Archive for September, 2009

Spare Time Blogging for Money

Written by admin on Monday, September 28th, 2009 in Blogging.

If you have started an e-business and have your website up and running, what do you do next? Since you need to get people on your site and buying things, you need to make people interested in it. You can do this by blogging. Blogging for money is something nobody dreamed of ten years ago, but it is reality for many people today. Look at programs offered by Clickbank, Amazon, eBay, and Adsense, and you’ll see how some of these programs work.

To maximize your income with the most streamlined effort, then you must connect several sites within several different niche markets. These sites can pay of handsomely in just a short amount of time. Say you have 30 sites, and each makes a couple of bucks a day. That’s almost $2,000 a month! Even half that is pretty darn good. Especially if you are blogging about something you believe in and know a lot about. It could be Italian cooking or hand-carved duck decoys. There is an audience out there for it.

The key is having several sites, each generating a little money per day. It adds up fast. If you start making money through your affiliate links like AdSense or Clickbank, they you’re adding a little more to the kitty every day. It would be hard to find a more fun way to make a living working for yourself than by blogging for a living. But you have to understand that you actually have to update these blogs regularly – at least once a day, often including weekends. There are, however many blogging tools that allow you to easily update several sites at once.

OK, so how do you get 30 to 50 websites up and running? And what do you do with them once you have them? How many hours per day is this going to require? Yes, it sounds like a lot, and it is, but there are software programs that let you build professional looking sites very quickly. You’ll have the daily updating to do, but if you are successful enough, you will eventually be able to hire someone to update all those blogs for you! If you’re sick of working in a cubicle farm and like to research, write, and play with computers, then you should seriously consider blogging for bucks.

A Complete Guide to Bing SEO Tips

Written by admin on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 in SEO.

The Bing search engine by Microsoft is changing the face of SEO as we know it. Since Bing has been introduced to the public, website owners do not have to manually submit their sites to search engines, and they do not have to look to other places in order to be indexed by the search engines. Of course, the biggest question on the minds of marketers is how they can now get their websites top rankings on Bing’s search engine. The following Bing SEO tips will assist any marketer looking to get recognized by Bing.

Take a look at the basic structure of your website. The first thing to do to increase rankings on Bing is to ensure your title relates to the subject of your site, and you also have to link out. While marketers who use other search engines, like Google, avoid linking out, this is not a concern when using Bing. This search engine also prefers domain names that have been registered longer. So, try and purchase an established domain name. There is another difference between Bing and the other major search engines: the number of words in your text. Most search engines could care less how many words you put in your text, but Bing does. Try and include at the minimum 350 per site page.

There is also the issue of HTML codes. The HTML codes you use on your site should be well-formed. All of the paired tags should be closed, and each link should open to the correlating page; otherwise, the MSNBot cannot index your website as it should. This will prevent visitors from accessing your webpage, and that is the last thing any marketer wants. So, visit the W3C Markup Validation Service and the HTTP Compression or Conditional Get Test tool for additional information on HTML code validation. And, if you need to do some research about searching for broken links, go to Webmaster Center’s Crawl Issue’s Help topic.

More tips. Don’t forget, when moving a web page, you need to make sure the original URL is redirected to the new page. Tell your visitors whether this redirection is permanent or not. Check your list of prohibited web crawlers to see if MSNBot is on the list. You do not want this. Help on this subject can be found in the Control section that shows the indexing of your pages. Robots.txt will tell MSNBot and other crawlers to index your site.

Also, your URL’s should not be complex or changed a lot. Simple URL’s are easy to index, and visitors will not forget your address. Making sure your URL fits this criteria will ensure a link destination from other sites. One thing to be aware of: malicious software. Bing will disable and see your page as Malware if the links on your page meet one of the following criteria: the link leads to malware, it is a third party sites, or if any of them have harmful content. Harmful content can include corrupted documents, corrupted pictures, and damaging JavaScript and ActiveX controls.

As you have now learned, quality and quantity really do matter if you want plenty of links going to your website. And, always check to see if your keywords and your content match each other.

Blogging for Money: the Basics

Written by admin on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 in Blogging.

dollar_billsYou’d be surprised how easy it is for anyone to get into blogging for money. There aren’t restrictions; anyone can do it regardless of age, qualifications, or interests. You could get started blogging for money today. It’s entirely possible to make a small amount of money after only a few days of blogging. Some people take it further and end up making a healthy living blogging. Want to know how to do it? Read on.

One strategy is to create a blog with “niche” content. If you create a series of blogs with plenty of high quality content that focuses on high traffic keywords, you can put Google AdSense ads on it, or get ads from other advertising networks. If your content is good enough to attract repeat visits, you can develop a very loyal following for your blog. You may be able to use RSS feeds and other automatic blog posting methods to streamline the process of updating your blogs.

Another tactic: find a benefactor. You can write sponsored blog posts paid for by advertisers. They pay you to write blog posts about their products. If you were to do this for several niche blogs, and get paid for every post you make, you can earn anything from pocket money to serious cash by writing blog posts that are sponsored by advertisers with deep pockets.

Blog networks are another option when it comes to making money from blogging. You’ll actually make posts to other people’s blogs, and your income will be tied to the number of page views your posts bring in. Naturally, you try to make your blog posts as interesting as possible to draw that traffic. You may be paid a percentage of ad revenue, based on the number of page views ads receive, or you may pay a fixed monthly fee.

Review blogs can be very popular. You may be reviewing movies, music, fashions, books, or consumer products, but the reason you are blogging is to drive web traffic to an affiliate that your blog links to . You’ll be paid a commission or a fixed fee whenever someone follows the link and then purchases the product you’re advertising.

This is really just a broad overview of making money blogging. There is much more to blogging than simply writing the posts. You have to learn to research topics to find topics that have moneymaking potential. There are also numerous product affiliate opportunity, and you would be wise to choose an affiliate whose products you are genuinely interested in.

It isn’t just a matter of sitting back, typing a few words, and watching the money roll in. But doing the work to set up a blog that makes money is well worth the effort. Working for yourself beats working for a boss any day. It only takes a few minutes on sites like Blogger to gets started with a professional looking blog. If this sounds like something you would enjoy, then you owe it to yourself to check it out.

7 Tips for Applying SEO to Your WordPress Blog

Written by admin on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 in SEO.

There are too many WordPress blogs all over the internet to even count; however, the number of articles that are search engine optimized are very few. This article details 7 ways to make a WordPress blog more friendly to search engines.

1. Every blog you publish will have its very own permanent URL, called a permalink. So, you need to make certain your permalinks are arranged for SEO. The default setting on WordPress’ setting for permalinks is not the best; but, this can be changed simply and quickly. First, go to your WordPress dashboard and find the Permalinks menu. Choose the Permalinks menu and go to Settings. Click on settings. Once you are in settings, you can customize your settings using “yourdomainname.com/category/postname, instead of a number. Having your category and title in your URL is just more appealing than just some numbers.

2. Install a plug-in, such as All in One SEO Pack. If you use this plug-in, the home page and posts on your blogs can have a custom title, a meta description, and keyword tags.

3. Your blog should be optimized for a long keyword phrase that has lower competition. All you have to do is take a little time to research first. Google AdWords Keywords is an excellent source. There you can find keyword phrase and competition level criteria you need. The perfect phrase should several hundred searches per month instead of several thousand per month. Make sure to never use the same keyword in more than one blog post. The keyword phrase should appear in the post’s title and only 2 or 3 times in the post itself.

4. Social bookmarking should be used to bookmark each post. Digg or StumbleUpon are two great bookmarking services. OnlyWire and SocialMarker are good too, and they let bloggers list their site to more than one bookmarking service at once. If you want more traffic and a backlink that goes to your posting, and we all do, then utilizing a social bookmarking website will help you accomplish this.

5. It is a given that your home page will get the most hits out of any other pages on your website. This is why home page optimization is crucial. Use Google AdWords to find 1 or 2 keywords to use that relate to your subject on your home page. Shoot for keywords that will get several thousand searches a month. This will put you in the same league as your competition. The keywords that you pick should be placed in the following areas: your tag TITLE, meta discription, and, in your blog’s home page content.

6. Put the Google XML Sitemap on your computer. Now, this plug-in will not increase your rankings, but it will put all of your posts and pages in the search engine’s index. This plug-in from Google will provide you a sitemap.

7. Building links that go back to your blog will definitely boost your rankings on the search engines. Neglecting to make links is the fastest way to slow down the traffic to your website. There are many different ways to build links: article marketing, submitting to directories, posting on forums, making comments on other blogs, providing press releases, exchanging links, and social bookmarking.

The Basics of Creating a Great Blog

Written by admin on Monday, September 21st, 2009 in Blogging.

Blog marketing is important. Your great ideas and takes on things aren’t getting through to those who want to read them if you’re not “advertising” your blog in some way. Content is, as ever, the most important thing, but it isn’t enough. There are over 100 million blogs, so you need to do something to stand out.

Maybe you already have a blog, or maybe you are thinking about starting one, but either way, there are things you should do if you want to become an “alpha blogger” in your niche.

It bears repeating: write good, original content. Write it regularly. If you get lazy and decide it isn’t worth the trouble then of course nobody’s going to read your blog. Don’t just fill it with RSS feeds from other sites. Put your own personality and stamp onto your blog.

Make sure you update regularly. Every day is good. If you can update twice a day and keep it up, then that’s awesome. The key is predictability. If nobody has a clue when you’ll update next, they won’t bother coming back after awhile. But if you post consistently, you’ll raise expectancy in your readers. They’ll think: “She usually posts something at 9 a.m. I’ll go get a cup of coffee and read her blog then.”

Have a defined niche. this is a well-defined specialty within your blog category. Don’t just blog about cooking, blog about cooking done entirely from canned goods that don’t require refrigeration. Don’t just blog about makeup. Blog about makeup that is specially designed for people with dark skin. The best blogs concentrate on one niche and do it really well. This is becoming more of a consideration every day.

Try to review your blog objectively. It’s hard, but it’s important. You may come to the conclusion that what you’ve posted is really boring. If so, you know what to do: Revise and rewrite. Add pictures. Add a vlog (video blog) post. If you want to develop a loyal and growing following for you blog, and even make money from it, then you have to consistently post stuff that people come back for and tell their friends about.

You Can Make Money Blogging

Written by admin on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 in Blogging.

Social media come and go. MySpace was all the rage a year or two ago, then Facebook gained the spotlight, and now Twitter is the new hot thing. You may think that plain old blogging was dead and gone, but you’d be wrong. Blogging is still one of the top ways to make money online. If you’d like to try your hand at blogging, then start with the tips listed here.

The first thing to remember is to keep it simple. That means make a posting schedule. Once you develop a following, if they know that you post something new at noon every weekday, they’ll bookmark it and keep coming back if they like your content. But if you publish three things one day, then wait two weeks to post one thing, then post something the next two days, then wait another three weeks, they won’t know when to expect anything new and probably won’t bother coming back after awhile.

Also, write what you know. Your experiences may be the most valuable thing you have. Good content is still the be all and end all of good websites. Some bloggers have had good success by writing “how to” style blog posts. Write them casually, in first person, i.e. “I learned how to make coconut cake when I was growing up in South Carolina…” You’ll develop credibility, authority, and a relationship with your readers.

Choosing your niche is important. Choose it and stick to it. The more specific your blog is, the better your reader loyalty and following will be. Don’t just write about clothes you like. Write about where to find and how to alter vintage clothing for people with curvy figures. Keep the needs of your readership in mind.

Be part of the niche community. Comment on other popular blogs within your niche. Make your comments relevant. Answer comments on your blog posts. Don’t read a bunch of other blogs and leave comments with just a link to your site in them. That’s considered rude. Maybe they’ll ask you to one day, so wait until they do.

Write well. No, a blog post does not have to be perfect in the way that a scholarly article does. But don’t get too sloppy or you’ll lose respect. It’s hard to believe that someone really is an expert on the Italian Mannerist school of painting if they begin every other blog post with “Yo, ’sup, dude!”

You’re better off sticking with a clean blog design. Fussy designs detract from the info, so go easy on the sparkly, flashy blinky widgets. Every major blog platform offers a choice of nice looking, clean blog templates. If it’s a clean, beautiful design that is easy to navigate, you’re halfway there.

The kind of extras you should put on your blog includes things like plugins with links like “more posts on this subject,” or “recent posts.” They keep readers around longer, and the longer they hang out at your blog, the more likely they are to link to you from their site, buy something you’re selling, or put their own advertising on your site.

Search engine optimization isn’t some kind of mysterious handwaving. Have a keyword or two in each post. Include keywords naturally. Keyword stuffing is obvious to a sixth grader and a turnoff to everyone. Using a keyword twice in a way that sounds natural is better than using it four times with it seeming forced half the time.

Marketing your blog is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged. Use social bookmarking with sites like Digg and Technorati. Put up Tweets on Twitter. Use that MySpace page you set up. Get your friends to help you out with this as well.

Not to sound too much like your mom, but be yourself! Your blog should reflect you – your tastes, ideas, thoughts, and your unique expertise. Don’t try to ape someone else’s blog. Just be yoruself.

The final tip is also fairly mom-like: Don’t give up. It takes time, and it takes patience, and it takes work. Realize this up front and stick with it. “Stick with it” doesn’t mean a week or a month. It means months, years … a long time. Some of the best blogs have been around for a long time and are just now developing a significant following.

Blogging is for everyone who wants to do it. You are as qualified as anyone else to have a great blog.

8 Harsh Truths that Will Improve Your Life

Written by admin on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 in Blogging.

They say life is what we make of it. By the end of this post, I hope to have helped you decide whether that statement is true or not.

There is no doubt that life has its ups and downs. However, how we deal with them can sometimes make all the difference. Today I want to share eight harsh truths that I’ve come to learn from life. There’s also a message in each that I think we can all learn from, and when applied, will improve our lives infinitely.

Some of these lessons may be old-hat for you. If so, look for ways to refine the idea to ensure your getting the most out of it. On the other hand, you may completely disagree with an idea or two and that’s great! Let us know your thoughts so we can all learn from each other.

1. Friends Come and Go

When I was in high school, I always imagined spending most of my life with the same people. Then when I realized I had to move to college, that all changed. Once again, I made some close college friends but left them all behind when I moved from the UK to South Africa.

Friends will always come and go in your life; even though I’m back in the UK now, all my friends are in university around the country and not exactly in meeting distance. It can be a hard thing to accept, but many of the friends you spend time with now, might not be around in the next few years.

Important Lesson:
There are an abundance of amazing people out there for you to meet and build relationships with. If you don’t have many friends, don’t stress, there are literally billions of friendship possibilities.

2. You Won’t Always Get What You Want

I remember one Christmas when the only thing I had asked for was some second hand turntables for DJ’ing. I didn’t ask for anything else so I was pretty sure I would get them. However, they didn’t come and I ended up having to save for 10 months on my own in order to purchase them.

You won’t always get what you want in life: people are going to be late, people will let you down, items you want won’t always be available.

Important Lesson: Don’t look for happiness in material possessions and if things don’t go your way, learn to accept them. Life’s too short to stay miserable.

3. Many People Will Love You, but Many Will Not

Whether you are a celebrity, a charity worker or just a normal guy, there are going to be people that love you and what you do, but there’s also going to be plenty people that don’t like you. There are many possible reasons such as jealousy, similarities to them, or just not being someone’s ‘type’.

Important Lesson: Not everyone is always going to like you, and that’s fine. If people want to spend time talking about you then that is their problem. You are perfect as you are. You shouldn’t need everyone to like you to have some form of self-esteem.

4. Nobody Can Transform Your Life Like You Can

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we didn’t have to go up on stage, but we could just read a paragraph of a blog post and become a perfect public speaker? Or, wouldn’t it be nice if our friends could do daring things, and we would benefit from them as well?

The support and help of others can only take you so far, you’re going to have to do your own thing to make big changes in your life situation.

Important Lesson: Do things for yourself and learn to stand on your own two feet. People you rely on won’t be around forever, and you don’t want to have to use others as a crutch to get anywhere in life.

5. You Are Going to Fail

I built more than 7 websites before I created one that actually started making me any money. I even put hundreds of hours into my own company that I actually closed down last month. Whether it is exams, projects, companies, or even the odd pub quiz, there are times when you will fail to meet your goals.

As the saying goes – “Only those who are asleep make no mistakes”.

Important Lesson: You can learn a lot from others, but it is your own failures that are going to teach you the most valuable lessons in life. Learn from your failures, embrace them, and use them to drive you on to success.

6. Rain Will Sometimes Cancel Play

On some occasions when you have your shorts on and you’re ready for the beach, it’s going to rain. Or, when you get to that first hole and you’re ready to tee off – the clouds will open. Things aren’t always going to go how you would like them to.

Important Lesson: Don’t stress about the things that you can’t control. Learn to live with things that happen. You can’t change the past, but you can change how you react to things.

7. There May Be No Tomorrow

At least, not for you anyway. We never know what is around the corner, a car crash, a heart attack; heck…even the end of the world is possible. Let’s face it, although we would all like to live till we are 70 years old, that’s certainly not always the case. There will be one day that is our last.

Important Lesson: Make the most of each day. Make sure the people you care about actually know it, don’t worry about little matters, just make sure you spend time doing the things you love.

8. Someone Else Will Always Have More

Whether it is money, partners, friends or even blog subscribers, there will always be areas where other people have more than you. That isn’t to say you can’t become abundant in whatever you want (i.e. someone always had more money than Warren Buffett until 2008 when he was noted to be the richest man in the world).

The wanting of more actually holds a very important lesson…

Important Lesson: Just because someone has ‘more’, that doesn’t mean they are happy. Read the biography of any celebrity and they will tell you they enjoy their process of earning money, rather than what money can do to make them happy. In other words, focus on what you love, not what the thing you love can get you.

BONUS: Linking all the lessons here together is actually quite simple, and I can share the majority of what you need to know to enjoy life in a few simple bullet points:

  • Live life for the moment
  • Accept what is, even if things don’t go your way
  • Happiness is here, right now if you stop resisting and start accepting

I hope you all enjoyed my slightly unique take on the topic of improving your life. I would love to hear some harsh (but necessary) truths in the comments below!

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Written on 2/26/2009 by Glen Allsop. Glen writes on the subject of Personal Development at PluginID. His site’s main aim is to help people Plug into their Identity, be who they want to be, and live the life they want to live.



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