Looking For A Cheap, New Phone?

This post brought to you by Straight Talk. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

My husband is looking for a new phone at the moment. He’s been on a contract for years and finally wants a phone that takes great pictures and makes and receives calls and texts.  This is all he needs. We already pay for Internet at home, and refuse to pay a second time for it on our phones.

We’ve been researching and deliberating for a while now. Contracts can be great, but sometimes they tie you in to a system that no longer suits you. A lot of customers get caught up with all the elaborate phone salesmen pitch Hook, line and sinker.

My husband will get a free phone from his phone company, but he’ll have to pay a set amount each month, sometimes these arbitrary amounts add up to more than the phone is worth.

That’s where Straight Talk comes in. You can cut your cell (mobile) phone bills in half. There are no credit checks conducted, and no contracts. What’s more, there’s excellent connectivity, and Straight Talk offers high-standard long distance/International calls.

Get everything you need in a phone for a fraction of the cost of your contracted phone.  

Straight Talk’s sought-after, long distance calls service is a pre-paid system that enables you to make very cheap calls from your own home or mobile (cell) phone.

Reconditioned phones are available from $10.00. They’re equipped with camera, mp3 player, web access and more. It’s time to look into getting your own Straight Talk phone.

See what this real Straight Talk customer is saying about this service.

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July Update: Writing Opportunities

As you are aware, A Blogger's Books runs a regular writing opportunities update. Please click on the main page (linked) to see the full list of lesser-known jobs for writers, bloggers, verse writers etc. 

Again, you don't have to be an experienced writer to get paid for a lot of the jobs listed there. If you can write verses for cards or are good with tips and how-tos, there are plenty of places for you to submit your work too. The jobs listed are all paid posts. Many of them pay very well.

This month I've updated the foreign market section (not the UK). I've found that there are more paid writing opportunities in Canada, USA and Australia. UK markets generally don't stand out as ones offering struggling writers a good return for their hard work. It seems we can all survive on great effort, time and research, just for a copy of our published material.  This angers me, because no one can live on satisfaction alone. No other group of workers are expected to work for nothing.  Find update here:

  

5 Reasons To Have A Crap Blog

Everyone talks about how great it is to have a highly-rated blog. All the big SEO big cats out there extol the virtue of making your blog so 'friendly' to search engines, Google's mother must be blushing with embarrassment.

We know there are some fine reasons to ignore all this advice and have a crap blog instead. In fact, there are definite advantages to doing just that!



Why you too should have a crap blog



No spammy comments

No one visits so you don't have to worry about spam comments filling up your spam box. You'll save yourself the precious time you spend answering two-word comments people leave on your blog, just so they can stick up their own crappy links on your site.

No new posts

You don't have to waste time writing new posts. You could just search the Internet and steal stuff from everyone else's blogs. If your blog is already crap, it doesn't matter if it's got loads of duplicated stuff on it, right? Google would probably just give it a high rating anyway. That's providing you care enough to copy the good stuff instead of the rubbish ones.

Google, who?

Having a crap blog gives you more time to sit out in your garden, drinking wine and eating those little German chocolates that taste a bit like puke. You won't be constantly checking your ratings on Google Analytics, and you can sincerely say, Google, who? All the time spent worrying about how long your blog takes to load, or how many unrelated ads you've got on your page will be spent having some fun in your life.

Google can jump in the lake for all you care. Who needs Google if your site is a junk yard. Google can keep out of your business and you out of theirs - they shouldn't be so nosy anyway - sticking their noses in everyone's business.

No one steals from you

No one steals from a crappy blog. This is the best thing about having one. All your worries about folk  plagiarising your good stuff, becomes non-existent. No one will want to copy stolen stuff you've collected on your crappy blog, with your rubbish images, so that takes care of that headache. 

You get your real life back

You won't have to spend all your spare time social networking and visiting other blogs. No one would want to associate with you, and for you this is a good thing. It leaves you time to get on with some proper work and your real life. 

 

Hands up all of you who've got crappy blogs! 

New Blog On The Block

I just wanted to inform A Blogger's Books readers of yet another stupid thing I've done recently. If there's one thing bloggers have in common, it's not enough time to spend on their blog.

I'm no different. With two different jobs, young kids and a home we've been working on in the last year, my twice a week posts (at least) have now been reduced to about that many in a month.

It makes sense however, that I'd want to reduce the amount of blogs I have rather than increase them. Well, friends and neighbours, that's not the case. A Blogger's Books is proud to announce the birth of a new baby sibling called, diy projects . This new blog has been conceived from exactly the thing that's been keeping me too busy to blog so often (no not that) - home improvement tips.

Here's what it's about: 

Most of the articles are step-by-step tutorials to help you care for your home, and do some of those nagging DIY jobs yourself.

The blog was started when we bought an old, neglected house. While doing the long list of home improvement jobs we realised how much we did know about DIY, and how much more we had to learn.

Other articles will show you our journey to convert our purchase into a beautiful home for ourselves and children, and diy tutorials. 

So, there you have it! Please pay a visit. I'd love it if you joined the site as this will help me spread the word and gain some exposure for this new adventure. I do appreciate any way in which you can lend your support. Thank you.

   

My Guest-Post Research: Results!

Today I bring you the results of my guest post research. I've read that having backlinks (sites that link to your blog) is the best way to build up your Google ranking. Obviously a higher Google ranking means that your blog will show up on the first page of search results. More traffic potentially means a higher number of people clicking on your ads, earning you more money. See this article for a recap

I set out to research this phenomenon so I took the time to write a few guest posts on some high ranking sites on the Internet. Granted, I only wrote one post for each site, I think I could still gauge the effect this had on my blog on a small scale - namely traffic. I won't know about the effect it had on my Google ranking until later in the year. Here's the breakdown:

How guest posting influenced my blog

On May 6th I wrote, Strange Death, Anyone on Page rank 6 - Kuriositas. I received just 2 comments on that page (including my reply).

A Blogger's Books received 19 page views, with 18 unique page views from this article. Visitors from Kuriositas spent an average of 2 minutes on the site. 

On May 13th I wrote 5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Like Parenting  on Page rank 6 - ComLuv. I received 42 comments on that page (including my replies).

A Blogger's Books received 21 visitors with 16 unique page views from that article. Visitors from ComLuv tended to stay for approximately 4 minutes.

On June 10th I wrote, Why Facebook Isn't Completely Crap on Page rank 6 - Blogcritics. I received 4 comments on that page (including my reply). 

A Blogger's Books received 14 visitors with 8 unique page views from that article. Visitors from Blogcritics stayed for about 3 minutes, but the bounce rate was one of the lowest I've had (this is a good thing).

Finally, on June 11th I wrote, 5 Tricks Master Bloggers Use To Make Every Post Popular on  Page rank 3 - (very popular with Blogger users) Blogger Sentral. I received 14 comments on that page.

A Blogger's Books received 44 page views with 42 unique page views from that article. Visitors from Blogger Sentral stayed for about 5 minutes on average. 

My conclusion:

1. I've noticed that the blogs which are more similar to A Blogger's Books' niche yielded the best figures.

2. I thought I would have more traffic coming from the sites, but I think that if one article yielded that many visitors, I have to consider that two more guest articles on each of the above blogs would add up to many more.

3. Back links are not only about traffic. They're about building up your blog's ranking and gaining more subscribers. Therefore, I may not have had hundreds of people rushing over to my site, but bit by bit, the backlinks I've built on all of the articles  can influence what Google does next on my blog.



4. My subscribers on two of my blogs have increased slightly.

Finally, I do think that these guest posts have been a positive thing for A Blogger's Books and indeed, my other blogs which all received trickles of traffic from the above mentioned sites. I think that based on traffic alone, I'd say the benefit from the hard work and time I spent on the articles didn't pay the dividends I thought they would. However, in time to come, backlinks from these highly rated sites may very well be just the thing I need to get my blogs rated higher than they are. 

Have you ever done Guest Posting? 

Based on this report, would you do it now?

Saving Money In the Bathroom

As most of you know, I have a book called, How To Spend Less and have been running some articles based on this subject here on this blog. Today's article is a guest post by Alyssa Johnson and will be joined to my other saving-tips articles on A Blogger's Books.

The bathroom is second only to the kitchen as the room in your house that needs the most restocking. Cutting down on your costs in this one room of your house can really add up over the years. The key is to combine an air of frugality with ingenuity. Employing various preventive measures can also go a long way in reducing the need to purchase/restock certain items. The following outlines just a few tips I've learned along the way to reduce expenditures in the bathroom. Some will be pretty obvious, while others have likely escaped your intermittent toilet ponderings.

Ways to save money in the bathroom

Turn off the water - Seems simple enough. It's estimated that by simply turning off your water during things such as shaving, brushing your teeth, and attempting to induce urination you can save yourself as much as $80 over a six month period. Other ways to conserve water include taking a shower instead of a bath and fixing any running facets or toilets immediately.

Keep Your Soap  Dry - Soap has about half the life expectancy if kept in a constantly moist environment such as a small puddle of water.

Limit the use of Tooth Paste - The picture on the tube indicates that the proper amount of toothpaste to be used is enough to cover every bristle at a height capable of touching your teeth from your chin. A quick quiz of your dentist will tell you that about a pea sized portion of toothpaste is all that's needed to be effective. It only took me approximately twenty years of brushing for thirty seconds and spitting out ¾ of the foam in my mouth before I started choking to come to this enlightening realization.

Acne Cream/Cover Up - While some of us lose the genetic possibility of clear skin lottery, most of us can prevent acne (and thus all the various acne creams and expensive make-up used to hide our grotesque skin imperfections) by simply adjusting our diet. A number of different research ventures have turned up evidence that vitamins C and E, along with Biotin (a B vitamin) all play an active role in preventing and treating acne naturally. These vitamins can be found in foods such as olives, spinach, nuts, seeds, eggs, and bananas.

Opt for natural cleaners - Cleaning products are expensive. The lesson to be learned here is that you can probably forgo purchasing these products as there are likely a number of suitable substitutes to found throughout your house. Vinegar is something of a do-all in the bathroom. Undiluted vinegar can be used to clean your toilet, sink, bathtub, and floor. Just be sure to light a candle afterwards. Lemon can be used to effectively remove hard water deposits and soap scum.