Finding a Web Host

The following is a sponsored blog post. If you currently use a free blog platform, the biggest recommendation someone might tell you is to purchase a domain and hosting. It sounds like a broken record, but you'll have more control over your blog than if you are using someone else's service. It may also sound hypocritical as this blog runs on blogspot.com. The Monetizer has several blogs in the work and is looking to decide on a good web hosting choice for 2 or 3 of those blogs.

Many people will be quick to recommend GoDaddy or HostGator as the best hosts to move your blog to, but there may be another that fits your site needs better. You can easily check for hosting sites that fit your requirements at Webhostingchoice.com, which provides an easy to use search to find the best hosting for your needs. You simply enter the monthly cost you'd like to pay, the Diskspace storage you'd like, Bandwith needed and your setup costs. The site then gives you several options for web hosting sites which fit your requirements.

As mentioned above, Hostgator is a popular choice amongst bloggers and webmasters. The Monetizer did a quick search on Webhostingchoice.com with the requirements of a $10 per month fee, 2500 megabytes storage, 3 gigs bandwith and $0 setup. And presto! Hostgator was the recommended choice with plans at $7 and $10 available.

So if you're still in need of a place to host your blog online, give webhostingchoice.com a try to determine which hosting service might work best for you.

Get a RealRank for Your Blog!

The following is a Sponsored Review for IZEARanks, a site recently launched by PayPerPost. The IZEARanks service provides a free and useful tool for bloggers who want to measure how well their blog "really ranks".

According to the IZEARanks site FAQ:

"IZEARanks ranks the top blogs in the blogosphere via actual site statistics, not an extrapolation of estimates".

"The data is used to define an individual blog's overall standing relative to other blogs participating in the program as well as in specific categories such as entertainment and technology."

The way IZEARanks does this is by each blogger installing a piece of Javascript code (called the IzeaToolbarKit) into their blog template. The code records traffic stats by measuring a formula of 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views as reported by the ITK (IzeaToolbarKit). This determines your "RealRank". You can then compare how well your blog is doing by measuring it against other bloggers who are using the IZEARanks service.

The main purpose of IZEARanks is to provide you, the blogger, with a more conclusive way to measure your blog instead of Alexa Rank or Google Page Rank. RealRank is considered the first site ranking service that focuses exclusively on measuring traffic and influence of individual blogs throughout the blogosphere. The service is also very important in helping advertisers make "informed decisions for the long run" in terms of which blogs to advertise on.


IZEARank Charts your Blog's Success:

(The above chart gives comparison of the RealRank of 4 blogs over the past week. On the site you can compare your blog with other blogs based on their RealRank, page views or unique visitors).


Other important notes about the IZEARanks service:

The IZEARanks code differs from the code you install for PayPerPost. Therefore, bloggers shouldn't worry about their Google Page Rank being affected if they use IZEARanks to measure their blog.

Your IzeaRank stats can be made public or private based on your preference and settings. You can choose to display your daily traffic/unique visits, or just your RealRank.

IZEARanks launched a new service, ROIRank, or "Return on Investment Rank". This service which was released in January helps advertisers see the return on investment they can get from advertising on a particular blog.

During the next four weeks, IZEARanks is holding a contest to award $1,000 to the Top Blog on their service, in terms of ranking. The Monetizer is wondering why the mighty Problogger or John Chow have not entered this contest yet. As of a check today, ohgizmo.com was listed as the top blog in terms of IzeaRank.

This may become the next useful service to see just how your blog stands in the blogosphere, as more bloggers decide to turn to Real Rank instead of Google's Page Rank. If you'd like to use the free IZEARanks service, head over to see how your Blog Ranks!

Make Money on eBay with Terapeak

The following is a paid review for Terapeak.com, which provides free eBay research data. With the holidays approaching fast, everyone needs quick ways to get some extra cash. One of the best ways to build up some extra spending money is via the use of eBay to sell old items and collectibles you might not be using anymore. Or selling items you find at garage sales and yard sales.

Terapeak is a website offering free research data to help make the most of your Ebay sales. According to the company website, they are established as the leader for Ebay research and the only company to focus exclusively on it. The site even includes video and written testimonials from satisfied customers. The videos seemed to come from a busy convention of some sort, making some of them inaudible. However, the fact that this is a free tool to help you make money with eBay can't be overlooked.

Here's the free services you'll get with Terapeak:

- Find the best time of day, day of week, or month for your eBay item sales.

- Price your items for success.

- Choose the best keywords for your titles.

- Know when to list with Buy It Now or for Auction.

I decided to test Terapeak with a search for "ipod nano", and it generated quite a bit of helpful info. Of course this may not be the best term as iPod nano seemed to bring up some other listings including an Apple MacBook which included a Nano in the deal. Once you enter your search item term, you are taken to a very comprehensive screen full of data and graphs/charts. One thing you can check out is which Ebay "Listing Promotions" had the best percentage of sales for the iPod Nano. According to the data, using "Bold" and "Subtitles" actually gave a higher sell through rate for the iPod overall. Checking out the keyword section revealed that having "4gb" in your item listing or title gave it a higher sales price which is to be expected as it is a higher storage capacity. It was interesting to see the time of day receiving highest bid amounts for "ipod" was 6 to 7am or 1 to 2am. Auctions which ran for 10 days on eBay did the best for iPod and Sunday was the best day to end your auction, as it received the highest final sales price/bid.

Each of the 7 data sections are expandable and collapsible and provides you a bar chart display option. You can also click on various filters for your items. For example, with the iPod Nano you may want to limit your search data to only listings from the electronics section of eBay. Below your research data you are also shown 25 ended eBay auctions for the item. Clicking any of them will take you to the actual eBay auction page for that item. It was hard to tell how these particular auctions were chosen as some had end dates as far back as October 30th and none of them seemed close to the present day (Closest ended auction was 11/04). Terapeak offers a decent "Help" section as well, which includes FAQ's on using the site, and 7 video tutorials which show you how to perform research there.

Terapeak will profit from their paid memberships for the site which gives you even more features than the free version. You will be able to look at eBay data which goes 90 days back versus the 30 days you get for free. Also paying seems to allow you to export and save the research data you find, whereas you can only email it for free. The paid membership pricing is $24.95 a month per eBay site you want research for (the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France and Denmark eBay sites). Or you can pay $39.95 per month to be able to perform research on all 6. This may be helpful to those already making good money on eBay, but those looking for a low budget way to do eBay research it's probably best to take advantage of their free services.

As a website, Terapeak has an easy going site and calm blue design that is simple to navigate through. I found the data to be very comprehensive for a free service. They also offer a nice extra section showing the eBay 10 Best sellers in Movies, Albums, Video Games and Books. This section is also free and just might be helpful to those looking for items to sell on eBay, or even those looking to get more out of AuctionAds. You can also add these top 10 lists to your own site or blog as Terapeak offers java code for each.

Overall, Terapeak seems like a helpful and powerful free tool which pulls together a lot of useful eBay data. You can view the site for Terapeak at http://www.terapeak.com.