Betshopboy.net

The birthday celebrations have come and gone, now that they are out of the way, it’s time to get down to business, and return to another fresh round of blog review.

Fortunately, I’m still on time to participate in a new blog review campaign kickstarted byAziz of Hashout, review submission ends 30 April 2007. The basic rule of this review exchange seems rather complicated at first, nevertheless, I hope I’m one of the first 10 review submissions for that will earn me a full fledge review of my blog on Hashout! COOL!!

Hashout (because together we know more) was started at on the 1st of Jan 2007 after weeks of sleepless nights in conceptualizing and designing it, and finally rolling out into the blogosphere. It is all about hashing out opinions, views, reviews, rants, expert advice and general discussions on various subjects. Bright minded people with a fire inside are invited to co-author this blog and initiate topics.

One can really expect to read a wide variety of topics on this blog, ranging from the standard review of tech gadgets, to interesting articles on “How to interpret some common dog tail wags“, to offering some “Money savers for your trip” and tips to prevent DVT on long distance flight. You can find a wealth of resources on Hashout!

It is not surprising to see that this blog had been nominated for “best blog design” in blogger’schoice award. Hashout is hosted on Blogger, and I never imagined Blogger template can be so customizable. Aziz had indeed done a great job in the design and layout to make this blog uniquely his own. The nomination is truly well-deserved, and proved that the weeks of sleepless nights spent had not gone unnoticed.

The fourth installment of my free blog review campaign brings us to a blog touted as “observations of an aspiring internet marketeer” hosted by Mr Gary Lee who is a self-confessed Apple Whore!

Gary Lee lives in Southern California and currently work from home consulting a number businesses to drive more traffic to their site and also how to monetize that traffic wisely.

Similar to my Review Exchange campign started in March, Gary is offering a linkback promotion for reviewing his blog. So here I am, taking up his reciprocal offer. Gary’s blog, only 2 months young, offers many useful ‘need-to-know’ online marketing news and tips, as well as blog monetization secrets and tricks.

Gary’s blog is not all business. Besides offering tips on how to make money online, Gary also blogs about his love for Apple products and his gastronomical experiences. If you get tired reading the tons of marketing and blogging tips, and Apple gadgets do not happen to be your ‘poison’, then take a stroll down memory lane with Gary or hop over to read about his travelogue.

In conclusion, “observations of an aspiring internet marketeer” is a dynamic blog with future PR6 potential that offer its readers different topics to satify different segments of readers. Invest your time in this young blog, and you will be rewarded with riches in your knowledge!

My review exchange or link swap campaign started in March had attracted some early attention among fellow blogger but activities have somewhat slowed down after the flurry of activities at the end of March where link love were generously being spread around and this blog got some serious technoarti ranking boost as a result.

Not wanting to let the momentumn continue its slide or fizzle out from the intial buzz created, I’m re-posting the opportunity and rules of the link swap again for the benefit of new readers.

Instead of asking for bloggers to review my blog and I in turn post a back link to theirs, I’ll scour the internet for interesting blogs and give them a review here, for free! All I ask in return is for the blog owners, whose blogs I’ve reviewed, to give a link to this blog’s home page with anchor text “earn money online” and link to this post using anchor text “review exchange” in their review post.

Your full review of this blog will be reciprocated but if you don’t want to do a full review, that’s fine, just post something like:

Betshopboy want to become a dot com mogul and earn money online, he is offering a review exchange campaign to swap links with fellow bloggers.

After posting your review, email me with the url of the post and your preferred anchor text, and I’ll reciprocate accordingly.


I’ve realised early on the importance of backlinks, gathered from this blog’s early experience. In my quest of scouring the net reading interesting blogs, I frequently come across postingof tips to get more backlinks. Besides the link exchange, another good way for blogger to make their blog more visible, and generate traffic is to submit their blog to free web directories. That was what I was doing the last 2 days. I’ve submitted my blog to be listed in the following web directories:

Finding Blog
My Blog 2U
Blog Hub
Blog Show off
E-Marketing Blogs
Globe of Blogs
Bulletize
Blogdup
World Top Blogs
Blogwise
2-Review
Blog Search Engine
Blogarama
Blogbid
BlogBunch
Blog Catalog
Blog Listing
Blogz
Daypop
LSBlogs
Blog Directory

I’m sure there are many more web directories out there, some free, some come with charges.
If you know of others which are not in the above list or know where to find more, please drop me a comment.

The celebration and holidays are over, it’s back to another week of free blog review again.
To start off the week, my blog review takes me to a fabulous blog that I wanted to do some time ago but only got down to doing it now.

I’m referring to Christy’s Coffee Break! It’s header introduces the blog as “great contest every month” but in my opinion, Christy’s Coffee Break had much more substance than just mere contests. Besides those contests, Christy’s blog focus on “A Coffee Break Review” where she reviewed products, services, and companies. She also blog about her own experience of making money online, post constant stream of interesting articles here and here, and if those do not cut it with you, then Christy’s 5 quick tips on becoming a better blogger is a must read for all newbie, like me.

As a fellow blogger, I draw valuable lessons from Christy’s blog, one of which is to
DIVERSIFY
DIVERSIFY
DIVERSIFY
both in contents as well as revenue sources. One can never go wrong.

Visiting Christy’s Coffee Break never fails to give me the relaxing feeling of having my coffee in a cafe, flipping the magazines and simply watching the wold pass by.

And if one coffee break review is not enough for you, Christy actually authors 3 other blogs (where and how she find the time really puzzles me) and they are The Reviewer, where products, companies, services, and web sites are reviewed, for business owners’ who like a review of their companies, products or websites, and also for consumers who wish to post their review or experience in a company, product or service.

The next blog is titled “A Hint of Poetry“, it is a site about poetry and writing. You will find poetry from around the world, poetry contests, and great writing advice. You are welcome to submit your own poetry for review and possible publication on the site. See the submission guidelines for more information.

The fourth blog that Christy authored is a fun blog for kids, titled “Just For Kids (and their parents!)“. Just For Kids has great links to children’s websites and great articles for parents to enjoy. Christy had callaboarated with Ezine Articles to provide useful articles for parents as well as for kids to help them in their growing up years. Kids can send in their drawings, pictures, and poetry for a chance to be published on Just For Kids. Find out more by reading “Send In Your Work.”

There you have it, this free blog review of mine actually consist of 4 mini reviews all authored by the multi-talented Christy Zutautas. Be sure to drop by Christy’s “cafe” for a coffee break…

free blog review

From today onwards, my “Free Blog Review” posting will undergo some changes. Instead of writing review to individual blog, I’ll do mini review in batches of up to 5 blogs (max), depending on my sighting of interesting blogs in the blogosphere. The basic rules and objective of this campaign remains unchanged,

The reviews are as follows (not in order of preference):

1. Dawayne of Dwayne’s World had earlier dropped a comment in my post for a review exchange, I’m honoured to oblige, albeit a little belated. Dwayne blog about many different topics, but mainly about how to make money online, useful tips on how to write simple, effective post and how to keep the blogging fire burning can also be found.The poems that Dwayne posted brought much joy to my reading, my favourite being “RAIN“. His blog is worth repeated visits base on the quality of his poems.
2. Acquirewisdom is an interesting blog that focus on posting words of wisdom or inspirational quotes, like Leadership, Seizing Opportunity and Success, to name a few.
   The blog title with its short write ups already sets the tone of what is to come.”Wisdom lies not in the amount of knowledge acquired but in the degree of its application. We only live once. But if we live properly, once is enough” Very meaningful, isn’t it?
   In a nutshell, Acquirewisdom is indeed an acquired taste.
3. BLOGGER LOUNGE is a relatively new blog that was started less than 2 months ago, but do not take its newness for its weakness as its popularity is evidence in the speed at which its Technorati ranking shot up overnight! BL touts itself as a place learn and share the latest trends, tips, strategies, for those willing to become part of a new breed of creatives and entrepreneurs.
   The most impressive feature that makes Blogger Lounge stands out is its uniquely designed logo and amazing icons! Its owner George C must be a damn fine web designer, although his background was not published in his profile page. He has just started a blog contest where the Top commentator will win (no prizes for guessing right)an amazing free logo design for his/her blog, by George of course!
   His blog post Top Blog Branding series teaches the essential basics of blog branding and one of the techniques is via unique design, which is his expertise! Blogger Lounge is one hell of a website for bloggers, new and seasoned, to learn, to contribute, and to participate!

blog review