When I started any of my past websites, I always had trouble in the beginning for setting the price of ads on my website. I wanted to try things out, so I had the price set ridiculously high for a new blog. I know my top banner’s price was $55/month, sidebar banner’s price was $35 / month, and my sidebar scraper’s price was $45/month. Whereas my review price stayed at flat $50. For the first couple weeks, I had no sale but I didn’t mind because Balkhis was very new. Then after a while my first sale was a review.

I then started thinking. Why don’t I buy links on other new sites? Because the prices are inflated, and I am doing the exact same thing. Suddenly I cut down the prices, to what they are right now. $15 /month for header banner. $15/month for the sidebar scraper. $10/month for a sidebar banner, and $5/month for textlinks. Whereas I left my reviews to be $50. It was still very hard to get advertisers, so I thought of going to places like TLA. Sadly got rejected from there according to them, The site was new and need more backlinks. Now I have over 43k backlinks, and I didn’t even bother applying back to TLA. I did signup for Adtoll, but they require their banner everywhere if the ads aren’t sold which is just as good as empty slots banners. Ruin the look of the entire site. So I removed their code.

Then I got OIO Publisher. Which gave my users an easy signup method. What do you know that I got enough subscriptions that I was making $150+ just from subscriptions. Rest aside the google adsense and other PPC and affiliates.

With my Short anecdote, did you learn anything? If you still haven’t then let me point out the important points for you.

Well If you notice, one of the main points are don’t keep your price inflated. I understand that your competitor’s prices are high and they are making more profit than you, but in the beginning you have to keep the price low enough to survive, and just keep your business going.

Next thing [..you should read the complete post]

Ah well, I expected this to happen. For those of you who don’t know I am not a big fan of twitter. I tried it and never really liked it a whole lot. Twitter gained quiet fame among the bloggers like Myspace once did among everyone. I remember people selling myspace accounts for money and then those accounts were used for spammy advertisement. One of the reasons why I deleted my myspace account.

So let me announce the innovator of this idea, Andrew Baron with a PR 5 twitter page, is selling his twitter account on ebay. O yeah, the current bid of $1,125.

Apparently one of the funny things I found in the auction

The winner of this auction gets my account with all of my followers. The account is in my name now, but the winner of the auction can pick any other name that’s available on Twitter for the transfer. For example, you could have http://www.twitter.com/x where x=any name thats not already taken. You can change it yourself at anytime too, one of the cool features about Twitter settings.

Heck atleast myspace was a little better than this. They atleast prevented changing that last name. I should start a few twitter accounts, and start following 2000 people, and I am sure 1500 will atleast come back and follow me. Great way to make some quick cash.

Another funny bullshit I found in the auction was

I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven’t been using it the way I want to. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven’t been able to utilize the medium the way I want to. I also participate in another Twitter account over on Rocketboom so I’m thinking I’ll post more over there and start up a new account to do what I want to do next.

Umm, and the next account you will use it the way You want to. I wonder what is the real deal there. You are sure utilizing now. Work hard and find people you want to follow. Utitlize and make more money. Props to you.

Wait a minute, He gives props to his followers

Finally, I’d just like to give props to all of you out there who are following me on Twitter. No offense what so ever – we can easily find each other again.

You best believe if I was in that list, I would never follow you again. I wonder who would … Selling your profile page is a great way to build reputation. If it was a website I would understand, but a profile page.

Beginning to the end of the quality era of twitter. I am sure many will follow this leader to get some quick cash. Considering $1,125 is alot of money in some other countries.

1,125.00 USD = 77,175.00 BDT (Bangladeshi Taka)

1,125.00 USD = 552,768.75 CRC (Costa Rica Colones)

1,125.00 USD = 71,066.25 PKR (Pakistani Rupees)

I am going to hire someone in Costa Rica to add followers for me and have 60 – 40 partnership. I get 60% and they get 40% … Heck they’ll still be pretty rich.

Once again the person who is working on bringing all the bloggers together with his past Video Challenge, Darren Rowse has declared April 14th to be the Unofficial Blogger’s Appreciation Day.

I read multiple blogs online, but I find a few that are just superb where I have learnt alot from. I will be honoring these blogs for their great work and hope they keep it up. Balkhis honorary mentions are:

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger – Thanks Darren for thinking about all of us and sharing your experience.

Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman of Smashing Magazine – You guys are just the best resource for all the web designers. I always like going to this blog and finding the creative work. (Inspiration)

Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney – Thanks Jeremy for inspiring me to make this blog. I always love reading his blog. Not just because of the tips, but because I like his personality and the way he writes and talks.

Zac Johnson of ZacJohnson.com – I discovered Zac not too long ago, but I love reading his blog.

Alan LeStourgeon of Affiliate Confession – Alan’s post are very interesting. Not to mention his comments on other blogs are even more fun to read.

If you notice, I might not be the top commentator on these blogs, but I love reading each of the top ones the most. I am a top commentator on many other blogs, and I read those daily as well, but these are the ones that make it in my top list.

You guys are doing a great job, and I am glad that your blogs exist. Here is the certificate of honor autographed by yours truly, ME :p

This post is a part two of my last post about Inspiration – Foundation of Ideas. Why am I writing these posts? Because I believe every person who starts a business online should know these valuable things which can help them make their vision of success come true.

Motivation and Dedication are the most important factor that determines the success of an online business. There are thousands of websites on the world wide web. Only those with motivated and dedicated owners tend to stand out among their industry.

All the webistes that are already at the top didn’t just get to the top for no reason. The owners and developers behind it worked hard. They were motivated and dedicated to their business. They all had their own goals. Which led them to be successful as an online businessman.

Many people enter the online business thinking it is very easy to make money online. How hard can it be? You just launch a website and put ads on it, and it will make money. WRONG. That is not how it works. You have to put all your hard work in the website to make it to that level so it is worthy enough for people.

I remember when I started out not knowing a single thing about photoshop. Reading every online tutorial that I could. Messing around on my own and keeping a track of what I do. Now I don’t consider myself a photoshop god, but I am decent with it and can fulfill my needs. Same thing goes with when I started out IDK. Ofcourse I didn’t work on the scripting end that much because the script was available to me, but I modified a whole lot of the site to make it work the way I wanted to make it work. It took alot of planning and time before I had the site completed. Then I decided to redesign it and add more features to it. Which took me over 2 months. Which is nothing compared to what Shoemoney did with his ring tone website. It took him four years to code the entire thing and make it work perfect in php.

This make the point clear that it does require alot of hard work. You need to be motivated and dedicated to be a successful online businessman. Treat your website like a job if you want it to be successful. A job that you like to do and not bored with, so you don’t slack of.

Good luck with your online businesses.

I was thinking why online businessman doesn’t find success in their ventures, or why someone who wants to start something online, but is unable to do so. I came to a conclusion that they lack inspiration. Inspiration is a foundation of ideas. Without an inspiration life is incomplete and business is relatively a small part in life.

All the people who are millionaires, or billionaires right now had some inspiration/motivation in their life that took them to a point where they are. Not saying that they didn’t put hard work and all, but without the inspiration companies like Apple, Microsoft won’t be there. I would like to share what were some of the things that inspired me and made me able to come to a point where I am right now.

When my uncle Shahbaz Balkhi made his first flash website in 1998, I was amazed. That website inspired me, and I said to myself I would do something like this. I learned basic flash effects, but then I moved on with life. I was just a kid and didn’t pay much attention to the industry.

Once I moved to United States, I faced language difficulties. The difficulties I had in adapting to the lifestyle in America caused me to turn onto internet to pass time. I remembered the old days and start messing around with graphic softwares and learned.

My next inspiration was Steve Job’s speech that he gave at Stanford University’s Graduation. The guy’s life story was so inspiring. I admire his courage and his success.

These were just inspirations that I got for my normal day life style. What inspired me to start my last project IDK. I visited multiple directories, and I took a little bit of all things. At the end I was still sitting there thinking I don’t know what to do. Heck I said well sitting here won’t do nothing, I registered the domain idk.in. The initials IDK stand for I Don’t Know. Inspired by me not knowing what the heck I wanted to do. I made it a directory because directory is for people who don’t know where to find what they are looking for. I was motivated. I was dedicated to IDK. I put all my hard work in it, and in the end selling it for a decent price when I moved to my college. Truth be told, I didn’t have enough time to manage a directory. Blogs are much easier because I write one post a day and let it be it.

I started Balkhis. I was inspired by Jeremy of shoemoney. I liked how he was blogging and having fun. I have blogged with IDK, so I thought why not do this. I have a dream (Vision for Success), and I am just trying to make it come true. I am doing everything that I would like my company to do with Balkhis. Sponsoring events, travelling and much more.

The key point that you should get from this is inspiration is the foundation of ideas. Without inspiration you cannot go anywhere. Next post I will talk about motivation because without motivation and hard work your business cannot be successful.