DominikMayr.COM

I am looking forward to a factory-work-free weekend this time, so i can set specific goals as to what sections of the new site have to be completed until the end of the week. I completely forgot how content heavy this site is. Its a shitload amount of work and the fact that Austria, and specifically Tyrol enjoy some very summer-like days doesnt help the progress of the content convertion either.

I had to re-new two vBSEO licenes at the beginning of may, and to my surprise the renewal price was very low, only USD35 for each license. Fair enough i say for the best VB plugin ever created. My forums still enjoy huge popularity, allthough it being a very quiet and dead time for the niches.

I am selling quite a few Text Links via Text-Link-Ads at my videogame and pc game blog lately. Surprising, as it still is waiting for the big break through, however i set the price very low for a PR3 site hence why i am able to sell alot links. A better strategy in this case, i see many overprized link offers for PR3 sites at TLA.

On a real life note, i have some though days, many doctor visits and various private situation issues i find it hard to deal with and on top of that, alot of other work. I hate life when i cant dedicate myself to my biggest hobby on a regular basis.

Actually, not much. I could tell you guys whats been bugging me in the last weeks, but this blog wasnt created to show off my oh so glamorous (lol) lifestyle rather than to give some people who enjoy the work i do an insight on things.

I’ve been messing arround with my mainsite mainly the last weeks, however its a very slow progress this time since various things in real life (whats that again?) require more attention these days. And there have been some nice.. well, lets say spring-alike days recently which kinda forced me to enjoy the sun a bit more.

I think its a well-deserved sort of break though, since i worked my aSS of for my sites during winter. I have a few days off my main work now so i can finally continue converting and creating new content togheter with my huge team of people. Contrary to my initial thoughts about not releasing a Web2.0 Beta site, i rejoiced because the shire amount of content and new features WILL require a hopefully not too buggy Beta-phase. The plan is to release my Drupal based site overhaul during May. I think that is achievable.

The layout of my Drupal site has been finnished yesterday and the outcome looks superb. I once again prepared everything before so my graphics artist just stepped in yesterday and we where able to finnish all graphics yesterday. I made quite a few changes to the stylesheet over the last weeks, like adding background images to most parts of the site. I’ve always been a designer who tries to implement as much bg graphics as possible. I just cant stand single color backgrounds.

Our old layout (which is still the version thats online for public at the moment) uses a light grey-blue-minor red theme while we moved into dark blue-dark grey-minor red this time. It is very appealing to the eye and other staff members fell in love with it immediately.

There’s still loads of work to do in regards of content though. The site is very content heavy and has like 50 menu points with over 100 sub menus. And of course we also want to add additional content.

Apparently being a bath controlleur automatically means more work, more weekends work and therefore less freetime. I hardly had freetime the last two weeks, turning shifts and stuff made me tired enough to not do much online.

So today, instead of business related ramblings i will just tell you a bit about other issues and happenings. Work in the tankhouse is still good and enjoyable, however i sometimes feel “overused” as i was teached for 7 different jobs within a year and can do almost anything in that tankhouse now. Other workers usually do 3 works maximum with one or two exceptions. I managed to get a higher salary though so it is paying off.

Speaking of money, i really need to spend some. I am way too strict to myself. If i hear same aged people talking about their money problems i smile within, but then i realize i dont have a better life either. A problem of mine is the fact that i always want the best. I just cant buy a used car for €4000. I am currently looking in buying a brandnew Audi A3 Sportback in spring 2009. When i own it, i surely will start to save for an A8… See what i mean?

My main site will hit it big soon as some huge news are awaited alongside an exclusive interview with a game producer thats to follow thereafter. I however have massive problems with my long time staff members. Most of them are grown adults (but hey, me too!) and simply cant fire up the same dedication that made me hire them like 5 years ago.

Understandable, but quite difficult for me as i have to do double or tripple my work now. I will most likely get a salary promotion in the factory soon so that extra offline income will most likely be used on writers and people who are more dedicated to the subject, i.e. younger ones in this case.

Other good news are related to one vB+vBSEO powered forum i set up about half a year ago. I found a good admin team (for no costs) and they are now fully responsible of the direction the forums will go. I think i mentioned it in one of my past posts. Apologies for my bad memory. We rank very well for the main targetted keyword (currently Pos. 5 at Google and Pos. 11 at Yahoo) plus some extra promotions (like sig links and relevant affiliated links ONLY) got us quite a decent amount of regular and very targetted visitors. About 70% of them end up in registering and about 30% become active members. Dull? Not for a sole forum with only like 80 backlinks i say.

Now to the bad news. Competitors did a marketing stunt by fabricating exclusive news and media (It isnt even April Fools Day!) and many big sites fell for it. It has now been revealed as bogus and i am quite sure their increase in visitors won’t help them to hush up the negative reputations they’ll get over time.

This blog didnt experience updates lately simply because i kinda took some time off doing online business. From time to time i come to points where i just don’t know what i could do to improve things. I’d call it my” uninspirational phases” or so.

However, i was online daily still, mainly checking various stats starting from Google Analytics to SE changes, user behaviour etc.

I also managed to sell 3 “copies” of vBSEO via a PPC campaign i started for fun with no landing page. I spent ~ USD 30 to get these three sales, each 22,35 in commission. I plan to take this campaign further and probably make some extra income each month.

Wait… i haven’t been that lazy actually, i just didnt do the usual things, instead i was converting some more content to my Drupal site. I really enjoy working with that system and i am sure the whole site will benefit from the change once i am able to release it. Speaking of releases of sites, i always complete them 100% and do beta testing before. None of my sites went online without having content ready, contrary to my competitors.

These days the only thing i did when being online was to create a new layout and platform for my number 1 visited site. The last design and/or layout change happened in early 2006 and its now time to move into Web 2.0 and offering more interactivity for the user.

As my last posts indicates, i am using Drupal for the platform. I am almost finished with the template and already started to convert content. At this time, i only convert content, once its all ready the new site will be launched and slowly new content can be added by any staff member/writer.

I also want this to stand out graphically, just as expected from our fans. Not as much graphics as in the past, but a few high quality superb ones to comply with the site’s design. I am using Drupal 6.1 atm and i had forgotten about one important thing: Drupal 6.0 is VERY new and hardly any modules are modified for that version. I couldnt even add a “Add this to social networking sites” module as it was not compliant with Drupal 6.0

Over the next months all these modules should be modified for usage with Drupal 6.0 though. My plan is to release the new platform for my site until end of April 2008. I may even take a few days off work to be able to work on it 100%.

IF i did something online the last few days it was messing arround with the stylesheet of a common Drupal theme. I’ve choosen a very ordinary one, so i have enough room to play arround and add things.

The file is quite big and i sometimes have a hard time figuring out what i do when i change an attribute. A proper layout is mandatory. Sometimes i find myself testing various colors for dotted underlined text decorations just to re-arrange everything again thereafter.

Its turning out quite well though and once my perfectionism reaches the maximum my team and i can start adding content, or converting content. I aquired a few female staff members this time since the male fraction seems quite unmotivated at the moment. I have a feeling having female editors and writers can be as beneficial as female mining truck drivers. Its the feeling for things.  Lets see how it all turns out.

On a final note i am quite happy that Google’s SERP’s for a forum of mine are fluctuating again, indicating that i will finally be on #1 for this major keyword. Its just a matter of time.

Yesterday i realized its time to boost one of my “slow progress” forums. I am fully aware that building up a new forum takes quite some time, especially if its a sole forum with no other purpose than to simply discuss things on the matter of the niche.

The forum qualifies itself due to an attractive and search engine friendly URL plus decent skin and great forum categorization and.. of course vBSEO.

Therefore i am giving it a huge boost with a USD80/day YSM PPC campaign. I’ll probably not be able to get USD80/day spent due to the niche and limited possibilities with keywords. Second, i hired someone i knew from the past to post some interesting threads to make the guests sign up and respond.

I did this: I am paying the guy USD25 for his first month, however told him that for future months, payments can be raised dependant on his qualities to recruit people via his posts. If he finds other ways to get active members, the better for him. I prefer if people think for themselves. They can use their imagination and if i am happy with the result (in this case, getting active forum members) they will be paid more. There’s no limit.

I’d also like to appologize for the lack of posts lately, but this week was pretty exhausting, filled with some “great” news in the private area too… Hope i can catch up within the next weeks.

Yahoo Search Marketing announced that there will be no fixed USD 0.10 minimum bids anymore. Checking my account i noticed that the change apparently didnt happen yet. I think i got the email about a week ago. If these changes have a positive effect in the end remains unknown as of yet anyway.

I am pretty unhappy with my paid blogger. I dont pay USD25/month for lacklustre posts all other sites are reporting about already. The first will probably be hist last payment. I also dont plan to put some pressure on him. Either he realizes that he’s not fullfilling our “contract” of a specific amount of posts per day, or he has to look for some other job oppurtunities. He offered good conditions, but was unable to fullfill them. I hate that like nothing else.

I also edited all my Privacy Policy pages for all my sites to fit the latest Google Adsense TOS modifications. If you havent done so, i suggest you do it ASAP.

 ShoppingAds owes me two payments now already. I have removed all their shitty code already however they owe me a USD143 dollar payment from January and USD55 from a half month usage in February. Supplemental income, but still i’d like to receive it! Of course contacting support doesnt give you any response. ShoppingAds sheds a very bad light on a trusted company like Media Whiz.

And finally, i had a very bad month with Art.com. 470 clicks didnt give me one single poster sale.  Play-Asia saved my month though