Taiwan

Two Credit Card Bills: Wish I had taken my own medicine!

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Don’t you ever wish you had taken your own medicine? I blogged all about how to keep a track of my expenses. Usually, that’s not a big deal but so I don’t use anything except my memory to recall the two or three transactions.

Hah! I should have done. This time I had 18 transactions to keep records for, and I FAILED. Miserably! So if you don’t want to make the same STUPID mistake as I did, read about how to avoid it. It’s pretty easy. It was a busy month for this bank as I racked upover NT$52K worth of spending. So let’s get started.

Life Expenses – NT$15,907

On July 19th I went to FNAC in Tienmou, and they always have a great selection of stuff, so I was tempted to spend NT$734 on SOMETHING. The problem is I can’t remember what it was for. Batteries, Memory Cards, who knows… at the moment, I didn’t find my receipt for that. On the very next day, we spent another NT$1588 on stuff at Mitzukoshi, but again I just don’t remember what that was. So let that be a lesson to ME!

In Taipei we bought a few more items at IKEA (energy saving lights, picture frames, etc.) and had Ed serviced and oil changed: NT$2578 and NT$3485. [IKEA had an odd assortment of lights: I was looking for energy saving spots, but I had to settle for 20W+35W instead of real energy saving bulbs. Still that was better than the original 450 watts we were burning. Got the wattage reduced to about 300W which will save about 1/3 of our spot light bill, and cut heat, too. The original 50W spots were quite HOT.] Additional expenses at Carrefour included another NT$2466. On July 21st, we also were charged NT$2000 for our life insurance policy (it’s a supplemental policy with investment based returns). To my surprise, Emusic also charged me a subscription on my credit card NT$3056.

Business Expenses – NT$6,390

Computer repairs (school system and home system both had ‘issues’ – the school system fried its videocard and had to have its motherboard replaced to remain a functioning system) and I bought a few peripherals for the school: an MP3 system, a new keyboard, and had XP reinstalled on the other system. Total repairs cost NT$6390 for one system, one motherboard, one reinstall plus… We also purchased some spotlights for school (see above) included cost NT$1072 plus NT$295 for a small picture holder for school.

2008 Summer Tour – $29,654

On July 21st we headed to Ilan as the beginning of 2008’s Grand Taiwan Tour. We stayed at a rather mediocre hotel in Jiao-Xi. It was one that we had originally liked a lot but this time we were very unlucky with our room as it was situated on main road, and every four or five minutes large trucks would roar up and down the road even at 2am. We eventually asked to be found a new room, but we were both exhausted by that, esp. after the long drive. Total charge for an uncomfortable night NT$2940. Cheap, yes. Cheap by average, but it cost us a lot in mood, energy and sleep!

Then it was onto Beautiful Hualien where we swiped with frenzy: NT$2100 on new T-shirts and shorts; then NT$2180 for a new pair of Crocs; two nights at the palatial hotel the Parkview Hotel which had good food, great scenery, a lot of wonderful things to do, and nice pieces of art – it was by far the classiest hotel on our trip – cost NT$14,396 (and the costliest); on the third night in Hualien we stayed at Taroko Gorge Hotel which we booked through a local travel agent in Hualien. That was a good experience as we drove through Taroko gorge and into the mountains on two quiet weekdays. The views were incredible, just incredible. The food in the hotel was fine, and portions were generous. Total cost NT$4500.

Then it was over the mountains to TaiChung to catch up with some friends, where we stayed at perhaps the cheapest of our choices: ChongKe Hotel in central Taichung. While it wasn’t the classy type, the facilities were good, it was central, and we both liked it for its convenience. NT$1800 (a special friend’s rate!). We also bought lunch for some friends returning to the States at a lovely vegetarian restaurant we ate at before: lunch was filling, fairly healthy and for four – cost NT$1738.

2008 Summer Trip (part 2) – NT$9677

Then we went to Kaohsiung and were thrilled to take the new high speed train. It was F-A-S-T. Tickets there were prebooked and cost NT$2380. Tickets back were bought at the station and cost NT$2680. But we returned on a Friday which is considered a peak train service. Oddly, booked seats were no cheaper than standby. I’m quite confused by their ticketing prices. Early bookings should be cheap to fill up the trains, standy bookings should be also quite cheap but regular prices should be more expensive. I think the service is having an identity crisis: is it a subway style ticket system (with subway gates), an airplane system, or a traditional train system? It’s quite clear they want to be seen as the last option, but then why have electronic gates, why check tickets ON THE TRAIN… Weird.

We also stayed at the highest hotel in the island in Kaohsiung: the Splendor. Which is a fantastic hotel, and service wise much better than the ParkView, but considerably less expensive: NT$4617 including minibar and one or two other sundries.

And the DAMAGE!

So this month we managed to spend over NT$61,242 (including cashback of NT$386). That’s quite impressive for us. Still, the business will covert some expenses (one repair) and sundries, some of this was regular ‘life expenses’ and the rest was our summer trip. We didn’t set out with a budget in mind for our trip, but I figured we’d spend about NT$50K or so, including gasoline, eating out, hotels, and sundries. I think we came pretty close. Fortunately, last month’s bills were paid off in full, and no interest or late charges were incurred.

Fine Blogging: it’s time for a little ‘sizzle’

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One of the most common questions that new bloggers ask when they start blogging is: what am I going to write? Such an easy question doesn’t necessarily imply an easy answer as most bloggers are still trying to find their feet when they start. There are a lot of tasks that need mastering.

For those who are starting out: there are a number of post that you could make. If you’re looking for a little sizzle, then try these:

1. Picture of the Week

Many bloggers are also amateur or professional photographs. Adding a regular or irregular photographs as your post with a very brief description can liven up your blog from the all text look, and fill a regular post slot. (click to see an example)

2. Video Post

A short post can include a video that you have uploaded to YouTube or even a video that someone else uploaded. Embedding the code is a very simple task these days. Simply copy and paste into your post.  (click to see an example)

3. Quotation

Short quotations on your blog’s theme or topics or that you find in your other reading are worth doing. They’re quick to copy down, don’t forget to add biographical details and also the source.  (click to see an example)

4. Link Posts

There are many kinds of link posts but one that I like is the post that links to recent readings and articles and websites that I’ve found across the Internet. Recently, StumbleUpon has been taking up this slack for many, but adding them to your blog is much better for your readers.  (click to see an example)

5. Buzz Posts

These are short posts that feature one particular blog or website. You can write them to highlight something you like. Keep them short (50 words or so), include an image, and there you go. (click to see an example)

6. Recent Posts

This is similar to #4 but instead you are featuring some of your own posts in the recent month or week. It’s well worth doing especially for blogs with a lot more posts and can draw attention to some that might otherwise be missed by readers.  (click to see an example)

7. Word Power

Post a word or phrase that you have learned. English has over 1,000,000 words (estimated!) but choosing a few careful terms or phrases that are not well-known can provide an inspirational post.

8. Sharing an Email

This can be an easy way to find a post. My email archives (and yours) are doubtless full of emails that are worth sharing. Raid those archives and see what you can find that would be worth posting! Of course, if you are sharing an email from someone else, make sure you have their permission! (click to see an example)

9. News Posting

This can be defined as widely or as narrowly as you like: include items in a short ‘what’s happening post’. These items might include competitions, invitations, news items, and anything else you might like! (click to see an example)

10. Review Something

You can always write a review of something related to your blog’s sphere of interest. Good suggestions include a book, a movie, a website, a product or service, etc. It needn’t be in depth but it should be appropriate and something you’re familiar with. (click to see an example)

These are just some of the ideas that I have tried on my blogs over the past two years. Of course, these types of posts are just the ‘sizzle’. If your blog doesn’t have any steak, then they won’t really help. Good luck blogging, and let me know what kind of sizzle or steak you are cooking up on your blog!

Nine Tips for Getting Started with Google AdWords: Steve Sutherland’s Suggestions

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1

AdWords is quite a learning curve, but Google breaks it down nicely into chunks with the Starter Edition. When I wrote and told my friend, Steve from AgentsChat, he immediately offered some great advice. In his email, he wrote 9 useful tips to get me started.

I’d like to share them with you.

Nine Tips for Getting Started with AdWords

Great. I have a great book on the subject called Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords – I can lend it to you next time I see you if you want.

Things to remember –

1. Look into ‘Exact Match’ and ‘Phrase match’ options (heaps of info if your Google for ‘Adwords matching options’ etc) – you may be throwing away money on using the default ‘broad match’ if you are not careful with it.

2. Google automatically give you Pay Per click ads on their search results pages and the content network (Adsense on sites – Contextual network I think they call it now). Some people prefer to turn off the content network and just focus on the search results – you can test both. You can even target specific sites with the content network if you want.

3. Look into the ‘insert keywords’ option – you can set it so that if the user types in ‘investing’ then that word will show up in your heading or ad – when the word shows up it will be in bold and thus get more attention and more clicks – more clicks = cheaper bid prices.

4. The other factor for bid prices is ‘quality score’ (should be no problem for your home-page) – to get the best quality your keywords should be in your ad, and on your landing page.

5. Grouping keywords into tight Adgroups gives more flexibility to meet quality score – don’t just do one big Adgroup as the ads you write won’t be relevant to all the keywords.

6. Go through your Analytics account to get an idea of terms that people used to find you – you can then target these terms in your keywords.

7. Investing keywords will be expensive so you could take quite a different approach and choose other keywords that are cheap (Taiwan Blog, is one idea)

8. Your ad structure looks good – many recommend the pattern

Catchy heading (with keyword)
Stress a benefit (possibly with keyword)
Call to action (possibly with keyword)
URL

9. Run two ads together – the one with better CTR will be cheaper so go with that then test another if you have time.

Hope that helps. this turned into a rather long email – you can turn it into a blog post if you like.

Steve

Unfortunately, I’ve not had great results yet, but I’m still working on the early stages. It’s not difficult to get started. I did have one problem with an affiliate page that I wanted to market because Google Adwords TOS didn’t permit my initial efforts, so I’m still struggling with the affiliate side of the effort.