RobSymonds.com

This is a quick PSA on naming conventions for servers. I’m going to give you a quick “don’t ever do it like this” example to start. Read the rest of this entry »

I was reviewing some of the stuff I wrote on this blog over the past few weeks and it almost seemed to me like the writing was trying to make a pitch. That’s not what I wanted to convey at all. Hopefully this post will clear that up. Read the rest of this entry »

When people find out that I make money with the websites I publish, they often come up with a list of “Oh I could never [BLANK]!” comments of why they could never do the same. Comments like:

Oh I could never design a website!

Oh I could never do keyword research!

Oh I could never find the right topic!

Oh I could never figure out all that technical stuff!

One that I’ve heard lately is:

Oh I could never write in depth about something!

I’ve kept this in mind recently as I’ve been writing content. And I wrote this post for those people who see writing as some show-stopping obstacle to building a profitable content website. Read the rest of this entry »

Way back I read Perry Marshall’s e-book on Google AdWords. One thing he pointed out was that it was important to use the same keywords people were searching with in the title of your ad.

Why? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I bookmarked a forum thread called Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone. This is a good basic primer on the process for building a site that gets traffic. However it doesn’t address two critical areas:

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been keeping up with Tomaz from Freedom Ideas, you’ll see that he makes over $9,000USD per month from his websites as of 2007. It only took him two years after starting to get to that figure. I know of people out there making a lot more than that building the same kind of sites Tomaz and I build. And what kind of sites are those? Read the rest of this entry »

Good blog post on the SiteSell blog about building a profitable website. This is probably the most succinct overview I’ve seen.

Does it work? Read the rest of this entry »

Derek Sivers is the founder of CDBaby. He is a musician that learned to program and build websites in his quest to promote his music. He sold  CDBaby (sort of) for $22 million in 2008 and has a blog that touches on music, programming, business and some broader aspects of life. These are some of my favorite topics and I like the fact that he is able to weave all of those topics together so skillfully. His blog is worth sticking in your RSS reader and I wanted to bring your attention to one post in particular: How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are technical minded, the The Twitter Engineering Blog is a fascinating read. I love seeing how others have handled tough technical problems. Twitter has had to solve a lot of them and I’m sure there are plenty more on the road that lies ahead, so the blog should be interesting.

Somebody on Twitter asked about Toastmasters recently. I went for few months last year and it wasn’t right for me. But maybe my thoughts on Toastmasters can help somebody decide if it is right for them. It comes down to what you’re looking to get out of it. Read the rest of this entry »