Blogging is another Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)

When I first started blogging about 5 months ago, I thought blogging is like writing a diary. But after five months of blogging, I found out blogging is more similar to my other passion in life -- Massive MultiPlayer Online Role Playing Game. (MMORPG)

Here is the reasons why:

1. You build yourself up SLOWLY by performing many repetitive tasks
Whether you are playing World of Warcraft, EverQuest, or Ultima Online, you spend lots of time performing repetitive tasks to build up your strength, money and experience points. In blogging, you spend lots of times performing repetitive tasks like commenting, submitting sites to directory, answering emails, and writing posts to build up your blog over time. Other than a few popular blogs, most of us have to build up our readerships and backlinks SLOWLY over months of time.

2. You always wonder if those A-List players are cheating
When I am playing Runescape, a free online MMORPG, I always wonder how those people can get to level 99. How many hours did they spend playing? It is impossible! They must be using some kinds of illegal bots! They must be cheating!

At the same time, when I am surfing John Chow dot com and seeing people leaving 100+ comments in there, it just make me wonder, do those top commentators have nothing else better to do in their life?

3. There are lots of tips online, but most of the tips are coming from the same source
For any MMORPG, you can find lots of tips online, but most of the tips are coming from the same source. People just build a site and rewritting the tips using his own words and claim it as his own.

For blogging, I can find lots of blogging tips online, but most of them are rephrasing words from popular sites like Problogger's blogging tips. On one occasion, a blogger even has the guts to copy the entire "Seth Godin's 56 tips to get traffic for your blog" and asks me to link to his post.

By the way, Seth Godin's post is a good read, and I recommend it to any bloggers, whether you are a newbie or a A-list blogger.

4. You need to build online relationship to succeed
Whether you want to be a successful gamer or a successful blogger, you need to network with other players (bloggers). It is impossible to succeed in a virtual world or blogosphere alone. You cannot succeed offline without building links and you cannot succeed online without networking either.



Enjoy the World of Blogs!

How to leave comments like Paris Hilton without looking like an idiot

That's Hot!









All over the Internet today, you can find news about Paris Hilton checking herself early to jail. She is swapping her designer dress for a jumpsuit! The photo on the left is a fake, but I am sure you can see some real photo of her prison life leaking to the Internet very soon.

Seizing the opportunity, E! Online was showing "Paris most shocking moments" on last weekend. The show covers all the funny Paris Hilton's moment over the years. Having nothing better to do, I was watching the show over the weekend. There was one story that caught my attention.

It said that back in 2004, the media found Paris keeps repeating the term, "That's Hot!" over and over again to whatever questions journalists or paparazzi ask her. No one knows she was doing it intentionally until one day; the media found out she is trying to trademark the term, "That's Hot!"

Like most of Paris's stupid plans, this one fails. No one can trademark two simple English words. However, this leads me wondering, is it possible to create a lot of links with the same anchor text to my blog?

Of course, if you have John Chow's influences, or if you have a high page rank's blog, you can ask people to review your site for a free link on your blog, and make the reviewer use your selected anchor text to link to your site. Or if you are willing to join PayPerPost as an advertiser, you can pay bloggers to link to you using your anchor text too.

Most bloggers don't have a PR6+ blog, and most of us aren't going to invest a lot of money to build links. Are there any other alternatives?

One possibility is that you can leave comments on "Do-follow" blogs using your favorite anchor text to link to your site. Hence, if Paris Hilton is a blogger, she will use "That's Hot!" to link to her blog whenever possible. However, this strategy is not only rude, but the hosting blog may not publish your comment. A "Do-follow" blog does not mean the blog owner has to publish everything. It also makes you look stupid too (Just like Paris).

Another strategy is to change your name to your favorite anchor text for comment. For example, if I am targeting "Make money online", I will use "Make money online" as my name instead of "Johnny Cash" when I leave a comment. If "Make money online" is part of my blog title or subtitle, this will even make more sense. By applying this technique, not only you will get an inbound link for you comments, but you will also get a link to your blog using your favorite text.

I am looking at Review Batch 78 at John Chow dot com. One of the blog is listed as "Some Chick's blog". If you click the link, you will find out this is not the name of the blog, but I am sure it got lots of traffic because of the anchor text she chooses. This shows you the power of using the right anchor text.

PayPerPost Love

*** This is a sponsored post***

I have signed up for PayPerPost for only two weeks, and have done only one sponsored post, but I already love the service! PayPerPost is not the only company that let you get paid for putting ads on blogs. I like PayPerPost because of the following reasons:

1. Lots of choices
Most of the time whenever I check PayPerPost for qualified opportunities, there are usually at least 5 opportunities available. Yeah, I turn down a hundred dollars worth of opportunities every week, and you can brag about it in your blog if you signed up to PayPerPost.

2. Opportunities to all levels of bloggers
PayPerPost do not shut its door to smaller publishers. In fact, there are many opportunities available for blogs of low page rank. The rate is competitive to most other paid posting services that targeted for small publishers. At the same time, you can find advertisers who are willing to pay $300 a post in a page rank 6 blog in PayPerPost too. That means as your blog improves in page rank, you can find better and better assignments in PayPerPost.

3. Quality advertisers
Last week, I was very surprised to find out that one of the PayPerPost's advertiser is a major movie studio. Before I signed up for PayPerPost, I thought most of the customers would be some upstart new web sites who are trying to build traffic. This is entirely untrue. There are many decent sized companies who are using PayPerPost to find quality publishers.

I am a big Transformer fan, and I really wish Steven Spielberg's Dreamwork would use PayPerPost to find bloggers to advertise its film. If that happens, I can get paid to write something I love!