No where is the upcoming election a more charged topic then on the University of Florida campus. Walking to and from class, students are bombarded by message after message to vote for McCain, Nater, or Obama. So what make one campaign stand out from another? Why their branding of course.

Each candidate is presenting a message, and a candidate’s effectiveness is demonstrated by how many people this message reaches. The way to make your message stand out and kick someone in the face is to put a unique and new brand to your campaign. Some inventive students at the University of Florida have done just that by creating what they call the ObamaBot.

The ObamaBot greets you with glowing eyes and it’s endearing orange and blue color scheme and rapidly presents you with two signs that ask you to vote early and vote Obama. It is displays like this, flashy and interesting that have helped to give the Obama campaign momentum, at least on the University of Florida campus. If some engineering students can do it, why can’t you?

Branding your site is simple and can have huge returns for your business. The ObamaBot cost less then $300 to make and operate, a similar gimmick may work for your site as well. If you can find one unique thing to brand your site with, to make a difference and make you stand out, why shouldn’t you? This online competition is you against the rest of the world, make sure you bring your A game.

So it all started friday with a little scratch feeling in my neck. I ignored it. I thought it was just a slight thing with a weather change. I went to work on Saturday. After work I wasn’t feeling as well, but I wasn’t feeling entirely bad either. You know me. Just went out and started playing basketball. Stayed up late. Went to work on Sunday and when I got home. I really feel bad. My body temperature was below the normal. So I am feeling very weak. I took a two hour nap. Woke up still nothing better. So I took one dose of Nyquil, and slept for 12+ hours. I woke up the next morning, and I didn’t feel very well. Hence why you didn’t see the post.

Now to make this things worst, I have an exam and a quiz on monday. Well I went to the exam and the quiz. Got back home, and I am still not feeling well. So I took herbal tea. I am taking a lot of Vitamin C. Well I ate the little bit of my appetite let me. Then I took nyquil and took a nap again.

Come back to tuesday. I am still not feeling well. Tuesdays are my easy days. So I stayed home and relaxed. David and Amanda were working with local clients. So I didn’t have to worry about that. I am feeling a little better, but I don’t want to push my luck again. I went to sleep without taking any pills though.

I woke up on Wednesday morning and people told me that my sites are loading very slow and experiencing downtime. I thought it was just some server issue. The host will get it fixed. I have been with this host for over 3 years. So I didn’t freak out and let them be. Later down the day, the site was just completely down. And I can’t afford that. So Wednesday night I made the decision of saying Good Bye to my old host.

And moved to Host Gator Reseller Accounts.. Yup they were the best one I could find that fit my needs. This morning I got the email with account details, and Now I am working on uploading about 10 GB of files to the web. Sounds fun doesn’t it.

I guess everything just hits you at once. Once again I apologize fellas for the site being down and lack of activity. I was really sick and I couldn’t do anything about it. I hope to get things back to normal soon. Pimp my blog was pushed back too, and I will try to get that sorted as well.

Thanks for understanding
Syed

So Shutterstock gave me a shirt because they like my blog. I think it was because of my designing tips. If you don’t know who shutterstock is, then here is some info. Shutter stock is basically a stock image provider that sells images for cheap. Well I like their shirt, so check it out.

Well if you are a designer, then you should definitely use them because they have a lot more variety, but if you are a blogger and can’t afford them, you might want to use some of the free ones that I mentioned in 11 Amazing free stock photos.

After seeing this picture, I think I need to start working out again, and eat less chocolate. If you think my face looks weird it is because I have Kit Kat in my mouth. And I think I am getting fat. So time to hit the gym tomorrow.

Now this will sound really off topic, but I think as I was talking about saving money a few days ago, this will help. Uzzz Productions have planned to take a vacation along with some friends to Tennessee. Our dates are final about time. We will be going there from Jan 2nd – Jan 5th 2009. This will be a ski/snowboard trip. And it is in Ober Gatlinburg Tennessee, so if you will be there let me know. But lets get to the point. After the trip was final, I decided to take a trip to the mall to get some winter shopping done.

I went to JCPenny as there was a doorbuster sale that started at 3p.m to close today, and tomorrow it will be from 7a.m to 1p.m, so you have a very good chance of finding some awesome deals. But aside from the awesome deals, there was this coupon that I used which I printed online.

A good habit that I have is that before I go to stores, I always go online and search for coupons. I came across this $10 gift certificate from JCPenny which gets you $10 off of every $10 you spent. So I printed out one page, and it had 3 coupons on one. I said well let me print some extra just in case.

So I head over to the store, and found things that I like. Majority were Buy 1 and get other for 88 cents. So I got some thermals, jackets, pants, sweat pants etc. Well I just made multiple transactions rather than having just one. The advantage of that is I got to use my $10 certificate multiple times because I had about 6 of those. So my pants that was suppose to be $20 ended up being $10. But ofcourse I didn’t stop there. I had another 15% coupon that I found online, so I got the thing for $7.

The website to go if you want to save money at JCPenny is Printable Coupons.

Note: The coupon that says it may not work, it works just to confirm. But it expires tomorrow, so use it tomorrow. And the sale is tomorrow at JCPenny, so head over there with the coupons. Both 15% and the $10 off ones.

Next event is at Macy’s. I got inside news that Macy’s will be giving out $10 gift cards again to their first 150 customers. And as you guys know that what it means exactly is that first 150 customers on each gate, so they have about 1000 of these to give away. Go and take advantage of those.

And aside from that gift card head over to printable coupons, and get the additional coupons from there.

I hope you guys get just as good of a deal as I got. I mean heck I spent $40, but I saved $120 lol. Ain’t that something. The lady at the counter said she needs to learn how to shop from me.

This post is actually sponsored by JCPenny and Macy’s in Gainesville Oaks Mall.

I got this odd question from a person in Gainesville who apparently have some blog. He was like how do you make sales from your blog and earn profit? I am sure when you enter the blogging industry, you have the same questions. Heck I had the same question. And I learned the answer by observing other top bloggers. There were few things that I found that were noticeable.

Consistency

All the top bloggers are consistent. If they are writing one post a day, then they will have one post every day. They just don’t decide not to post on weekends because not enough users reply. I was at Izeafest 08, and John Chow made a very good point. That he has been writing 2.8 posts a day from the start. Meaning one day he would make 2, or someday he would write 3. Basically the idea was that he would have a new post every day. And if he have more then he would post more. But you got to be consistent. Some people have issues such as well I was on a trip. Which is understandable, but for the most part you can avoid it. I mean I took a 3 day trip. I made sure for the two days I had the post, and one day I slacked. But the other two days I had the post for which is better than 0. All you have to do is schedule posts. But the key is you have to be consistent to show the readers that you actually care about them.

Personality and Voice

I don’t know if you really notice, but a lot of top bloggers, I will say almost all speak in first person. The reason for that is no body want to sit on their ass and watch some snob tell them what to do. I mean seriously while psychology shows that people who are smarter are usually liked more, but people who pretend to be Mr. Know It All are not very well liked. So you have to have your own personality in the blog. People like people who they can relate to. Show them that you are not one of those scammers when you are selling a product.

Honest Feedback

There are some blogs that just talk about positive while others that are very honest. I mean I have reviewed sites where I have highlighted bad parts of the site, and I have reviewed sites like Store Stacker which I found very good, so I didn’t write anything bad. But the idea is not good and bad. But the idea is being honest in your review. So always be honest. Don’t try to be a suck up. As one of the better speakers that I have listened to said: “Only suck ups like suck ups, and I am sure you are not one of them” – Merlin Mann

Add Value

There are bunch of blogs that are there just for the heck of it. People just like to blabber, but you want to stand out. So add some value. Share some knowledge, tutorials, tips that you have learned over your experience. That is the only way people would give you authority, and think of you as a credible person.

Credibility and Authority is one of the main things that I noticed you need. And you can obtain that by doing the things that I mentioned above. Then simply embed links in your post. So if you recommend one hosting service, then keep recommending that one and be consistent. Unless something bad happens with that company. Because that way you make more sales. I know my main source of income is CJ and a lot of those are hosting sales. Just embed the links in related content on your posts.