Higher Money

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.

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.

Well if you read my previous posts you would have found that I have launched my own web proxy site- hidden bypass. I am a self confessed scrounge with money. I therefore know a good deal when I see it. You can get proxy hosting for as little as a single dollar for your first month.

The service is new but already it is proving to be a success. Proxies use up a huge amount of resources on servers. They are therefore usually costly to host. Luckily hostmyproxies.com has a solution. Affordable and high quality proxy hosting.

Proxies are a great way to make money quickly so I advise you to give them ago. If you have a proxy I also suggest checking out the new host. You can see details of there hosting packages on there website. You can get a huge 75gb bandwidth for just $6 a month. I guarantee if you set up your proxy with ads and develop and promote it you will earn more that $6 a month.

So what are you waiting for - sign up for proxy hosting.

As a designer its best to diversify your skills. You will probably current just advertise your services as web design work. Try adding other skills to this such as t-shirt design, application design and offline advertising such as flyers and posters. Often this uses different tools and skills but its best to get a good understanding of all types and styles of designing.

The truth to the matter is web design is often poorly paid. For designing a template for a website you are look at probably $150 depending on your quality. If you want to target bigger business I suggest tapping into application design. This would mean skins for software and sites which are mainly coded. A good way to get these types of jobs is to check out rentacoder.com.

The proof to my logic is my experiences.  I have done a few custom website design jobs and each pretty poorly paid $40-$150.  I recent completed part of a project for a design for an application.  The pay for the part of the design which I completed is £600 - current over $1200.  The difference in pay is extreme but the work load and expertise needed is very similar.

If you target bigger business, you will have to work less to make the same money.  The good thing is, once you get one big client, others should follow I hope.

My proxy has been launched! I have had the design coded and sitting around for a while. I decided to take the plunge and buy some hosting to see what all the talk about proxies is for. Its a simple phproxy website and since its new is not going to be banned at your work school.

Check the proxy out. I have submitting to many proxy top lists but if you know other good ways to promote the website please post a comment. If you like the website please stumble it
Hidden Bypass Proxy

The first month is over and the website I have chosen to be the Fuv of August is For Sale By Publisher. I chose the website because I liked the idea behind it and the look and feel it has.

The website is owned and submitted by Mubashar Iqbal the man behind every 5 weeks. He seeks to create a quality website every 5 weeks. I really like the idea behind that concept and the concept behind For Sale by Publisher.

The website itself is basically a directory which brings together publishers and advertisers. It allows for the two sets of people to come together and take out the middle man (often taking large cuts on advertising). Its a simple way for publishers to advertise any spaces they have on their website for people to promote on.

Its often hard to get private advertising for your website and this could really benefit the advertising market. I know myself, getting banner and adblock spaces filled can be pretty difficult if you are trying to target advertisers directly. This website makes it easier!

The design for the website also attracted me to make it the fuv of August. The design is simple consisting of light blocks of colour. Simplicity and proper separation of content give it a clean and tidy appeal.

Its great to have such a good site to be chosen as this month website of the month. I wish the best of luck on the development of the website. I would also mention the website www.thebossawards.com as I like the novel concept behind it.

But for this month the winner is www.forsalebypublisher.com

I thought I would set a few goals for the upcoming month. First off I want to get my google adsense situation resolved. I atleast want to receive a reply to one of my emails. Once that issue is either resolved or rejected I can get on with what my future advertising is going to be. So far I haven’t made any money with other advertiser but hopefully that will pick up over time.

I also want to get the relaunch of free css templates online. I have coded two new free css templates for the website with many more to be released with the relaunch. That will also include three wordpress themes. I am also in the process of a huge (my largest to date) tutorial on how to code a design in photoshop into a valid XHTML and CSS in dreamweaver. So far I have written two parts and hope to get it finished some time next month.

SportingIQ.com is also on my to do list. I have a domain and wish to set up a sports resource and shop. Hopefully that will be within the next few months.

For the blog I hope to get writing some more quality articles instead of my recent articles which have been about my websites. I hope to get the traffic up a little bit or atleast maintain what I had previously.

Other things which I want to be doing next month is getting to the gym more and getting paid for some freelance work which has been on going for a while now. That should hopefully be within the next few days.

Website designs are like clothes, they go in fashions. The general trends of website look changes quite regularly. Recently there has been the push of the “web2.0 look” consisting of larger text and bright glossy colors. Following the trends is a good thing if you are a freelance designer because people often want to follow the trend and fit in. This however is not a good thing to do.

If you follow the design trends and make your website glossy and all web2.0 your site design is likely to be changed in a year’s time. Designs which are made for the trend of the day are likely to become out of date quickly. The website will also not appear as unique and is most likely to look very similar to other website.

Its a hard thing to do but being original is the best way to set your website aside from the rest. You want it to be a design different from everyone else’s and also timeless. So next time you are in photoshop, ditch the usual gradients and try something new. I also do realize it is ironic of me to say this as I am notorious for doing trend designs.

Well since my account got banned I have been looking at alternatives to google adsense. So far I must say I haven’t found anything decent. Bidvertiser was my first option considered but I find there ads to be irrelevant and poor paying. My websites are for webmasters and the internet so I don’t think cpa ads are well suited for my traffic.

Things which I am currently trying. I am concentrating more on the text-link-ads affiliate program which pays $25 per referral. I am also testing bidvertiser on one of my websites and adbrite on another. Adbrite currently doesnt seem to be displaying any ads but hopefully that will change. I am also considering adding kontera to freecss.info when it is released. This website will remain without an advertiser for just now or will be used to test kontera.

If you want to recommend something to try please post a comment. Also if you have any tips to optimize adbrite or bidvertiser. I am already missing adsense. I had implemented link ads from adsense into freecss.info’s new design. That will have to be rethought

Well today I got a terrible email from google.  My adsense account has been deleted.  I found it extremely strange at first but then came to realize why.  My account had been live for over a year without any problems, regular CTR and very reliable.  No reason to be banned for invalid clicks.  The reason was intact for my account being related to an account which was found to have invalid clicks.  That infact was about 2 years ago when I just started doing websites and was an ignoramus.

In the end I have lost 200-300$ worth of unpaid money and also have lost my way of advertising - atleast for just now. I will send google an email to see anyway to get it reversed or if im allowed another account for my other websites.  For just now I need to find a new advertiser - like looking for a new job.