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Will the proxy market become saturated?
The number of proxies on the internet is huge! This often seems to put people of creating a proxy because they figure that the market must be saturated. This would mean there is more supply than the demand requires. However this currently isn’t the case. A new proxy can make good traffic and revenue.
This is down to one main reason; proxies get banned everyday. This means there is a constant demand for people at school or work to get new proxies which have not been banned. There is therefore also a market for website which offer lists of new proxies. You may have notice I have set my own one up: proxy sites.
Having said this I still believe proxies will one day die out. Blockers are getting smarter and are now able to block the scripts which phproxy uses to surf. This basically renders all the phproxy website useless. It can’t be long until blockers get smart enough to auto block proxies. That would definitely decrease the demand for proxies substantially. Add that too the crowded market and you should see most proxy sites closing down.
Another reason I think they will die out is because the high resource use of a proxy. Proxies are a huge drain on servers and hosting which makes them reasonably expensive to run. This would mean if the revenue and traffic generated for the proxy isn’t substantial the owner will end up making a loss.
Today I also notice web blockers are blocking google searches. Searches for “proxy sites” can be blocked. This could drive traffic to other search engines, meaning targeting yahoo or msn could be a good idea. 
For now proxies are still a great idea. Even if you have no experience with marketing or creating a proxy I suggest checking it out. They are a really easy way to make some quick cash. Also proxy listing websites such as mine could also prove to be a good earner.
A lesson to be learnt
Well I have recently started to make some respectable earnings from advertising. It is however from an unlikely source. My recent website devoted to promoting proxy sites has started to make about $8 a day through adsense. (adsense is a whole other story for later). At first I thought great I am making some reasonable money for some pretty low traffic. I then began to think about it more. Free CSS makes about a dollar a day on advertising yet I put a lot more time and effort into writing new content and free templates or the website.
Free CSS has also been marketed a lot more and has been online for a lot longer. Desipite all that its making less money than a week old website in a saturated market (atleast thats what I thought). The reasons I can think of for this are actually quite important to consider when launching any other website:
- Proxy-sites is straight to the point. It has one purpose - to show new proxy sites. It has been targeted to a specific keyword - “proxy sites”.
- Keyword concentration on site content and anchor text for inbound links are targeted for the specific keyword.
- Keyword within the domain name itself.
- In a market with a lot of interest and searches.
- Ad placement - Ads are well blended and placed high on page
- Adlink units instead of content ads. Seem to get higher CTR.
- Ads pay more than those of free css which generally contain the word “free”
The morale of the story? Search engines are by no way redundant in the days of viral and buzz marketing. Targeting a specific niche and a keyword with simple content is better than general content aimed at a broad field.
Another good thing to come out of the traffic on proxy sites should come in the near future. As I gather traffic stats for the website I should be able to sell advertising spots on the website and earn money through the way it was originally aimed for. The potential is also great because the traffic I am currently receiving is from the second page on google for proxy websites (a less popular keyword than proxy sites).
On a side note - I have learned another lesson recently. I often attempt to kick ceilings as a challenge when I go places (generally under the influence of alcohol). If you do manage to reach, believe me, they aren’t very strong. 
Affiliate Marketing
Since the google adsense ban I have been looking into other forms of making money online other than PPC. Affiliate sales seems like a big earner for a lot of people on the internet. I have therefore decided to diversify into affiliate websites selling other people’s products.
Affiliate marketing is basically having a website which has ads or products offered on the website. If someone therefore buys the products or signs up via your website you get a percentage commission. My favourite affiliate supplier is Commission Junction.
Overall affiliate sales have more potential to make a lot of money. Each unique visitor if targeted to your niche can make you some good money. I have been meaning to set up a website called sporting iq for a while now. I have decided to make it into a sporting goods store and resource.
I have a simple design which I will hopefully get live soon. My plans are to develop my own system so I can update and add products via CJ automatically. Once it is live I will be experimenting with some different types of advertising. This may be things such as adwords and yahoo aswers.
After reading a lot about affiliate marketing I have come to the following conclusion. You should have a target niche. Preferably something with little competition. Its also not about how many visitors your website gets but about the quality of visitors. Your traffic needs to be targeted to your niche.
You can see the design so far for Sporting IQ. Wish me good luck. I have already encountered some problems with the CSS/XHTML of the design let alone the possible PHP I was looking to do.
$1 Proxy Advertising
Well I have been very busy the last couple of days. Not on this blog but getting a couple websites up and running. I have just launched and made live proxy-sites.info and proxystartup.com.
Proxy StartUp
Well I posted the design here before it was coded but it is now live! The website is basically a guide for setting up your own proxy. It gives some tips on getting traffic and monetizing your proxy to make it really successful. If you don’t have a proxy or already have one and want to make the most of it I suggest you check the website out:
Proxy Sites
I have high hopes for this website. With some advertising and work I hope it can be successful. The website is designed to appeal to those searching for proxy sites making the content suited to them. The actual content for the website is a list of fresh proxies. The proxy sites are displayed on the website for a cost of $1 up to $2 depending on link style. The links are added automatically after payment and remain on the website for life.
If you have a proxy you can get submitting your proxy site straight away. Just go to the website and click purchase. You will then be guided through the process.
As always I appreciate if people could stumble the websites if they like them 
Update and Explanation
Hey, it feels like not seeing a friend in so long and so you feel you no longer know them. Anyways I haven’t posted in a while but that is because I have been very busy. I had a couple offline things which I have been involved in but I have also been doing some work online.
ProxyStartUp.com
My latest idea is quite simple. Its a website which will basically be a guide to setting up your own proxy website. Will have optimization tips to make it successful. You can preview the design for the domain in the following simple design.
FreeCSS.info
You can read the article below for further details but basically I have written a tutorial for the website, relaunched the new design with wordpress integrated and have been coding some free templates to be added.
SportingIQ.com
Its getting there :) I have coded about 70% of the template I made for the website and hope it will be up soon. I just have to finish coding the template then get some hosting. It is going to be a website to buy sporting goods and books and also a place to read informative articles related to sport.
Free CSS Relaunched
The website has been relaunched with a new design and way of working. The new design is integrated into wordpress and has loads of new free css templates to be released. You may also wish to check out the huge tutorial on coding a photoshop design into valid XHTML/CSS.
You can visit the website at freecss.info
If you like the website I appreciate comments or stumbles. You can also digg the tutorial from the following URL if you like it:
Digg Article
Carpal Tunnel Excercises
Well if you work as a coder or other computer related jobs you will probably spend a lot of time typing and using the mouse. You can therefore suffer from repetitive strain injury and carpal tunnel. If you suffer or think you spend too much on the computer this is for you.
Basically its a gyroscope which you speed up by rotating your hand/wrist. Its really fun to do and is cheap. Also if you are into sport like me it can give you many advantages by increasing forearm strength, grip strength and even shoulder strength. I bought mine a while a go but just started to use it again.
I suggest you check the website out to read more about its advantages. Also if you have one please post your best scores just so we can compare. I seem to be better than my friends even though I am in no way strong (atleast not in the conventional way). I think through using the computer so much my forearms have got stronger :).
Website to check out http://powerballs.com
Also you can check out my high score on the under 20’s mini league. Im Michael Clarke by the way. Under 20’s league. Hopefully I can improve 
Adsense Alternative’s Review 1
Well the new advertising has been up for a reasonable amount of time so i thought I would post an update so far. At the moment Kontera is my biggest earner throughout my network. It seems to receive more clicks than adsense but terrible cost per click so my earnings aren’t very good. Bidvertiser has proved to be pretty useless but I have made a little bit through them.
Adbrite has been terrible so far but hopefully that will improve. I only have one adbrite banner ad on webmaster files. Also text link affiliates hasn’t made me any money yet this month. Sorry for my recent lack of updates. I have been doing various things like university open days and sporting tournaments.
Getting funding to start a website
Many people may have heard of this already but probably don’t realize they can also make use. Business Gateway is a business in the UK. They offer help and grants for younger people looking to set up a business. If you have an idea for a website selling products or with a USP (unique selling point) you could receive a £1000 grant. You can visit there website for further details and where you can visit them.
If you are outside the UK i suggest searching around, you will be surprised the amount of help for people looking to get into business. They are great for information and funding and can really give your business a boost. My brother set up a sports psychology business recently. This would not have been possibe without the funding and support of business gateway.
The reason I decided to write this is because I recently read an article in my local newspaper. A young entrepreneur (19 i think) set up a website with money which he had received from Business Gateway. The internet is for websites but is also available for e-commerce. I suggest more people should diversify into this field.
Hopefully I will be studying something business or economics related next year and will be able to offer more business information.
Offline Business
For now I am still at school (still debating whether to leave). A new project which I am a part of is actually really interesting. Me and my friends set up a group of about 8 of us. Each gets £65 which goes into a business account. We then set up a business with the money and pretty much do what we like.
I obviously would like to do something which involved the internet. I was thinking we could sell products on the internet or possibly offer a service. Even use the internet to advertise the business. Apart from that I don’t really have any sensible ideas.
T-shirt printing would be a nice and simple thing to do and school resources such as printers could be used. The advantage of being at school also gives a 1000+ market which we can advertise to pretty easily. If anyone has ideas I would love to here them.
So far in life I haven’t done any business offline and Im really looking forward to it. I have however set up a website for my brother who is a sports psychologist and set a website up for a garden business my mum kind of runs (bit of a joke business which could be a lot bigger). The internet has proved to be a worth while tool. So far I have numerous calls from the garden site asking about products and also managed to get my brother a couple clients.
My basic message through that would be not to limit the internet to e-commerce. If you have an idea and some capital you can make a go of things and use the internet as a powerful marketing and promotion tool. The internet has also caused the globalization of the business market. You can sell products and services to anyone across the world with access to internet. It can really open up new horizons for your business and hopefully make some money for my school business.
