UK Landlord Forum / Life

I've never heard of a relief like this before...

The US government should hand out cash to struggling mortgage borrowers in a "disaster relief" effort to prevent a wave of repossessions, the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has suggested.

A government bail-out would be better than the Bush administration's current plan to freeze interest rates for struggling homeowners, the retired chairman said in a television interview addressing the credit crisis.

Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3260783.ece

Of course, this was just some guy speaking out, so nothing is set in stone. In fact, it's not even clear if his suggestion will be taken into consideration.

Good/bad idea? I wonder if our government would run a similar scheme 

Hey with that and the 10 billion pounderoonies the Bank oh the England has put in, it might stop the correction process !

The world's gone mad, I say. Mad as a box of frogs.


V

Will need 'disaster relief' for UK owners soon !

cheers

simhar

Web: Properite Landlord Software - http://www.properite.co.uk

Can I have some disaster relief?

Its a disaster that I should have to spend my days shovelling through mindless cr@p to be able to afford to live. We should all live in love and harmony, and feed ourselves from a communal allotment and sing and paint and dance and write poetry. Our modern lifestyle is a disaster for human nature.

So ... anyone reaching in their pockets?



V

Only in America would they conjure up such a scheme.

V, do you want me to set you up a "donate box" on my homepage? You know a lot of websites have a section where you can donate money via paypal to the admin, i'll give you space for that?

LOL that would be very kind.

I've got one on my blog, here. Two people have sent me donations, both of whom I know, at £1 each. Its better than a slap in the eye with a soggy haddock.


V

V, do you make any money from those affiliate banners?

or google ads...

or amazon...


God, you've got a lot of money making things on there, lol

I have, but in truth I'm not making much money. The Google ad on the left hand side makes some. What I really need to do is tweak the template for individual blog posts and add an ad onto the bottom of them, because a lot of traffic comes in straight from web searches directly to old blog posts. The navigation could also use some improvement, the Japanese section needs promotion, and I have a plan to review all the previous posts and make sure I'm doing as much linking within the site as possible. I'm also going to add some Pimsleur transcripts once I get the chance to type them up, which I think will be good for Amazon hits as I can link to the product right there on the same page as the transcript. That particular page is maxed out with banners, and I intend to go back at some point and write next to each one why its been picked (as I think that will help clickthroughs, and there are good reasons for each of them to be involved).

A month or so ago I added the site nav at the top of the blog pages and main sections, and that increased site stickyness by about ten percent, so its headed in the right direction. I reckon another 6 months and it'll be at that crucial point where the volume of content makes it self-sustaining in terms of hits and search engine results and things (attracting users), then its just a case of targetting in a sensitive way. I did try a banner at the top of the page, and that got a good CTR but it looked ugly.

So the short answer is no, but I'm working on it

People make careers out of googleads, but the problem is it can take a lot of time and effort to find out what works best. I've just randomly plonked ads in positions, and i'm not even sure which one's convert the best, and which one's are just taking up valuble space!

I should probably invest more time in google ads positioning.

The sidebar one is good - but also, it appears on all pages so that skews things slightly. CTR is a good measure though, and obviously conversion afterwards. That 350x200 or so square block with four ads one on top of the other is supposed to be the best converting unit, but I'm not convinced. I think the side-by-side 460 one you have at the top of this page is better.

Equally, I do think the web is a harder place to make money than it used to be. lots of people talk about making a living from Google Ads, but generally they're trying to sell you their e-book while they're doing it. They're really just selling you the myth of not having to work for a living, which is a story as old as the hills, and if enough people buy it they will be able to avoid working for a living!!

Amazon used to be where the real money is. My bookshop isn't converting too well right now, it needs work, and now I've got all the books up there (for the moment) I need to knock together a US version, as just over half my hits are from the US.


V

V, we needing to making 1k pm with google ads!

That should be our target.

V, what keyword/keyphrase would you realistically want to rank for?

V i will buy a book from you, which one would you say was good for a first visit to Japan !

I'm going to buy some hosting space for V.

Oh and V i also need a good guide, Tokyo is huge with 23 cities intwined within,  I know i am going to get lost in that joint.

I just wrote the most enormous reply, and the message board lost it.

You have to do something about that pfagster.


To cut a long story short (because I really don't have the heart to type it all again and look up all the links) ... Rough Guide is the best, there's a new one for Tokyo in Jan 2008 and a new one for Japan in April 2008. If you need something sooner or prefer Lonely Planet, there's one that has just been updated a month or so ago. The guides are listed here, and once you enter Amazon from that page your session will be linked to the CL associate id (whether you buy a product direct or search from the box at the bottom of the page, or do extra searches once you're in Amazon as long as you don't close the window).

Check Japan Times for reviews/recommendations on Tokyo restaurants/whats on etc. Tokyo is easier to navigate than you might expect.

For language, check out the Rapid Japanese CD and the Conversational Japanese Pimsleur that are linked on this page.



V