After reading: "Court Refuses To Let Respondent Speak" we would like to say that the Globally Local Blog Team of condemns the British courts for the lack of justice and due process.

I was sworn in (on the Bible) and asked my address, which I gave. The councils Court Officer read out the cause of summons getting my address wrong in the process.

I was then asked to present evidence. I had composed this evidence into the form of a statement which was printed on a single side of A4. I started to read my statement but was stopped and costs were awarded against me.
Source: Full Story

To fail to send a bill to a person and then summon them to court for not paying it seems like incompetence but to have the court work with you to suppress evidence is an outrage.

Our sympathies are with blogger Lord Matt and his family at this time.

We have so much to share and only one blog to share it from. Yes we have so much good stuff to give that we have co-opted several other sections of the site for that soul reason.

Globally Local Online Guide to being Online. Over the next few months we will be adding many more articles to the sections there.

Have a look

We all love something for nothing. You can get 5% off the total price of your order everytime you order with isp.globallylocal.com hosting and domains.

Enter the cupon code 5NC25 exactly as you see it to be awarded your discount.

You may use this code as often as you wish.

(May not apply to special offers or other discounted prices).

The dream of working from home is hard to resists for almost everyone. Being able to set up your own hours, your own schedule and your own your speed is an extremely attractive way of living to most people.

But when we get down to it most of us are scared away by the apparent difficulty of getting started. The thought of setting up your own web-based business can be a massive turn off. You have to have a web design, find or make a product and then you have to sell and ship it and handle every kind of customer.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a better option?

The good news is that there is not one better option but two.


One such easier way to work from home and run a web-based business is called affiliate marketing. Wich simply means that what you promote other people actual sell, ship and deal with the customers for. You simply collect a commision payment each month.

The other method is reselling. One such great reseller program even provides the site, hosting and what not for you.

But if you are not ready for that level of control then affiliate marketing is for you.

Setting up a site that works as an affiliate marketing site isn’t really that hard. There are many different web-page building programs out there that walk you through every step of the process. Or if that is too much hassle some free blog hosts will act as a good sand box while you get used to things. You will never make the big bucks on a free host but everyone has to start somewhere.

Once you are ready to move on to a real site the first thing you will realise it that the entry level price is very, very low. In fact picking a good dot com could be the hardest task you face. (Insider's tip choose dot com over anything else).

After you have set up a functional site (see this article for help with that), you need to come up with a list of companies that will pay you to link to them (for example moreniche.com are very good). Most of the bigger websites have an affiliate program of some kind that is free to join and then you get paid for simply linking to their website, products or special landing pages. Some programs allow you to make a "shop" from thier products where they do all the hard work.

If you really want to cash in then you must understand that you should never build a webpage with just a list of links on it. This is a common "newbie" error but as something of an insider I'm going to switch you onto that before you start. Such pages may earn you a penny or two over a year, but when jonny surfer stumbles on to these kinds of pages he tends to get frustrated and think very rude thoughts about you before he leaves.

The best route for you to go is to provide interesting web content that relates to the company you’re linking to. For this a blog is the ideal tool. (More Information on Great Blogging).

A good platform for blogging is NucleusCMS which has fantastic support, some realy nice developers and a great community spirit. Also the code is nice and stable with security updates released very fast.

If you can’t write interesting web content yourself, there are many companies that will do it for you for a very reasonable price, also some bloggers such as Lord Matt may be willing to guest blog for you. Mix this up with a small percentage of Article Directory content (no more than 20%) and you have a good base of information.

You will want about 120 realy good articles for the first quater - don't worry that's not a lot once you get on a roll (especially with 24 to 30 being free articles from a directory). Once you have this (or even the first 7) you can weave your links throughout it, side bars and keywords in text are good places to put links.

People will find your web page on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com and when they see the well-written content, they will hang around and read what’s on your site. They will, in most cases, click on the links provided and you’ll be counting the cash before you know it.

But there is a lag to this and it requires a little dedication to get through it. Search engines can be very lazy about picking up new websites and you should expect to spend a week just making sure the site has good links, looks nice and works perfectly for visitors. (log out of your CMS, blog or whatever and surf as a guest).

You should expect about 3 months of lag when you first start and you should, at all costs, get your best content published in that time. You can cheat to start with and back date a week or two of artcles (7 to 14) with the earliest being a fine item detailing what the blog or site is about. This becomes your "about" page and should contain keywords in the body ext that match with what you are doing. Three days to write this is not unheard of although a basic one can be done inside of an hour.

Also during this lag take the time to publish every day. This sounds impossible but as you have arround 8 working hours to put into your articles every day (less other work and families) that's plenty of time to find something. Also every third day must be a "full sized" article but some days can be made of "ditties" - 50 to 150 words that simply introduce and recomend something. They don't even have to sell anything (it's true readers want just to read sometimes and will come back only if you fullfill a need).

Once a week (in addition to or instead of an article) you could post a topical but ammusing youtube.com video, a funny joke or an amusing image.

Links to sites on the same topic are also good. check here for regular tips from a good blogger.

While there is no guarantee that affiliate marketing will turn into a "cash cow", with sufficient hard work, the odds are in your favor. When you combine a cool site design with quality content and a good mix of interesting links, you are bound to get a good number of hits that will quickly translate into dollars for you. Give it a try, you might be surprised at how well it works!

So you have "mad skilz" or even massive talent with "PaintShop Pro", "Photoshop" or "The GIMP"? Then this plan is for you.

Over the course of this article you will learn how to combine your skills with your strongest interests to generate an income.

You will become an independent artist answerable only to yourself and your fans.

You will also have a steady flow of wealth and if particularly good (and a little lucky) you might even e able to consider quitting you job or at least cutting down your hours.

Are you ready? Then read on.

The first thing you will need is a domain name. Make sure you choose a great domain name because a lot will rest on how easy it is to remember and how much of a visual image it creates.

For example - "cult of the jumping cow" is a great visual name and cultothejumpingcow.com might stick in the mind. However, it is a little on the long side but utterly useless if your topic is going to be about fast cars. The title, image it produces and very other part needs to match with your theme.

Your theme or "niche topic" can be anything you want. Spend a little time doing some research and pick a subject that is broad enough for you to write about but small enough for you to become famous in it. It should be a topic you care about and, ideally for this plan, one that has some visual elements.

If you find making a cartoon about your topic every week is something you could do then you have the best of both worlds. Your content is your art and little more needs to be said.

Take time to choose this one.

Once you have your topic and thus your domain under your belt (buy it before it goes) you are ready to take some time out to create some digital art.

At this stage you are simply looking at creating concept work. Getting a feel for the topic and playing with colours and styles. You don't even need to consider web design yet. Just design.

Slowly you will find that a clear logo or recurring theme becomes clear in your work. This iconic element is to be your brand in this plan. Work it until you are completely happy or you have had enough of working it (whatever happens first).

Save the graphic as a jpg or png file in a number of sizes and backgrounds.

Write down the six figure "hex number" of the colours you like best - the ones that work well with your designs.

Now you are ready to think web design.

But at this stage thinking is all you are going to want to do.

Before you can approach a web-designer (or attempt the design yourself) you will need to know what management system or template system you are going to be working with.

This is primarily dictated by the hosting package you choose. To be honest you are best off using Linux hosting with PHP and MySQL as there is the greatest range of free Site and Content Management Systems (known as CMS) for this set up.

Our post "Setting Up a Functional Web Site" covers this in more detail. Given the choice choose a simple blog system like NucleusCMS as this will lend itself most well to your needs.

So now you presumably have a host, a CMS, a niche and a domain name.

Good you are mostly ready.

You will now need to create the skin or theme (that word again) for your CMS. If you were feeling brave you might have chosen Drupal or TikiWiki in which case "good luck, you'll need it" or might have followed our advice and chosen NucluesCMS in which case the design should be easy to complete.

Once you have your skin, theme or whatever your system calls the look and feel it is time to think content.

It is the content that will draw visitors and the visitors will (if you treat them well) become readers or even fans and it is these people that will spend money with you.

As an artist you want to focus on making every fifth post extremely visual. In this way 20% of you content is imagery while 80% is text that things like Google and yahoo can get to grips with.

Of the remaining post one in four (or another 20%) should be text about your images. This gives you just 60% to talk about your topic directly.

So out of five posts you should find: one image, one about your images and three about your topic.

Now you want to focus on money.

Do not be tempted to run adverts or sponsored posts unless someone offers you top dollar to do so and by top dollar I mean a month's wages in one hit.

Your earnings are going to come from a number of things.

1. First you can offer with an about page your services as a digital artist. This will yield a lower number of
customers but with a high payout.

2. Secondarily to this you can offer themed products that carry your images. Cafepress (tell them lordmatt sent you) will set you back about $60 a year for a pro shop. Experiment with the different products and find out what sells best for you. The ones that sell well keep the one's that sell badly and earn you not a lot - drop.

3. If source two works out well for you then you can consider having the products printed yourself. The yield is much higher although you need to set up your own shop. However the risk is also greater. You need to layout a lot more to start with so it's up to you when you think you are ready for that.

4. If your art is funny or mature content you can consider creating a pay for members area. Little else has a chance of getting a cult following so this is an altogether unlikely source.

This is going to take about a year or two to take off but if you want to ramp up the work and the results there is a stronger plan.

As before but this time choose three niche subjects with some overlap.

instead of hosting purchase a virtual server where you can host lots of domains one of which will be your trademark site.

It is up to you if the trademark site is a blog or a shop. I recommend both. This way there is a blog you write about the blogs and graphics you are doing else where. A sort of meta-blog and a nexus for everything else.

With your central blog and three secondary niche topics you will be producing around two to three posts every day and this is going to eat up your time. Don't launch them all at once but start with the central one and then as you get each one ready after that you have something to "blog about".

Do a web search of "pro blogging" and among all the silliness that people write will be some quality advice. Use it.

The advantage of doing things this way is that your shop (cafepress or other) will build up a stock of image related product a little more quickly and will have a lot more range. Too much maybe.

If your poor shop is over loaded with products consider running a second shop but only if the product split easily down the lines of style and target audience.

This multi sited approach also works well for offers of work so make sure that you make it easy for people to offer you work and be sure to point your readers back to the things that make you money (your shop and your profile).

Good luck.

Many times fining a new yet good domain name is more luck then anything else. Ideas for domain names for blogs and shops are often the hardest. That's way we at Globally Local have come up with 12 domain name ideas for shops and shopping related websites.

We cheated and used cultofthe.com to generate a long short list to work from.

1. malldrollnesses.com [check availability]
2. thingsonmailorder.com [check availability]
3. mallcrag.com [check availability]
4. shoponlife.com [check availability]
5. mallloiters.com [check availability]
6. mallquaintly.com [check availability]
7. malllikelier.com [check availability]
8. refulgentshop.com [check availability]
9. mallpebbling.com [check availability]
10. salecolour.com [check availability]
11. itemscatchups.com [check availability]
12. buyworkouts.com [check availability]

Creating a functional site is not simple but it need not be hard.

Setting up an effective and useful site that not only does something but also sells stuff for you need not cost you half the annual budget. In fact if you follow the Globally Local blog you will know that all you need is a little support, a small amount of "pocket money" (just to buy the inexpensive items you require), and access to a good host.

In this article we explain what you need to get started with a functional web site.

You need the following three things for a functional web site.

1. A domain name. A dot com is probably best for your web site unless you want to target a specific country. You can buy a domain name for a very small amount of money.

2. A Content System. While it is possible to do without a CMS to help run your site, your life is going to be a hundred times easier if you can get one. As they start from FREE you'd be mad to miss out on such an opportunity. The Content Manager means that you do not need any HTML knowledge to add content. You simply need to write the content. Some have a WYSIWYG editor in them these days. Some are easier to install than others and you might want to pay your local geek to do it for you. visit opensourcecms.com to get an overview of what's available.

3. A host. You need to put your site's files somewhere. What you need depends on the Content Manager you selected. If you followed the above recommendation you will need "tag;Linux, php and MySQL" which also happens to be a very inexpensive combo.

Does that sound like too much fuss? Globally Local offer linux packages that allow you to register a domain and auto-install all sorts of content managers onto your site so that you need not know anything at all.

Getting a functional website set up has never been easier and so there is no excuses left for not getting on in there and grabbing some of the action.

How many back links do I need for any given Google PageRank (TM)?

This answer is based on the PageRank estimate formula created by Lord Matt.

The number of back links you will need assuming that you have a statistically normal distribution of links with respect to value falls between two boundaries.  At some point within the two values (depending on different factors) you should find that a page increases in rank.

Please note this does not take "sandbox mode" and site "newness" into consideration but addresses only the issue of back links and page rank.  All other things being equal you could expect to "level up" within those ranges.

PageRank	Back links Needed
1	1	2
2	9	12
3	49	56
4	225	240
5	961	992
6	3,969	4,032
7	16,129	16,256
8	65,025	65,280
9	261,121	261,632
10	1,046,529	1,047,552

The lower boundary is created using the formula cited but the upper boundary takes the formula and applies it to zero such that the range n for function f starts at -1 and the result is rounded.

 

You may copy this post to another section of the World Wide Web provided it remains unaltered and that all links are unchanged, active and indexable.  The content of this page is an estimate only and your results might differ. You may not hot link to the images used.

Just a quick note to our loyal Globally Local readers to let you know that there is a sale on with the .CN Domain names for China, that are now just $12.99 for the first year.

Normally the price is $19.99 but for a very limited time only you guys get the lower price.

Consider it a thank you for your custom and support.

As an added bonus use code 5NC25 to get a 5% discount if you spend $25 or more in a single transaction.

Obviously it would not be correct to name names but these are the top 10 reseller commissions for last month.

This could be you.

#1 Reseller $39,470.60
#2 Reseller $33,142.90
#3 Reseller $25,700.58
#4 Reseller $21,969.58
#5 Reseller $18,599.50
#6 Reseller $13,781.67
#7 Reseller $10,982.81
#8 Reseller $10,934.43
#9 Reseller $9,799.81
#10 Reseller $8,797.66

Find Out More

It's the thing that we all want to do and it usually starts by putting up some Google AdSense.

Making money from a blog is something of a Holy Grail for the modern age yet sadly it is not very well understood by most of people trying to "do it".

I am going to debunk the myth that effective monetisation means adverts or sponsored posts.

There is a whole other field of monetisation so much more effective that they leave these common methods standing. However they require a longer term view of things and some effective branding first.


While this article is not going to cover all the tricks and tips of the effective monetisation and while it will not make you an expert in the subject it is going to share some of the lessor known tricks and hopefully get you started with something of an edge.

Before we continue you need to know that not every one will be able to use all of these effective monetisation techniques as well as others. For an unlucky few people some of these monetisation methods might not work for thier site at all. However with a little planning everyone should be able to use some of these methods.

These methods should help you get an understanding of the approach needed and will at least clue you in to what is going on.

There are some technological barriers that some blogs (especially free hosted) may not easily accommodate but if you can make the jump to self hosted it will be well worth it.

Also you should note that it is rarely worth trying to monetisation a blog that is less than a year old.

If you are willing to overcome these limits the great rewards are yours for the taking. These rewards can be very good indeed depending a little on luck but mostly on dedication and timing.

When you set out to monetise your blog your first thought is going to be adverts.

Adverts are not the answer.

Adverts are not the answer because you are now leaking. Your best source of new readers is search traffic but sadly they are the most likely to click an advert and not come back. Your readership growth is leaking away and the advert pushers have you thinking it is a good thing.

This uncontrolled leakage is not good for your long term effectiveness of monetisation.

You will be trapped like a hamster in a wheel running around and around - pumping up the back links, adding in the articles, writing the great news item, the next press release to get the top listings in the search only to have all that effort spill out others for an average of $0.08 or less.

Adverts can stunt your growth.

Do not get me wrong - adverts have their place but not until you have stabilised at your blogs "adult size" and this is some two to three years in.

So what can you do to earn some cash? Some people go for paid or sponsored posts but despite the bloggers best efforts the effect is always to "cheapen" the site and dilute the quality of the articles. This will stunt your growth too as readers can be easily turned off by an overdose of blantent sponsered posts.

The golden method for effective monetisation is to associate your brand with something your visitors can buy ideay they should buy from you.

This works because your readers (those people that come back time and again) will be drawn to the goods or services that you offer. Better still is the fact that (as long as what you sell is not a scam) they will still be your readers after they purchase. They will also be much more likely to tell thier friends if it was good and tell you if it was not so good.

The most important thing is that your readers will grow in their trust for you and will be gradually more willing to purchase new services and products as you roll them out.

This means that you can focus on your blog and roll out products, cobranded or otherwise to an established audience that will, on the whole, be interested in what you offer and even if they are not they will be there to continue reading and maybe even write about your product on thier blog.

This takes time but pays the best in the end.

Globally Local know that self hosted is vital to your success and have a Range of Plans with free Google Ad Credits at prices that are easy to cope with.

This Article was written by Lord Matt and is based on an article which has even mroe resources and can be found here. Lord Matt is a nice guy and if you ask him he would probably be willing to help you set up your new blog.

Sooner or later someone will steal your content.

It's not a very nice thing to do but it does happen.

Some people steal content because they are lazy, others because they are foolish and greedy but whatever the reason it tells you that you are doing something right. People wish they had content like you do.

Do not give up.

What you can do, what you should do and what you can do to prevent it are what we are going to be looking at today.



Recently it was discovered that ohwebhosting.com was stealing content from a number of sites including this one.

There were a number of options open.

1. Ask Nicely

Use DNSstuff.com to get a contact address, email or phone number and ask them nicely to take down the stolen content and not to steal any more. Point them to ezinearticles.com or some other free article directory where they can get all the free content they want.

Ask but do not yet demand. If they are willing to remove the offending content then you have solved the problem without any hard feelings.

2. Ask Not So Nicely

If they do not play the game write a stern letter. Carefully look up the words cease and desist and use them correctly.

Demand and do not ask.

3. Hit them in the pocket

So they refuse or ignore you.

Okay then, time to get tough.

When a person steals content most of the time they are trying to earn money from the adverts they can show.

Examine the advert links and you will find Google AdSense most of the time. If you don't you may find a link with numbers and letter in the URL. part of the URL might look like affiliate-id=xxxxxx or affid=xxxxxx or even ref=xxxxx all amount to the same thing.

It is the user ID of the person that stole your content.

Follow the URL and if need be use to trace the advertising partner. They don't usually try to hide thier identity (as they have nothing to hide).

Now you can visit the affiliate program website and look for contact information.

Politely explain that thier client is using stolen material to promote products and then give them enough time to panic about brand integrity and ban the user.

Ouch! They won't do that again.

But that is often not enough.

4. Sweep their legs out

Web site hosts often get very upset about illegal content being on thier servers as police and governments have been known to confiscate very expensive hardware which they will never see again.

The host does not want this so use DNSstuff.com and this time look up their DNS information.

You are after the name servers which you should look up to find the host.

Visit the hosting site and again politely inform them that thier client has put stolen content on the server. Request it be removed.

The chances are it will be taken down quite quickly.

It is also possible that the thief will loose the hosting contract and have to go else where. Again hitting them in the pocket.

If you followed all the steps above then they will know it was you and take care to steal else where.

But what if they, the host and the advertiser don't care?

Apart from writing a post saying XY and are stealing my content and hoping that thier auto theft devise posts it you have two more options.

Childish Answer

Google for SpamVampire and set one up to download thousands of copies of the sites images until the quota is spent. Get all you friends to do the same. Do it all at once so the site is expensive to run.

This is probably illegal and certainly the low route to take and also could upset your ISP.

So you risk arrest, Loss of ISP and more importantly loss of moral high ground.

Mature Effective Answer

Get the local phone directory and get a consultation with a lawyer or solicitor that gives the first hour free and get ready to file a suit.

If you both live in the same country it is much easier but chances are they live somewhere else.

It's a long and tricky process but you could well force them to attend a court in the location of your choosing to be told off and fined.

It can get expensive so be careful.

Secret Third Answer - the technical one

Spend the day filing blacklisting and abuse reports with search engines and blacklists so that search engines, filters, firewalls and other technical methods of stopping sites that are bad for you block the thief too.

Also you should block the site's IP address so it can not harvest any more content or if feeling childish and you know how you could feed it some content of your own choosing when you detect the IP address...

The result will be felt later if they try to sell the domain and discover that it has been sullied.

While getting a review is a good way to get an extra link and perhaps an exxtra few readers to realy boost the link popularity when you start out you can not quite beat a good quality listing in a free directory.

There are many such directories just for "blogs" and (some even charge for listing).

Because of this we commisioned Lord Matt to create us a review of these blog directories. What he came up with was more than just a simple review and listing it was a "full on" sortable index of the good, the bad and the ugly of directories.

The Great Directory Review (issue 1) lists clearly the directories, their Alexa Rank and thier strngths and weaknesses as well as highligting the requirements for listing.

Many are suitable for general sites but all are suitable for blogs.

Read More

Once you hav a domain and a blog you might be stuck for a use of it.

Not our regular contributer Lord Matt he found himself with a domain that had no use untill the day he found a penny.

For some reason he thought to himself - I'll make this penny into a cool million.

...and that is exactly what he is trying to do!

The domain is moreturf.com and as he explains there is even a good justification for it.

The name of this site "more turf" was chosen from the collection of domain names I have on ice (ready for such mad-cap ideas) because it embodies part of the aim - to take something and make it more.

In this case the site will give me more space to write.

More cyberturf to play on.

More name-space to build a bigger empire for my children.

More Turf.

Without the turf war.
--From nothing to riches in a few steps