I read an interesting article today which sparked a few thoughts about blogging. If you read blogs like:
JohnChow
DailyWebIdeas
and so on, you know that they often give a little information on selling and advertising on the internet. I used to frequent their websites daily, but was always left wanting more. My curiosity always wanted more detail and how-to information. Until today I hadn’t found much sales information which made it easy to apply to blogging.

The article is hosted at ezinearticles.com and titled, “Psychological Tricks in Selling,” by Stephen Bucaro. At first, judging by the size of my scroll bar on the left, I thought this might just be a sugar coated sales letter. Needless to say, I was wrong. The article is a must read for practically anyone. Bucaro discusses six types of, “tricks,” which are commonly used among all businesses. Even though businesses might change the packaging and offers, all still use these fundamental principals to drive their marketing strategies.

I personally have opened my eyes to a lot of advertising methods in magazines, television, and the internet. So read this article already and tell me what you think.
Psychological Tricks in Selling

Have you heard of WidgetBucks yet? It’s a nice little tool that allows you to place content related or catagory specific ads on your site. An advantage to using the tool as opposed to other tools is the ability to list more than one popular item in the same ad. In my experience with related advertising I have noticed that you can usually only list one item every time the page is refreshed.

The widget is very easy to apply to any blog template. For this Wordpress theme I was able to get the ad unit applied within minutes.

Referral? Of course you can refer people to WidgetBucks and make money in the process. Here is an the current referral info from the site:
With WidgetBucks’ Referral program, affiliates can earn a 10 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people they refer. Affiliates receive this 10 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins. Payouts to affiliates are monthly, along with their commission checks.

If that is not enough, there is of course more. If you join now you receive $25 just for joining.
Publishers and bloggers can get the ball rolling with WidgetBucks’ instant $25 sign-up bonus, which gets you half way to your first check!

So all in all we have an easy to use advertising tool. Check out the site, read the information for yourself, and maybe even join.

Earn $$ with WidgetBucks

I think I will begin with a thought I had today about one end of the work force. At times I have thought that doing your job was the only reason you actually go to work. And even though you might think that this is a crazy thing to say, I know for a fact that at least 20% of the people you work with don’t fully do their job on a daily or even weekly basis. I have come to know these people quite well. Basically they come to work to simply get paid. As long as the paycheck on Friday arrives, they are happy.
I personally have a problem with this ideology when it comes to employment. Not that I am here to teach these people to live their lives (or perhaps I am) but I think it comes down to one simple fact- respect. Respect for yourself. Have enough decency to learn your job and learn it well. Otherwise you will find yourself in the middle of a day telling the customer the wrong thing and starting an avalanche in customer service.
You will find me at the other end of the job spectrum. I am not boasting my work ethic, nor my experience, but rather my dedication. I take pride in learning whatever I have to do on a daily basis from beginning to end. It may be my incessant urge to learn how everything around me works; in fact I think it is.
Perhaps at the end of this entire blurb, I have completed and answered my own thoughts and questions on the subject. Don’t just go to work to make money, because we all know that will drive you mad. Yet go to work wanting to learn something new. If you already know everything, then dig a little deeper. You’d be surprised what you will find when you ask the right questions to the right people.

In today’s world information can literally spread within seconds. Blink and you will definitely miss something important.

I personally think it is amazing how quickly information can spread. Take for example the way big companies now operate. In the past if a customer had a bad experience, the public would usually not hear anything about it. That is unless it was unique and news worthy. Yet, nowadays when almost anything happens, no matter how small, we hear about it. Reason being that the internet has become a massive forum to house the information. Instead of relying on media to filter our information with policy and procedure, we are beginning to cut out the middle man all together.

It is interesting the way that big companies must walk on egg shells in such an information critical age. If you deal with customer service then you may know what I am talking about. Whenever customer service tells a customer something, not only is the customer hearing it, but now the world. Customer service can even change the face of the company within minutes. A once thought private call with a customer could in fact be a publically broadcasted conversation on the internet.

So with all this in mind, everyone should begin to embrace the change. And I’m not saying that the change is recent because it has been here for awhile. On the other hand, I am saying that big companies have to start focusing on all of the information that the company acquires and generates.

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.
-Winston Churchill-

In the past few weeks or so you may have noticed a few major blogs changing their design. If you visit more than one of these sites you also may have noticed similarities in design…

ProBlogger.com

JohnChow.com

I have included Shoemoney.com to show the similarities even though he did not update recently.

In the past few weeks or so you may have noticed a few major blogs changing their design. If you visit more than one of these sites you also may have noticed similarities…

Here are Trends and Changes I Noticed with the New Designs:

• The faux columns design is a thing of the past with the new designs. Even though it made things seem orderly, that space is money.

• More visuals. Definitely more pictures and items to look at with the designs. The creative use of a new car image on JohnChow.com also forces the eye to look downward at content.

• I have a feeling this ad placement on the bottom-right will catch on. I can honestly say that I now actually look at the ads. I assume the change with this ad placement was made to make more money off of more ads. In the past on JohnChow’s website you may have noticed there were but a few ads which stood out at the top of the page. However the new design almost hints the ads on the bottom-right by slightly cutting off the images- something that made me want to scroll down to see more…

• The top portion of the screen is now being utilized more so than before. Once again, the past designs left space at the top which seemed to go to waste. Take a look at the images I have grabbed for you and notice the changes with all the borders.

• RSS is now being placed in the top right hand corner below navigation. We already know the importance of RSS subscribers and now the authors are making it easier to find.

• Popular articles are now a whole lot easier to find. A weakness of John Chow’s site used to be the difficulty of finding these popular articles. With the new design, everything is laid out right below the picture at the top of the page.  Even though Problogger was already doing this, I am fond of the side bar blog and ‘Best of’ on the front page.

• I am a big fan of white space. It makes everything feel open and gives your mind time to transition between each item you see. ProBlogger seems to have maintained this concept quite well. But John Chow seems to be running a little low on it at the top of the page.