I recommend that you jump on this opportunity today.  Domain names are a competitive business and GoDaddy is the best in the bunch offering options for all TLD’s: .com, .net, .org, .us, and even the brand new .me domain.  Chances are that this deal is for a free .com, but still, GoDaddy is awesome.  Get to it and buy something from Buy.com to get your free domain!

Not sure what a domain name is?  Check this out this intro:

Domain Names

The main purpose of a domain name is to provide symbolic representations, i.e., recognizable names, to mostly numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource (e.g., website) to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet, in effect changing the IP address. This translation from domain names to IP addresses (and vice versa) is accomplished with the global facilities of Domain Name System (DNS).

By allowing the use of unique alphabetical addresses instead of numeric ones, domain names allow Internet users to more easily find and communicate with web sites and any other IP-based communications services. The flexibility of the domain name system allows multiple IP addresses to be assigned to a single domain name, or multiple domain names to be services from a single IP address. This means that one server may have multiple roles (such as hosting multiple independent websites), or that one role can be spread among many servers. One IP address can also be assigned to several servers, as used in anycast networking.

Convinced now?  Get your free domain name today with Buy.com and Godaddy.com!

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Following this short video, Virgle applicants need to pass a 15-question multiple choice personality test.

If you do well on the test, you’ll be presented with a link to submit your application video. Good luck!

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Before I tell you how much I made this month, let me first give you a bit of background. Last year I managed to earn approximately $400 total online by promoting a health-related affiliate product. That website is still ranking reasonably well on Google, has great potential to rank in the top 10, but has not been converting any sales in the last 3 months as I have not had any time to work on it. Reworking that site will be priority number one for me in February as that site brings in commissions ranging from $20 to over $100 when sales are made. I believe that this product is capable of helping make even more money this year and I’m looking forward to working with a friend and talented writer to help turn that site from a dud to a stud.

This website is continuing to grow; comparatively speaking this site is still very small. Averaging only 50 or so visits per day and 34 RSS readers, I would like to double or triple those numbers in February and I’m cooking up some strategies and more guest posts to help me achieve that goal.

This is how things turned out in January:

In January, I earned $212 online. This is a combined income consisting of a paid review and private ad sales on this website and my recently built “made for eBay” sites. The eBay websites can be optimized further by applying a few more SEO techniques and I think that the numbers in February will be even better. In addition, I am planning another 3 or 4 “made for eBay” sites in February so that alone should help bump up my monthly income.

As you can see, I also had some expenses. The advertisement expenses were to promote the site in addition to my search engine marketing scheme that I’m working on. The search marketing campaign is still on going and I’m tweaking it with my friend and business partner so that we can figure out what works and what doesn’t really work. So far we’re down a few bucks but we’re on the rebound. In addition, I purchased the phpBay Pro API that lets me get eBay auctions on hand-made sites, not just Wordpress sites. The API is pretty good, but after working with both I prefer the flexibility and options of the Wordpress plugin. It’s definitely worth my while and as you can see I’ve already made my money back on that investment.

So, this is where we stand. January has been a decent month with $212 revenue. I expect that February will be an even stronger month and look forward to reporting what happens in the month to come!

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As you can probably tell, my new Wordpress theme is up and live!  What’d you think?  If you’re reading this through the RSS feed, come to the site and see for yourself!

So, how did I come up with this design?  Firstly, I think that blues and whites are a great color scheme for a website.  My old black and red was nice, but I feel that a “kinder, gentler” look and feel would provide my visitors with a better reading experience.  The light color scheme is less aggressive and easier on the eyes.

The top section allows me to easily update the users with important news and events, promote certain products or maybe even sell advertising spots in the future.

I changed the “tag line” of the site from “making money online made easy” to “webtrepreneurship explored”.  This new tagline better embodies the site as I am trying out new programs and strategies, rather than claiming that making money online is easy.

Inspiration

So, where did I get the inspiration for the site?  It all started in December of last year when I saw the Google Zeitgeist for 2007.  I thought that the design was super clean and easy on the eyes so the color scheme is very similar to that one.

The sidebar on the left was very appealing to me, but it’s really not appropriate for blogs.  Thusly, I examined the Zeitgeist site and made a mockup for my site.  First I did it all in CSS and HTML, nothing fancy.  It was just a test to see how it would look.

The end result of that test was this:

This design is the basis of the new design, and I wanted to try out 2 sidebars.  After testing it for a bit I realized that the content area ended up being too small and made my page really lengthy, so I nixed one sidebar.  The end result is this new theme.  I hope you like it!

If you have any comments, feel free to share them with me.

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Over the next few days I’ll be experimenting with the new design.  It’s finally almost ready, but there will be some kinks that I want to work out before it’s finally live for good.  So, if you come to the site and see a new theme that’s a bit dysfunctional, I know about it and am working on fixing it.  The change will be pretty dramatic…the new theme is going to be blue and I think will also be MUCH cleaner than the current dark theme.

Keep your eyes peeled and maybe you’ll catch me testing the new theme sometime.

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This is the new mascot for the site:

I hope you like him, because you’ll be seeing a lot of each other! I decided that a young owl is the perfect representation and embodiment of this website.  Note that he’s holding a pad of paper and pencil, ready to learn and become the wise old owl that we all think of!  He’s here to take notes from me and you, so the more we communicate the more he’ll learn!

He’s here to learn how 2 earn.  Are you?

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Shortly after placing my advertisement “cards” on the sidebar less than 24 hours ago I was contact by Jason, webmaster of JasonBoom.com. Jason purchased the $10 ad spot and his ad will be seen on that spot for the next 30 days.

Jason, a fellow Hoosier, has been “making a living online, through freelance writing, web design, and web hosting business”.

Check out Jason’t blog at JasonBoom.com and tell him thanks for advertising on Learn How 2 Earn!

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This is my second post for Tyler and the positive comments have been great so far. I hope to continue working with Tyler as I develop my marketing prowess and know that we can benefit one another.

For my loyal readers, check out my new post and leave a comment telling me your opinions on the post. I think you’ll like it!

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Since December 22, the last day I was in town and at hope before Christmas break, a lot of great things have happened to this blog.

1- I was asked by Tyler Cruz to be a guest poster on his blog.  I happily accepted his offer and even contributed an exciting post to his website entitled Blogging is Like Guitar Hero….  If you haven’t read it yet, check it out and tell me what you think!

2 – I won Gyutae Park’s weekly “Let’s Go Blog Hopping” feature at Winning the Web.  A little extra exposure never hurts, right?

3 – Tyler Cruz featured me in his Batch Reviews.  He pointed out that my links were slightly annoying, which is OK.  I like the way it looks in FireFox and agree that it could be tweaked for IE, and I also agree that I should be doing some link love in the form of a blogroll.  So, keep an eye out for these updates soon!

4 – This site is on its way to being monetized!  I’ve had quite a few inquiries about either doing paid reviews on this site or for people wanting to place ads on the site!  Looks like this month this blog will be in the blue for the first time ever!

So to everyone, keep an eye out for an amazing year and let’s Learn How 2 Earn in 2008!

-Nick

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