New blogger always choose blogspot or wordpress to start their blog and I think that this is one of the mistakes done by them. The following point will explain the mistakes done by most newbie.

1. Using free domain name

If you cannot afford to buy your own domain name, actually you can try to use co.cc free domain.

2.  Choosing a nonsense domain name

I have several friends who have a personal blog on blogspot. They got a long and nonsense name and sometimes got numbers too. That’s not including the word blogspot.com or wordpress.com as a domain name. For blog like this, I always put them in bookmark. Not because I want to follow the blog, but the main reason is I’m not sure whether I will be able to memorize the blog address or not.

3. Using abbreviations (abbr.) and slang

Using slang is fine if u create a blog only for your region readers. But if you want to make it for Malaysian readers, you should avoid using too much slang in your articles. Besides that, there is some bloggers that use short form in his articles. Most of the articles are not different than SMS. For me, they have a quality information and content in their articles, but SMS writing style make me feel unmotivated to continue reading their articles.

4. Too lazy to blog hopping

You should go to other blog because there are a lot of benefits. Not necessarily for them to visit your blog, but may be their readers will visit your page due to the link that you left there. If you did leave it there.

For me, blog hopping is something that distinguishes between a blog that has many comments or not. But it is okay if you’re a talented writer like Aisyah Rozi. Just imagine, when the number of her posts not exceeds five, number of comments received by her has been dozens.

And the most important thing a blogger should know is to never give up. Sometimes, a blogger use the number of comments to measure his success. For me, it’s not really important because there are a lot of blogs that only receive several comments per post but still have huge traffics. I always keep in mind that contents is king.

I just surfing Godaddy site and then there is a hot video at the main page. So, it’s just normal to play and watch the video. The best part is after the video is finished. I never know before this that Godaddy also gives promotion at the end of video ads.

At the end of the video ads, Godaddy offers me new domain registration for USD7.49. The best of all is that you can still pay for the promotion by using Paypal, unlike most promotion code that only enable you to pay using credit or debit card.

Besides that, the price is still the same that is USD7.49 per year if you choose to register for more than a year. Although most promotion code out there is very cheap, it’s only applicable for the first year. The price for second years and above is still USD10.69.

So what are you waiting? Watch Godaddy video ads now.

However, Mercumaya still can not beat famous registrar like Godaddy and Namecheap because those companies always release coupon code so that blogger or domainer can register new domain with discounts.

Domain registration and payment

At first I tried Godaddy to register new domains. By using ‘BOWL99′ coupon code, I should able to get a domain for USD1.15. That means RM4. This is really cheap. However I am not able pay for it since need us to Credit Card, Debit Card, or VCC for paying. Paypal is not allowed for buying domain by using coupon code.

Then I tried to look for Namecheap. Using coupon code, I am able to get a domain for USD8.81. Although this is a lot pricey compare to Godaddy, Namecheap supports Paypal for coupon code. It’s true I can save a lot by using Godaddy, but for me time is more important than money. Why bother a few dollar if I need to wait to get debit card or credit card. VCC maybe a good choice since it is faster. However I am still lack information about VCC.

For payment option, Namecheap is the winner to me while Godaddy is the winner for cheapest domain registration. Oh, you will also get free whois privacy for new domain registration in Namecheap.

Domain names transfer

Namecheap transfer pricing

Godaddy transfer pricing

If you want to transfer domain, Namecheap always release coupon code that enable you to transfer domain for USD6.99. Meanwhile, you do not nedd any coupon code to transfer to Godaddy since Godaddy already giving USD6.99 for domain transfer. Really cheap.

However, Namecheap USD6.99 prices is only for the first year. If you transfer for 2 years, you need to pay USD6.99 + USD9.69. For Godaddy, the prices is still USD6.99 no matter how many year you choose for transferring.

Thus, Godaddy is the clear winner.

Domain names renewal

Although Godaddy is cheper than Namecheap in term of new domain registration, Godaddy domain renewal cost extra 1 dollar (Namecheap domain renewal is USD9.69 while Godaddy is USD10.69). If you’re lucky, you could find coupon code for domain renewal. You may have luck with Godaddy since there is a lot of domain renewal coupon but it’s rare for Namecheap to give domain renewal coupon.

In terms of coupon for domain renewal, Godaddy is the winner but Namecheap is still the clear winner in terms of the real price.

Marketplace

I have tried the marketplace in Namecheap. I really like it since I can put my domain into sell listing easily. However the highest price that you can put for a domain is only USD250. That’s why namecheap has always been the marketplace to get cheap domain name. If you think the domain that you decided to sell worth more than USD250, I suggest you to use Sedo or Dnscoop. For Godaddy, I can’t comment anything since I never try their marketplace yet.

Below is the current web hosting promotion (look at the date). If the date is too old, perhaps the promotion is not available anymore.

Godaddy Promotion – international web hosting [26 Jan 10]

• USD1.99 for .com (if you buy any hosting package)
• USD0.89 for .info (for the first year only)

Fivio Promotion [22 Jan 10]

• 2GB web hosting at only RM50.
• go to promotion page

Exabytes Promotion [22 Jan 10]

• Dedicated server RM350 monthly
• 30 % discount for Ebiz web hosting
• go to Exabytes promotion

Although there are a lot of web hosting available in Malaysia, Wawwi is one of the web hosting that you need to consider especially for internet marketer. Why? This is because Wawwi provides DIY minisites that available for USD 36.

For those who don’t know, minisite is a site that sell products. Some called it as sell pages. One way to identify minisite is a site that contain one long page. At the page, the internet marketer will try to provide adequate information and convince readers so that it will convert into sells.

Although you can still sell your products in your blog, a lot of internet marketer claims that minisite has higher conversion rates than normal blog. Opposite from normal blog, the sole reason for minisite is actually to make money by selling products or services compare to displaying advertisements such as Google Adsense.

Minisite looks easy to be done but you still need to have certain programming skills in PHP, HTML and CSS. This is because minisite always contain order form in it (how do you want to sell product if there no payment form). If you are really in hurry and do not have much time to learn programming, Wawwi might be the best choice to get instance minisite and then you focus all of yourself into marketing the product.

Sometimes it is a hard task to get the idea for your blog post. So, below are a few ways that you can do in order to find the idea for your blog post.

Advertisements

Advertisement especially Google Ads can be seen in a lot of websites or blogs. Sometimes certain advertisements can give you an idea for blog post. Furthermore, posting based on ads that appear will likely to make the ads appear in your blog post too. Ads that relevant to a blog post always increase click through.

Unanswered questions

This is one of the best way to find a nice topic to blog about since unanswered questions mean that the somebody actually want to know about the issue.

However, where to get unanswered questions? You can get it from

• Yahoo Answers
• Answer Dot Com
• Forum (people always posts in forum to ask for advice or helping them with their problems)

Other blogs

Have you ever come across a certain topic in a blog that interested you? Then you can blog about the same topic too. Although this idea looks cheap, I don’t seeany wrong with it as long as you do not copy the idea and writing.

Most Popular Post

Most blogger usually put this widget at their sidebar. Try to think carefully why the posts are popular? Either many readers read them because of the good topic or a lot of people stumble into the posts from search engine. That mean the topic is worth to be blog about and perhaps your post could attract a lot of readers too.

Newspaper or online news

You can discuss about certain issue in a newspaper. Most of the time, readers like to know your own idea about certain issue.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Most blogger use Google Adwords Keyword Tool for keyword research since they could know the estimated number of search by using this tool. However, Google Adwords Keyword will also give related keyword suggestion based on the keyword that you typed.

For example, you just need to enter ‘How to do’ and then Google Adwords Keyword will suggest keywords related to ‘How to do’.

Google Hot trends and Google Trends

Google Hot trends and Google Trends are tools that show us the current hot keywords or topics. That means, a lot of internet user is searching for the keywords or issues during the time. You can grab this opportunity to get traffics by writing about those keywords or topics.

E-Book syllabus

Have you come across website that sells e-book? Usually, most of such website would disclosed about about their syllabus so that the visitor could know what they could get by buying the e-book.

You can take this chance to make blog post based on their syllabus. This is okey since the content of the syllabus come from yourself and no plagiarism.

Google search suggestion

Do you notice that each time you type a keyword or phrase at Google, Google would list keywords that contains the keyword or phrase that you typed. Logically, the keywords that contain in the drop down list should have people searching for them. So, any keywords that appear in the drop down list is suitable to be written as a blog post.

To get better chance of high ranking in SERP, you should find a keyword that get high number of search but low number of competitor.

Previous Blog Post

Sometimes I would find a certain keyword in my previous blog post and I would write a blog post that is in the same genre or topic as the keyword. One of the benefit is that I could interlink between contents and this is a good way to decrease bounce rates. Interlinking between content also let visitors stay for a long time in your site.

Alexa Site Info

Do you know that you can view several information about a website by using Alexa? You can view the website traffic rank, page views,  the websites that link to them, and the most important is the search terms that driving traffic to them.

Yes, that means you could steal their keyword and optimized their keywords in your blog post. The best way to do it is by writing a blog post based on the keyword.

You Tube (or video sites)

There are tons of videos available at Youtube. And new video is uploaded every second. You can choose a video that worth to discuss about and embedded it into your blog post.

Another good way is to combine a few top videos in a blog post. For example, you can make a blog post about ‘ 10 funniest video ever’ and embedded 10 videos from Youtube that you think are funny.

For now, that’s all I do to get idea for my blog post. If I get new idea, I will update this list. So make sure you subscribe my feed.

I used to think that a blog is just a mere blog. Nothing more than that. However, once I think carefully, I know that blogging is one of the easiest way to open a newspaper company.

Let start from the beginning. At first, you buy a domain name and hosting for blogging. The hard part is when you need to post something related to the niche that you choose. If you really master in the niche, that’s OK. But if you lack in knowledge, of course you need to gather it by reading other people blogs and website. Lastly, what you will have on your blog is just spin articles that come from other people ideas.

Although your blog is not great enough, lucky because you still have readers that come from search engines and subscribers. Thanks for Google and loyal readers, now you already make USD600 a month. Just enough to make a living. Now you realize that you need to update your blog frequently because your readers are hungry of new information. That’s why you will open opportunities to submit articles to your blog and chosen articles will be paid.

Because of your awesome promotion, you will have a lot of new readers. They either like to read new posts or just want to see which type of articles are chosen by you. Thanks for that, now you already made USD 2000 per month after deducting what you need to pay for those articles.

If you want greater effect, you can pay those paid post according to page views. Since the writers want to receive high page views, the ensure them to write quality posts. At the same time they will do marketing too because they want other people to read their posts in order to get high page views. Congratulations, you just kill two birds with one stone.

Realize that your readers are increasing rapidly, now you are aware of copyright issues. You are worried that some people posts duplicate contents in your blog. You are worried of being sue. To solve this problem, you find a few co-writers to post in your blog for a price. Since your blog name is important, you already confirm with co-blogger that all blog post must be original and not spin articles. Without realizing, you just have your own team blog. Thanks to fresh articles and updated frequently, readers keep returning to your blog. This is the power of team blog.

Although you have a success blog right now, you are still not satisfy because you do not have the latest information regarding certain issue. Most of your co-writers just discuss about related issue from newspaper and use photos that are taken elsewhere. Either from free online pic or from online newspaper. So, you will need to have your own reporters in order to get latest news and original photos.

Latest information and original photos are surefire way to succeed in blogging. That’s why all of online newspapers have Alexa rank below 10′000. That means, online newspaper websites are receiving more than hundred thousand of visitors daily.

Now think again. If you already have a few co-writers, your own reporters and a blog that is updater regularly, why don’t you make extra income by publishing a magazine or newspaper monthly? You just need to find a worker that knows how to find advertiser offline.

I rarely heard about Malaysian that expertise in open source development. That’s why I am quite shocked when I know that JomComment developer is a Malaysian. For those who do not know, JomComment is a commenting system plugin for Joomla.

By default, Joomla does not have built in commenting system. And commenting system that available for free is not good enough. I always get spam comment by using free comment plugin. In contrast to those commenting systems, JomComment has better features. Besides its good design, a lot of Joomla user is willing to pay for JomComment because it reduces spam greatly.

Who’s behind JomComment?

Actually, I already know the man behind JomComment before I knew JomComment. If you have come across a user in JoomlaMy community website, I am sure you would know a guy name Azrul. However I only know that he is a developer for JomComment once I tried to find the best commenting system for Joomla since a lot of Joomla user recommended it. For now, I believe that most Joomla user acknowledge JomComment as the best commenting system for Joomla.

Possible Customers

Although most Malaysian never know Azrul Dot Com, it actually has a very high Alexa ranking (below 25′000). If Azrul Dot Com is a blog, I am sure that it will be list in top 10 blog in Malaysia. Just imagine how much traffics that Azrul received daily by just being a Joomla web application developer without the need to post articles like blogger. Furthermore, another network web site of him (JomSocial) has a very high traffics too. I feel damn jealous about him. Just imagine the number of possible customers that Azrul Dot Com could get daily.

Slashes & Dots Team

I do not know whether Azrul Rahim develop JomComment by himself or not but right now Azrul already has his own team that called Slashes & Dots Sdn Bhd (situated in Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur) . Whether it is blogging or even web developing, a team is really important since it will make planning and production at ease. In Slashes & Dots, there are

• Business Development and Marketing
• Accounts and Operations Manager
• Marketing and Sales
• A few software developers
• A few graphic designers

By having  a team that has all of those positions, there is no wonder all of Slashes & Dots plugins such as JomSocial, MyBlog and NiceTalk have great functionality and nice design.

So, who said Malaysia can’t? As long has you have the determination, the road to success will always open.

Actually the term blog comes from weblog. And the term weblog comes from web log. A web log is a placed for you to log your journey or experience or anything. Kinda like online diary.

Is blog important?

• Decades ago, people blog for fun. However, the number of blog increase after Google publish advertisement service that is Google Adsense. Internet user see this oppurtunity as a way for them to generate extra income. Not just extra income, you can also make a living from blogging. Yes, this is true since there are full time bloggers that generate more than thousand dollars per month from blogging.
• However, there are still  a lot of people that use blog as an online diary. They talk about their development and many things regarding their live.
• For some bloggers, they use blog as a platform to do business. They make a store section a their blog and do online transaction.
• Nowaday, we know that we can’t trust media that much. In order to get truth, sometimes we need to read a lot of blogs and decide it by ourselves. Blog already become an important weapon for people to express their opinions.

These are a few most popular blog hosts for you to start blogging. All of them is free and just need to register with them. Easy.

Blogspot

• Blogspot is really the best free blog host for me. Blogspot is very suitable for someone who wish to make money online. Using this popular blog host, you can moneytize your blog easily.
• Furthermore, this blog host is created by Google; the leader of online advertisement company. So it is accurate to say that they created blogspot so that a lot more people will become publisher for their advertiser.
• The best of all about blogspot is their free domain mapping feature. You can map your own .com domain or free domain .co.cc at blogspot. This will certainly make your blog easier to be memorized and more professional.

Wordpress

• Wordpress is another great free blog host. Most of wordpress user praise how easier it is to post article in wordpress and its great commenting system.
• However, domain mapping is not free in wordpress.
• Wordpress also forbid us from doing something for commercial if  we want to use their blog host. That means, we can’t use Google Adsense, paid review or sell banners.
• Only use this blog host if you blog for fun.

Other than those 2 blog hosts, there are another blog host that are quite famous:

• Livejournal
• Typepad
• Xanga
• Facebook / Friendster / My Space (social networking)
• My Opera (join Opera community and get a blog)

After upgrading to version 2.9 of Wordpress, I realized that the posts that I scheduled will have miss schedule issue. Lucky because there is a temporary fix for this issue.

By using ‘Miss In Action‘ plugin, you do not need to worry about miss schedule anymore because this plugin will make sure that your post is published at the same time with the schedule.

Another way is by going to your Wordpress installation folder and go to wp-includes/cron.php.

Change the 0.01 from the code below to 1.

wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array(‘timeout’ => 0.01, ‘blocking’ => false, ’sslverify’ => apply_filters(‘https_local_ssl_verify’, true)) );

I hope Wordpress is finding solution for the permanent fix of this issue.