I have to qualify first that I personally did not attend this course held recently in Kuala Lumpur by facilitator Alvin Phang, on the topic of how to make money online or by blogging. The title of the workshop escaped me but it’s something to do with teaching people how to make money on their blogs.

I believe Alvin Phang comes from Singapore and claims to have made many thousands of dollars through his blogging, mainly from affiliate programs. Someone I know went for the course and after completing the 2-day course which was held at Wisma MCA during a recent weekend, I asked how it went, what he learned and gained. He kindly shared with me and to my horror, I found that people should be made aware of some hidden agenda. Read below on how I think Alvin cheats on his earnings from affiliate programs and Adsense.

Firstly, I would like to qualify also that I believe Alvin Phang has made his course specially for people who do not know anything about blogging and setting up blogs. He helps them to register a domain of their choice and subsequently helps to install Wordpress on it and proceed to set it up including installing a theme for all participants. They all use a theme designed by him.

They are told that for the RM2,500 course held in Malaysia, it not only includes the workshop fee but they also get the domain name and 1-year hosting of their site. I expected the participants to then get full access to their web host and also domain name manager so that they are fully empowered to manage their own blogs.

As it turns out, they do not have any control over the web host nor the domain name. I figured that Alvin probably earned his affiliate income signing up everyone for a domain name and a 1-year web host service. And since they do not have any control over this and thus will not learn how to manage any of these services going forward, they seem to be locked in for as long as they don’t transfer out the domain and continue using the web host provider they signed up with. Wow, that’s year after year of affiliate income for Alvin, isn’t it?

That’s not all, Alvin also removed the permission to edit any of the theme settings in Wordpress administration. This means that they cannot change the template, cannot tweak the theme in anyway. Not even to install any plugins! All they get to do is post entries, add some widgets in the sidebar, put up some affiliate banners and that’s about it.

Why shouldn’t the owners of the blogs be allowed to manage all these fundamental things in their very own blogs? I’ll tell you why. Or at least I think I figured the reason why Alvin locked it.

Alvin made it known to the participants that he DOES NOT believe in making money from Google Adsense. If you visit his various sites, you will not find a single unit of Adsense being used. Fair enough. But do you know what he has done with all the participants’ blogs? He inserted Adsense into them and those Adsense units are not from the participants’ Google Adsense accounts! Whose are they? Must be Alvin’s, right?

He inserted those Adsense into the sidebar of the blogs but he did so sneakily. He did not insert them using the widgets because blog owners can change and even remove them. He included the Adsense codes into the sidebar.php file which is kept locked and inaccessible to these blog owners. So how are they going to remove these Adsense? They simply can’t.

So if Alvin does not believe in Adsense, why did he so sneakily incorporate them into other people’s blogs and lock it so that it cannot be removed? Answer is simple. Alvin does believe in Adsense. He just doesn’t put them into his own blogs but make his Adsense income via other people’s blogs. God knows how many similar courses he’s conducted and how many participants’ blogs he has set up with his Adsense code incorporated.

Now if you think about it, Alvin is a smart businessman who not only makes money from the seminar fees collected, he is also making affiliate income from all the domain names and web host sign ups, including any clicks of those Adsense on other people’s blogs. No wonder he can claim to have made hundreds of thousands through affiliate programs. So now you understand the secret of his making so much money from affiliate programs. Clever business idea, isn’t it?

I won’t comment on the content of his seminar. I’m sure for beginners they would have learned a lot since they start out with no knowledge whatsoever. I’m only warning you of what he does behind your back, telling half-truths and lying about his sentiments on Adsense when he’s riding on it through you!

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Be careful of Alvin Phang’s course on making money through blogs!

If you are looking for ways to start an online business and don’t know how, here’s a nice freebie to gain some knowledge and tips. There will be a free e-commerce training workshop by P1 and eBay, organised by Wireless KL. This is a good opportunity to get some advise on how to get started, how to reach a larger market, and lots more. The schedule of this free e-commerce workshop is as follows:

Let’s hope this free workshop will be worth your time and effort attending. Do share with the rest of us how it went if you’re going for it.

To find out more about this e-commerce workshop, visit Wireless KL’s website.

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• Be careful of Alvin Phang’s course on making money through blogs!
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This post is brought to you by: Useful Tips For Life

Free e-commerce (via eBay) workshop

If you own a website, whether it’s a corporate one or a personal blog or an online store, you would know that search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to achieving good organic traffic to your site. Whilst SEO is on everyone’s lips, not everyone knows how best to implement it. If you are keen in learning more, then the upcoming Search Marketing Conference happening on 8 November 2008 would probably interest you.

It’s the first of such a conference to be held in the country and will be conducted by international speakers as well as a Google expert. What you can expect to gain from this conference are as follows:

• Learn from international experts with sound and proven expertise in this area
• Gain an in-depth understanding of SEO, Pay Per Click and how to track conversions
• Live dialogues and Q&A sessions with international industry experts
• How you can get started and see some real results, as well as what you can expect from search marketing
• Avoid costly mistakes by going on trial and error SEO

This full day conference will be held at Berjaya Times Square Hotel & Convention Center from 9am to 5pm. Coffee breaks and lunch will be provided. There’s also a free gift of Google Ad vouchers worth RM100. Seats for this conference cost RM880, but an early bird sign up before October 31 will save you RM200.

This conference is brought to you by Significant Ranking and its partners. To learn more or to book a seat, contact conference2008@significantranking.com or call 03-2116 5605.

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Malaysia’s 1st Search Marketing Conference happening next month