Part One Of A Blogging Masterclass August 25, 2008
Posted by Rob Pike in : Blogging Tips , comments closedSetting Up Your Blog
Blogging is a lucrative source of profit and blogs are easy to set up and maintain. Imagine a life where you are paid to write on stuff that interests you, whenever you want, wherever you are. The mere flexibility of blogging makes it easy for you to just kick back, relax and go on a vacation whenever you feel like it.
In this article, we are going to look into the profitability of a blog and set up a blog of our own at no cost! Interested? Read on!
First, we need to obtain a blog. There are several options - host a blog on your own domain or get a free blog. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You can obtain a free blog at www.blogger.com or the newer (and better!) www.wordpress.com. If you are a techie, you must have heard of Wordpress, a free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.
Blogger.com is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected on Google’s radar faster and you will be indexed faster. Wordpress.com, however, is a relatively new option so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed by search engines. However, Wordpress is better in the sense that it has more advanced features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage your sidebar links more efficiently (more about this later).
Get a free blog at either Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. Then, familiarize yourself by posting your first post on your blog and tinkering around with the options and templates.
Here are a few common “blog-related” words to help you out:
1) Permalink - Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL (uniform resource locator) that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.
2) Trackback - When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section. This feature, however, is not available with a Blogger.com account.
3) Pinging - Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way to gaining traffic, which we shall discuss later.
Blog content
Now we’re going to discuss the type of content that is suitable for your blog in order to make it profitable. First off, I want you to understand that there is no fixed scope that your blog should have, which means you can write about whatever you’re interested in.
However, the difference between a profitable blog and a non-profitable blog is the way the blog is written. Just imagine, would you prefer to read your university professor’s lecture notes or the latest novel by your favourite author?
You may prefer to read the novel because it appeals more to your interest, or because it is not as mind-numbing as the lecture notes by your professor. However, the most important point is people like to read “light” stuff most of the time. You see, when people log on to your blog, they are not only looking for information - they are also looking for information they can obtain easily, and better still in a relaxed manner.
So, to attract more visitors as well as to keep your current visitors coming back for more, it is very important to add a human touch to your blog posts. This can be done by simply imagining you’re talking about a certain topic with your personal friend. An extra bonus for your readers would be a great sense of humour, so try to add funny comments in your articles where they are suitable.
Another important key point is to avoid addressing your reader as a plural unit. What I really mean is you should not write as if you’re preparing a speech. Instead, you should write as if you’re having a conversation to a single person because this will make your visitor think of you more as a personal friend rather than a person of higher authority.
Besides that, it is also very useful to establish your own personality through your words. Human beings are very curious creatures, so naturally your visitors would want to know as much about you as the information you’re offering them.
Having a distinctive personality in your blog would make a world’s difference between your blog about gadgets and all the other blogs about gadgets out there. This is a lot like creating your own brand name, where people immediately remember your blog’s name when they need to find out information about gadgets, just like how people immediately think of McDonald’s for fastfood or Nike for sportswear.
So, the lesson for now is to simply write as an equal friend to your visitors, write to them as if you’re talking to a single person and establish your own personality on your blog.
Blog Content Brainstorming
Face the fact - your blog needs to be regularly updated to maintain its readership! Hence, you must always find fresh topics to write about, and we’re going to discuss how to do just that in this article.
We have discussed how to write attractively, so now we are going to discuss what we are going to write on. The very first option that I think a blogger should write on is a topic that he or she feels passionate and interested in. You’ve chosen to make blogging your career because you want to escape a mundane job - forcing yourself to write about something that you’re not interested in is as torturous as as your mundane job!
The other reason I ask you to write about something you’re passionate about is because your feelings and emotion shows through your writings! If you feel indifferent to a certain subject but still write about it just for the sake of it, your readers will notice it. Remember the advice about writing with a personality? Forcing yourself to write will not establish a welcoming style at all.
Once you have chosen your main theme, start posting to your blog about it and make it a habit to post at least once every day, even if it’s only a comment on the newspaper article you read today. Think of yourself as a gigantic train. It takes a lot of effort to get you moving. First, you might just budge an inch, and later trudge slowly on until you finally reach your full speed. Then, it’ll take a lot of effort to stop you instead!
However, no matter how well you know your topic, your brain is bound to get exhausted over some time, so here are methods to brainstorm for content for your blog.
1) The very best way to brainstorm is to see what other bloggers have to say about stuff happening in your field of discussion. And the very best way to find related blogs is to use http://blogsearch.google.com/ or www.technorati.com. There are other decent search tools too, you just have to look around. From other blogs, you can gather more knowledge on your subject and you can also comment on what others have to say on your own blog!
2) Once you’ve established contacts with other bloggers in your field, you’ll have quite an unexhaustible “conversation” ongoing, so you’ll not need to actively search for content to write about. However, if you’re still stuck, search for news articles related to your niche in the local newspaper or online through sites like http://news.google.com and http://news.yahoo.com.
3) You can also have conversations with people with the same interest as you in the particular niche you choose, so you will eventually build up a bank of questions and answers and interesting discussions to write about in your blog. To do this, join forums related to your niche, but don’t join every forum there is out there. Stick with one or two with the biggest number of members or the one which is most focused on your niche. This will also come in handy much later in gaining traffic and generating profits.
Remember to keep up your momentum of posting at least once per day (or more if you have a lot of content to write about) so that the major search engines will know that your blog has fresh content everyday. This will attract the search engines to spider your page on a more frequent basis, hence gaining you extra traffic.
Don’t worry about generating traffic and search engines, because we’re going to talk about that in more detail later. For now, remember to keep a consistent effort everyday and build up momentum like that of a locomotive!
Free Traffic Ad Exchange June 2, 2008
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment“Free Traffic Ad Exchange “
Have you looked at the Pay-Per-Click prices these days? Ouch! To get a top position in AdWords for most keywords related to internet marketing will cost you anywhere from $3 to $23 PER CLICK. Don’t even get us started on keywords in the health industry, real estate, etc. The prices are ridiculous!
So we web site owners and marketers who could never make our money back with those kinds of prices look for cheaper alternatives. Free Traffic Ad Exchange If you use AdWords, perhaps you disable search and enable the content network. That will save you some money, but have you seen some of the sites in the content network? Pure made for AdSense TRASH.
What if we told you that we’ve created an alternative, for sites in 17 categories, and that it’s proving to be VERY effective? What if we told you that this alternative is FREE, and will help you drive a lot more traffic to your web sites?
Top Rated Affiliate Program May 24, 2008
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a commentTop Rated Affiliate Program
If you’re reading this, then it’s pretty safe to assume that you are interested in marketing and very interested in making as much money as possible without working too hard. Well, that’s what top rated affiliate programs are for because the only way a program can get to the top of the affiliate world is to provide the affiliates with everything they want and then some. Being proactive in meeting the needs of affiliates pay handsomely, which is why top rated affiliate programs can be counted on to offer the terms that make a marketer’s heart race with excitement.
What are the features of a top rated affiliate program? For starters, such a program offers high commissions. The people behind it know that their products will sell very well and don’t mind giving up a bigger share of the money in order to motivate affiliates and reward their efforts. If you’re spending a couple of hours everyday pondering traffic statistics, thinking up ways to improve your website to get top search engine placement and generating a lot of sales then you deserve those high commissions. And if your conversion rate is high enough, you will be making a lot of money in a short time.
Wordpress Themes Templates Photo Header May 11, 2008
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
Wordpress Themes Templates Photo Header
Creating a web site is much easier than you think it is if you know the right tools to use wordpress themes templates photo header! If you are a non-techie but will like to have a professional web site/blog, this is what you can do: Assuming that you already have a good domain name and hosting account, it is time now to get your web design up. If you want something fast and easy to maintain, you can try using this very popular blogging software WordPress. You can download a free copy at http://www.wordpress.org
Wordpress Themes Templates Photo Header is a powerful personal publishing platform, and it comes with a great set of features designed to make your experience as a publisher on the Internet as easy, pleasant and appealing as possible. Follow the instructions to install the software and you will be up within 5-15 minutes. Wordpress is famous for its 5-minutes installation,hence it should not be too difficult for you to set it up, even if you are a newbie.
Multiply Your Blog Traffic and Skyrocket Your Blog Income With These Custom-Built,Wordpress Themes Templates Photo Header But your wordpress themes templates photo header is amazingly different, and here’s why:
- Advanced SEO Titers
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30 Amazing Niche Wordpress Blog Designs
- iPhone Wordpress Theme
- Make Money Online Wordpress Theme
- Small Business Wordpress Theme
- Professionals / Consulting Business Wordpress Theme
- Ebay & Online Auction Wordpress Theme
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Check Out The Wordpress Themes Templates Photo Header
The default installation of WordPress comes with some default themes for you to choose from inside your Administration panel. If you wish to look
for more themes to be used on your new WordPress installation, you can go to http://themes.wordpress.net
Just download the theme that you want to use and upload them onto your FTP server under the WordPress theme directory. For details, please refer
to the documentation that comes with your theme. (Fret not, it is just a very simple procedure to do so!) There are tons of beautiful WordPress themes that you can use for free.
Enjoy the fun of doing it!
About The Author:
To get more time and money saving tips while striking out online,
you can subscribe to Donald Lim’s newsletter at http://www.internetidiot.com
Donald Lim is an Internet Business Coach that teaches individuals on how to create new Internet Businesses on a tight budget. He knows exactly how to leverage on the Internet to help individuals and busineses market their products and services. Armed with the valuable knowledge on the most cost effective and proven ways to generate publicity and revenue online, he can help anyone start an online presence or leverage on an existing one to increase profits generated online. He is also the founder and owner of Nu Edge Technologies (http://www.nuedgetech.com), a leading IT and web services provider based in Singapore.
Wordpress Installation December 8, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
Wordpress is well known for its ease of installation. Under most circumstances Wordpress Installation is a very simple process and takes less than five minutes to complete. The following installation video will help you, whether you go for the Famous 5 Minute Installation, or require the more detailed installation guide.
Pathetic Blog Traffic November 12, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
New Research Reveals That 95% of Bloggers Suffer From the Pathetic Blog Traffic (PBT) Disease, And You Could Be One of Them! We're at the brink of the worst epidemic in Internet marketing history. This disease is dangerous and infectious.But it's not a disease that affects your body…It affects your mind.
This disease, which starts from severe depression due to the lack of blog traffic, has already claimed the willpower and spirits or thousands of would-be millionaires.
If you’re already suffering from PBT, I strongly recommend that you fight this disease now with everything you have, before it completely kills off your blog, and your motivation for success.
How Blogs Can Make Money For You October 31, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
There are virtually about 105 Million online blogs online. But strangely there are only a handful of themthat make money from their blogs.Have you ever wonder why?Here's a secret, they are not leveraging on their blogs and they do not know how to! Because everyone is troubled with allthe technical know hows and stuff. Theytend to get stuck when trying to add simplestuff like Adsense.Blogging is like a business, we require tools and knowledge and experience to create wealth from blogs.Here's are 3 things you can do with your blog today that will increase your blog profits instantly.
1. Ensure you have an opt-in page on your blog The best way and tool I know off that does this verywell is by subscribing to this wondering tool by Getresponse. It's has a free trail which you can first try on. Head on to http://www.hyperlink.to/getresponse for more details on that.
2. Insert a RSS feed logo on your blog By just adding a RSS feed logo you will give your readers an additional option to read your blog materials.
3. Increase your blog post by 3 times a week By increasing the number of post you post on your blog you will have wider exposure to search engine.There are much more to learn on how you can monetized your blog right to get more tips and tricks on blogging just head on to Atomic Blogging
How To Avoid Spam With Akismet October 29, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
This Tutorial is Part of Atomic Blogging ( A Step By Step Guide to Blogging )
What you see above are the number of Spam messages I get so far on my blog! It's HUGE! Arent they ignoring? To avoid and prevent all this spam you must use Akismet - A Free Plugin to avoid spam for your blog. Before I start, Akismet is a free open source spam program online to help fight spam for wordpress owners. Just follow the following steps to get started to prevent Spam on your blog. (more…)
You Need To Use Article Marketing June 26, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
Whether you run a business online, or off line and have a supplemental website, you should try to implement article marketing. If you aren’t marketing your website with quality articles, you’re missing a large percent of the marketing pie.
Article marketing doesn’t cost you any cash to get started. Every internet site owner knows that advertising can be very costly. Every newspaper or magazine ad you run costs you extra cash. By taking just a little extra time writing and submitting several articles each month, you’ll save quite a bit of cash. Did I tell you? That good quality articles doesn’t cost you one thin dime, just a few minutes every day. Read More
Earn Money with Google Adsense and Wordpress April 29, 2007
Posted by MR.EBD in : Blogging Tips , add a comment
If you have been considering a business in online marketing using Earn Money with Google Adsense and Wordpress, Wordpress is a blogging platform that can also be used as a Content Management System (CMS).
Getting content online with Wordpress is quick and easy, and managing your content is a breeze. Wordpress has an administration panel known as ‘dashboard’ which allows you to write and manage posts and pages in a simple word processor like fashion. Dashboard also allows you to manage categories and all other aspects of your site.
The really great thing about using Wordpress as a basis for your Adsense website is how customizable it is. Many thousands of different templates (or ‘themes’) are freely available to Wordpress users, and many of these include Adsense blocks in optimal positions for maximizing your click through rate. This means that creating an Adsense website can be as simple as uploading an Adsense ready theme to your server.
This leaves you with more free time to concentrate on writing quality content for your website! Some Wordpress themes that include Adsense ad units and link units are also Search Engine Optimized (SEO), which means that the pages of your site are constructed in the best way possible for search engine spiders, and also the pages are interlinked in such a way as to ensure the search engines can reach all pages of your site in the correct manner. Wordpress also ‘pings’ many services for you through pingomatic each time you create a new post.
This alerts the search engines to the fact that you have created new content and tells them to send the search engine spiders out to index your site. RSS feeds and sitemaps can also be generated automatically. As Wordpress is a blogging platform it has built in functionality to allow visitors to your site to comment on the articles you write.
This is great as it encourages user interaction and site ’stickiness’. Another often overlooked advantage to this is that your readers are creating more content on your website each time they leave a comment! Thousands of ‘plugins’ are available for Wordpress - plugins bring extra functions to your site and are quick and easy to install.
One super-useful plugin for affiliate marketers automatically turns words into links. It is easy to create a list of affiliate links and words that you would like them associated to. Wordpress is the Adsense and affiliate webmasters best friend!
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