Please Tell Me When I Have Something Hanging From My Nose

Be honest… did the title of this post intrigue you a little? I am sure it is not the best title to help drive search engine traffic to a site about making money online though. But I do think it is the perfect title for this post, as it is about helping out your fellow blogger, or anybody for that matter and that is what today’s “Quick Tip” is about.

Have you ever had something hanging from your nose, or maybe a little ranch dressing (from whatever you ate earlier) dried up on your chin and no one tells you about it? I know I have. Usually, the only way you find out is when you are going to the restroom and see yourself in the mirror. You think… “How embarrassing, how come no one told me about it?”

Of course you do have those certain friends that will give you a little nudge, point to where it is on their own face and then whisper in your ear… “Hey, you got a little something right there”, and you thank them, grab a tissue or napkin and give it a little wipe and that would be that. I really appreciate those types of friends, and that is the kind of friend I try to be.

So where am I going with this post? Well like the “there’s something hanging from my nose” analogy, I really appreciate it when someone tells me when something is wrong with one of my websites, or they think something can be done better. Three times in the last week I have had people tell me that something wasn’t working correctly with this site.

First Lax from over at Tech Zoom In emailed me to let me know that in my Feedburner Emails, at the bottom it was showing the word “Array” nine times in list format for no apparent reason. I did a little investigating and found out it was a simple setting in my DamnSexyBookmarks that was causing the problem and with a simple uncheck of a button the problem was solved. I am sure other readers probably noticed this for weeks, but no one ever let me know before Lax, so I never knew to fix it before then. Thanks Lax!

Also, in regards to my Email RSS Feed, not only was it not displaying correctly to the subscribers I already had, but the subscription form on the homepage was not working either. Alfredo over at Asswass.com contacted me last week to let me know about that. We probably lost a bunch of subscribers in the last few weeks because that was not working. We won’t lose them anymore. Thanks Alfredo!

Then just yesterday, Jared over at The Money Cult let me know about a problem that was happening with the comment editing plugin that we were using. When you clicked the edit your comment link, it opened up someone else’s comment, which was not good. So I ended up deactivating that until I get it fixed. Thanks Jared!

As for me, I am notorious for letting people know when something is wrong with their site, or if I think doing something another way might be beneficial to them. I honestly just like to help people out, and I probably overstep my boundaries sometimes, but no one has ever complained (at least to my face) about it. If you read my post “2 Simple Fixes that Could Increase Comments on Your Blog” you know I am NOT a big fan of Captcha in the comments sections of blogs, and from reading all the comments, most other readers are not either. So whenever that I am surfing the net reading blogs and leaving comments… if a person is using Captcha in their comments section (after I write my comment) I usually mention to them that they might get more comments if the get rid of it.

Now that is just one example of things I do. I also send out emails if I notice something doesn’t look right with someone’s site in my browser or if a link is not working correctly. You name it… if I see something wrong, I usually try to let the owner know. Now I am definitely not trying to brag here that I am this great guy, because that is not what I am trying to do at all… even though you would probably say that is you met me.

What I want you to get out of this post is we are all just one big giant family on this planet, and the Internet has brought us a lot closer together. We all need to help each other out and if you see something hanging from the nose (you know what I mean) of one of your fellow bloggers or website owners, let them know about it, as I am sure they will appreciate it. Remember, what goes around comes around, so the nicer you are… the nicer people will be to you!

I also read a great post the other day from Liane over at Better Blogging for Bloggers where she talks about how friendly most people are on the Internet. I have found in general that usually is the case.

So how about you guys? Do you go out of your way to help your fellow bloggers or website owners out? If not, maybe you should!

Our First Meetup.com Experience

I was searching for a local internet entrepreneur group in my area, and I found one called Meetup. I asked Doug if he knew anything about it, and he thought it was a networking group. It did sound interesting, so we talked our wives into letting us go out to do some research. Research usually means a few beers, so we packed up the laptop and headed out the door.

Our Meetup group was held in a quaint coffee shop (quaint meaning small) and the room was packed. The host charges a minimal fee (only $3 in our case) and he provides a one hour presentation from a well outlined series of topics. Our host was very welcoming, entertaining, and we felt like we fit right in. He wasn’t selling anything, which I liked, and Doug asked several questions during the presentation that were quickly responded to. I am the internet entrepreneur virgin, but I like to talk a lot. Doug has the knowledge and experience, but he prefers to let me handle most of the verbal duties. We work well together in this way. My motto is “Ignorance is bliss” and I usually live up to the task. Take this short story for example:

I used to go to a nightclub hypnotist with a group of friends for the entertainment of it. While I was always a willing participant during the show, my skeptical friends could not allow themselves to get hypnotized. I enjoyed being a willing volunteer rather than a witness to the volunteer’s stupidity. At the end of each show, the Hypnotist would thank his audience for attending, and especially those who allowed themselves to follow his “Power of suggestion” which is also known as hypnosis. Then he would tell us that each show is only as good as his subjects, and this is also true with each Meetup group.

Nice segue, huh? I hope I didn’t lose too many of you with my story, but it does prove a point. You get more out of life when you participate in it. I hope that by reading this article, you look up your local meetup group and give them a try. Try different topics, and you may just meet some very interesting people. That is what we are all trying to do in the first place, isn’t it? Making connections, sharing thoughts and business techniques. If you have a great idea, share it with us and our viewers.

We are definitely not the first people to mention Meetup, but we do want to share it with you and hope you give it a try. What have you got to lose? You should go in prepared with a list of questions, and also bring an open mind. You find some of the brightest things said are not the ones that you bring with you. I am usually reminded that I talk too much, and I don’t let others into the conversation. I am working on this one, really I am. My father used to tell me that God wanted me to listen and not to speak, that’s why he gave me two ears but only one mouth. So here I sit quietly, but I can type pretty fast with my two hands! Always trying to out smart the fox!

Have any of you been to a Meetup group? What was your experience? My dad also said it is nice to share, so let’s have it!

Hey Bloggers, Scratch Our Blog and We’ll Scratch Yours

I was reading an article the other day explaining different ways to get people to leave comments on your blog and one technique that stood out to me was fairly simple (my favorite kind). He said that you should spend a little bit of time each day visiting blogs in your niche and to leave relevant helpful comments on blog posts that interest you. The more helpful you are the better chance you have of raising your profile, which hopefully will drive more traffic to your blog. That totally makes sense.

Well that got me thinking. How can we get people to leave comments on our site even faster? What can we do in exchange for them leaving a comment(s)? I know there are thousands of new blogs started each week and I am sure most of them would love to get comments. One thing I have noticed is… if you take the time and post comments on smaller blogs that don’t get a lot of activity (ones with fewer comments on them), that often the owner of that blog will checkout your blog to see what you have going. Many times he will leave a comment on your blog as gratitude for your comments. This can happen with the Big Boy blogger sites as well, but probably not as often.

So the next thing that popped in my head was a “comment exchange” program, so I did a quick search on Google and saw that there were some that already existed. We looked at a few of them and read different reviews, but we were not too impressed with any of the ones we saw. So we decided not to join any of them.

What we did decide to do is try our own non-formal comment exchange program. Here is how it works… If you leave at least one “helpful and relevant” comment on one of our blog posts (just writing “Great Post!” does not count), Mark and I will do our best to checkout your blog and return the favor with a comment as well. Sound good?

Now we are not guaranteeing anything, as we do not know who will be commenting on our site. But if you have a good blog started with some interesting content, we will definitely do our best to leave you a comment.

Now this is just a test, so we have to have a cutoff date just in case it doesn’t work or if it works too well and we get overwhelmed with comments. So let’s make the cutoff date July 15, 2009 and evaluate how it worked, and then decide if we should extend it.

Here is one more suggestion that will hopefully benefit any of you who decide to participate in our comment exchange. Why not visit the sites of the people commenting on our blog and leave a comment on their site as well? There is a chance that they are participating in this test too and they might leave you a comment back on yours as well. You have nothing to lose and you definitely will get more exposure.

UPDATE JULY 20, 2009 – We just wanted to thank everyone that has been leaving comments on our site and we have tried  to return the favor to each of you. In doing so we have found lots of great sites that we never knew exisited. Since this is working so well, we will continue to visit anyone’s site who leaves a comment on our site. We will also try and return the favor on your site and hopefully we can build lots of longterm friendships in the process.

Sometimes it Pays to be a Nice Guy

In one of my previous posts I wrote about how you can make money online by saving money on things you buy. Here I want to share a story of how I saved A LOT OF MONEY by just being a nice guy. This has actually happened to me a few times, but this is my favorite one.

This happened a couple of years ago. I had to get a root canal for a tooth that I let go for too long. I was sitting in the dental chair when the Endodontist came in and introduced himself to me. He was a very personable guy and loved to chat. During the entire procedure he talked to me and it was hard for me to answer, because my mouth was held open with clamps and I had a rubber damn in there to keep the stuff from going down my throat. But he kept talking and asking me questions, so I figured it would be impolite not to respond.

Somehow we got on the topic of what I did for a living, and at the time I was making a good percentage of my income with Google Adsense sites. I think at the time I was bringing in about $300 a day pretty consistently just from Adsense. So, during all the drilling and water flushing I was trying to explain to him how I was doing it. I was surprised to see how interested he was in my business, as I knew he made good money at his profession. He explained to me that he did make good money, but he only made money when he was drilling teeth. He said he had always been intrigued by people running Internet businesses, and he would love to have a business that makes him money 24 hours a day.

So, when he was done with my root canal I asked him if he had a few minutes so I could show him the basics of my business. To my surprise he said sure and told his assistant to tell the next patient that he was running a few minutes behind. So we went into his office and got on the Internet and I spent about 30 minutes showing him my Adsense account and the basics of what I was doing. I also gave him my business card and told him if he had any questions to give me a call. That was it!

I then went into the reception area to pay my bill. The girl behind the counter told me it was going to be $795 (which they had quoted me on the phone). I had just pulled my checkbook out to start writing the check when the doctor peeked out from behind the door and said to her, “I’ll take care of that for Mr. Dillard” and thanked me for all the information. My jaw almost hit the floor and I asked him if he was sure, and he said “Absolutely”. So I shook his hand, thanked him, and went on my VERY HAPPY way.

How about you guys… have you ever had anything like this happen to you? If you have or you know someone that has, please let us know in the comments section below. I am sure the rest of our readers would love to hear about it.