After weeks of negotiations over a fair price for the site, I am pleased to announce that Runts Life has a new owner. I apologise for not being able to maintain the site with crisis after crisis happening in my life at the moment. Well I guess I really am living the life of a Runt. The new owner has assured me that he is under similar pressures and will simply blog about his successes and failures.

So before I continue, I would like to introduce you all to John, the new owner of the site. John has asked that I stay on for a while just to help him build up site momentum again. So you are all going to be bored to tears by a few more of my whiny posts.

I wish John all the success with the blog. I know there is potential here, I just wish that I had the time to find it on my own.

I would like to start by thanking everyone for taking part in the GoDaddy e-Gift card contest. With over 25 unique contestants and a total of 107 entries, I feel it is safe to say that the contest was a great success. I took me a while to add all the entries into my randomizing script.

And now, the moment you have been waiting for. Can I have a drum roll, please? Tatatatatatatatatata, the winner is:

İbrahim Korkmaz

Congratulations İbrahim, I have emailed your GoDaddy e-Gift voucher to the address that you used when commenting. Please let me know if you have any problems using it.

I have attached a screenshot of the selection window for your viewing pleasure. I also ran the randomizing script a second time to select a runner up, congratulations to Sanil. If İbrahim does not claim his e-Gift card, I will award it to the runner up in 48 hours from now.

Remember that the competition will continue to run over the next 4 weeks, so you still have 4 more chances at winning. Your current entries are still valid and I will add any new comments to your total. Thanks again for taking part and good luck for next week.

I’m still alive and kicking, just in case anyone was wondering why there have been no new posts over the past 2 days. Yesterday I got the call from IBM to inform me that my ThinkPad was ready for pickup. So I made the arduous journey across the “wild west” streets of Bangkok to go and collect it.

IBM did a great job and the new screen is perfect, the only problem is that they formatted my hard drive. Why they did that when only replacing the screen is beyond me, but I was just happy to have my notebook back. So as soon as I got home I started restoring all my data. Luckily I keep extensive backups of everything so everything went pretty smooth.

Once I was back up and running, I decided to check my affiliate stats and I got the shock of my life. I had a great Google Adwords campaign running that was promoting a Credit giveaway offer, conversions were good, so I increased my Adwords spending limit. Unfortunately, the offer expired yesterday morning. So all those Adwords clicks were being sent to an offer that was no longer available. The end result, I am $513 in the red. That’s quite a big loss for me.

Well, I’ve learnt my lesson, I’ve got to read the fine print on all offers and set time limits on my campaigns from now on. If I had my notebook I probably would have caught it early and the losses would have been minimal. Do you think I could claim from IBM for this? I suppose that’s just wishing…

At what point, in their blogging careers, do successful bloggers decide to go full-time? This is a question that I have been asking myself lately. While my blogging income still does not equal my regular salary, I have no doubt that if I made the transition from part-time to full-time blogger, my income would shoot up exponentially.

Is it wise to put all ones eggs in the blogging basket? I know there are some very successful bloggers, the likes or Darren Rowse and some others who rely completely on income from their blogging efforts. Other successful bloggers diversify into other sectors. John Chow runs an Affiliate network, Jeremy Shoemaker owns a few successful forums and niche sites.

Over the past few months, I have been adding sites to my portfolio. These sites are in various industries and niches that I hope one day will be successful. While I’m not ready to risk going full-time, there will come I time when I hope to do just that.

So once again my question is, at what point would you decide to become a full-time blogger? When your blogging income is enough to live off of? When your blogging income matches your regular salary? When your blogging income exceeds your regular salary?

As with most things in life, there are positives and negatives to take into account. A regular salary is stable while a blogging income would probably fluctuate. On the other hand, your blogging income is not limited and depending on how much you are willing to put into it, could easily reach a very high level.

Thanks to all my loyal readers, the blog has grown extremely quickly over the past 2 weeks. I would like to thank all of you by introducing my very first competition. I will be giving away 5 GoDaddy e-Gift Cards worth $15 each over the next 5 weeks. These e-Gift cards can be used for purchasing any product from GoDaddy, such as domain names or hosting. So now you can get that domain name you’ve always wanted, even if you don’t have a credit card.

I will randomly select a winner every Sunday evening for the next 5 weeks, around 8pm GMT+7. By now you are probably salivating all over your keyboard. Well before you cause any permanent damage to you computer let me explain how you can enter this awesome competition.

How to enter this competition

The great thing about this competition is how easy it is to enter. Simply pick any of the following options, or do all of them and stand an even greater chance of winning.

1. Comment on any post on my blog (1 entry each)
2. Digg this post (1 entry)
3. Stumble this entry (1 entry)
4. Subscribe to my RSS feed (1 entry)
5. Blog about this competition on your own blog (5 entries)

Remember to use your actual email address when commenting or subscribing. I will be sending the e-Gift card to that address. If you write about this competition on your own blog, be sure to send a trackback from your blog to this post. If you don’t know how to send a trackback or it fails, simply comment on this post with a link to your blog post.

Good luck to all.

Any of you who have been following my blog for a while, probably remember the issues I had with my Failing ThinkPad about a week back. Well IBM’s support center called me today to inform me that the necessary parts have arrived and they can proceed with the repairs. I jumped with joy and I thought it would be a simple exercise for the technician to complete the repairs. But in life, nothing is simple.

I carefully packed up the notebook this morning, snuck out of the office and rushed over to them. I even bought some snacks and a book to pass the time while I wait for the repairs to be completed. Apparently it’s not so simple, while the parts are there, they still need to assign a technician to the job. So what I was expecting to be a 2-hour job is going to take about 3 days.

I am going to be without a computer for the next 3 days, so my posting consistency may suffer. Quite ironic after yesterdays post on reasons why blogs fail. I will try to maintain a daily post schedule, but it will be made from my office PC, and my boss watches me like a hawk in the office.

Well, let’s face it. 95% of the blogs on the internet are junk. There are many things that make a blog not worth your time and obviously you don’t want your blog to be one of those. But what can you do to prevent that? Luckily I have compiled a 5 point list on what you could be doing wrong.

Reason #1: Your niche is too limited

If your niche has a very limited appeal, it will obviously be harder to find visitors to your site. Let’s face it, who want to visit a blog about collecting Toenail clippings? Ok, there are some very twisted people out there who would probably visit it. Try and reach a compromise, don’t create a blog that is too mainstream but also don’t create something too obscure.

Reason #2: Posting inconsistently

You might have some amazing posts on your site that attract visitors. But unless you maintain a consistent posting schedule, your regular visitor stream will dry up faster than a teardrop in the Sahara. You do not need to post ever day, one new post a week would be adequate. The trick is to get your visitors used to your schedule. You will be amazed how your traffic shoots up on the days you are expected to make a new post. Don’t disappoint your readers.

Reason #3: Crappy low-quality posts

All blogs publish a few posts that are not worth reading, but that should not be everything you write. Even I go through days of just writing drivel for the sake of writing something. Your readers deserve better, they like well written posts and will leave if you don’t provide them. If you can’t find something about your topic to write about, then go off-topic for a day or two, write about something else that is of interest to you. I can guarantee that you readers will be intrigued by your enthusiasm.

Reason #4: Spam advertising

People don’t like advertising, that’s a fact, but they put up with it as they know it pays the bills. Don’t spam other sites with links to your blog. If you want to include your link in comments or forums posts, try to contribute to the community. By doing so, you will make yourself appear as an expert on the topic and encourage people to click on your link. Only post your links on relevant blogs and forums.

Reason #5: Inexperience

All blog owners see dollar signs when starting out. Most have heard about the fabulous fortunes being made online and quickly get discouraged when it does not happen for them. Their post schedule becomes erratic and the post quality drops as they lose their enthusiasm. Some eventually just give up and their blog disappears into obscurity. Blogging takes patience and hard work, ask any successful blogger.

So do you have what it takes to be a successful blogger?

Having a good domain name can often mean the difference between a successful blog and one that never gets any visitors. It will most likely be the first thing that your visitors will encounter, and remember your blog by if they ever find your blog online. Many bloggers still use their internet provider’s domain name or a free blogging service to get their messages online.

With good domain names getting scarcer and scarcer, some people are willing to pay top dollar to get hold of one. I’m proud to say that I paid just $10 for my one, well actually $7 as I used a GoDaddy discount code. While I’m cheap when it comes to running my blog, many people shell out vast sums of cash to buy a domain. You’d think that these big spenders would actually use their premium domain? Wouldn’t you?

I came across an interesting fact while aimlessly browsing the net. Only 30%, of people that purchase premium domains, actually develop them. That’s quite shocking, these people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a domain and then just leave it.

I have compiled a small list of premium domains and what people paid for them, if you visit them, you will notice that they are either for sale or simply display one of those cheesy PPC systems.

Cameras.com	$1,500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Wrestling.com	$500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Blue.com	$500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Sex.net	$454,500.00	PPC Parking Page
WirelessPhone.com	$355,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Brown.com	$300,000.00	For Sale
POS.com	$252,500.00	PPC Parking Page
Mortage.com	$242,400.00	PPC Parking Page
FlashGames.com	$226,950.00	PPC Parking Page
Shopping.eu	$196,803.00	PPC Parking Page

For any blog to be successful and maintain a decent readership, it needs to be updated constantly. Posts should flow beer at a bachelors party, but what happens when the keg runs dry and posts flow about as easily as month old custard?

Posting frequently is important for several reasons. The most important of which are:

1. Search engines love fresh content.
2. It keeps your readers interested and coming back for more.

If your regular posting stops, your visitors will disappear faster than rats abandoning a sinking ship and as we all know, visitors are a blogs most important asset. Statistics show that your regular readers will probably visit your blog for about a week or so before they realize that the blog has gone stale, maybe they will stay subscribed via RSS for about 2 weeks before unsubscribing.

So, what can you do if you hit a dry spell and can’t think of anything to write about? You need to find some inspiration, but where? We all have “celebrity” bloggers that we aspire to be like. Why not learn from them. See what they are writing about and then come up with your own angle. Another option is to break topic and write about something of interest to you, if it interests you then I’m sure someone else will be interested by it too.

Many bloggers make the mistake of trying to stay too focused on their niche or topic. Blogs were never intended for that, news sites were. Break your routine and write about something funny or interesting. Your visitors will be pleasantly surprised and those that aren’t will be more encouraged to leave a comment on your post.

One last point, while posting frequently is important, it doesn’t mean you have to post every day. If you suddenly have a inspirational day and writing comes to you easily, don’t post all the posts at once. Store some as drafts and save up for the next dry spell. Your readers won’t mind if you go quiet for a day or two between posts.

Well, after finalizing the blogs theme and plugins yesterday, I was ready to kick back and relax to an easy day of content writing. That was until I logged in the Admin control panel and was greeted by the news that the new version of WorPress, version 2.6 (A.K.A. “Tyner”), had just been released.

Firstoff, I would like to congratulate the WordPress team on the release and thank them for supplying us with such a great blogging platform. The new release brings with it some nifty new features, my favourite of which are the ability to track changes to a post. That feature alone makes it worth the time it took me to upgrade.

The WordPress team has also released a video detailing some of the changes in 2.6. I have embedded it into this post for your viewing pleasure. There are also loads of improvements to some of the features introduced in version 2.5.

WordPress is not only a great blogging platform, it can be used as a full featured CMS. I use it to power 95% of my sites. Now I better be off as I have a full days work ahead upgrading all my sites to the latest version.