To Bloggers

This morning I login my account of AuctionAds, happy to find my earnings are up to $25. I thought I have done well in spreading AuctionAds and $25 is the payment. But then I notice Latest News & Updates on the left of Monthly Stats.The latest news is Free $25.00 AuctionAds Bonus For New Publishers, which says:

AuctionAds Publishers, we have a great way for you to promote AuctionAds and earn 5% affiliate referrals. Spread the word (using your affiliate link) that we are offering an instant $25.00 balance to all new publishers who sign up for AuctionAds! New publishers just need to sign up and they will receive a balance of $25.00 automatically.

Please note if you signed up with us previously and have never earned a payout we will bump your current balance to $25 too! Our minimum payout is also being raised to $50 but everyone who hasn’t earned a payout to date will be halfway there already! By publicizing this promotion on your blog using your affiliate link you can take advantage of receiving 5% of all revenue generated by new AA publishers you refer for a full six months. Thanks again and look for more AA news soon.

AuctionAds affiliate links are built directly into the “Ads By AuctionAds” link in the AuctionAds ads. You are credited with a sign up if someone applies and gets approved by AuctionAds via your link.

After released it’s new and improved web2.0 ads style, AuctionAds increased affiliate bonus and payout now. These steps make AuctionAds more fomal and cometitive, which was one of the most successful product launches of 2007. But I think AuctionAds should improve the performance of the new ads style. Although the new style has two formats and several color schemes, it’s size is fixed. I can not change the size of the web2.0 ads, so I still place the standard ads on my website. Are you running the new AuctionAds banners?

When writing a post online, sometimes you maight find it was difficult to concentrate on writing. You were often distracted by something else, such as a coming instant message, a new email, etc. It wasted your time and reduce blogging efficience. Do not give youself the chance to do these trivial things. The following 6 tips may be helpful for you.
Do not open your RSS reader
If you had subscribed many blogs, you would receive some new update posts every minute. Do not open RSS reader, then you can not see the updates and go to read them.
Do not open your blog
When there is a new comment on your blog, you probably go to read it and reply. You may also click the commentator’s link and visit his blog, and you will leave a comment if you find it is a good site. Then you will forget your writing post.
Close your IM tools
If you opened your IM tools such as gtalk, messages would come one by one. They really disturb and distract you from writing.
Close browser
Close your browser, then you can not open your Google Reader and blog.
Write on notebook with a pen
Open your notebook, pick up a pen, start writing with only a white paper in front of you. It is really helpful to improve you productivity.
Do not stop writing until finish your post
When you started your writing, do not stop to do something esle until you finished the whole post.
I had encountered some troubles like these when writing and wrote a post of what distract me from writing several days ago. The tips above are the solutions with my experience. What are your problems when writing? How do they distract you from writing? Please let me know in the comments.

Yesterday I modified a 3columm to my own simple style for one of my chinese blogs. Some readers left comments to say it is unbelievable simpleness. It is really very simple, like a table with blue borders. But I like it. It is very clear and readable for readers to find what they need. And the original theme was designed for SEO, since I did not change the genernal layout, I think it is still good for SEO. I had designed some templetes for my other websites before. From a newbie designing layout with tables to a skilled designer using CSS adroitly, I thought I could design the theme easily in a short time. However, through modifying the theme, I found my knowledge of CSS and HTML was very poor. It took me 3 hours to design the navigation menu. The most trouble thing is to avoid the different displays on IE and firefox. The theme has the right displays on firefox. But when browsing it on IE6.0 or IE7.0, the navigation menu is in disorder. Sometimes I wandered why IE browser could not designed according to CSS and HTML standards. I am not complaining the design group of Microsoft. But it is really necessary for a big corporation to have the responsibility to their user.
Let’s see my new theme below. Is it simple?^_^

Today I will recommend a great WordPress plugin, cos-html-cache.
What is cos-html-cache?
cos-html-cache is a WordPress plugin which creats real static pages of posts and categories for your blog. The pages are static html files, which would refresh when you add, edit or delete posts and comments.
Why to use cos-html-cache?
Since cos-html-cache can creat static html files, it is no need for the server to load PHP code and data from database when open your post page. It really make your site run faster.
How to use cos-html-cache?
It is easy to install this plugin and activate it on blog admin dashboard.

1. download – you can download the plugin at wordpress.com
2. unzip and upload – unzip the downloaded file and upload to plugin folders, usually /wp-content/plugins directory
3. change permalinks – change permalinks to the type of “/%postname%.html” or “/articles/%postname%.html” or other type like this.
4. activate – If you have Gzip Compression enabled, turn it off. Then activate the plugin on the plugin screen.
5. complete – go to “options” menu, click “cos-html-cache” from the submenu, then delete html cache files.

It will creat static html files when you add, edit or delete posts and commnets. You can see the files on your server to make sure if it is working.
I was very exited the first time I know the plugin. I use it and it really make my site faster. You can see the permalink of my blog post is “/articles/postname.html”. Plus, the plugin is helpful for SEO, because search engine robots like to claw html pages.
Are you ready to use this plugin? If your site gets slashdotted, if you are on a slow server, you may want to try it.

Bloggerwave gives me the first chance to make money with this blog. I have earned some dollars from Bloggerwave with my Chinese blogs, but I really want to try it in my English blog. Bloggerwave is a good choice for newbie bloggers to monetize their blog. If you have a blog, you are already closing in on the money. Although the paid is not much, you can have a try.

We can see the benefits of working from home obviously, but it is not easy to take out. In the last two months, I was working as a professional blogger. Everyday I spent more than ten hours on my blog. Reading the posts in Google Reader, browsing websites on the network, writing some posts, playing games and watching TV when tired are my daily life. Day after day, time passed away. I subscribed many blogs, most of which are english blogs. I did learn much from some professional and famous blogs. But my blog product was few. I even can not achieve the goal of one post a day. After a full-sided consideration, I think the main reason is I did not arrange my time in an efficient way. You can see aspects of wasting time as follows:
Spending too much time on reading – I subscribed many blogs and had to read almost 100 posts in Google Reader everyday. Sometimes I spent a whole day on reading, and considered writing only at night. Actually reading 100 posts did not take me a whole day. Sometimes a post is not just one post. We often quote some words from other blogs and have some text links to their posts or our own posts. A post with some text links is helpful for readers. Now I am a reader, I also want to know more about the post, then I will click the links in the post. So some posts together is like a “link factory”, you do not know where you will go and when to stop.
Checking emails often – I have several Email boxes. I often use 163-Email when needed in China and gmail on abroad network. Sometimes I use my own domain’s Email, such as yiyix@tobloggers.com. I often send email to my friends, my readers and other bloggers, then everyday I receive many emails, but these emails are not in the same box. So I spent much time on checking and replying email.
Paying too much attention to blog stats – After reading and checking emails, I would see the blog stats. How many visitors? How many page views? Where did reader come from? What are the keywords? I paid much attention to them. Examining the stas everyday or several days a time is helpful to blog’s orientation and development. But looking over the stats several times a day is wasting time.
Checking revenue - The more revenue of blog, the more motivation I have. I often check how much I earned today. I check revenue of google adsense, examine the eCPM, and consider optimizing ads desgin when eCPM is lower. There are so many affiliate programs. It really took me too much time.
Searching themes and plugins – You know, bloggers want to have their single theme. But not all of them can design a theme. Some bloggers desin single theme by themselves, some buy a theme, and many use the free themes. I am the one using free theme. I search themes, download what I like, and modify them to my own style. I could design logo, banner and chang font, background image and color, even the layout of the whole theme. I often search and install some good plugin too. If I do these everyday, I really distract myself from writing.
I think the above five aspects cut the time for writing. Probably we shoul force ourselves on writing when we can not concentrate on it.

Before I write the posts about working from home, I have to claim that I am not a professional blogger or freelance writer who is working from home. All I will tell you is my experience of blogging at home in the last two months. In this summer, I had a long vacation of two months. I did not travel anywhere, just stayed at home and spent most of time on blogging. So I really have some words to say about working from home.
I know many peopele want to be self-employed and work at home if they can receive a steady income. It is really fascinating to be your own boss, and the advantages are obviously to be listed as follows.

Save Time and Save Money – When you start working from home, you do not go to company or workshop. Thus, you do not need to waste time on on the way to work and back home. You do not need to pay for the gas burning in your car. When you woke up, you can devote to work.
It takes me about thirty minutes to go to work and forty mintes to come home. If I work at home, I will spare time and have one more hour for writing. I do not need to refuel for the car.

Manage Time By Yourself – Since you are your own boss, nobody will command you to do something at a certain time. You’ll manage time according to your schedule. You will decide when to work, when to sleep, when to rest and take exercise. It is really flexible. You can find the most efficient time and do your work effectively. When you are tired or sick, you can have a break.
I changed my work time in the months. I find that my efficient time is in the midnight. So I often stayed up at night and got up late in the morning.

Convenient and Casual – When you work at home, you dont need to be dressed like a gentleman. In the last two months, it was very hot. I only dress pants when I worked on the keyboard. You can work in bedroom or sanctum, anywhere as you like.

Help Do Housework – Sometimes you may notice that your wife is busy in doing housework. Will you give her a hand? Yes, you will certainly do it because you are the boss and you have time.

Take Care of Children – I do not have children, but I think I would have more time to care my children if I had. When children were sick, you could take them to hospital as quickly as you can. Parents spending more time with children is helpful to their growth.

These are the benefits I can see when working from home. However, to be your own boss is not so easy. I will say about some troubles I encountered in the last two months. If you are interested in working from home and have some ideas of it, please tell me in the comments.