KhalidsLife.com

Yesterday I posted a story my father told me relating to entrepreneurship, The Price of Rice. I had a few interesting comments that highlighted how my fellow entrepreneurs/readers think like business men/women.

Bob - “One thing that came to mind was Adam is cooking the rice before selling it which would make it weigh more than Akbar rice.” - I never thought of this and don’t know any retailor that cooks rice before selling it but good suggestion!

Aaron - “Perhaps Adam is selling a larger volume of rice which decreases his cost price. ” - Econonmies of Scale would allow for this, but in this story, the prices are controlled by the government so unfortunately it is not correct. Thanks for your submission though!

Luke - “Adam is using the method of drawing customers in using a cheap price and making them buy others things from his shop, just like some of the big boys do now!” - This is a possible answer (not the answer I have), well done!

Anand - “Adam gets his investment very fast so he does not pay any rate of interest. He is building a customer base and also making their mindset that everything is cheaper which might not be” - This could be an answer but there was no mention of interest or loans so unfortunately it is not correct. Thanks for your submission though!

The answers you supplied are all plausible generally, but for this story the true answer lies here:

“Both shopkeepers bought rice at 10p per kilogram in 100 kilogram sacks“

Adam’s answer to Akbar’s question - “Once I have sold all the rice in the sack, I then sell the sack“.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

The following story was told by my father and is a mini test to see if you have an eye for entrepreneurism.

In some Middle Eastern countries, prices of certain commodities are controlled by the Government. Years ago, in a small town, there were two convenience store shopkeepers - Akbar and Adam. Both shopkeepers bought rice at 10p per kilogram in 100 kilogram sacks.

Akbar sold rice at 15p per kilo, netting him 5p for every kilo sold. Adam, a Jewish business man, sold rice at 10p per kilo, cost price.

Adam’s queue was out the door and along the street whilst Akbar’s custom was far less. Akbar said to Adam “If you are selling at cost price, how do you make money?”

Can you answer the question? If so, leave your answer in a comment.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

There comes a time when you have to let something go and move on, whether that be because your abilities are limited with what you have or to simply better yourself. For the past 8 months or so I’ve been working on a tattoo network, targetting a number of different keywords within the same niche but over a collection of sites to improve my overall reach.My hard work and dedication has resulted in me now owning 8 sites that generated over 150,000 unique visitors per month. As time progresses, I anticipate the network’s reach will exceed 200,000 and this will eventually settle somewhere below the 300,000 mark.

In my last post I mentioned how I earned $1,000 from over 42,000 clicks - it worked out at around $0.02 per click. I’m not complaining, but I have realised that I need to move on and out of the tattoo niche. My earnings are limited here and I need to expand outwith this category to avoid limiting my success as an Internet Entrepreneur.

I have been researching a little bit and found two niches I could enter. One fits in the same category as bodyart and would expand my network nicely sideways, the other is targetting specific cities and providing local information. Business wise, the bodyart network would receive more visitors and has less competition but the latter has more potential for higher paying keywords and private advertisers.

Unfortunately I have yet to secure any domain names therefore I cannot reveal my two choices entirely, but based on the above paragraph, which do you think I should move in to?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I decided to share a little bit of my success with you to shoe you that making money online, no matter how little, is a worthwhile investment. I’ve just hit the $1000 mark with Media Jump, the UK pay per click ad network that hosts Ask.com ads. A total of 43,579 clicks were made on my ads since 29/10/07, averaging at $0.02 per click.

I’ve worked hard to achieve this amount and it is a fraction of what some webmasters earn online, but $1k is still $1k…except its in my pocket. As my network grows, my earnings will also, and those little trickles of income will become rivers in due course.

Work hard, work harder and keep working - it will become worthwhile eventually.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

In a previous post about Off Site SEO, I mentioned the importance of backlink building. In today’s web world where competition saturates some markets, webmasters are finding it increasing difficult to find quality links at an affordable price.

Further to that, trying to sell links that don’t have a high pagerank is even harder…until now.

In steps TNX, a link network/marketplace that allows you to buy a high amount of links within specific niches without breaking the bank. And, you can sell links easily too!

For the publisher, TNX will allow you to earn money on text links, even on pagerank zero pages! For the advertiser, TNX gives you access to thousands of link spaces across hundreds of sites without you remortgaging your house!

As I write this, there is 23035474 links in the system with 32665656 pages indexed by the site. In short, this is not a trivial system that can be laughed at, this is a resource that provides you with easy access to quality link building.

The entire process is easy for both publisher and advertiser:

For the publisher…
1. Install the TNX code on your site.
2. Add your site to TNX system. We will approve it in 1-2 days.
3. Raise the number of links displayed on pages of your website (max. 4 links).
4. Create your own ad campaigns or sell TNX-points to TNX-system or other TNX users.

For the advertiser…
1. Create an Ad campaign following all 3 steps that are provided you by TNX. Buy TNX-points if you don’t have them yet.
2. Relax and watch for results.
3. Edit your campaigns or create new ones using your experience.

So how much does it cost and how much can you get paid?

Well, I’ve personally never used the site as I’ve been too busy recently, BUT, the results seem good. According to Jim Karter, a webmaster, he did quite well with the system!

Well, first of all I put it on a website which did not had much unique content but had a page rank of 4 and around 3000 pages indexed. I hope everybody know how easy it is to create such non-unique sites, but those sites do not get search engine traffic. But I did not need search engine traffic. I added the code from TNX in my template so the links were sold for every page. In one month, I made around 140,000 TNX-points.

So, overall what I got in return of a useless (because of it non-uniqueness) PR4 sites is:

1. Cash of $66/month
2. Around 3000 to 4000 PR0 and PR1 backlinks for my new sites. (I did not need higher PR link for my new sites right now)

TNX use a points system to pay webmasters, so instead of money you get points which you can cash in or use to buy links for your sites. Like a virtual currency, the moneytary value of your points can fluctuate, which can have a positive or negative affect on your earnings.

If you are worried about the negative impact of selling links, i.e. losing your rank, TNX has that covered too! Unlike other text link networks, TNX use a code that seemingly Googlebot doesn’t pickup.

Overall I think TNX is fresh, effective way of link building/selling and it is something I’ll definately be trying it soon! If you’ve used TNX, let me (and other readers!) know so we can get some honest reviews.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Success can be defined as the attainment of wealth or position. For me, success is the attainment of freedom - not having to work a regular 9 - 5, not being tied down by commitments to an employer or restricted financially by my outgoings.

I guess I need to attain the wealth that comes with success and the position it offers. Sometimes my motivation can literally die and I have a scary reality check that says “you’re never going to make it, don’t waste your time chasing a dream“.

However, for the majority of my free time - and by free I mean my brain is not being engaged - I spend it day dreaming about living the dream, having chased it for so long. Life is what you make out of it and you don’t need to invent the next Google or Facebook to live your dream (unless it involves owning half the world or controlling a public domain!).

This post isn’t a rant or emotional speech, I just wanted to say that you need to keep focused on your dream by first turning it into a reality, breaking it down into achievable milestones. I want to earn $200 a day online, but how am I going to do that because I can barely earn $0.05 per click on my ads! My answer to myself was to divide and conquer.

I built a network of similar sites over time and they share visitors amongst themselves. People thus stay on my sites longer overall and click on more ads. Some sites are extremely popular and/or have a good SERPs ranking, so this helps boost visitors and earnings (too the smaller sites as well!). As a result, I now have one network that earns $10 - $12 per day online. I divided a the tattooing market into small, separate areas and conquered the niche (to an extent).

So now, my $200 a day aim has become $190. And by the time I build another network, hopefully the tattoo network will have aged and become even more popular, increasing its earnings to $20 per day. So, before even finishing my second network, $190 becomes $180. And so on and so forth.

It sounds easy, but it’s not. You need to work hard, put in the hours and set good, solid foundations. If you put the time in you’ll get the money back. I only spend 1 hour per week updating my sites, so in theory for my $200 I should only need to work 20 hours per week.

I’m now working on my second network whilst experimenting with a number of different factors, including SEO, marketing strategies, ad networks and ppc. My time spent will go towards building another revenue stream and maybe one of my experiments will be successful, this increasing my earnings. If this is the case, I can then re-apply this to my tattoo network and boost my earnings further!

Do you see my point? You need to break down your success into manageable areas, like breaking down your salary to cover your rent, bills, food allowance etc. Patience is one key element, because like a good meal, you can’t rush cooking it by throwing in all sorts. Passion is the other, because without a true love for good food, you’ll never treat your cooking with the time and respect it requires.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

After finally getting a webcam that works, I’ve managed to create my first video blog post. It can be quite daunting talking into a lens knowing people around the world will be watching! Anyways, let me know what you think! Apologies for the lagging at the start, damn camera!

I recently announced I was experimenting with purchasing real traffic in an attempt make money with a brand new site. Here is a quick breakdown of what I did:

• Setup Red Hot Wallpapers
• Added lots of hot and sexy images
• Put three ad units from three different companies
• Bought cheap traffic
• Attempted to make money

The three ad networks were Media Jump, Adengage and Adult Friend Finder. I spent under $20 on ads via Adengage and hoped for the best. I did manage to receive over 5,000 uniques and hundreds of ad clicks, but the revenue generated was nothing!

Adengage revenue for 60 clicks:

Adult Friend Finder revenue from 517 clicks:

Unable to measure Media Jump revenue as it fluctuates:

In short, I may have been successful if I had chosen a better niche with higher paying keywords. This was an experiment though and it did highlight one thing - chose your niche carefully!

If you chose a low paying niche and get $0.01 per click, you are going to have to generate 100 clicks to make a dollar. With a higher paying keyword in a different niche (earning $0.10 per click), you’d only need to generate 10.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

It really amazes me that I write about my life or document useful tips I get the odd comment but when I do something really stupid (in my readers eyes), I get lots of comments!

Putting my tattoo network up for sale wasn’t an easy choice, in fact I put myself in someone elses shoes and slapped myself a few times (mentally!). If I kept all my sites from day one, I’d probably be writing this post with a daily average of $100…my ultimate goal. But, life, money, choices, they can all dictate the pace sometimes and as a result I’ve sold most of my sites.

I wanted $12,000 for my networ which I felt was a fair price. People just weren’t prepared to pay it and I knew it right from day one. Maybe it was the credit crunch, maybe buyers just don’t see the potential I do. So, because of these reasons and because I know I can turn this network into a profitable revenue stream, I pulled the auction. I was offered bids for individual sites but that would break the network strength and I don’t want to do that.

I want to push the $10 daily average to $20, then $30, $40 and so on. I want to completely dominate the tattoo niche and ensure I have a solid amount of money coming in each month. Only one site requires maintenace of about one hour per week and I earn over $300 per month from my network - imagine multiplying this by 10 - 10 hours work for $3,000!

So, let’s do it. I need the money but I can’t get it, so lets keep building and continue earning. Keep reading, keep commenting and keep telling me I’m stupid whenever I do something crazy again!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.