Enkay Blog

Are You With Joe?

Alright so Joe from ImWithJoe was the top commentator last month and that means he gets a free review on this blog. I’m not going to lie but this will probably be one of the hardest reviews I’ve done because I usually try to critique a website and this one is really hard to do.

For those of you who don’t know who Joe is, I’m going to let Joe help you realize who he is and WHY you would check out his website so that you can say “I’m With Joe”. I’ve never really put up a video in a review before so this is a first but the reason I’m doing this is because this is the video that helped me discover Joe and get hooked to his blog almost instantly, so check out the video.

So now that you’ve been introduced to Joe, let me tell you a little bit about what Joe does on his blog. First off, when you visit his blog, you’ll notice that he has a really good design going. Its simple, its easy to recognize and he has done everything right. The RSS button along with email subscription is at the top of the page (although I’d like him to get the email subscription box aligned which is minor). Hes got the content nicely separated and even uses a nice little box to remind readers to sign up for his RSS which if you haven’t done so already, you probably should.

The sidebar is well organized too although I’d suggest that Joe should move up his 125×125 ads towards the upper portion of the page so that his advertisers get the most bang for the buck and probably they’d be willing to pay more too! The best part about Joe is that he gives back a lot to his readers and you’ll notice that he has a Blogs I Read Daily, Blogs I Read Weekly and a New Blogs This Week box so whenever he mentions the new visitors in his videos you’ll see it in the sidebar boxes. Its a really neat concept and I really appreciate the link I have in his sidebar.

Some things to note about Joe’s blog:
- He has a videos button in his navigation bar at the top so if you’re having a gloomy day and want to laugh then you can click on that button and pick a post and watch the video to brighten your day
- Unlike most of us who have an advertise page, he has an advertise page with a video on it. It just makes it that much more interesting
- If you link to his blog, you will lose readers! I’m just kidding about that but he really has some great content and really great videos so whether you like it or not, you’d want to link to him.

If you visit Joe’s “How I Earn Page” you’ll find out how he got started and after you read about his involvement in freebie trading, affiliate marketing and the fact that he even has his own ebook, you won’t think that hes an amateur anymore. He knows how this business works and is a busy man to prove it. He’s currently even working on a project called If This Blog Could Talk so you should have a look at that too.

I did notice one small thing that I’d like Joe to have a look at and thats the footer. I still haven’t worked on the footer on my blog so I know that it can get overlooked but Joe actually has a well put together footer however the problem is that its really hard to read what it says since the gray background with blue text makes it quite difficult. If you need help with this Joe, let me know!

So there it is, thats Joe for you. If his video and my review wasn’t enough to persuade you to check out his blog then I don’t know is. I recommend that you check out his blog and tell him I sent you. If you are a reader at Joe’s blog, I’d appreciate if you left your testimonial.

Who Are You? No, Really! How Old Are You?

Haven’t you wondered this before? I mean I know I’ve mentioned it a few times but most of the comments/emails I get are that I look older than I actually am and I’ve wondered this that maybe I’m not doing enough to help readers understand me so considering I told you how this blog actually started, maybe you’d like to know a little bit more about me. By the way, before I begin, I have wondered how old some other bloggers are and sometimes I’m surprised because I can’t really guess well and I usually overestimate the age most of the times. So if you don’t mind, let me know how old you are, not that it makes a difference but its a good way for me to get a better visual.

How I Got On The Internet
I’ve been on the internet since I was much much younger, maybe around 11 or 12 and my first email account, just like most of you guys, was with Hotmail. I used to get on the internet and check my email or browse games and even though I was never a real gamer, I would enjoy the java based games from 9 years ago.

Starting Up My Company
By the time that I was 13 years old, I had started to play with Dreamweaver, FlashMX and Frontpage enough to know what I was doing. I even had a fair bit of experience with Photoshop by then. At that time I decided to get into the web design business and started by completing small projects for individuals at freelance websites. The pay wasn’t too high, usually between $20-$50 for each job but the time input was minimal and considering I went to school in the day, it was pretty good part-time pay.

Through these projects I met my future clients with whom I helped develop over 30 professional websites and other projects including some for companies like RadioShack, Cisco Systems and Northstar Parts. I was even contacted by companies such as Bentley but with time running out, I was unable to actually accept some projects.

Quitting The Business
When I was 18 years old, and was a sophomore at the University, I decided that I probably wouldn’t have enough time to devote to the web design business and decided to take a break, knowing that I would return sooner or later with a new venture. Sure enough, 6 months later I came up with my blog.

Its been a great and long journey filled with tons of experience and stories and most of what I blog about today is taken from what I learned as a teenager trying to establish himself in a business market that was already over saturated with too many web designers and freelancers who were in it to win it.

I guess this entire story helps you get an insight into who I really am and why I say some of the things I do. Hopefully this also helps my credibility in backing up what I say But I would really like to hear from you guys. Tell me a little bit about you by blogging about it or if you don’t want to do that then you can mention a little bit of it in the comments. It will help you connect with your audience better, so its worth a shot!

How Enkay Blog Got Started

Some of you have asked me after my Market Leverage interview as to how the “experiment” of Enkay Blog actually started and I thought it would be interesting to share with you how it all began.

May 2007
It all goes back to May of 2007 when I had just started my summer vacation. I was tempted by my well established Internet Geek of a brother, that I should start up my own blog. He doubted by ability of maintaining it and I decided to take him up on the challenge.

I had a domain name and hosting that I used to host family pictures on and decided to create a subdomain to host a blog. I created that around Mid-May and started posting articles with no general focus in terms of niche. This was mainly an effort on my part to gain as much traffic as I could. It worked, in fact, I had a 50,000 page views the first month. Not bad for a start up blog.

Either way, I started commenting on other blogs and emailing other bloggers and slowly began networking. This really helped put me into the Make Money Online niche as I started to learn about new sources of income and how to integrate them into my blog.

June - August 2007
Those were the months that actually helped me move more into the blogging and make money online niches and I started writing more about blogging techniques and new websites and sources of income for your blog. I even started making over $100 the first month onwards. Not a bad start but these three months really pushed me into the blogging world and a year later, here I am today.

It was also during this time that the name “Enkay Blog” actually came about since I decided to use my initials (N.K) as the name for the blog. So when you say out my initials N.K you will hear Enkay. Thats the concept behind the name and it definitely made it more personal to me and my readers.

Why Was It An Experiment?
Well, I mentioned that I already had a domain and hosting from early and just created a subdomain to host my blog on. Well, that domain was going to expire in another month along with the hosting. I figured that if in 1 month, I didn’t see satisfactory results, I would quit blogging. Its a bold move but I didn’t want to put in more money without any outcome.

Well, a month passed and I decided that it was worth it and went ahead with renewing it for a year. As you all know, that was a mistake because the domain was not pretty and probably didn’t help me very much at all. July 7th 2008 marked the day that I moved to my new domain, EnkayBlog.com and ever since I have experienced a much better retention of readers and I hope to continue on doing what I’m doing.

I’d like to hear from you guys, how did you get started and what motivated you to get started in the blogosphere?

Are You Portraying Yourself Well?

I think its an interesting concept, you know, the concept of human perception. Sounds complicated but it really means how people view you or how people see you when they see you online.

I recently ran into one of my readers and they said, “Are you that guy that has the blog?” and I replied “Yeah, sure am” and they even remembered my name. We talked for a little bit and as she left, she said “You’re exactly like what I would have thought when I see you online” and that is pretty much what I wanted to hear. Its a great feeling knowing that I meet the expectations when I meet someone in person considering I create those expectations as an online personality.

The idea is that you should know how to portray yourself. Sometimes you have the occasional individual who attempts to be something who he/she isn’t and thats not really helping you. So point #1 would be, Be Yourself. I can’t say it any simpler than that. You have to show people who you really are and not what you can become online. I understand that becoming someone else online can lead to more profits but when someone meets you then that bubble is about to burst.

One of these guys that I know is true to himself is Normal Joe from ImWithJoe. I know that if I meet him in person, I’d know what to expect and he makes himself very real online and thats why hes been progressing ever since he started.

I also see some guys who are discrediting themselves and thats not a good way to go. If you’re going to leave a comment or write a post about something make sure you know the topic well in order to show off your strong points. Its usually not a good idea to talk about something you don’t know. For example, its somewhat like being good at Science yet writing papers about Mathematics. It just doesn’t flow and its not a good way for you to get attention.

In the blogging world, its when new bloggers talk about making hundreds of dollars a day with minimal work. I mean, if its that easy, why aren’t you doing better? It just doesn’t add up. Make sure you have experience about what you’re talking about and stay true to what you know.

So bascially, stay true to who you are and make sure that you show off your strong points in order to get yourself noticed. Its good to see bloggers like TheNetFool, Balkhis and many others that take advantage of those points and thats why they’re doing a lot better than others. So that concludes this post which was somewhat of a rant based off what I’ve noticed lately but do you think you’re portraying yourself well or are you content with the way things are?

What Your Momma Didn’t Teach You - Part 1

I figured I’d do a series of posts called the “What Your Momma Didn’t Teach You” and its not meant to be offensive, its just a comical title that will help you get over a few of the speed bumps that you may encounter as a blogger. Today’s topic is called “Comment Etiquette”. Theres all different kinds of etiquette, such as how to eat when you have company around, how to speak with the opposite sex (advice that I can surely provide.. just kidding!) and things of that nature. I’m sure you get the idea. Well, I have over 2,500 approved comments and over 525,000 spam comments and I think I’ve read quite a few blogs to notice that there is a certain type of comment etiquette. There are certain do’s and don’ts and I’m here to tell you whats good and whats not.

1. Blog Link - Some bloggers find it an obligation to link back to their blog at the end of their comment and this is generally okay as long as you don’t put the title of your blog in all caps to get attention. Its not the best way to drive traffic and won’t make the owner of the blog too happy either.

Your blog link is already available as soon as the comment is published and writing it a second time is not necessarily required but generally considered okay as long as its not an eye sore. So, if you want to put a link to your blog in there, don’t use caps or underline it or bold it. Just leave it the way it is or don’t use a link in the first place.

2. Post Links - Sometimes I’ll get a comment where its like “Oh yeah, great post, I wrote something similar and mentioned a few more things, check it out!” and I’m sure you noticed whats wrong with that. They’ve linked to ablog post in the comment. Usually if you leave me or most other bloggers a comment like that, we will come around and check out your blog and even look for the post.

Just don’t make it a free ad for your post because it probably won’t help you get on the good side. Again, its okay if you link to your blog or someone else’s blog but just don’t over do it with 5 words hyperlinked. It could even be caught by Akismet as spam so you’re really not helping yourself.

3. Commenting For No Reason - Some bloggers have the misconception that as long as they post a comment that is controversial or will definitely offend someone, that they will get more traffic. They are right, they will get more traffic but how long do you think will that traffic stick around? Its really not a good idea to just comment because you want to be different from the group or you want to incite some kind of controversy or create an ordeal in order to try and gain a few readers. Its not worth your time and I don’t support that myself.

On a second note, if you are challenging the blogger on something they said, then you can be on the path to gaining a whole new audience, just ask SiteFlipU because he challenged TheNetFool and ended up gaining a great audience and thats besides from the fact that they both have credibility and great content.

So, hopefully you enjoyed my post as I’m trying to get back into my schedule. I have to apologize to you guys because I haven’t come around as yet and read or commented on your blogs as yet but I will do that as soon as possible. The Hurricane has just set me back but I’ll be getting back as soon as possible. Can you tell me a a few of your pet peeves with comments?