I read a post from a blogger that recommended that if you have been paying the same price for a server for an extended period of time that you should try and negotiate for a lower price (sorry I can’t find the link). The basis for his argument was that because technology is always getting cheaper why should you continue to pay the same price for a server every month? The answer to this question is that you shouldn’t!

I have always been a fan of never giving up when it comes to getting what I want so I set out to negotiate with my current web host based on the argument I listed above.

The following is the conversation I had with my current host (scroll down if you want to see the end result as the exchange is fairly lengthy):

Me: Hello, I’ve been an existing SoftLayer customer for over a year and as we all know the price of technology decreases over time. I see based on the specials you’re running now the cost of my server could actually be a little less.

So am I able to get a price reduction on my server?

Employee Response
Hello,

The specials that we offer on the site are used mainly to provide incentive for new orders, and cannot be retroactively applied to exisiting servers.

If you would like to place a new server order, I would be happy to assist you in getting the best possible price based on what we are offering right now.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with.

SoftLayer Sales

Me: So in order to get a discount I’d have to buy a new server transfer the old stuff over to the new server and then close my old server account?

You can’t just apply the discount to the one I’m currently using to avoid the hastle?

Employee Response
Hello,

I’ve reviewed your account and your actually paying $20/mo less ($159/mo) for this server (Intel Xeon 3060) than what we are offering it for now ($179/mo). It also looks like we provided you with a free 100Mbps port upgrade.

The only thing available for a discount on your current setup would be the 250GB SATA II HDD for $20/mo but to do this we would have to negate any special pricing already on the server which would make the price $214/mo. So the deal/pricing you have is actually better at $204/mo.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or request.

Thank you,

SoftLayer Sales

Me: Well, there is also double RAM for free now as well which is $50 a month.

What about just adding in 8 free public IP addresses?

Employee Response
Hello,
As noted above the double/dobule promos are for new server orders only. However we will be able to make a *one-time* exception and allow you to have the additional static ip’s at no additional cost as a thank you for your continued business with us. Simply add the static ip’s them directly though the customer portal, once this has been done update this ticket and I will get it to Accounting to have your invoice updated.

Thank you,
SoftLayer Sales

I already had a really good deal on my server when I first signed up when I negotiated for a lower price, a port upgrade etc. so I knew based on their first few responses that I likely wouldn’t be able to get the price knocked down much further. After I realized that I was probably not going to get a price discount I moved onto going after something I was already looking to pay for - more IP addresses. So after I went back and forth with the hosting company I was able to get 8 free IP addresses. While this seems like it’s not that much (I think it works out to like $8 a month or something). The important thing to remember is that I wouldn’t have gotten the free IP’s (which I had already planned to buy this month) if I didn’t ask for them.

I highly recommend you try negotiating for a lower price or some freebies (more RAM, additional hard drive, more bandwidth etc.) if you have been a customer with a hosting company for a period of time.

Have you tried this before? What successes have you had?

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PepperJam is offering a $10 sign up bonus for new publishers (oh you’ve heard?) but they’re also paying bloggers just to write about it (heard that too? - keep reading…). However, what surprises me the most is just how successful this July promotion has been. Now I’m just an outsider looking in, but if you look at the number of blogs that are promoting PepperJam you can see the effect of this announcement on the blogging world has been tremendous:

ProBlogger, JohnChow, Zac Johnson, Jim Karter, Affiliate Confession, Ian Fernando, RockFuse, Arbit Blog, Bukiki, My Build a Niche Stores, Yimto, Networking Blogger, Blog about your blog, Market Secrets, NetProfitsToday, Tech Yard, The Affiliate Post, SuperNoobice, Just 4 Families, Mixed Market Arts, Melvin Blog, The Sports Dollar, Feed Flare, Link Building Bible, Dfunda, Affiliates Miami, the Puck Writes.

And many more…

That’s a fairly long list and I didn’t even spend that much time searching! For those of you that are already members (like myself) the program offers $10 per post (like this one) and up to 5 posts per month for a total of $50 a month.

Here are the official details:

Blogger Incentive Program - Bloggers are the lifeblood of the PJN Publisher Referral program and tend to be our biggest supporters and closet friends. As a result, we thought we’d create a sort of “Pay Per Post” incentive program where any PJN publisher / blogger will receive $10 for each post you make (up to 5 per month) that promotes Pepperjam Network or any Pepperjam Network tool. If you are looking for blog ideas check out the Pepperjam Network blog - www.pepperjamnetwork.com/blog. So that our team can track your efforts and eliminate spam please e-mail bloggers@pepperjamnetwork.com prior to making your post to gain approval of the topic (i.e. I want to write about Pepperjam Chat or the launch of the PJN Blogger Incentive Program, etc.). BTW - of course you can use your PJN Referral Program affiliate links and make even more money every time you post about Pepperjam Network!

So what do you think of their Blogger Incentive Program? Do you believe PepperJam is profiting from this promotion? Is it only being used to help build brand awareness? Or something else?

Kris Jones care to comment on my questions? (I see you’ve responded in several of the above posts)

Discuss below

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I know this is an “old” topic and I debated about whether or not I should even blog about it but I decided to anyway. So who really cares that the Adsense Referrals program was retired? Let’s look at what the Adsense Referral program had to offer.

Here is what we’re losing:

When a publisher that signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their initial $100.00 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payout, we’ll credit your account with $100.00.

A Google AdSense referral is counted only for publishers never previously enrolled in Google AdSense. Google AdSense referral payouts do not count towards $100.00 threshold

Ok so basically you have the potential to make $100 if someone you refer to Google Adsense makes $100 within 180 days. That may not seem like a difficult task, but even the most junior of webmasters have heard of Google Adsense and probably already have an account. Honestly, I can’t remember the last person I’ve talked with that is in this industry that doesn’t have Adsense.

Why not try referring webmasters to brand new affiliate programs instead? This way you can target all webmasters because odds are no one has heard of or let alone signed up with the new program before. With Adsense it’s very hard to find someone new but if you’re out their promoting new programs you’ll see a lot more success.

Now is it just me or who really cares that the Adsense Referrals program was retired?

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Where was I?

I just got back from a company wide 3 day sales conference in Chicago. The plane came in at around midnight after being delayed by 2 hours because there was no crew to fly the plane home! Apparently the plane was connected to the jetway ready to go but the crew was stuck in Maryland. I can’t remember the last time I’ve flown and haven’t had a flight delay sometime during the trip regardless of which company I was flying with! The worst part about it was the fact that we had to work the next day!

Then on Thursday night after work I went to a bachelor party (yes, an odd time to party but it was the only time he was in town.) After getting home from the bachelor party at 1:00 AM last night I got up and went to work a couple hours early to catch up on all the work I had to make up from the 3 day conference and I stayed after an hour and still wasn’t completely caught up!

Anyway, I’m done whining I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on where I’ve been the past few days and why I haven’t posted. Something I really need to focus on utilizing is the wordpress time stamp feature. Next time when I know I’m going to be away for a few days I’ll have some posts prepped to publish while I’m out. I would have tried to do that this time but the previous weekend I moved to Seattle and have been steadily unpacking.

Surprise…

I’m going to be offering 3 color variations of the wordpress theme this blog uses for sale! So if you like the style of this theme and are looking for a cheap alternative to liven up your blog’s look make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed so that you can stop by and pick it up! Most people had positive things to say when the new theme went live so I thought that I may as well offer it for sale. My blog designer also told me that most of his new clients were requesting designs similiar to mine so I believe there will be a market for it.

Here is my blog for halo lessons using one of the red color variants. I’ve customized the design to help promote my lessons and videos using the ajax tabs in the upper right hand column. I’ve also removed the side bar advertisements for this blog although I plan to add them back in later. I’ll post demos of all three themes when they go up for sale but the important thing to remember is that you can use them for any blog topic!

What do you think? Would you buy the wordpress theme? If so, what is a fair price?

Share in the comments below

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This marks the third month that I’ve offered advertising on my blog and I’m please to announce I set a new earnings record; however, fell just short of my $200 goal. Actually, I did better than that. Check out the earnings break down:

Private Ad Sales: $140
Affiliate Sales: $40.85
vBSEO ($22.35) OIO Publisher ($18.50)
Kontera: $.15 lol?

Grand Total: $181

Before I talk about anything else, let’s first laugh at the 15 cents I earned from Kontera last month. I’m pretty sure that the only worth while strategy for Kontera is to simply ask for a flat CPM instead of a CPC model. I know they do this for larger publishers and perhaps once my blog is a little larger I’ll pursue this, but in the mean time I really am pretty unimpressed with Kontera’s performance. I have another in text advertising solution that I’ve been meaning to test out so perhaps now’s a good time to do it

The private ad sales were much higher than the previous month’s figures and I believe this figure should be even larger for July. I believe this will be the case especially because I dropped the price on my 125 x 125 sidebar ads to only $15 a month! You can hop on this deal by purchasing an ad slot here. I also believe more people should take advantage of the $10 a month site wide text link ad slots as well. This is a good price for a PR4 blog.

The affiliate sales were new this month and came from vBSEO, a vBulletin SEO plugin and OIO Publisher the plugin I use on this blog to manage all of my advertising (it works like a charm too!).

Overall I’m pleased with this month’s results and am looking at more growth from both private ad sales, and affiliate sales. I am also going to try out a few new ad slots on the blog. Lastly, I will be testing out a new in text advertising solution and if it can’t beat Kontera I’m going to laugh. A lot. I mean seriously lol, 15 cents? Anyway, I’m still making progress towards my $1,000 a month goal by the end of this year and even though we’ve hit the half way mark for the year, I still believe I can hit the $1,000 goal. If you’re interested in advertising on this blog please read my advertising page for more detailed information. For more ways to earn money on your blog or to read about the companies I work with check out my recommendations.

If you haven’t done so already be sure to Subscribe to my RSS feed to keep track of my progress for next month and read about more practical ideas for success online.

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