Blog For Fun And Profit

You have read about it on the internet and seen that people everywhere are happily creating their own blogs. But you have never done it. Can you do it?

Of course you can!

Blogging in a way is very personal and talks to your readers in a conversational tone. The overall style is informal and you get to have feedback off strangers on topics close to your heart.

Essentially that is what it means…you become a voice and let people know about anything and everything. As time carried on, people started realizing that with having lots of subscribers and tons of visitors, they could monetize their blog.

First the most used blog platforms are WordPress and Blogger. Next you will do all the normal steps where you choose your name for the blog, see what market you will target. It is very important to narrow your focus than being too broad with too many subjects. Once you have your blog set up you need to get some traffic to it. A tool I use is called Blog Linker. Go visit the site here and see how it can provide traffic to your site.Blog Linker is a free tool that will manage your traffic by using auto reciprocal linking. Once you are registered, a special code is supplied to you to add it to your blog. Well that sorts the traffic for you. Next you want to sign up with Google Adsense. Now this will only work if your blog is hosted on your own domain and hosting account. I don’t think Adsense allows people to use their services on free blogs anymore.

Read all the rules associated with Adsense and you will be well on your way to making money. Another way to monetize your blog is to sign up for sites like Pay Per Post and Sponsored Reviews. I will tell you up front that if your blog is brand new then they won’t accept it. So make sure to blog for at least several months before joining up with these companies. At least 50% of your writing should be unique on the blog. If you have met their requirements and at least attained a few subscribers and a good page rank, then you can start making money by reviewing people’s services and websites on your blog. You will get paid to do that and some people make up to $600.00 or more per month doing that.

In the end it is all about fun. Do not stress too much about what the people want to hear, but try to be original and just write what comes to mind. If you are writing for a specific target market, then make your blog interesting and fun by using pictures and photos where you can.

Well that is all for now. Enjoy your day!

Select A Profitable Niche

So you have decided to start a blog. You want it to be unique but not sure what to write about. Some of you already know what you want to write about, but for the rest of us that are capable of writing on several topics, it becomes much harder. So what to do in this instance?

Well you can make money by selecting a profitable niche.

First thing to understand is that a niche is a small portion within a huge market. If you target ‘Puppies’ then it is a big market. But if you targeted ‘white terrier puppies’ then you are targeting a niche. The more specific the better the niche is.

The only problem some people face like myself is that I get easily distracted by other things. If I had to write about white terrier puppies, then that is what I should write about and not start writing about other breeds or benefits of training your puppy etc. As a sub-category on your blog you can go into training your white terrier puppy but if you focus too much on training then you might as well have started a blog on training your puppy instead. So stick to the subject and do not get distracted.

Here is a short checklist you can use when selecting your profitable niche:

• What demand is there for this niche?
• What type of people will be reading the blog?
• How will the blog look? Will it fit in with the niche that is chosen?
• How much are people willing to spend in this niche?
• How many hits does the niche get in Google per month? Find statistics through the Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• Are there people already selling these products in your niche?

These are just some things you need to look at before choosing a profitable niche.

So if you have some time then get researching and start your blog today with the intent to make money.

10 Mistakes In Blogging

There are usually some mistakes I see that most bloggers make and it surprises me that they do not take the time to see if people actually like it. There is also a reason why the most successful blogs follow a specific format.

So here are 10 mistakes bloggers make when it comes to their blog:

• Avoid dark backgrounds. This is something I see often. You search for your chosen topic and found a site or someone asks you to have a look at their blog and it has a black or dark blue background with white text on it or even worse, yellow or some other color text that just doesn’t fit. Some people associate a dark background with a gaming site or a hacker’s site and thus illegal. Some others prefer not to read white on dark background because it hurts their eyes. I am one of those people that agree with the latter. Pure black bacground with white text is too harsh on the eyes.  Stick to light background colors or simple white. It’s the same when you look at a book… do you ever read books with a dark background? You don’t!
• Make sure to evenly space your blog posts with paragraphs.
• Sign up to some affiliate programs and get them on your blog. If you want to make money this is the way to go. Some people are trying real hard to make money but they aren’t promoting anything.
• Try and use a .com to represent your blog and .co.uk is also acceptable if you are situated in the UK.
• By blogging often you are more likely to be picked up by google. People that do not blog regularly will find their PR drop and it won’t get picked up as often by Google.
• Install tracking software like Google Analytics on your blog to see what people are up. Most people never don’t and so lose on the fact that they do not know what people like the most on their blog.
• Try to interact with your readers. A lot of people just write articles. They don’t try to speak to you as a person and personally that isn’t what a blog is all about. The more personal you can be the more someone can relate to you as the person voicing their thoughts.
• A lot of people forget to allow search engines to index their blog and on the admin side there is a function you can change for that. So make sure you allow search engines onto your blog.
• Lastly, most people do not drive traffic to their blog. This is very important as without traffic all your hard work will go unnoticed. Writing alone won’t bring you traffic, so spend some time and get traffic to your site.

So see what mistakes you have made and change them today!

Google Slap- The Truth

On a basic level anyone can set up and manage an Adwords campaign. But what about the famous Google Slap? Yes, at some point most people have heard about it and no doubt it has happened to some people. But with others who have heard of it but not experienced it, will be asking what it is.

So what is the Google Slap in a nutshell?

With Pay Per Click Advertising on Google it has become abundantly clear that people use Adwords to deliver sites about making money and other unrelated things that were associated with keywords. As Google wanted to introduce accurate and relevant results, they started to introduce terms, conditions, tools and some guidelines that advertisers had to follow to ensure quality results. In the end this became known as the ‘Google Slap’ (unofficially of course).

It started to get rid of all those advertisers that were taking advantage of the system and used scrupulous methods that were considered black-hat.

What does it mean for the average person?

If you do not research properly and just slap an advertising campaign together that appears sloppy and unprofessional then you will get hit by high prices and higher minimum bids.

Well now that you know what the Google Slap is, how do you avoid it?

By producing quality adverts that follow Google’s guidelines exactly. If you try to use keywords to get around Google then you will end up spending a lot more than you anticipated.

Despite what you may think, the Google Slap isn’t Google’s way of getting back at you. Remember, Google needs to return results that are relevant to people searching in the search engines. If the wrong information gets returned then Google won’t be at the fore front of pay per click advertising anymore and then people won’t make as much money or get as many visitors to their sites. The more accurate Google is with their results, the better it will be for the advertiser in the long run, so keep that in mind.

Get Traffic To Your Site Fast!

Every webmaster is always wondering on how to get traffic quickly to their site. There are hundreds of sites and tips out there to get some traffic and here are some of the best ones I have found:

1) Approach other webmasters in a similar niche that isn’t competing with your own products or services and ask if they would be interested in promoting your offer to their subscribers. Some webmasters may do so in exchange for money or a service they might find valuable.

2) Write some articles and submit them to article directories with a link pointing to your site as the authority on the topic. Some people make a successful living off article marketing.

3) Create free mini reports to give away to people on forums and on community social sites. This can lead to many opportunities and increased traffic.

4) The next method uses paid advertising like Google Adwords. You can create a campaign and depending on your budget, you can start receiving visitors within minutes of launching a campaign.

5) Another successful method is to create profiles for social bookmarking sites and getting them ranked high. The more people that give you positive reviews, the more traffic you will get to your site.

There are many other avenues of traffic that you can get to your site, but the above 5 are the most common ones found on the internet.

If you have discovered an interesting way on getting more traffic, why not share with us! Perhaps there is some secret method that some people use that the general population is unaware of.