktops and laptops run Windows. Their Office product has taken over. People are beginning to look in. Microsoft raises prices and what can you do but buy their product? (You could use Linux, which I am currently using to write this post, but that is not really practical considering the number of people and companies that use and support Windows.) So, we are feeling a little trapped and make Microsoft out to be some kind of enemy. We begin to wonder if the NSA has or will put a back door into all of our computers.
However, it is possible to secure our computers. It is possible to firewall them and prevent unauthorized communication with the outside world.
So, we can escape Microsoft. But in Google, we are giving them something that we can not escape, information. We use their search engine to find out things. Controlling what people find or don’t find is a very powerful tool, one that China understands and has forced Google to change their practices. The otherside is that understanding what people are searching for tells you a lot about those people. Something that the US government wanted to know but that Google refused to give in.
But more than search, Google has access to our emails. They are able through their analytics and AdSense products to track people as they move across the web. How tempting of a target will this be for business managers attempting to maximize profits by steering you in a particular direction? How tempting will this information be to the law enforcement official that is tracking criminals or a government that is looking to squash threats to its power?
Google may be the “do no evil” company, but they will continue to do be so only as long as we watch them.
A good way to increase traffic is to have every post you make to wordpress send an update to an blog update server. This will alert that server that there is a new post on your site, you want to take the entire list on codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services and put it in the update list on WordPress.
You get to this list by the following steps:
1) Log into the wordpress admin tool
2) Click “Options”
3) Click “Writing”
4) insert the list under “Update Services”
5) Click “Update Options”
Here is a screen shot to help you.
How many times have you read a comment like “This web site is an example of such a system. At the time of this writing, it generates about $9000 a month in income for me” (Steve Pavlina) and thought, wow! several thousand dollars a month from writing content on a site and getting money from advertisement. How hard can it be?
Well, I’m about to find out. So, here is the plan:
Step 1 : Setup the infrastructure for the site.
Done! I have had www.gadgetnate.com for a very long time and have just piddled around with it. It is crawled by most of the search engines. In fact, the last time I looked, the search engine crawlers provided most of the traffic. So, good news, the site is listed and monitored. Bad news, there is nobody coming here. That is because there is almost no content on the site. That is about to change.
Also, I need a web publishing software. I have decided to go with WordPress mainly because my friend Dude uses it and likes it. Plus, I was able to get it installed with very little problems, and I did not have time to evaluate alternate tools like phpNuke. So, this is up and running.
I have also gotten my Google Adsense and Google Analytics up and running. That way, I can see if I am getting traffic, and have the potential of making money right off. I still want to get the library hooked up with the Amazon affiliate program, but that is a little ways off.
Step 2 : Pick a topic and publish content
I actually have two areas of content I’m working on. The first is this information about how to create a money making site. This will also include all my other writings and poderings. However, the real site that I am going to try to pull together is about Hindi. I have been trying to learn Hindi for a long time, and I figure that putting together a site and describing my progress with links to all the other Hindi sites would be something of use to fellow Hindi learners.
Step 3: Promote the site and increase traffic
There are several ways I plan to do this including:
If you have some other suggestions, please leave them as comments. Check back here to see how it goes.
BTW, if you haven’t done so already, I recommend you install the Google Pack which includes a lot of useful programs. The link is on the right hand side at the bottom.
