KhalidsLife.com

Joining the web 2.0 social media boom that is plaguing the internet is something I never thought I’d even consider, especially with the stiff competition in extremely lucrative market. With sites like FaceBook.com estimated to be worth billions, social media websites have recently attracted the backing of global corporations such as Google.com.

Before you think I am going to start “BookFace.com” and attempt to steal a segment of the market (which would make everyone laugh rather loudly), I am not. After finding three successful websites that are quite simply, popular blogs, I have decided to attempt to do something similar.

I have a rather cool name and slogan too, something I just thought up and lukily the .com was available!

I’d really like to know what you think the future is for social media sites and where you see the market going in the next few years? Do you think older sites like MySpace will be pushed out by newer sites like FaceBook? With new ideas like Twitter being able to post notes on the move, what will the future be for letting people know what you are up too or where you are?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

My work related trip to London was good but I am extremely tired. I reckon, over 2 days, I’ve had about 10 hours sleep, which can’t be good! I was kept awake by copious amounts of caffeine and the iratic drivers that plague the congested London streets. Seriously, drivers are genuinely crazy in that city, it’s like real life dodgems!

I arrived home around 7pm and was glad to back. My boss was kind enough to give me tomorrow (today as it’s past 12) off which means I can enjoy a long lie and a three day weekend.

In short, I’m tired…but I’m still thinking about new investments. I visited my friend this evening who has started his own record label. He is in talks with major music companies about record deals with some of the artists he manages. As I have “insider” knowledge, even simple details like their name, I was thinking I could use this to my advantage - buying domain names.

You see, If I bought unsigned band “Oh-My-God-We’re-A-Band.com” and they became signed and successful, suddenly my $10 investment may turn into a domain worth thousands. And if I chose to keep it, creating a fan club with plenty of infomation about the band could provide a nice little return in revenue…providing people liked them!

What do you think?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

With the recent sale of Kortaz.com I have pondered over selling my entire network of websites and starting afresh with one new idea. Whilst this may be challenging and rather exciting, it is high risk. But, as entrepreneurs, that’s what we do…providing they are calculated risks.

Recently I aquired a new domain name purely by typing in random characters into the search box. I came up with a cool .com which was followed shortly by a neat slogan. After a little keyword research and some brainstorming, I have a new idea.

If you know me then you’ll be well aware I don’t share any pre-launch material with viewers until my site is up and running. Whilst this be slightly unfair if I am trying to teach people how to make money online and provide valuable tips, I have to protect my own assests first.

I’ve submitted a contact form over to a designer to see if this can be turned into an operational site with a solid CMS backend. More to follow shortly, so what this space!

I’ll be in London today and tomorrow with work so apologies if I don’t blog for a day or two.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

The challenge I face to become debt free is one that is more of a mountain than a molehill. I have 4 credit cards, 1 overdraft, 1 student loan and a graduate endowment (which I may not have to pay, it is dependant on your circumstances). I am not going to state the exact amount I owe, but its probably closer to £10,000 than it is to £5,000!

A lot of money I know, and now something that anyone likes to have hanging over their head. Breaking it down reveals where the debt lies and how it is repayable…

• 4 credit cards -Payable month, I’ll have cleared two with the sale of Kortaz.com.
• 1 overdraft - High interest rates charged monthly so this is a priority.
• 1 student loan - Payable when you earn £15,000 a year or more (which I do).
• 1 graduate endowment - A one off fee of £2,000 payable once you graduate.

My first debt attack will be on the credit cards. Selling Kortaz.com and raising $2,000 will clear two of these and leave me with some cash to spend on new projects. I may end up selling my entire network and starting afresh, I need to think of a new idea first before I commit to losing everything!

When the credit cards are clear I intend to then build up some savings and get out of the red and into the black. Finally, the debt associated with gaining a degree is the last on my list as the interest is minimal and can be removed from my monthly salary automatically.

I suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed if you want to learn how I am going to do this. I intend to clear my debt by the end of 2008 and build up some savings, probably generating overall between £5,000 - £10,000 in addition to my salary.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I decided to change my WordPress Theme as I thought the old one was too plain and unprofessional for someone trying to promote themselves as an Internet Entrepreneur! What do you think of the new theme? Personally, I like the three boxes at the top that display the latest posts, comments and my most popular entries.

In addition to changing the theme, I’ve monetized it slightly by adding some 125 x 125 buttons so check them out and signup! I’ve also placed some discreet text links relating to making money which were there before but now have a better position, hopfully increasing my CTR.

So that’s the new look…what about the new start?

One of my personal goals for 2008 that I never blogged about was to clear my debt. Being a young and influential student, credit was extremely easy to come by, and who wants to live like a poor student when you can live like a rich one? I didn’t buy anything during my time at University, I just made sure I had nice clothes, was able to socialise etc. I should have been more careful, but we live and we learn.

My “new start” is to begin the year without using any credit facilities (except my account overdraft) and to pay off as much as possible. I will be flipping (buying then selling) websites but will carefully hand pick a couple from my network and keep them. I need to ensure I am building an income for the future and not just aiming for something short term.

I am eagerly awaiting Media Jump to fix their webmaster’s admin panel then I can check my earnings and get some quality, informative posts done. Until then, good luck with your earnings!

Khalid.

I’ve decided to post Kortaz.com up for sale to gauge how much I could get for the site. If the price is right I’ll sell. Check it out…

Although this information may be slightly dated, it is important to recognise a good opportunity when you see one. Recently, all possible combinations of four letter .com domain names have been registered, resulting in webmasters trying to get their hands on a piece of “history” before they become far more valuable than the current asking price ($50 upwards).

If you think about 3 letter .com’s now being sold for, say $5,000 upwards, what will the future hold for 4 letter domains? In a post made by Tyler Cruz recently (successfully internet entrepreneur), he backs the idea of purchasing domains as an investment for the future…

“The best and easiest advice to give, though, would be to invest in domains. While I didn’t have much money back then since I was only working a part-time job, if I knew then what I know now, I could have invested $5,000 into domain names and sold them today for $5-$10 million - no exaggeration on those numbers, either.”

Perhaps it’s time to buy…before it’s too late.

I seem to be in a trialling mood now I’ve got some cash to spend. With my birthday just passed and pay day today I can afford to invest in some trials, hence my previous post and now this one.

I’ve always hoovered around the idea of using pay per post as a mean of gaining credible backlinks along with creating a buzz around your site. So I decided to deposit $50 into my PPP account and run a campaign for tattoo lettering.

The process was fairly straight forward and having the power to choose the minimum quality of sites that will link to you (by means of pagerank or alexa rank) is quite appealing. We’ll see how it goes, something I’ll definately keep an eye on and report back about.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Following on from my previous post about hyphenated domains, I decided to trial this theory and so built another mini site…

Introducing Lower Back Tattoos.

The site using the domain lower-back-tattoos.net which I doubt people would ever remember, but this trial is to rank well in the SERPs naturally. The site is small and simple, with only two pages - a gallery and an information page.

I’ll probably do some link building to ensure the site gets indexed and makes its way up the ranks in due course!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

In my quest to start a number of profitable mini sites, I’ve been researching domain name possibilities, only to find many keyword1keyword2.com and .nets are now taken. But wait, what about keyword1-keyword2.com???

It is quite likely the .net is still available and I’ve managed to bag two in the past 24 hours, both with a moderate amount of searches per month but a lack of competition.

After reading up on the advantages/disadvantages, there is slightly conflicting information. What I can say is that hyphens can help separate the keywords and it makes it easier to rank in SERPs.

One study suggests, for highly searched terms, too many hyphens in a domain may result in a penalty as spiders know what you are up to and take note of it, for example, on 1st December 2007, according to Google Trends, “Texas Box Office” ranked 6th in the top search terms. TexasBoxOffice.com ranks first on Google, but Texas-Box-Office.com could probably get in 2nd with some SEO work.

Another study suggests that the penalties associated with hyphens are a myth and Google will not bat an eyelid if you don’t use too many hyphens. For the two domains I have purchased, one has a single hyphen whilst the other has two.

I’ll definately report the results in due course. Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.