Programming Coffee

I first ran across PayPerPost while perusing Css Remix, and thought the idea was pretty cool. Then, I see it pop up over at TechCrunch, where there seems to be a little bit of controversy going on as to whether or not PayPerPost is devaluing the blog community. What’s the big deal? Advertising on blogs is now acceptable. Hiring corporate bloggers is now acceptable. Paying blog authors based on revenue generation is now acceptable. Heck, blogging for profit is now acceptible. Most people don’t care why someone blogs, they care about the quality of the content on the blog. PayPerPost doesn’t discredit or tarnish the blogging community, they just allows bloggers to earn some money while doing what they enjoy doing…blogging.

To get started making some money, visit PayPerPost at: http://www.payperpost.com

Am I an expert at this? No Way! I’ve done my share of research on the subject, and now it’s time to put some of these methods to the test.

My goal is to get 1k unique visitors per day. I want my visitors to visit my site on a Volunteer basis (not through some forced clickthrough scheme that many Increase Your Traffic sites might try to sell you). Currently my site hits an average of 50 unique visitors per day, and around 300-500 total page views.

How can you accomplish your goal?

• Writing solid content about stuff that interests you, that other people might find useful as well.
• Connecting with other like-minded bloggers
• When referencing another blog, utilizing the Trackback feature
• Find out why your visitors are reading your blog, and cater more to their interests
• Try to offer your visitors something that they won’t find anywhere else

A ton of web2.0 applications were released this year, but what I’m looking for has still yet to come. What is it that I want? I want an ajax-enabled shopping cart. I don’t want it to be a hosted application (unless you can prove to me that a commerce system *should* be handled remotely). I want it to be php/mysql, but if its rails, then make it stupid simple for me to install.

I’m tired of OScommerce knockoffs that are too complex for the average person to setup. I don’t want to be overloaded with a bunch of options I’m never going to use. I want a simple shopping cart that does all of the basics, and does them very very well. I want to be able to customize the look & feel of the shopping cart without messing with anyone elses code. I want the software to *make sense*.

Is that too much to ask? Hey, make it affordable, and I’m willing to pay for it!

You have a company, and people still refer to you as a freelancer, “so what” right? Have you stopped to think what sort of implications this could have on your company? Will client referrals hold as much weight if you are referred to as a “freelancer”? Will prospective clients be as inclined to deal with a “freelancer”? Will your current clients treat you with the same level of respect that a “company” would receive?
Freelancers are often considered less professional, and because of that, not worth as much money. So be sure to use your “company” to your benefit, and don’t let the “f” word get you in trouble.

What do you do when trouble hits? A couple days ago I was given the chance to find that out. There was a hard disk failure on the database server where my websites reside. The webhost I’m using was fairly quick to catch the failure (as in several hours… fortunately the failure was in the middle of the night) and started to restore from backups. But oh wait, for some odd reason their backup system repeatedly backed up the data from July 29th. That means, I lost all database data from the 29th on forward. Yeah me! So I’ve been quite busy the past couple evenings getting things migrated off that server.

What are you to do to prevent this sort of disaster from happening to you?

• Redundant Server Backups - Sure, you should probably find a webhost that keeps redundant backups, but I think you should also consider getting some recommendations for a few reputable hosting providers. My hosting provider claimed to have redundant backups, but their reputation was not up to par. Oh, and make sure your backups aren’t stored on the same machine as the data.
• Redundant Personal Backups - Hey, if you want something done right - do it yourself. Your Personal Backups are JUST as important as your Server Backups, as I have recently experienced. I reccommend doing remote database backups, either on your local machine, or on another server.
• Pay Attention - Know the status of your server at all times! If your server goes down, you should know before your clients do. Trust me, your clients would rather hear it from you, than to find out on their own. It lets them know that you are taking care of them.
• Be Prepared - Have a list of your clients (phone and email) handy. Make sure that your emails dont belong to the domains you are hosting… that won’t do you any good. Send your clients an email letting them know what’s going on, and call the clients that have more important sites (money generating sites like commerce stores, etc).
• Have a Backup Ready - If your site depends on a database connection, create a non-database dependant page where you can direct traffic while the database is down. You would rather your site visitors know that a problem is being dealt with, than to have your visitors think that no one knows about the problem.
• Hang in There - It’s not the end of the world. Everyone has problems, its how you prepare for and react to them is what matters.

Not that I don’t like Webalizer, Analog, AwStats, or ShortStat, I just think a more custom application would serve me better.  I have no desire to know what countries my traffic is coming from, or what languages.  I also want the ability to know *who* gets tracked, *why* they are tracked, and *how* they are tracked… and I want complete control over it.  I also enjoy the learning experience as a side bonus.  In addition to that, I want to be able to add other tracking mechanisms to my Stats package, without the need to do major integration.  An example would be the ability to track my google adwords traffic separately from the rest of my traffic (though I would tie each adword hit back to a unique session, in case I wanted to compare browsing patterns of pay-per-click traffic). 

This past weekend, I spent a couple hours developing web stat software that tracks unique sessions, and page hits.  I have the ability to exclude pages from being tracked, which will neither register that hit as a page hit, or a unique session.  At the moment it’s fairly small and simple (which I think is a good thing), though I do plan to add a mechanism that will allow me to exclude whole sessions from being tracked (because I don’t really want to track my own traffic, and sometimes I can really distort my own statistics by viewing my site often…  for testing purposes, PR purposes…  I don’t just frequent my own websites for the hell of it).

I setup my initial stats software to allow easy integration with other tracking addons, which allowed me to add Google Adwords tracking software to my whole site, with only 1 line of code.  Thank God for object-oriented php!

Now, I just need a catchy name for it…  like "Ultra Cool Web Stats Program", or "Funky Monkey Traffic Watching Junky".

Ok, I’ve been claiming this for a long time now, but I know the Secret to Search Engine Success. Are you ready to find out what it is?

Create something that people want, and put it on the website where you want to get a high Google PageRank. Seems simple enough right?

Another way to get your blog noticed (the first way being to submit to the blog directories… aka the blog mafia), is to get out and have your RSS feed syndicated. Here are some more places to have your RSS feed syndicated and your blog linked.

syndic8.com
feedster.com

2rss.com

I just submitted Programming Coffee to a few blog directories on the web. Maybe there are other people out there who share my interests?

• Blog Catalog 
• Blogdex 
• Blog Rankings
• Blog Hub
• All About Blog

Are there any other blog directories that I am missing?

Maybe I should have changed the title to “Creating a Network of eBusinesses from Scratch”, but I don’t think the plurality of the matter will change anything.

It’s been one of my dreams for a while to start my own web development company (as well as a coffee shop, real estate business, and a bed & breakfast for my wife). I like the idea of having multiple sources of income, and being able to put away some money for a rainy day. This week I will finally take the plunge and start my web development company: Paniris Web Development. One of my pet projects (Online Christmas Gift List) needs the ability to have a merchant account, as well as a couple other things, and it gave me a good reason to get my company started. Fortunately, my employer is okay with this move (they thought my idea was cool!), and I have a friend/colleage that will act as a mentor.

Anyways, I will be working on my Christmas List website for a couple months (my go-live date is mid august), and after that I have several other business concepts that I just might try out. Reading blogs like Web Junkie and Fun Money Blog makes me realize that guys like myself can make some good money with a few good ideas, and lots of dedication.