Personal Finance Blog

Tips And Stories To Help You With Managing Money

Launching a New Website – Days 1 & 2

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Day 1:

The first thing I did was to get a robot.txt file and get it uploaded to the main domain. This file tells Google and other bots to stay away from pages that you don’t want to show the world. It’s just a text file and you can learn how to make one.

Then I created a sitemap for the site. Now a sitemap is needed to tell the bots just where all the pages on your site are and for some reason they love this file, so I feed it to them. I go to a free site that will create it for me.

I just put the URL in a form and wait five minutes. Then I saved it as an html file and a .xml file because my site visitors really like to see what I have on my site and Google bots really like to gobble up .xml files. So I uploaded both of these files to my site.

I then started the launching procedure which just means you let Google know about your new site and you invite people to it. It’s very simple to do, but a mandatory step as far as I’m concerned. You need to go to Google and set up an account. You basically have to claim your site and tell Google where your sitemap information is. It’s
very easy to do. Just follow the directions there. So that being done, I have to wait until Google actually indexes the site to get any organic traffic (search traffic) from it.

Because it was late at night, I just barely had time to announce the site to my Facebook and Twitter Friends.

Cpanel stats for visits: Aug. 1 = 29 (probably mine)

Day 2:

Today I downloaded Roboform and realized what a fool I’ve been for so many years to have not used this tool before. I think I spend at least 30 minutes out of my day filling in usernames and passwords and this free
software takes all of that away. The reason I did this was so that I could more efficiently use Social Marker. I spent about an hour submitting a Website B page to various sites using Social Marker.

This post will be updated tomorrow with new statistics and new advertising activities. I may have forgotten to mention that one of the stipulations of this project is to spend no advertising dollars on PPC.

Thanks for reading this and stay tuned for a progress update on launching a new web site in 30 days.

30 Day Plan To Launching a New Website

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This is a thirty day report of statistics on launching a brand new website and building substantial traffic in thirty days. Since this is August 2, 2009, my plan is to report on thirty days worth of effort in attracting traffic to a new website.  This post will be updated on a daily basis and each day’s advertising efforts will be reported as well as the number of visitors for the previous day. Since this will be an ongoing project throughout the month of August, I suggest you book mark the URL and check back to see the statistics change.

I’m not guaranteeing any great results, but if Julia Child could inspire a year’s worth of  trying a new recipe every day, then certainly I can find 5 minutes a day to update this post with the advertising efforts of this new site launch.  I’m sure there are plenty of people that are much better at this than I am and I encourage you to steer me in the right direction if I’m getting off target.

Let me explain that the reason for this concentrated effort. Not that I want any sympathy…well…maybe I do…but when you are a business owner you don’t have access to great health insurance.  Without health insurance coverage, I had an accident that, shook me up literally. I generously offered to help my aging mother hang draperies in her home. It was a nice thing to do,  I thought.  However within 5 minutes of arriving at her house, I had slipped off a desk and took a spill. On the way down, (you would never guess that in my teens I was a Hawaiian State Diving Champion) I managed to hit my back on part of the chair that had supported my body momentarily. As my body hit the floor, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to get up and my mind raced with, YIKES…I have no health insurance.

To make a long story short, $9,500 later, which was only 24 hours, I was laid up at home with 2 broken ribs and a lot of pain medication. Well, I’m totally healed now and totally frustrated with how difficult and expensive it is to get health insurance when you work for yourself. I decided that I would have to make at least an extra $10K a year to even afford to buy myself health insurance.  So this is part of my effort to change my circumstances, learn more about launching a site from scratch and just see how fast it can be done. Maybe you will learn something from this if nothing more than you are really glad you have health insurance.

The actual creation of this new website is a lot of work, don’t get me wrong, but I figure that the hard part begins after the actual launch so I’m not going into details of the creation of the site, nor the domain name selection or anything but advertising.

The new website was completed on August 1. So here is the report for August 2009.

Business Checks

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Business checks are generally beneficial to people issuing more than 1000 checks a year. A business check is designed specifically for the needs of businesses. Normally when a business account is opened with a bank, a business checkbook with 100 checks is issued to the customer. An automated ordering system ensures that new check books are sent to the customer well before the old ones run out. Business check is basically a tool to counter check fraud. Check frauds are growing challenges facing business and financial institutions today, something the banks are increasingly getting aware about. Bank checks allow business owners and financial controllers to carefully reduce the potential for check fraud.

A business check actually enables a customer to spend more time managing the business with the convenience of a check book for his or her daily banking requirements. The main features include arranging for the direct credit of regular payments to a customer’s account. Also regular debits such as loan repayments can be made automatically by such a check. Business checks have therefore a critical importance to every modern business. They come with all security features also.

Business checks are very always good in quality and are recognized by all banks. Such checks ideally meet the American Banking Association standards for security. Business checks are available in many popular styles and designs. We have three-on-a-page manual checks and executive desktop checks or laser checks as good examples of business checks. Free 50-leaf “butt style” check books and duplicate deposit books are also considered examples of business checks.

Checks provides detailed information on Bad Checks, Bank Checks, Business Checks, Check Cashing and more. Checks is affiliated with Check Cashing Business.

By Marcus Peterson

Rewards from Top Affiliate Companies

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Custom Direct Wins the Gold Award at the 24th Annual Maryland Performance Excellence Awards

If you are like me, an affiliate marketer, you may not know much about the companies that you are doing affiliate marekting for. I have been an affiliate mareketer for 4checks.com for the past several years and never realized that they actually market for a company called Custom Direct.

Half of the checks that are on www.coolchecks.net are printed by Custom Direct. This company has an outstanding reputation and owns at least 10 different check printing companies.

The CEO of the company, Dale A. Dabbs, has been in the check printing business a long time and he say:

Since 1993, we’ve committed ourselves to making positive strides to continually enhance our people, products and processes to provide satisfaction and value. We put our customers first, and we seek to exceed their expectations. Thatrsquo;s the Custom Direct Difference.

Custom Direct is committed to providing our customers with high-quality, dynamic products, outstanding service, and great support from our talented team. Irsquo;m extremely proud of the people who work for CD and their dedication to helping our Company remain a leader in the industry.quot; – Dale A. Dabbs, CEO

I was happy to hear that they have a good track record and have satisfied customers all over the country.

I think that success as an affiliate marketer comes as a result of associating yourselves with a high quality, reputable company. Custom Direct fits the bill for 4checks.com and therefore…for me at www.coolchecks.net.

The Success Of The Kids’ Fun Fund

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Our family recently returned from a week of vacation, and I’m proud to report that the Kids’ Fun Fund that I mentioned a few months ago worked just as I had hoped. Throughout 2009, my kids have been doing little chores around the house, chores for which they can earn a little money. A portion of this money gets deposited into the Kids’ Fun Fund – just a plastic square container decorated with their names and labeled Kids’ Fun Fund.

The purpose for our Kids’ Fun Fund was pretty specific. Our kids love to go to an arcade – a very specific arcade – located about fifteen minutes from where we go on vacation. This arcade is really more than just an arcade, it’s more like a small-scale amusement park, complete with miniature golf course and go-carts. My kids, for some reason, just really like to this particular arcade.

Last January, when we started to plan for our vacation, I asked my kids what they thought about creating a Fun Fund, so that they could save up a big pile of coins to use at the arcade. They really took to the idea an the Kids’ Fun Fund was born. You can click this link to read more details about the Kids’ Fun Fund.

The Kids’ Fun Fund really worked. Our kids worked hard – and worked hard together – to earn money for the Fun Fund. They were both so proud, when we were preparing for vacation, to pack their big jar of coins. When we arrived at the arcade, we all stuffed our pockets with quarters, and headed inside. The kids had a blast and it was great to see them enjoy the reward for their labors.

It’s cool to note that the kids could have spent every penny in their Fun Fund, but they chose not to do so. In fact, they used just a small portion of the money that they had saved. Now, they are in the process of deciding exactly what to do with the rest of the Fun Fund. I’ll guide them as they make the decision, but I’ll leave the final choice up to them. Whatever they do, I’m super-proud of my kids. They set a goal, worked hard to achieve it, and then had a blast at the arcade. Success!

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No Credit Needed: The Success Of The Kids’ Fun Fund