Online Business Myths that are Way Off

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Just like any other occupation, running an online business is burdened with collective beliefs, common knowledge, and myths that are sometimes far from the truth. In this post I am going to tell you about some of these myths.

1. Building a successful online business is easy

A lot of self-styled “gurus” may lead you to believe that starting an online business is as easy as a stroll in the park. Get a website going, put up a few ads and money starts pouring in. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Starting a business on the internet is just as hard as starting a business in the “real” world, it is just as competitive – if not more so -, and can be just as demoralizing. That being said, if you are an authority in your field or a hard worker with great ideas, then you will climb to the top. But it will take time.

2. An Online business requires a different skills than an “ordinary” business

An online business is just that - business. Almost everyone who has a blog or website talks about “social media” and “web 2.0″ and the amazing opportunities tools like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter create for online businesses. And it is true, these sites do open up new ways to make money – if you know how to use them to stay connected to your audience.

But if you do not know how to connect to people in the first place or do not have a valuable service or product to offer, then these social networks and blogging services are not going to magically help you get your message out and make sales for you.

If you have sales skills or marketing skills or the ability to create a buzz around your blog or website, then you will be able to make a huge impact in the internet business world. Remember, the rules are just the same as in the real world. Create a great product, provide great service, and get as many people as possible interested in what you have to offer. Hit it out of the park for people, and you will win.

The only difference is that instead of having customers come into your store from the street, your store is visiting your target audience via computer screen or mobile phone display in their living rooms. Or any other place that has wifi.

3. Online business is just for nerds

This could not be farther from the truth. Sure, it undeniably helps to know your way around a computer, but internet tools are now so easy to use that you really do not need a lot of technical or design expertise. If you can operate a keyboard and a mouse and are willing to put in a little effort to learn about things you do not as yet know much about, then you will be able to create a viable online business.

You can also make use of existing skills if you are interested in working on the internet. If you are a writer (copy-writer, journalist,..) you can start a freelance writing business, and if you are a web designer or social media pro you can do likewise. You can even become an information entrepreneur and provide information and advice via blogs or websites and monetize your sites in many different ways. For all of you content writers out there, please read my post on how to make money with HubPages.

4. Internet marketing is nothing but spam

Sure, there is a loooot of spam out there, but there are also hundreds of thousands of legitimate companies doing business online. Every single brand name company has (and has to have) an internet presence. If they did not, they simply would not exist. There is nothing shady about doing business online. In fact, I would be surprised if in the foreseeable future you will be able to do any business at all without using the internet.

As people gravitate more and more towards the web to do their shopping, find information, communicate with friends, and plan trips and flights, there will be ever more opportunities for online businesses. If you are not preparing your small business for an all-internet world you may be left behind.

5. I cannot start an online business because the Internet is too crowded

The internet is crowded and it gets more crowded every day. But guess what, the streets of many town are also crowded with businesses, but new businesses start and established businesses fold every day.

Google and all the other search engines are becoming better at weeding out the fraudulent, worthless, and spam sites, which makes it easier for the high quality online businesses to shine. Search engine traffic is probably the most important factor in becoming a success on the internet, and if you play by the rules and create a great product or offer a valuable service, you will rise to the top, as the best often do.

6. I do not have time to start my own online business

Building an online presence is probably the easiest as well as cheapest way to further the success of almost any business, big or small. Precious few companies will be able to avoid doing business online. A website or an e-commerce store selling your product is virtually a must.

A good and easy way to start is by creating a blog. It is not as time-consuming as you might think – and  you can do it for free. Start a free blog at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, find a custom template online that fits well with the product(s) or service(s) you offer (you want a professional-looking online presence, don´t you? ), and start getting your message out. There are a lot of things you can do with a blog with regard to promoting your company and your brand. Even just getting out there and promoting yourself will help you a great deal.

The people who work the hardest and are willing to try out different ways of doing business in order to find out what works best will be the most successful. The internet just helps by making everthing faster. This means that your business can become successful within a short period of time, but it can go down the drain just as quickly.

One of the best things the internet provides though is free access to your target audience, world-wide. You can find and reach out to your community on so many fronts, it is ridiculous. And you can do most of it for free because all it takes it time and the willingness to work hard. Getting your message across and driving targeted traffic to your blog or website are important aspects of the online game. But having an amazing product or service is the most important thing.

Create an amazing product that fulfills a need or solves a problem in an interesting or new way - and you just might become the next online millionaire.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

12 Steps to Successful Blogging

 

 

Technorati-Tags: internet business,online business,online marketing,online business myths

Better Google AdSense Placement for Blogger

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In this post I´ll show you another way to increase the performance of Google AdSense on your Blogger blog by further extending the choice of placement options of your Google ads. All it takes is just a little adjustment of your Blogger template that will give you one more placement option for your AdSense ad blocks.

You will learn how to place Google AdSense between the header and the first post. This will allow for a huge variety of Google AdSense ads to be added, the 728x90 leaderboard probably being the most suitable. No technical knowledge of Blogger is needed to make the necessary changes.

How to Add Google Adsense Between the Header and First Post

If you are serious about increasing your earnings from your blog you should try to place a full length advertising banner between the header and the first post. For instance, having a 728x90 leaderboard in this prime position can be very effective. (Depending on the template you chose the 336x280 large rectangle might also work well.) To add a Google Adsense unit to this position take the following steps:

1. Sign in, then navigate to Layout --> Edit HTML.

2. You might want to Back up Template as a precaution.

3. Check Expand Widget Templates box.

4. Find the following lines of code:

<div id='crosscol-wrapper' style='text-align:center'>
<b:section class='crosscol' id='crosscol' showaddelement='no'/>
</div>

5. Replace

showaddelement='no'

with

showaddelement='yes'

6. Save template.

7. Navigate to Layout --> Page Elements.

8. Click on the Add a Gadget option that will now have appeared between Blog Posts and the Header.

9. Choose Google AdSense and Add Leaderboard 728x90 (or any other ad format). Save.

10. View your blog. The new Google AdSense Unit should now be showing between header and first post.

Here is an example of a 728x90 Leaderboard between the header and the first post and the top of the sidebar. (NOTE: all examples taken from my German language blog.)

In this post which is part of a series on ad placement in Blogger blogs you have learnt how to add Google AdSense between the header and the first post. As this is a prime position for a 728x90 leaderboard ad unit I have concentrated on showing you how to add this Google AdSense ad unit to your blog.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

How to Place AdSense Ads in the Middle of Blogger Posts

Placing AdSense Ads Inside Blogger Posts

Optimizing AdSense

Placing AdSense Ads between Blogger Blog Posts

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,ad placement,monetizing blog

 

Placing AdSense Ads Inside Blogger Posts

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Google AdSense is the main source of revenue for the vast majority of bloggers. If you are among those using Blogger to host your blogs as well as using AdSense as your primary ad network, you should blend your ads with your posts so your visitors will focus more on your ads, resulting in more clicks and therefore more revenue for you. Showing Adsense ads between two blogger posts is not really that effective, because people tend to overlook that part. But if you place the ads within the post, they will get noticed and there is a real chance for a better CTR (click through rate: the percentage of visitors to your blog who actually click on one of your ads). You can easily customize your blog to show AdSense ads inside your posts, aligned either to left or right.

For a better click through rate, it is highly recommended that you to blend the ads with your blog’s colour combination. Do not use odd or too deep/light colours. Highlighting your ads means you are manually trying to keep your income low. Check out the screenshot below.

How to Show Adsense Ads inside Blogger posts, wrapped with post text

1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard.

2. Navigate to Layout --> Edit HTML

3. Check the box next to 'Expand Widget Templates’

4. Search for the line <data:post.body> inside your template (Ctrl + F, then enter the line into the search bar).

5. Add one of the following codes just above it.

           To show your ads aligned to left:

<div style='float:left; margin-right:5px;'>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE

</div>

          To show your ads aligned to right:

<div style='float:right; margin-left:5px;'>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE

</div>

        

6. Make sure to replace YOUR ADSENSE CODE with your actual AdSense ad code.

7. Save the changes.

8. That´s all!

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Do not forget to convert your Adsense code here before adding it to the above code. Blogger HTML does not support AdSense ad characters, therefore you need to convert it.

Now all of your blog posts should appear with AdSense ads positioned inside the text. The best ad formats for this location probably are 336x280 or 300x250, but that depends on the template you are using. Just play around with the ad formats until you find something that suits the overall look of your blog.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

Optimizing AdSense

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,adsense inside blogger posts,ad placement,monetizing blog

Optimizing AdSense

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If you are interested in blogging you are without a doubt aware of and maybe even know a little bit about Google AdSense. If not, then here is a chance to find out. Google Adsense is the most widely used advertising method on the internet and a virtual “cash cow” for the Google empire. Advertisers pay Google to publish ads on sites of Adsense members that have topics related to the product or service they themselves are offering. Google gets a majority of the profit, bloggers get a relatively small percentage. It is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it deal. But if you are already a member of one of Google´s many services like Google Mail or Blogger, you might as well take advantage of it and make some money on the side. You have no control over which ads will appear because Google automatically determines and publishes an ad related to the topic of your blog. If you do not like a particular ad, the most you can do is to exclude the URL of the ad from appearing on your site through an option in your Google Adsense account.

How do you get paid for displaying AdSense?

It is very simple. As soon as a visitor clicks on one of the Google ads that are published on your blog you will get some money. Usually just a tiny fraction of what Google is paid by the advertiser. How great your chances are that those ads will be clicked depends on the amount of traffic your blog gets. In short: The higher the number of visitors to your blog, the greater your chances of getting paid.

Is it easy to make money using AdSense?

Yes and No. A resounding yes - if you have very high traffic. Because the more traffic you get the higher the probability that visitors of your blog will click on one of your ads, especially if your blog's topic happens to be one of the high-paying Adwords keywords (* will be explained below). No, if your blog is the exact opposite of what I just mentioned.

Do's and Don't in using AdSense

The major no-no when using AdSense is clicking your own ad. Or having someone clicking the ads for you. It is what they call click fraud. Google has some mysterious high-tech way of determining if you made those clicks yourself or if you had somebody click it for you. Here is a little example: A good friend of mine, who used to have a successful blog, one day received an email from Google informing him that he has just been banned and all his earnings – more than $350 – have been forfeited because Google found the clicks made on his ads to have been made with fraudulent ident. What happend was this: his ex-girlfriend was pissed off and clicked on the ads from her computer which he had previously used on occasion to access his blog. There was no chance of proving to the people at Google that he was in fact innocent.

There are a lot of Google ads tips out there. One trustworthy Google AdSense “guru” is Joel Comm of joelcomm.com. He offers great video tutorials (that can also be found on Youtube) on starting a blog as well as his Google expertise.

On the positioning of ads: the "heat zone" (please read this article as well)

There is an area of the page SEO (search engine optimization) experts call the heat zone. It is the area statistics show to be the most likely visitors to your blog will focus their eyes on. Since this area is where they frequently focus their eyes on, it is only wise to place the items that are most important to you and of the greatest interest for the reader right there. If the attention of your readers is focused on a spot of your page, it is almost for sure that they will click on whatever happens to be in that area. If you are the type of blogger who would want to maximize the earning potential of your blog (and who wouldn´t), what you need to do is position the ads in the "heat zone", the area your visitors will be interested in and look at first, in order to increase the chances that they will click on the ads. Still a mystery? Want to know what this "heat zone" looks like? And where it is?. Okay. The heat zone is shaped like a capital F. What does this mean? It means if you are interested in maximizing your Adsense earnings, you need to position the ads on your blog in the shape of an F. For example, one big leaderboard ad on the top of your homepage either above or below your banner (below is better, so the visitor won´t take your blog for just a page full of ads). Second, one 160x600 vertical banner ad on the left side of your content. And finally, one ad in between you posts or, if you know how to, you can integrate a Google ad within your post. (An instruction on how to do this can be found here.)

Of course, you will need to decide if if this works with the layout of your blog and your content. Remember, this advice is just based on statistical data and everyone is free to decide if they want to monetize their blog or strictly focus on blogging only. If you are interested in monetizing make sure to monitor the performance of your ad. Do not be afraid to experiment a little with the positioning of your ads (all ads, not just Google Adsense) to see what gets you the best results.

Placing anything and everything you want people to notice more inside the capital F-shaped heat zone is always a good choice, be it widgets, links, ads...

The simple rule is: Place your most important stuff in the heat zone because it will get noticed first and more often than any other areas of your blog.

A few additional tips:

1. With Google AdSense, it will take 2 clicks from a visitor to earn you some money. For you to actually earn, whoever clicks your Google ads will have to be interested enough to click on something on the page he was taken to. If he or she does thus, it should make you an amount of around $0.50 or more depending on the cost per click of the specific ad.

2. Following is a list of high-paying keywords or ads that will pay big bucks if clicked on. There are some bloggers out there who blog about these topics for purely monetary reasons. Most combinations of these terms with common words also tend to pay well. If you choose to blog about these topics you are guaranteed to make more money than with other themes, simply because advertisers pay higher prices for ads with a connection to these keywords which in turn means higher pay for publisher and bloggers.

Insurance, mortgages, money, health (also terms like cancer, obesity, etc.)

Other godd topics to blog about are (in no special order): relationships, self-improvement, gossip and/or scandal (especially if you can povide pictures), sports, cars, technical gadgets, fashion, beauty, healthcare.

One tiny problem: many, many people are already blogging about these topics.
Good writing about a not so popular theme might get you more visitors than a badly written blog about a top theme.

3. Blend the colors of your Google ads with the colors of the area where you want to place them. It will look more natural to your visitors and thereby increase the likelihood of them clicking on the ads. Wonder how it should look like? Just take a look at the ads on this page.

Please read the Google AdSense terms and conditions page and program policies to get detailed information.

 

Related article:

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

Technorati-Tags: adsense,ad placement,monetizing blog,blogging for money

Make Money By Adding Banner Ads to Your Blogger Blogs

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One of the things that makes Blogger such a great blogging platform is the ease with which you can add advertising to your Blogspot.com blog and make money from it. In this post I shall be discussing how banner advertisements on your Blogger blog can create passive income for you. By banner advertising I mean advertising in addition to Google AdSense or AdBrite or other contextual ad services you may have already added to your Blogger blog. For information on adding Google AdSense to your blog please read my articles on Google AdSense.

Banner advertising is FREE - And Banners Do Make Money

It is no secret that you can make quite a bit of money by placing banners on your site provided you choose your merchant program(s) carefully and have enough people accessing your site. In my experience, once you reach around 100 unique visitors a day it is high time time to add a few banner ads to your blog.

How to Make Money from Banners on Your Blogger Blog

Affiliate marketing banners are designed to make money for the publisher – in this case: you. In order to place a banner on your blog the affiliate program provides you with a snippet of code to add to your template which makes the banner display and identifies you as the publisher. When a visitor clicks on a banner on your website that click is recorded as originating from your site and you make money as a result of that click. Depending on the merchant program that you have signed up for you will earn a commission for providing a lead, or receive a percentage of the sale.

An Example of How Banners Work

After having placed a banner ad on your Blogger blog your site gets 100 visitors in a day. Out of that 100 people 5 people (hopefully!) click on a banner which takes them through to the merchant's website. From those 5 people one person makes a purchase of around $50.00. Assuming your commission is 10% of the sale you have just earned $5.00. It really is that easy.

Making the Most of Advertising Banners

To make money from banner ads you need a lot of traffic because only a small percentage of your visitors will take any notice of the advertising on your blog and a still smaller percentage of that pool will actually buy anything once they click. Therefore it is really important that you focus your energies on building site traffic. If you need to grow your traffic read my articles on tips to increase traffic to your Blogger blog.

Of course you do need to choose your affiliate banners carefully as obviously some ads will have more appeal than others. To some extent this is a matter of trial and error, as you can never be completely sure how a banner will perform until you try it. However, you can increase the odds of success by choosing merchant programs that are related to your blog in some way. For instance, if you blog about golfing then advertisers of golfing equipment or golfing vacations would be a good place to start.

How to Add Affiliate Banners to Your Blogger Blog

Adding affiliate banners to your blog is pretty easy. In most cases it is just a matter of copy and paste, and pretty much anyone should be able to do this. Please read my article providing step by step instructions on how to Add Affiliate Banner Ads to the Blogger Sidebar of your Blogger blog if you are unsure. If you want to place a banner in the header of your blog please refer to Add an Affiliate Banner to Blogger Header.

Disadvantages of Banner Ads

Too many banner ads can give your visitors the impression you are just in it for the money. So make sure you do not go overboard with too much advertising that will overshadow or detract from the content of your blog. Keep in mind that less is more - so place your banners ads strategically on your blog. Very good results can be achieved by placing a small cluster of about 4 banner ads (usually 125x125) somewhere fairly close to the top in the sidebar and a 468x60 banner in the header. The header is obviously the prime position for an effective banner advertising campaign. Read more about how to place a banner ad in the header of your Blogger blog in my adding banners to Blogger series of posts.

The other main problem with banner ads is that they encourage visitors to leave your site - and as everyone knows one of the hardest jobs is to attract the visitor in the first place. Do you really want them to leave your site before they have had a chance to look around? I do not think so. Therefore, only place banner ads on your blog that you are confident will reap you some rewards, otherwise forget it. You might actually lose traffic if you provide too many inducements to leave your site.

Banner Ads Make Money

In this post I have told you about banner advertising on Blogger blogs. You have learned a little about how affiliate programs work and how you might use banner ads on your own blog to make extra money. For tutorials on adding banner ads to your Blogger Blogspot blog please refer to Add Affiliate Banner Ads to a Blogger Sidebar and Add an Affiliate Banner to Blogger Header.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

8 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on Your Blog

How to Find the Right Affiliate Programs to Promote

Technorati-Tags: blogger tips,blogging for money,affiliate programs,banner ads,affiliate marketing,income streams,monetizing blog

 

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

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My articles on Google AdSense on Blogger blogs are among the most popular I have written so far. In this post I am going to I discuss the 6 most common myths concerning Google AdSense that, hopefully, will help you get real about monetizing your Blogger blog with AdSense.

Google AdSense Myths Every Bloggers Needs to Know About

There are countless myths concerningGoogle AdSense which may lead new bloggers in particular into believing that all they need to do to become instant internet millionaires is to place a few Google dd units on their blog or website. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different – especially when you consider that 95% of all blogs receive less than 100 visitors per day. Adding Google AdSense to your blog can and will generate some income, but you need to be realistic about what to expect. In the following paragraphs I am going to expose the 6 most common myths about Google AdSense:

1. Google AdSense is a Get Rich Quick Scheme

False. Only a small percentage of bloggers manage to make a living from their blogs. While it is possible to make at least a bit of money from Google AdSense ad units, you have to bear in mind that making money from your blog is dependent on many factors such as types of advertising, placement of ads, quality of blog content, regular posting, number of articles, SEO, backlinks to your site, number of visitors to your blog,… The more articles you write, the more posts will be indexed in search engines like Google,Yahoo and Bing, which may lead to increased traffic and, in turn, to higher income. The bottom line is that for your ads to be effective your blog needs to receive a lot of traffic. Therefore you should concentrate your efforts in this area and make sure that your blog is worth visiting because building a loyal readership is of utmost importance.

Do Your Maths

Google AdSense itself says it is difficult to predict earnings, but there are some general rules to guide you. For instance, if your blog receives 100 visits per day your likely revenue from Google AdSense will probably be about 10 cents per day, assuming that 1 in 100 people click on some form of Google advertising on your site and the page CTR (click-through-rate) is about 0.20%. Over a year that equates to about $36.50. Not a fortune in anyone's book. Likewise, if your blog is fortunate enough to receive 1000 visitors per day you are looking at an annual income from Google AdSense of about $365.00.

100 Visitors per day = Earnings $36.50 per year

1000 Visitors per day = Earnings $365.00 per year

5000 Visitors per day = Earnings $1825.00 per year

10000 Visitors per day = Earnings $3650.00 per year

But be warned - the above figures are an optimistic view. You have to keep in mind that quite a lot of your visitors will be repeats, and the likelihood of a repeat visitor clicking on an ad unit is less than that of a new visitor. Considering this, your earnings could be much less.

Google AdSense and Affiliate Marketing

As stated above, roughly 95% of all bloggers have less than 100 visitors to their blog a day. If your blog falls into this category then Google AdSense alone is not enough for you to quit your job and become a full-time blogger. You will need to display other forms of advertising on your blog as well before your blog work will start to pay off. Check out my article on other forms of advertising that may be suitable for your Blogger blog, including displaying Affiliate Marketing banners.

Affiliate marketing banners are another form of advertising. Consider that if 1 site visitor in 100 actually buys something worth $50.00 you will immediately earn $5.00, assuming you receive a sale commission of 10%. Even if only one in 500 clicks through to the merchant and buys something you will still be ahead of the revenue earned from Google ads for the same number of visitors. ($5.00 from Affiliate Marketing versus 50 cents from Google AdSense.) In many ways Affiliate Marketing is a more profitable marketing strategy than having heaps of Google ads on your blog. However, in my experience a good mix of both is the way to go.

2. Displaying More Ads on a Blog Will Earn More Money

False. Some bloggers mistakenly believe that placing as many Google AdSense units as possible on their blog will yield higher earnings. Sadly, this is NOT the case at all. By putting more ad units on your blog you may actually reduce your earnings. There is a risk that the highest performing Ad units will shift to positions that are less frequently clicked on. For instance, while the top right hand corner is a prime place for an advertising banner because it gets viewed by the most people it is also a spot that tends to get disregarded by savvy visitors who recognise it as an advertising zone and therefore avoid it. At the same time a 336x280 ad unit with a higher CTR is likely to display Google ad units which pay less because the highest CTR has been transferred to the 468x60 or 728x90 ad unit.

3. More Traffic Equals Higher Google AdSense Earnings

Not necessarily. Depending on the content of your blog it might not always be possible to drive a lot of new visitors to your site and you might have to rely more heavily on repeat traffic. However, due to the familiarity of the ad placement on your blog repeat visitors are less likely to click on your ad units than new visitors. While you can expect more clicks on your ad units as traffic increases there is no guarantee that Google AdSense on your blog will deliver the kind of earnings you might expect.

4. The Format of Google AdSense Ads is Not Important

False. The format of the ads you display on your blog is very important. You can earn more from some ad formats than others. For instance, it is generally considered that the wide Google AdSense ads (336x280, 300x250 or 250x250) perform best. I like to position one of these directly above or inside my first post.

Link units can be profitable too – if strategically placed. One of the best locations for link units is in or just below your blog header, as many people are used to looking there for a navigation menu. A 728x15 linked ad unit just below your horizontal navigation menu will very likely yield good results.

5. The Placement of Google AdSense Ad Units Does Not Matter

On the contrary - where you place your Google AdSense ads can be critical to making money from your blog. One of the best places to position AdSense is above what is known as the fold. The fold is the top area of your blog visible to your visitors without them having to scroll down. A 336x280 ad unit in this space works well because on arrival at your blog visitors immediately see what they are looking for and click on it. If your blog is about mountain biking, for instance, then Google AdSense, being the content based advertising program it is, will very likely serve up ads about cycling equipment, cycling tours etc. For your visitors seeing exactly what they are interested in on arrival is a definite bonus which may lead them to click on your ad unit.

6. To Make Money from a Blog You Need to Add Google AdSense

False. While Google AdSense is by far the most popular Advertising Network around it is not the only advertising option. There are some good alternatives like AdBrite and Chitika. Let the type of blog you have govern your decisions about which advertising mix you employ rather than just going for Google AdSense because its the easiest.

In this posts I have discussed 6 common myths about Google AdSense that every Blogger (Blogspot.com) blogger should be aware of when placing Google AdSense on their blog. This article will hopefully help you do a reality check and make you realize that while you may be one of the 5% of bloggers sitting on a goldmine Google AdSense will not transform you into a millionaire overnight.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,affiliate marketing,moentizing blog,make money,blogging for money

12 Steps to Successful Blogging

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A blog can be a very marketable and profitable tool if used correctly. Successful blogging is a matter of grabbing the attention of a possibly worldwide audience and has almost nothing in common with the work of your average salesperson. In this article I shall point out to you the 12 most essential steps to a successful blogging career.

1. Getting Started

You should consider starting your blogging career at a free blog hosting service such as Blogger or Wordpress. This way you you can just jump in and try out blogging without having to worry about knowledge of scripts, hosting, domains and programming. It allows you to focus on creating interesting content and honing your writing skills while leaving the internal maintenance of your blog to professionals. The best thing about starting with a free service is that there is no risk of losing money if your blog does not become successful or you just happen to find out that blogging is not your cup of tea (just make sure to choose a service that lets you export your content whenever you want). A blog is the simplest form of a website and is organized in chronological order; your latest entry will always be displayed first. When your blog traffic grows considerably you should consider upgrading to your own domain. In this case your last blog entry should be the announcement of your "move". Do not forget to provide the URL address of your new site together with a link that will re-direct your visitors to the new site, thereby enabling you to keep your following without causing a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade...but only when you need to!

2. Finding Your Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interests you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily or at least weekly basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find out what topics people are currently searching for. But keep in mind that it does NOT matter if your topic is popular; as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful – it just may take a little longer. Anything anyone can think of can become a viable niche - as long as it has a target audience (no matter how large or how small that audience might be). A blog about your cat will obviously be a much smaller niche than a blog about domestic cats in general ...you can even choose to build an audience for a market which as yet does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3. Update Regularly (2-3 times a week should suffice)

This step is a must, not just a suggestion. Updating your blog regularly not only keeps readers coming back for more, but it also gives your site fresh content on a day to day basis thereby making it more appealing to search engines. It is only understandable that you may not have the time or the inspiration to update your blog daily, but letting days or even weeks pass by without posting anything is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. In order to keep your visitors interested as well as traffic to your blog high it is simply a must to add content to your blog regularly. If possible you should update your blog every day, maybe even try to post a couple of entries daily. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to working on your blog each day. Treat your blog as a job (but as a job you really like!). What happens if you do not come to work for days or weeks...you lose income and/ or get fired! The same applies here...if you do not update your blog regularly you will lose visitors.

4. Generating Traffic

This one is a no-brainer. You have to have traffic to be able to profit from your blog or site. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Advertising (paid as well as free), search engine marketing, feeds (RSS or Atom), viral marketing, usage of social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Digg, etc.), and word-of-mouth. For starters, you should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your emails, forum discussions, message boards, or any other form of online communication. Submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. Also be sure to submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. If your blog (like so many others) can be described as a collection of articles you should consider submitting your blog entries (only those that are valuable and lengthy) to content syndicators/article directories like GoArticles.com, ArticleCity.com or DropJack.com. Once submitted, your articles can be picked up and published by others. The important thing is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. This creates link popularity and backlinks for your blog. When someone picks up your article from the syndication site and then publishes it on his or her website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included will be followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Just imagine what will happen if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 5.000 or even 10.000 publications across the web. All the search engines are bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and will regard you as an authority on the subject, which will in turn increase your rank on search engines. The relatively small effort of writing an interesting and helpful article can be very rewarding. You should try to write at least one full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to as many article directories as possible.

5. Tracking Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments does not mean your blog is not becoming popular. Many visitors just like to read or watch and do not care about comments – but they still may be returning visitors. Most people following blogs simply are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many readers do not comment till they are quite familiar with a blog, and some will never comment at all although they are devoted fllowers of your blog.

Tracking your blog does not require knowledge in statistics or any other fancy sciences. A simple free page counter like StatCounter, FeeStats, SiteMeter or Active Meter will do the trick. Just install (copy/paste) the code you will be given after registering into the HTML of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. If you really want to use tracking to your advantage you should choose a service that gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Hit counter, unique and returning visitors, visitor path and visit lenght, and keyword analysis should be standard features no matter what page counter service you choose.

6. Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should soon be able to see which pages your visitors are coming from and where they are going. If they find your site through search engines then keyword analysis will show you which keywords are being used to find your blog. If your blog should happen to be constantly found by just one or a few select keywords then you should focus your blog around those keywords to generate even more traffic. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping your blog readable and interesting.

7. Branching Out - Multiple Blogs

Use multiple blogs and bloggging accounts to attract more people. You should consider having blogs at a variety of popular blog hosting services like Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal, JournalHome, Blog-City, etc. The more blog accounts you are able to manage, the better. You can copy/paste from one blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This will enable you to attract more visitors and increase the chances that one of your blogs will show in the search engine results for the keywords you are focusing on.

8. Short & Concise Posts

Aside from the one lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short and concise (if possible). Sometimes your topic may warrant or even require a wordy blog entry, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Most visitors tend to skim through your entries and like to find what they are looking for on first glance. If you make them read through hundreds or even thousands of words they will not come back for another visit. It is good to provide detailed and useful information, but do not stray from your topic and do not include filler or useless chunks of information to make your entries look more interesting.

9. Pictures & Graphics

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries (if it fits in with the overall content). But do not overdo it. Once in awhile is fine. Graphics can be a suitable tool for bringing your blog to life. Of course, the content has to remain the most important aspect of your blog, and you do not want to overshadow this content with graphics, but displaying graphics and photos can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about the graphics you choose and make sure they fit the topic of your entry. You should always add content along with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art are recommended. But keep in mind that graphics take up more server space than words which in turn means that the loading time for your page or blog will be longer. Therefore you should not use more than 50kb of graphics per page. And always ask the copyright owner for permission before using pictures other than your own.

For copyright-free and copyright-friendly graphics and photos you might want to check out WebQuest.org or Free-Stuff-Me.uk, among others.

10. Keep It Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences and anecdotes relating to your blog´s topic. Stay away from business style writing. Be courageous and find your personal style - and include first-person narratives whenever they fit in. Do not post anything in the style of sales letters, share product reviews and personal opinions instead.

11. Interact With Your Visitors

You should now have the amount of traffic you deserve. In order to keep traffic up while at the same time trying to attract even more you should now start interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Tip of the Week" or "Picture of the Day" which entices your readers to visit your blog regularly.

Give your readers an advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and/or talk about later. If an important football/baseball/baketball game is scheduled to take place then you should state in your blog that you "will discuss the game and give your opinion as soon as the game is over. Comments will be appreciated".

Try everything you can to find and present exclusive information. Do not – ever!! - disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or has the potential to get you into trouble, but try to get the inside scoop before everyone else does. For instance: If your blog was about a famous actress and you had a blog entry about "She (name) Is Getting Married" then it would be of utmost interest to your readers if you could provide an actual picture of the engagement ring on her finger. Give your best effort to dig and search more than just the internet for exclusive information, because if it is on the net a lot of other people will have found the information as well. Your readers will appreciate your zeal and show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals and/or links to your site. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they find at your blog first.

12. Make a Profit

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning that traffic into profit. The easiest way to do so is by using contextual advertising like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising means that these services analyze the content of your blog and then publish ads aimed specifically at your audience. The payout is usually based on some kind of pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you will be paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising you also might want to consider using graphical advertising such as: BlogAds, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, etc.. But make sure that the ads do not overshadow your blog´s content. Pop-ups, especially, should be used sparingly. Nobody likes them. They will only increase the loading time of your page and annoy your visitors.

CONGRATULATIONS, You Are a Professional Blogger!

You have done it! You are now a true internet professional! Now may be the time to upgrade from your free blog hosting service to a domain hosted solution. You need to choose a domain name for your blog, check its availability and the find a suitable web host. Select the blogging software you wish to use: WordPress, MovableType (open source), Squarespace, ... When you have your new blog domain set up and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts by posting a "move" announcement as your last entry. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should read something like "My Blog has been moved to a new site, please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

As a professional blogger you might want to team up with one or more other bloggers. This will enable you to create a more interesting and more powerful blog. More authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog and his or her writing will probably appeal to a different type of reader, thereby creating a larger following for the blog as a whole. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors. To spare yourself trouble and headaches later on you should settle important issues like who contributes how much and how to split revenues beforehand.

Applying these simple blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or even a household name, but your effort should at least increase your chances. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many people think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. Likewise, increasing your popularity on the internet is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with enough royalties to make your blog a considerable source of income.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

Things to Consider Before Blogging for Money

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,blogging,make money blogging,monetize blog,start blog,success,more traffic

Things to Consider Before Blogging for Money

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Whenever I mention my blog, people roll their eyes and seem to think: “Big deal. You have a blog, and so do millions of others“. But as soon as I mention the fact that I make money blogging they prick their ears.

The concept of blogging for money seems simple enough. I write about topics that I am interested in, that I enjoy, a lot of people read it (hopefully!), and I make money off advertisement. To those among us who have experience doing this, it is simple. To the novice bloggger, however, it is of the utmost importance to realize what he or she getting into.

If you are new to blogging and interested in doing it for money, here are a few important things to keep in mind before committing yourself.

1. Blogging is easy - Blogging for profit is more difficult - I won’t go as far as to say it is impossible to draw a secondary income from blogging, but it is whole lot harder than most people care to think. Unfortunately, it is not just about producing content and slapping up some ads. It takes good writing, proper templating, intelligent ad placement, developing an audience… there are a lot of skills required to make a blog profitable, and you will have to aquire them.

2. Get into blogging for the long run or not at all - The vast majority of blogs fail within the first few months, being discontinued and eventually forgotten. More to the point, just a tiny minority of blogs see any profit during the first few months. Unless you are prepared to keep writing for at least a year, you will probably never see any return for your effort.

3. Choose a topic you love and stick with it – General purpose blogs and blogs that trying to cover a lot of different topics tend to have difficulty developing a readership. Make a list of the topics you care about, then choose the one that appeals to you the most and blog about it exclusively.

4. Start with just one blog - If you have a long list of possible topics, do not give in to the temptation to start a different blog for each one right away. By dividing your time between several blogs you will only increase the likelihood that all of them will fail. In the beginning, put all of your effort into one blog. Once you get comfortable writing and find out how things work you might consider branching out and creating additional blogs.

5. If you are unsure, test the waters - It is a fact that a lot of people simply do not have the drive or stamina to keep writing until their blog becomes successful. If you are not sure, try a starter blog on one of the many free services such as Blogger or Wordpress.com. (But be sure to choose a service where the content you create is not locked in so you will be able to export it whenever you want.)  Feel it out for a few weeks. If, by the end of this time, you have stuck with it and feel like blogging is right for you, go ahead and commit to the effort. The same applies to test driving new topics if you are unsure what to write about.

6. Place ads wisely - Some people recommend not placing ads on a blog until it has matured somewhat. Others recommend putting them up right away. Both approaches have their pros and cons. Just make sure to place your ads tastefully so as not to overwhelm your readers. User experience should be your prior concern.

7. Enjoy your work - This is the real key to successful blogging. If you pick a topic that you love and blog about it with passion for months and years on end, your blog will build a readership, generate income, and be a success on the net. If, however, your blog becomes a chore to maintain, it will fail for sure.

The main point I am trying to get across is that a lot of people get into blogging with high hopes of making a profit – only to fail miserably. If you keep your expectations low in the beginning and invest some time in proper planning you will succeed.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: blogging for money,make money blogging,monetizing blog,getting started