The Falling of Ringgit and Effects To IMers

We are all aware that Malaysia is now under a bad economic situation. Starting with the loss of MAS airplane (MH370), the bombed airplane (MH17), floods everywhere, the drop of oil price and also the bad investment made by the government.

These entire terrible things lead the country to the downfall of our currency. At this moment, the current Ringgit is RM3.61 compared to 1USD and that sucks. With all the terrible things happening in the country, it will cause investors to run. No businessmen are going to invest in a falling economy.

More bad news is coming for internet marketers in Malaysia. In the coming April, there is going to be taxation everywhere with the implementation of GST. With GST, the highest tax is going to be imported goods and foreign currency. Even the MEPS service will have GST.

The Effects to Internet Marketers

You might ask, what are all these things matters to me as an internet marketer? The main impact is the high currency conversion. As an internet marketer, we use US dollars in everyday transaction for example, the web host and domain name for starters. High impact is expected for new marketers so spend your investment wisely.

Ebay and Amazon resellers also need to watch out. If you are buying products as stocks, you are entitled for the 6% of GST. Try dropshipping instead. By drop ship, you don’t have to buy the product yourself. You only have to advertise them.

Many internet marketers are also shoppers because they are expert in cheap deals and they know where to find cheap stuff. Well, nowadays they are not as cheap as you think. All items will cost more than what you are bargaining for.

For those who are already earning income and quite successful, you can smile a bit because the US currency is quite high right now. The only problem is the percentage that the bank will take from you. I am not sure if the currency is GST taxable but for now it is not. Enjoy the high currency exchange at the time being.

Another problem that is going to cost you money is the local internet marketers. That means that all your currency is in Ringgit and you sell locally on your website, Facebook page and any other alternatives for local market only. This type of business must be registered with GST. One guy on Facebook says he currently has more than 20 websites running. That’s gonna be sucks.

The only good news is that you must register with GST is ONLY when your income is more than RM200,000. If you earn less than that, you can breathe now. Honestly speaking, I hate registering for any online business because I think it is personal unless if you have mega website like Zalora, Ebay and Amazon.

Conclusion

The time finally comes for us the internet marketers to face our country’s legal system. Before this, we are enjoying our freedom from the back of our laptop and computer and earn small income just to live. Now the government is taking that away from us. Don’t blame the government. It means that you must work harder to maintain what you already have and don’t have.

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My Blog Failed But..

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you should already know that I have started a blog a year ago. If you haven’t read about it, you can check it out here. Actually I already know the consequences in starting a blog like that but I go ahead and try.

My blog is about men’s lifestyle specifically on Asian fashion and lifestyle. I don’t really regret starting this blog because I learnt a lot from my failure. Learning from hands on experience is the best teacher.

Everything that I did on this blog is a total mess. Nothing about it is special. That is the main reason why it failed miserably but the blog did earn a few pennies from adsense though.

Starting from the domain name (casually-asian.com), it has hypens which is a terrible choice for me. I ask around and some people said it has value (only the domain) so I list it on Flippa. I cancelled my hosting with Hostgator and dump the whole website.

The keyword analysis is poor. I hardly do any in-depth keyword research for the website. I created the content from my own experience. My intention was to share my opinion to my friends but I still have low traffic every month. In short, I hate the website and I don’t want to do anything with it anymore.

The only thing that I regret was wasting my time posting contents and backlinks. It takes time to build those. My Hostgator account was setup for a year but I only update my blog for 7 or 8 months then I leave it alone plus I don’t have time to manage the website.

Even though the blog failed but I don’t feel like a failing person. I accept my defeat and I learn my lessons well. Blogging is a business and you as a blogger are an entrepreneur. You must treat your blog as a business and a business is not that easy to manage.

Now, I’m free again after my final exam. Getting back to work and also back to my internet business plan. This time I will take it more seriously and do more research before starting a new blog.

Actually I already started a niche website but there is a problem with the hosting. For this new website, I use 1and1 hosting and domain name. I know that it is a bad idea to use 1 company for both hosting and domain but I already change my hosting to Hostgator.

I will update my website when I’m done with the hosting issue. I think it will take up to 48 hours in waiting time for Hostgator verification process. One more thing, the domain casually-asian.com is not listed in Flippa anymore but I still want to sell if anyone is interested.

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Seminar Review: Two Hours With Derek Gehl

Last week on Thursday 9/18 I have been attending a free seminar by Derek Gehl and yes you heard me right, it is FREE. I was wondering why someone like Derek Gehl would give a free seminar. What is the catch? I’m not new in internet marketing so I have some idea on what is the seminar is all about. So I thought to myself, I would not lose anything because it’s free and I have the chance to meet Derek Gehl in the flesh.

I book the ticket at the very last minute and it is still available. It was easy because all you have to do is book the ticket online or by using SMS. This was the easiest job. The hard part was driving there and waiting for the long cue to end.

As soon as I enter the hall at Pullman Hotel, the event starts. I was glad that I didn’t miss anything at the first few minutes. By the way, this seminar is organized by Maybank. The event attracts about 200 crowds and many of them are working adults. Also attending the event are a few youths.

Derek started his seminar by explaining what online business is and how to create an online business or literally on how to create a website. He explains all the basic stuff but not in detail because the seminar is only for two hours.

Honestly, I was bored to death and nearly abandoned my seat. All the stuff that he explained was just basic. But to my surprised when Derek ask the audience about who never build a website before, I think about 99% of the audience raise their hands. This makes me think OMG, am I in the wrong place?

I forced myself staying there because I was waiting for the ‘catch’ of the event. Finally, at the end of the seminar, he told the audience about how he can help new internet entrepreneurs on starting their internet business. This is what I’m waiting for, the real ‘meat’. I wish I could upload a few photos but taking any photos and videos is prohibited.

Derek Gehl Seminar Ticket

He was talking about his website The Entrepreneur Lab. This is a membership website and members can start by subscribing to a whole year package valued at RM6997 or USD2157. Back to the OMG thinking again because I don’t have the money that much.

This kind of membership is very important for people who don’t have any mentors to start an online business and this is a good place to start. I am used to buying ebooks and books about online business but it really doesn’t help much. The technology is changing every day and you need the latest method to keep your business running.

Here is some stuff you get when you register:

• A-Z step-by-step training
• No product idea needed
• No advanced technical skills
• Easy to follow video tutorials
• Work at your own pace
• Access training 24/7
• New training added regularly
• All skill levels, all ages
• Learn the skills to make money for the rest of your life working where and when you want

For those who never tried building a business online, you should know that it is not easy. You at least need to know how to build a website. The steps involved are very hard for some people. That is why people like Derek create this type of business. But again, it’s not cheap.

At this moment, when I check back at the website, it said that they currently not accepting any members. I guessed that maybe because of Derek’s trip to Asia and they are trying to avoid membership overload.

In my opinion about this membership site, they should reduce the price for the first year. They said that they can guarantee that sales can be made from the website build and if this is true, reduce the price. For example, the first year they can charge about USD100 per month or USD1200. The next year if the member wants to renew their membership, they can charge more. It is as simple as that.

For this reason, I have to let go so many good website that offered me membership. It is not because they are not good but because of the ‘guarantee’ to make money. Imagine that you pay for something that you can’t lose and yet you cannot earn anything.

Conclusion

To be successful online, you must get any help that you can find. Working alone is very-very hard especially when there is no one that can give you support. The best thing to do is find a mentor who can help you with the little details. If money is not a problem, get some training.

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Stop Wasting Your Time Mining Bitcoin

For anyone who don't know about bitcoin (BTC), I suggest you read about it first before reading this post. You also can see the video about bitcoin in Youtube. People are going crazy about bitcoin because it is considered a new currency with high value. At this time, the value of 1 bitcoin is around USD620. You can check bitcoin live value at Preev.com.

The highest value ever reached by bitcoin is USD1000. With bitcoin high in value, people are going bitcoin-crazy about it. If you don't know yet, bitcoin can be obtain freely on the internet. With the right hardware, it is easy to mine bitcoin. The hardware that you usually need is the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). To mine bitcoin, your hardware must be really mean and it can cost up to USD10,000. 

Bitcoin is better than gold

That sounds easy because many people can afford to buy the hardware for their mining rig. The bad news is the mining process is going to be difficult from day to day. We are talking about high-tech mining equipment here. With your home pc or laptop, you can forget about it. 

I tried to mine bitcoin using my laptop once. In a few days, I only can mine 1 satoshi. That is equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC. I know it sounds stupid to mine from my laptop but I would like to try it hands on to see how difficult it is to mine bitcoin. 

Mining is not for everyone including me and all those who have crappy pc like mine. The good news is, you still can get bitcoin in any other way. You can sell something online and tell your customers that you receive bitcoin as payment and you also can buy bitcoin online. 

My favorite way to get my hands on bitcoin is through free bitcoin sites. You don't earn much but it is faster than mining it yourself. Basically I'm talking about earning bitcoin through visiting websites. Here is my best two website where they pay high in commission after clicking and viewing other websites.

Bitvisitor

This is the best website out there and the easiest website to earn free bitcoin. The minimum payout is 0.00006000 BTC. You don't have to cash out your balance. It is automatically credited to your bitcoin wallet. To reach the minimum payout, it takes up to 2-3 days with no affiliate.

All you have to do is enter your wallet address to log in. Enter the capcha image and wait for 5 minutes for the advertisement to finish. There is a counter on top of the website and wait for it to finish and click next to proceed. Your balance also will appear at the timer's banner.

Coinad

The difference about Coinad from Bitvisitor is the amount of ads to click and the amount you receive. Coinad pays much better but it takes longer to pay you. It can take up to 1 week before you can see your earning in your wallet. The minimum payout is 0.15 mbtc.

Coinbox faucets

This is a group of websites that pays you bitcoin when you enter your wallet address. All your earning from these websites are send to coinbox. You can check your balance there. One website will pay you once in every 30 minutes. Your minimum payout will be 0.00005500 BTC. Here are the websites:

CanHasBitcoin.com

FaucetBTC.com 

ElBitcoinGratis.es 

BTC4You.com 

VirtualFaucet.net 

TheFreeBitcoins.net 

FreeBitcoins.me 

TheBitcoin.me 

SrBitcoin.com 

nioctiB.net 

GreenCoins.org 

BTCMine.net 

BitCats.net 

BitcoinSpain.net 

FreeBitcoins4U 

Fr33bitcoins.com  

Update 18/07/2014
Landofbitcoin.com
This is one website that contain all the faucets above including others. There are 99 faucets listed and you don't have to click to open any other window to view them. In one day you can get up to 7000 satoshi. Enjoy!

There you have it! Those are all the websites that can give you free bitcoins. However, if you think that mining is good for you and fast enough, you can go for it. But in my case, I think I prefer to earn bitcoin in other ways. If you have other websites that you want to recommend, please share them at the comment box.

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Beware of Phishing Email From Gmail

A few days ago, I receive an email from Gmail (update). Yes, it is including the bracket. For regular internet user, it is easy to identify any type of phishing. However this is the first time that I receive a phishing email. I usually get Facebook account phishing scam send to my inbox.

I fall victim to the Facebook phishing scam twice but it is not serious. At that time I was very busy and very success with my poker game. I am sure for everyone who likes to play poker will know about Zynga poker and how addictive the game was. It is not real money but some people will do anything to get the fake chips including using phishing technique.

The phishing email sent to my inbox

As you can see the phishing email above looks very convincing. I even clicked on the "view" hyperlink. It even brought me to the Google account login page that is of course a fake one. I open the email again today for this post but the page is already taken down by Google. That is such a relieve because I really hate if someone fall prey for those thieves.

What is phishing?

The act of sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. Phishing email will direct the user to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as a password, credit card, social security, or bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The website, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the information the user enters on the page. - Webopedia

 Final words from me, keep yourself safe on the internet. This cyber world maybe a gold mine for internet entrepreneurs but the danger are also real. No matter how convincing any email sent to you or anything inside your Facebook inbox, please keep away from it and delete the email immediately.

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Getting Traffic To Your Website With No Cost

We all started for free. Why not go for free until the end? This article is intend to show you free stuff and how you do it the right way. So we are getting to the bringing the traffic part. No money is needed in bringing traffic to your blog. All you need to do is know the right way to do it for free.

Some people don’t care about how many visitors they have because what’s more important to these people is the content of their blog. Updating their blog is the crucial point. Remember that we are talking about free website builder here. Blogger user don’t care about traffic because the blog is free to use.

What I want to tell you is, you should really care about your blog traffic. At least check out whether your visitors is rising or dropping. We know Blogger is free and that’s why you should take advantage of this free opportunity. Don’t you like free money? People who use paid domain will go insane if they don’t have traffic and you should be thankful that you use a free service.

Here are some free methods on how to bring traffic to your blog for free. I don’t put a few methods such as link baiting and link exchange for some reason even though it is also free to do.

1. Article marketing
In my opinion, this is the best method available. It is because people like or need to find article that are important for them. If you are in the same topic as the finder, probably they will use your article with your blog’s address in it. When your article user post your article, it means your blog link is expanding. Imagine if ten people do this everyday with your article.

People don’t always take your article for the sake of posting it in their blog. Sometimes people only wants to read and gain knowledge. If you write an interesting article, people will wonder who is the writer and they will click on your blog link directly to your blog.

2. Use social media
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are accessed by billions of user everyday. The best part is they have ‘like’ and ‘share’ button. Post something interesting, funny, touching or anything that people may find worthy of reading. When people like your posts, they will not hesitate to share it to their friends and your blog will become known to others.

Blogging style website for instance Squidoo, Tumblr and Pinterest also can help promoting your blog. The method is the same. Blog something that what people want to read. But the best way is to write something as same topic as your blog. It is weird when you write about books review when your website is about electronic devices.

3. Blog commenting
Go read other blogs related to your niche. Leave a few comments on their blog. When commenting on a blog, you will also leave your blog address (most blog owner allows this). Make sure you leave quality comments and not spamming their comment box. When people who read your comment like what are you saying, they will click your avatar and visit your blog.

Leaving comments also helps you to make friends with other bloggers. That is what blog is all about. You make friends or make enemies. It’s called socializing. Professional bloggers will allow you to post negative comments. It shows that they are able to make you say your thoughts.

4. Word of mouth
This is a traditional way of promoting something. With high tech gadgets and people are getting lazy, people are beginning to forget the good old days. Promoting physically or by word of mouth sometimes can get good results. Just because you are using the internet, it doesn’t mean that you cannot go outside and tell your friends about your blog.

For instance, a college student who have a blog will tell his friends about his blog when he hangs around with his friends. This can be done directly or indirectly. Sometimes you don’t realize that you are babbling about your new blog that you are currently building. Take the opportunity nicely. Don’t force your friends to visit your blog.

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Tips For Creating A Blog: Bringing The Best From Blogger

I am sure that every blogging gurus will tell you NOT to use any free blogging platform to start your blog. To tell you the truth, they are right. Blogging is a business for some people. If you are very serious about building your business online, use paid domain name. That is the best place to have your business running.

But this doesn't mean that free website platform is bad. If it is that bad, why Google even bothers to buy Blogspot in the first place? There are a lot of free website platform that you can use for blogging such asWordpress.com, Tumblr, 000webhost and including Blogger.

Blogger was known as Blogspot before Google bought it. Blogger doesn' t change a lot and it is still free to use. As mentioned above, there is also a lot of other free blogging website where you can start your own blog for free but I use Blogger as example here and because I love using it.

Most internet users are used to Blogger especially for blogging beginners. Besides Blogger, Wordpress is also a popular people' s choice. These people who start blogging are usually teenagers and individuals. They use Blogger as their diary and also like other people, they also use Blogger to share their thoughts to the world.

Using a free platform for your blog is not a bad idea. I often heard that blogging gurus always say that you will lose everything in the blog if Google closes it. Technically, this is true. That will happen ONLY IF your blog violates their terms.
 
There are not many tips that I can share with everyone here because this is about a free domain blog. You can’t really tweak and customize your blog exactly like what you are thinking. In that case, I will share three best tips for blogspot. This is how you can really make the best out of your blog.

Tip #1: Choose the right template

I usually go to Btemplate to download free template for Blogger. This is my favorite place because there are no hustle to install your new template and it is easy to use. But you can choose anywhere on the internet for your satisfaction.

Choose template with large font, large icon and large everything. Most important is the font. People go to a blog to read something interesting. If you use small font, it can tires the eye or visitors will leave without reading anything because they are too lazy to review your blog one by one.

People judge a blog by its cover (looks). Good quote I have there LOL. Choose any beautiful template design that you can find. People are attracted to beautiful things and if your blog looks like a dump site, they will leave. No doubt about that.

Tip #2: Arrange your widget nicely

Assume your widget as decoration on your blog. How you arrange them will tell visitors that your blog is carefully arranged or not. The default arrangement is acceptable. If you started to put some ads, you will face a few problem. Ask someone to look at your blog first before you change your widget arrangement.

Do not overdecorate your blog with ads. I’ve seen a few blogs full of ads and it’s quite hard to find the content. The worst part is sometime you don’t know where are the content. Make your content stick out than your widget and ads.

Tip #3: Tweak your Blogger blog

Tweak your blog for the best performance. Keyword density is not a very good idea to win the heart of the search engines. Tweaking here also means that it’s including sending your blog to search engines so that they know your blog exists. To tweak a free blog, you have to do it manually. It doesn’t have automatic plugins like paid hosting. Spend some time to do this

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Advantage and Disadvatage of Blogger Blog

Advantages Of Blogger

1. Free to register and use

2. User friendly and easy to use. You don’t need to know a lot about html to use Blogger.

3. You can still make money like any paid domains

4. Free templates everywhere

5. If you want to, you can register your domain name only for $10

6. Build in membership registration

7. Receive low criticism because people know it’s free

8. Have built in analytics

9. You can post adult content. Blogger have built in permission page before entering adult content

10. Comments can be moderated

Disadvantages Of Blogger

1. Technically the blog is not fully yours

2. Cannot customize exactly like what you intended

3. Little choice of paid template because people rarely use Blogger paid hosting. The best place to look is Themeforest. They have pretty cheap theme.

4. It is hard to trust a free hosting blog especially if you don’t have an about me page

5. Can be closed by Google without further notice

6. You are bound to the Blogger T&C

7. Limited writing tool

8. Hard or less methods to promote

9. The built in analytics also trace bots. The analytics is not reliable

10. Easy prey for spammers and bots

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Blogging: What Is Your Real Intention?

Blogging has become such a trend today that even a kid can start a blog. With so many free blogging platforms available, it is possible for even someone with no budget or experience to start a blog. People blog for many reasons and most of them are tied to personal gain. The most common intent for starting a blog today is to make money online to gain financial freedom or for side income. Whatever reasoning behind it, these aspiring bloggers have to make sure that they are capable of blogging well first.

When it first began, people started blogging, for the most part, as a hobby. Blogs created were mostly private and the blogger's intention was to share the content with friends and family. The content of a particular blog was about personal activities and bloggers did not having to go "viral" on the internet as a goal like what many are doing today. Some people even treated their blog like their diary and they wrote their blog about their everyday life.

Imagine how naïve bloggers are during those days. Bloggers don't even think about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), page rank, backlinks and not even something seemingly simple like keyword density. However, this is the real reason why people blog nowadays. Blogging is a social media and it is used to interact to other people. Business owners eventually acknowledged the power of the blog and used it to interact with their customers. That was the beginning of blogs being used for business intention.

Blogs are also used by some to gain attention. These types of bloggers, in general, do not care about the credibility of their blog content. Their intention is only to seek attention - positive or negative - and to gain readers. These blogs take physical form in the shape of gossip magazines and tabloids. Good article is not necessary true because the true intention is to attract readers and raise their curiosity. If the article reach the right people and shared with others, it will become popular which we today call it viral content.

Some people who have very strong opinions about the world but do not know the right channel to express their ideas can blog about them. These blogs are more than ideas, it is about someone's feelings towards the world that we live. These people actually can change the world. Helping other people can be a blessing and inspiration for these people.

Last but not least, people blog in the intention to spread news, activities and share events. We talked about gossip bloggers above but this is very different. News blogs are about quality reporting, unique points of view and facts. That is what these bloggers were supposed to do but people are starting to question the quality of the news reported.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, before you start thinking about making money out from blogging, remember what blogs are supposed to do. There are too many fake blogs who collects articles, spin them and then post them as their own. That is not quality blogging. It is because of their greed for money that keeps them from becoming a real blogger. People like this will not last long in the blogging world. When they realize that they do not make a single penny, they will throw in the towel.

Remember that blogging was supposed to be fun and exciting. People write articles to inspire, share experiences and to inform other people with their ideas, jokes and facts. If you feel miserable and not having fun doing it, then blogging is not for you.

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Get Free Facebook Likes, Free Twitter Followers and So Much More

Are you setting up a new Facebook Fan Page, a new Twitter account or even a new Pinterest board? I know it is hard to get likes or even followers. Some people even buy their followers but what is the use when you can get it for free and the good news is they are real followers. What I don’t like about buying followers is sometimes they are not real. Sellers sometimes use bots to like your Facebook page.

I came across with a website that offers so many things for a new account that you have just set up at AddMeFast.com. Here is what you get when you register to AddMeFast:

Facebook

• Facebook likes
• Facebook share
• Facebook followers
• Facebook post likes
• Facebook post shares

Instagram

• Instagram followers
• Instagram Likes

Twitter

• Twitter followers
• Twitter tweets
• Twitter retweets
• Twitter favorites

Youtube

• Youtube subscribes
• Youtube likes
• Youtube favorites
• Youtube views

Google+

• Google circles
• Google share

Ask.fm

• Ask. Fm likes

Vine

• Vine likes
• Vine followers
• Vine revines

Vkontakte

• Vkontakte pages
• Vkontakte groups

Myspace

• Myspace friends

Pinterest

• Pinterest followers
• Pinterest repins
• Pinterest likes

Reverbnation

• Reverbnation fans

Soundcloud

• Soundcloud follow
• Soundcloud play

Stumbleupon

• Stumbleupon follow

Website

• Website hits (traffic)

How it work

1. Go to AddMeFast.com to register. The registration form is not long and easy to fill.

2. They will send you a confirmation email and click from your email to sign in.

3. On first sign up, you will be given 50 free points

4. Now go to the green button on the left and click Add site/page

5. Register any account you want and any service that you need. Tips: Don’t register any service that you don’t need because you will lose points there when someone click on it. Think of it like adsense CPC.

6. Set up the Cost Per Click (CPC). Minimum is two and maximum is ten. I use two at first because I really need likes for my Facebook Fan Page.

7. If you need free points, click on the buttons under the Free Points. You will like other people’s page, share or follow to get free points. This will give you a win-win situation. You get followers and other people also get their followers.

8. You also can buy points. Click on the ‘Need unlimited points on addmefast’ banner and you can choose three different packages that charge you on weekly basis.

AddMeFast aslo have affiliate program but they don’t give you money (correct me if I’m wrong). You will receive 300 points if you refer others.

Conclusion

That’s it! You are done. Now you can have express free Facebook likes, followers or anything you like all for free and real people. Enjoy!

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