Here are a few photos

If you want stamps like those visit Stamps.com, and you can get your own stamps created there. If you want a cool image, you guys know how to contact me

Don’t forget to visit Authority Directory. Thanks bruce for sending me this.

So what keeps you motivated in doing what you have been doing? Why do you keep blogging or making websites when you don’t make any money from it? Why do you blog when your user base is so low? Why do you keep blogging when your traffic is not high enough?

So many of these questions asked by so many different people on so many different blogs. Some one over at Darren Rowse’s blog asked this question, but instead of answering this question Darren put it up for other users to discuss this in the comment box, so really you would have to scan through bunch of different comments to get the right reason. But you know the truth is that there is no right reason. Due to the fact that reaons to be motivated varies from person to person making it a huge amount of reasons, the right reason would be the reason that keeps YOU motivated.

I have already told everyone Why do I Blog, and in this post I will tell you guys how do I keep myself motivated to blog every day.

While I might not have as many users in my subscriber list as many of the other known bloggers have, I still blog every day. I know that you cannot make a huge reader base in a course of months. To build a loyal reader base, it takes time, quality content (lots of it), and more time. I am certain neither of the bloggers who have over 20k subscribers had that right when they started, so just knowing the fact that every one has to start some where. I keep blogging considering this as my starting point. Hence why the slogan of this blog is Vision for Success. It is my vision that I will attract more users as the site grows and features thousands of resourceful articles written by myself.

Another reason why I stay motivated as a blogger is I am doing this for myself also. I am not a mega genius, nor that I am a memorizing god. It does not mean that when I post some codes in a tutorial post of the blog.. I have it memorized. I need references as well, but instead of looking it up in google now I can look that up on my own blog. Much more reliable source because I know it won’t be suffering from downtime like many other sites does. So everyday when I write an article, I also keep it in my mind regardless of the fact that Balkhis is a growing blog… This resource also helps me, and I don’t want to write some crappy post that won’t help me therefore I always try to keep the quality of the blog post. Believe me when I say this that when in the future I feel discouraged, I will come back and read this post and get some motivation from myself.

Once again, even the number of subscribers hasn’t hit in the thousands yet, I care about the users that I have right now. Each and everyone who is a user on this blog is much appreciated. They appreciate my posts by commenting on my posts. How can I be selfish and not post quality content on the blog? My active users, are also the ones who keep me motivated to blog. Thank you Bruce, Jeff, Chetan, Dr. Teeth, and many others who have supported this blog (Don’t take it wrong if I didn’t put your name because if I start doing that I will have a big list here :P).

Progress is what keeps me motivated. Now that Balkhis is over 3 months old, I have seen this blog grow. The progress that I have made in the past 3 months, I am very proud of. I was very proud when I saw the thousandth comment hit on the blog earlier this month. Those are the thousand comments I didn’t have when I started.

While this post is very touching and everything I am writing is coming straight from my heart, It is meant to provide a lesson that should be learnt by all starters who are coming into blogging because these can be one of the reasons that will keep you motivated as a blogger or a webmaster.

Anywayz getting back to the point, Zain is 4 years old right now and he has shown alot of interest in computers. Yeah he can turn the computer off, type his name on the computer, find his favorite movies in the computer and much more. All the stuff my mom can’t do …. So he is very helpful specially when I need my computer on to remotely access it from somewhere, or need to turn it off when I am away. He is a big critic on all my designs eventhough I don’t pay much attention to his criticism because he wants fun in the design … Its funny to listen to all the stuff.

Next you will know is a 7 year old making more money than you will because I am thinking with the pace this boy is going he will be helping me generate more revenue than any other Balkhis member in the next 3 years. It is so easy a 4 year old can do it (Thats what I will tell to all the people who can’t use computer like my mom). What are you doing right now …. Hahahaha

Even though the Balkhis shirt is too big on him, He wears it around the house and outside when he is playing. I got to get him some shirts in his size in different colors. If anyone of you guys know a best place to get the shirts made for business please let me know in the comment box. I am looking for quality shirt printing in various sizes…….

In the meantime enjoy his pictures

Chris Angus has created a new website called How Rich Will I Be? in which you will take a short 15 question survey, and it will tell you how rich will you be in the next 10 years. Ofcourse the site has refused to reveal the algo, and they claim it to provide very precise results. We will see now won’t we…..

Remember this is not a serious thing, so don’t stress out before taking it. This is just one of the fun activities you can do while taking a break from your work.

I decided to take this test twice, once was last night before I was going to bed and I forgot to copy and paste the banner code therefore I had to take it again. My results improved by 2 million. What you know. I guess it is true that you think better right when you get up.

According to this I will earn $16,722,553 in the next 10 years.

16,722,553

Try it now and let me know what your numbers were. Also let me know if anyone scores a really low number around 2 million or so because it is unreasonable if everyone gets a really high number…

I really learnt this idea from Market Leverage. Every blog that I check on daily/weekly basis, I see the staff of Market Leverage there. Photos of their staff in the brand T-Shirt. I checked their webstie multiple times. Finally have decided to sign up with them today.

What this company has been doing is buying shirts of that particular site such as Shoemoney, ZacJohnson, and many other blogs and just wearing it and taking a picture and send it to the blogger, so they can post it. Pretty smart. Not just that, but they have taken it to the next level by making personal relationships with the bloggers by giving gifts to them. What else would you want in an affiliate company? Props to Market Leverage.

But what do you learn from this? Well I learn that sometimes you have to drive the audience from your competitor in a nicer way by offering them gifts and making personal relations with them. Also you can network with your audience. As my audience is bloggers, I try to network as much as I can on the IMs through facebook and others. I will be attending a few conferences as well. But most importantly, I have been making some traditions on the blog such as Pimp my Blog. With things like this I can attract more visitors, and I have noticed after the first blog I pimped, the number of subscribers have increased, and I am certain it will increase as I pimp more and more blogs.

I have been trying to find local online businesses who are located near where I live, so I can go meet them and make connections. As I already have mentioned that I will try my best to visit Microsoft’s headquarters on my trip to Seattle. I have also realized that Market Leverage is based in Florida, so I might visit them also because they are only 2 hours of a drive away. Hoping it will be ok with them. (I will contact ahead of time), or maybe one of them will find this post and reply here.

Sending business gifts is another way to make more connections, and do you know Business Gifts are exempted from taxes. Well, as you guys already know I promote all the companies who send me free gifts. Many other blogs do the same as well. I have alot of Balkhis shirts laying around, so if anyone of you are interested in buying one, the price is $25 / shirt. If you get this shirt and take a picture in it. I will post it on Balkhis and give your site a mention

So the key point of Indirect Marketing is networking and making more friends so you get more promotion through them. Eventhough I haven’t recieved anything from Market Leverage, they have already got me on their side. You can also do the same by using the techniques used by this company. Even a simplest act of linking to another site and giving them a mention if you like them can come in handy in a long run because webmasters do check who is linking to them and who is not.

Let me know what you guys think about this topic…

I will go ahead and rank 3 niches where it will be very hard for an individual to find success.

Webmaster Forum

When you have the big dawgs in the industry such as Digitalpoint, Sitepoint, Namepros, Webmaster-talk, and Bloggeries, I would say that it gets really competitive. Because all the forums that I have listed above already have the content your new forum will have. You will still be behind the 100,000 post that they will be getting while you develop your forum. Alot of Capital Investment, and I mean alot is necessary to start a webmaster forum and get it big. Also you must be patience. It will not be quick to get the users away from a place and bring them to yours.

Search Engines

Really and truly for all the brave heart beginners who get in the business with a goal that they are going to make a search engine as big as google. It might sound easy, but it is not. First without a real capital investment you can’t go anywhere. Even if you have that, you will need some of the best developers in the world. Even Microsoft with it’s Live can’t compete with Google.

SEO Tools

This niche is another dead end because some serious innovation is necessary. Many SEO Tools has came out in public which were good in the beginning and due to lack of support those massive user base has fallen everytime. It can be one of the easiest/hardest because it will be easy to get the users, but hard to keep them!

While I agree that there are many more niches that can be even harder in the webmaster world above are the ones that I believe are the hardest in my opinion. Feel free to add on about your opinion, and if you have a good reply such as

Niche:
Why do you think:

I will include it in this post

Prizes will be given to the top 3 commentators.

First commentator will get 1000 entrecards
Second commentator will get 300 entrecards
Third commentator will get 200 entrecards

Prizes for the Subscribers via Email

One Randomly selected email subscriber will also get 300 entrecards
One Randomly selected email subscriber will get a 125 x 125 banner spot

Prizes for those who post about this contest:

People who blog about this mini-contest on their blog will get 50 entrecards by default and the chance to enter the draw of winning a Paid Review on Balkhis. Also another one will get a 125 x 125 banner ad on Balkhis.

Just send a trackback with your post, or you can post a comment here with a link to your post and You will be counbted in.

Alright I am hoping this mini-contest will bring excitement to every user at Balkhis. If anyone is interested in donating a prize and get some promotion from the contest, feel free to contact me using the contact form.

I will announce the winner on June 2nd, 2008….

Alright everyone, If you don’t know what IzeaFest is you are missing out on alot. It is one of the largest event being held in Florida for the year of 2008 by Izea Inc. This is exciting because it is in Florida, and I can attend it without any big issues. It took me a long time because I had certain questions for Izea Staff and as you know because they have such a big event coming, they were relatively busy, but I did got a phone call yesterday. Good to know that there is NO AGE LIMIT! So all bloggers can come, and I think you should because alot of the experienced bloggers such as Shoemoney, Chow and others are coming as well.

Some of the speakers that I am looking forward to hear from:

Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney.com)
Merlin Mann (43folders.com)
John Chow (Johnchow.com)
Neil Patel (Pronetadvertiser.com)

This conference is a 3 day Conference starting on September 11, 2008 - September 13, 2008… Right in the middle of school year. Unlike most of the expensive conferences there are, this one is very affordable. $50 for the first 100 people who register. This was originally for the first 50 people, but I was notified yesterday on the phone that this has been extended for the first 100 people, and it will only last till May 14, 2008. You can get the tickets on normal price if you are waiting on other information like I am waiting on my classes for only $65. Which is not that big of a difference. You can also pay $14 extra and spend your sunday in Disney with other bloggers.

They have bunch of other hotels rather than just the Grand Bohemian, where the conference is being held at. You can pick a one that suit yourself by visiting here.

I will probably be making my reservation later on in August when I get my syllabus and see that I don’t have any exams that weekend. But I do recommend everyone to head over to IzeaFest.com and register themselves if you are interested in meeting me and meeting all the other bloggers.

See you in Orlando, Florida

Often times, I see that people are commenting on blogs with their companies names, or with their websites name. Why? Well because in the top commentators, their anchor will be shown, and they will rank high. Other people will know the brand name of their website. What could be better branding technique than this? People who think this way are only thinking short term in my opinion. I say that because not many people hold their businesses for extremely long time. Specially the webmasters who most of the time sell their sites, so when you comment on the page next, and you have a different brand name in your titles, people won’t know who you are. That is a whole new start. I think your brand should be known by your name not you being known as your brand because when you sell the brand basically you are worthless, but if people know you, and they know that Larry is the owner of Google a successful brand, so if Larry starts another company most people will expect him to succeed, and he will get alot of popularity. Same concept will work in blog commenting as well.

Therefore, you will see wherever I comment, I include Syed Balkhi rather than Balkhis, or Uzzz Productions because I want to be known with my name. People should recognize, so when I launch a new project, they are like OH, this is launched by Syed Balkhi. I know this guy we have seen him commenting at xxx blog. This way you already have tons of loyal users already built…

What about forum names? what should you do? Pick one screen name and have it at all the forums you are registered at. I am mostly known by “smub”, my initials, on most forums. The reason why people have to do such things is because the world is so big that same name exists, and I dont want a number in front of my name therefore people go along with having nicknames, but don’t get a brand name there as well. Say I registered as Uzzz Productions, and than I want to sell the company. I sold the company, but people will still be contacting me about the company. Also, the new owner might not like it as well.

These are my thoughts on what name should you use when commenting on blogs. What do you guys think? Also if anyone have any more questions they want to be answered here feel free to use the contact form.

I was inspired to write this article because I have seen alot of changes in my business model as I grew and got more experienced. I remember when I first started, I could not stand any negative press. How dare you say something about my website which I put so much work in? But you have to learn how to take criticism. Only because it is going to make your site the best. Half the times, people who were jealous of me will point out mistakes on my website, but everytime I will fix it, and get a more stronger grip on my audience whereas no one was pointing out their mistake. Did you ever hear people say that sometimes when you look at your work for too long, you can’t find your errors, so it is better to have someone else proof read it. This is exactly what it is. Your users, competitors, and other people will find errors on your site especially the ones you will miss. So it is a good thing when someone report an error.

I got pointed by Bloggingtips about having a bad 404 page. Well, I got an honest opinion and I am glad that I did because I went right away and fixed it. At the end of the day, my blog was better than it was yesterday. Isn’t thats the ultimate goal. Vision for success, Keep improving every day. It was after all negative press that made me realize that.

Negative Press increases traffic. These tricks are often used as link-bait when people talk about you and give you negative press, and you become a big icon in the industry. Joel Comm did when he screwed up with his e-book, but do you understand how many people who didn’t know about his book actually went and saw it. In the end, I really think did he really purposely did it to get some negative press? Who knows, but you best believe that such things will increase your traffic.

But now you are wondering, these people who are coming to your site thinking it is a bad site will not come again. Wait a minute, they will definately come back again especially if you change/fix your mistakes because that will give the users an impression that you really care about your website, and how active this site is. I mean now I am still getting hits from that post about bad 404 pages, and most people can see the 404 page is good and now Balkhis traffic/subscribers has increased now I don’t know whether this was natural or due to that, but this is just a theory. But you have to take yourself in account what will you do if you see that somesite is a bad example, and you go visit that site and see that they have fixed the issue. I know I would stay at the site and check some more stuff out to see if I am interested or not.

Well now that you see why I think the other way about negative press, I think you guys should learn how to respond to it as well. Many webmasters tend to go negatively and start attacking the other person, but that only makes you look like a stuck up peice of sh*t who thinks his product is great. And you are not open to public’s constructive criticism. Instead what you should do is thank the company who reviewed your site and pointed out the errors, and state that you will work on fixing it. Also apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused any of the valuable users. I hope you are one of those who will follow through and actually fix the issue as soon as possible.

Reminds of a great quote: Do the right thing, Do it right, and Do it Right now.

I would like to think what others think on this issue about Negative Press….