More and more people are realising that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business. It requires minimal start up costs, you can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you don’t update your blog.
There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use Wordpress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.
If you want to get started right away, check out this great little step by step guide, click here.
If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.
It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.
Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.
But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.
Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.
But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.
You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.
So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.
One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.
All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.
There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.
And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?
But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.
And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!
So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.
If you are serious about learning how to make money online, be it for a little extra cash, or to replace your income, the best place to start is with Steve Peirce’s Income Elite program.
Steve and his team of experts will take you by the hand and show you every step you need to take to get a website up and running and making money. Plus you can check out the whole program for as little as $4.95 on a 5 day Risk Free Trial to make sure it lives up to what it promises. Click here to read more about the Income Elite Program.
Make Money in Network Marketing or MLM
It has been said that 10% of new millionaires in the US over the past ten years have done it by building businesses through network marketing.
Even well known authors and business people such as Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad), Donald Trump (Trump University) and Tony Robbins (Robbins Institute) have all stated that Home Based Businesses and particularly network marketing, direct sales and MLMs will be the biggest growth industry of the next decade.
The highly respected Forbes Magazine forecast that an incredible 79,000,000 new home based businesses would start over the next three years. That’s over 500,000 a week – and just in the U.S.
If you’re interested in getting involved with a great new travel based network marketing company, click here for a full business overview. No Experience in necessary, you get full training and gives you the opportunity to make money and earn free vacation vouchers to hotels and resorts all around the world.
Now that’s certainly not to say that the MLM business model suits everybody. There is always a rather large drop out or failure rate, but then that holds true for pretty much any business, online, offline, MLM or whatever. Most Businesses do tend to fail in their first 4 years, but out of the tens of millions that are started each year, there are plenty that do succeed.
Entrepreneur Magazine estimates that the US home-based business industry may be worth over $420 billion a year; that’s more than pharmacy; food; and consumer goods combined; with an average home office household earning of 65,000 US dollars a year.
With increasing financial uncertainty; job lay-offs and a shift in thinking to create a better lifestyle, home based businesses as either an additional part-time income or replacement of primary income can only grow massively over the coming years.
So exactly what does it take to succeed with a network marketing business. Most experts tend to agree on the following attributes:
1. You must be prepared to “network” with likeminded people. People who join network marketing companies and do nothing never get anywhere. The only way to succeed is to get involved and build your business. Now this doesn’t mean you have to become a leech to your friends and family and sell them stuff, or join them up. On the contrary, most successful MLMs run proper businesses, they learn the value and develop the skills needed to generate quality leads to their business. People who are already looking for the products or services they are selling and offer their products.
2. You must have some marketing knowledge, or be prepared to learn some. The internet has been a godsend for people looking to generate leads to any type of business. Gone are the days when you had to run newspaper, classifieds, radio ads or letter box drops in order to generate leads. Nowadays anyone looking for pretty much anything is looking online. So all you need to do is know how to get your message in front of the people who are already looking for it. Most good network marketing companies offer some kind of basic level marketing support, but it’s always a good idea to seek out those who are willing to go the extra mile and teach you everything you need to succeed.
3. You must be prepared to do some real work. A lot of people join network marketing companies looking to “get rich quick”. But the reality is, most of them are not prepared to do the work it takes to be successful. Yes there is a lot of money to be made in network marketing, but it’s not a sure thing, you still have to work hard, especially at the beginning if you want your business to take off. (just like you do in any business venture, or anything else worth doing for that matter)
4. Believe in the products you are selling. This should be obvious, but needs to be said anyway, make sure you choose a company who sell products that you actually believe in, use and are happy to recommend other people use. To be success in your business you are going to be spending quite a bit of time talking about your products, so make sure it is something you can relate to and get excited about selling.
So if that sounds like you, then perhaps you have what it takes to build a successful network marketing business.
So the only question you have to ask yourself now, is which company will you join…
Even well known authors and business people such as Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad), Donald Trump (Trump University) and Tony Robbins (Robbins Institute) have all stated that Home Based Businesses and particularly network marketing, direct sales and MLMs will be the biggest growth industry of the next decade.
The highly respected Forbes Magazine forecast that an incredible 79,000,000 new home based businesses would start over the next three years. That’s over 500,000 a week – and just in the U.S.
If you’re interested in getting involved with a great new travel based network marketing company, click here for a full business overview. No Experience in necessary, you get full training and gives you the opportunity to make money and earn free vacation vouchers to hotels and resorts all around the world.
Now that’s certainly not to say that the MLM business model suits everybody. There is always a rather large drop out or failure rate, but then that holds true for pretty much any business, online, offline, MLM or whatever. Most Businesses do tend to fail in their first 4 years, but out of the tens of millions that are started each year, there are plenty that do succeed.
Entrepreneur Magazine estimates that the US home-based business industry may be worth over $420 billion a year; that’s more than pharmacy; food; and consumer goods combined; with an average home office household earning of 65,000 US dollars a year.
With increasing financial uncertainty; job lay-offs and a shift in thinking to create a better lifestyle, home based businesses as either an additional part-time income or replacement of primary income can only grow massively over the coming years.
So exactly what does it take to succeed with a network marketing business. Most experts tend to agree on the following attributes:
1. You must be prepared to “network” with likeminded people. People who join network marketing companies and do nothing never get anywhere. The only way to succeed is to get involved and build your business. Now this doesn’t mean you have to become a leech to your friends and family and sell them stuff, or join them up. On the contrary, most successful MLMs run proper businesses, they learn the value and develop the skills needed to generate quality leads to their business. People who are already looking for the products or services they are selling and offer their products.
2. You must have some marketing knowledge, or be prepared to learn some. The internet has been a godsend for people looking to generate leads to any type of business. Gone are the days when you had to run newspaper, classifieds, radio ads or letter box drops in order to generate leads. Nowadays anyone looking for pretty much anything is looking online. So all you need to do is know how to get your message in front of the people who are already looking for it. Most good network marketing companies offer some kind of basic level marketing support, but it’s always a good idea to seek out those who are willing to go the extra mile and teach you everything you need to succeed.
3. You must be prepared to do some real work. A lot of people join network marketing companies looking to “get rich quick”. But the reality is, most of them are not prepared to do the work it takes to be successful. Yes there is a lot of money to be made in network marketing, but it’s not a sure thing, you still have to work hard, especially at the beginning if you want your business to take off. (just like you do in any business venture, or anything else worth doing for that matter)
4. Believe in the products you are selling. This should be obvious, but needs to be said anyway, make sure you choose a company who sell products that you actually believe in, use and are happy to recommend other people use. To be success in your business you are going to be spending quite a bit of time talking about your products, so make sure it is something you can relate to and get excited about selling.
So if that sounds like you, then perhaps you have what it takes to build a successful network marketing business.
So the only question you have to ask yourself now, is which company will you join…
How To Make Money Blogging
More and more people are realising that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business. It requires minimal start up costs, you can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you don’t update your blog.
There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use Wordpress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.
If you want to get started right away, check out this great little step by step guide, click here.
If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.
It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.
Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.
But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.
Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.
But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.
You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.
So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.
One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.
All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.
There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.
And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?
But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.
And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!
So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.
If you are serious about learning how to make money online, be it for a little extra cash, or to replace your income, the best place to start is with Steve Peirce’s Income Elite program.
Steve and his team of experts will take you by the hand and show you every step you need to take to get a website up and running and making money. Plus you can check out the whole program for as little as $4.95 on a 5 day Risk Free Trial to make sure it lives up to what it promises. Click here to read more about the Income Elite Program.
There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use Wordpress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.
If you want to get started right away, check out this great little step by step guide, click here.
If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.
It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.
Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.
But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.
Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.
But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.
You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.
So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.
One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.
All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.
There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.
And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?
But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.
And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!
So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.
If you are serious about learning how to make money online, be it for a little extra cash, or to replace your income, the best place to start is with Steve Peirce’s Income Elite program.
Steve and his team of experts will take you by the hand and show you every step you need to take to get a website up and running and making money. Plus you can check out the whole program for as little as $4.95 on a 5 day Risk Free Trial to make sure it lives up to what it promises. Click here to read more about the Income Elite Program.
How To Make Money On EBay
There is a lot of money to be made as a seller on eBay. Thousands and thousands of sales are made each day, resulting in a lot of income for a lot of sellers. And there is still room for you if you want to get involved – whether you want to earn some part time cash or set up a whole new full time business on the side.
But where do you get your stock from? How do you get started? And how can you build a business that gives you PowerSeller status? Relax – you’re about to find out.
It’s easy work to get started earning money on eBay. Once you’ve signed up for your free account the best way to get a feel for what selling is like is to auction off some of your personal items that you no longer want. If you are going to start buying stock to resell, you’ll do better by getting some basic selling experience first.
While we are on the subject of stock, you’ll need to decide what kind of business you are going to set up. Of course you can sell anything you like, but if you want to make a name for yourself it helps to become known for selling a specific type of product.
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean your product area needs to be a small one; on the contrary it could be quite large. You could sell toys for example – there’s plenty there to keep any seller going for months on end without selling the same thing twice. You do need to pick a popular product though, and it’s worth doing some research using eBay’s advanced search feature to find out what is selling and how much it’s selling for.
So let’s say you want to sell computer games, for example. There are hundreds of games you could buy to sell here, but if you don’t know which ones will sell you could lose a lot of money buying the wrong stock. By searching the ended listings you can see which titles consistently sell well, and which ones will produce the best profit for you.
Okay – so you know how to figure out what to buy. Now you need to know where to get it from. It stands to reason that no seller is going to tell you where they get their stock; that would be like giving away the keys to their business. In order to find the best sources for stock you need to do a bit of legwork.
We should mention here that there are two main sources for stock – wholesalers and dropshippers. Both have their pros and cons; it just depends on which method you personally prefer.
Dropshippers hold all the stock for you, so you only actually pay for an item once you’ve received payment from the customer. You may have to pay a fee to join the scheme in the first place though. If you choose to go with one or more wholesalers you will need to have the room to buy the stock, and the money to buy it in advance. This comes with more risk since you could buy stock that doesn’t sell, but with the tactic we’ve already covered for checking completed listings before you order anything, the risk here should be kept to a minimum.
So – back to where to find these sources. If you have a particular product in mind that you want to sell, the simple act of looking at the packaging can often reveal the name of the supplier. You can then check out their website to see what else they do.
Another method is to search for what you want on Google. This sounds deceptively simple and in fact many people don’t think of doing this. It can be a bit hit or miss, but it’s possible to find some excellent wholesalers through this method. Over time you will go from having one wholesaler to a handful of sources to get your stock from, and you can build up your product range as you start to grow.
Building your feedback is an important part of being a good seller and the higher you can get your score the better. It sets you apart as being a dedicated seller. And the faster your score climbs, the closer you get to attaining PowerSeller status.
The PowerSeller symbol is highly prized among serious eBay sellers, and there are five levels to strive for. The first is Bronze, and it’s a lot easier to reach than you might think. While you might set a goal for yourself to reach PowerSeller, you will find that if you build up your product range and gradually increase your sales, you will reach it in no time. And if you get off to a great start you might just do it in three months – the minimum time you can actually do it in.
Many sellers have their own shop on eBay, but it’s not necessary when you first get started. In fact you are often better off waiting until you have a good range of stock before opening a shop, since it can look rather empty if you only have a handful of items.
The final thing to think about is the price of the items you are selling. It stands to reason that if you sell a hundred different products in the $5 to $10 price range, you won’t make as much cash as you would selling a hundred in the $50 to $100 price range.
But you need to work out what you enjoy selling and what you can sell lots of to experience real success on eBay. Don’t go for expensive products just because they might bring a bigger profit. Go for your calling – that’s where you will experience the biggest success.
Above all, remember that it can take time to build a successful business – but if you’re determined to achieve real success on eBay you should be enjoying the journey.
If you have any questions or comments about making money on eBay, please leave your comments below.
But where do you get your stock from? How do you get started? And how can you build a business that gives you PowerSeller status? Relax – you’re about to find out.
It’s easy work to get started earning money on eBay. Once you’ve signed up for your free account the best way to get a feel for what selling is like is to auction off some of your personal items that you no longer want. If you are going to start buying stock to resell, you’ll do better by getting some basic selling experience first.
While we are on the subject of stock, you’ll need to decide what kind of business you are going to set up. Of course you can sell anything you like, but if you want to make a name for yourself it helps to become known for selling a specific type of product.
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean your product area needs to be a small one; on the contrary it could be quite large. You could sell toys for example – there’s plenty there to keep any seller going for months on end without selling the same thing twice. You do need to pick a popular product though, and it’s worth doing some research using eBay’s advanced search feature to find out what is selling and how much it’s selling for.
So let’s say you want to sell computer games, for example. There are hundreds of games you could buy to sell here, but if you don’t know which ones will sell you could lose a lot of money buying the wrong stock. By searching the ended listings you can see which titles consistently sell well, and which ones will produce the best profit for you.
Okay – so you know how to figure out what to buy. Now you need to know where to get it from. It stands to reason that no seller is going to tell you where they get their stock; that would be like giving away the keys to their business. In order to find the best sources for stock you need to do a bit of legwork.
We should mention here that there are two main sources for stock – wholesalers and dropshippers. Both have their pros and cons; it just depends on which method you personally prefer.
Dropshippers hold all the stock for you, so you only actually pay for an item once you’ve received payment from the customer. You may have to pay a fee to join the scheme in the first place though. If you choose to go with one or more wholesalers you will need to have the room to buy the stock, and the money to buy it in advance. This comes with more risk since you could buy stock that doesn’t sell, but with the tactic we’ve already covered for checking completed listings before you order anything, the risk here should be kept to a minimum.
So – back to where to find these sources. If you have a particular product in mind that you want to sell, the simple act of looking at the packaging can often reveal the name of the supplier. You can then check out their website to see what else they do.
Another method is to search for what you want on Google. This sounds deceptively simple and in fact many people don’t think of doing this. It can be a bit hit or miss, but it’s possible to find some excellent wholesalers through this method. Over time you will go from having one wholesaler to a handful of sources to get your stock from, and you can build up your product range as you start to grow.
Building your feedback is an important part of being a good seller and the higher you can get your score the better. It sets you apart as being a dedicated seller. And the faster your score climbs, the closer you get to attaining PowerSeller status.
The PowerSeller symbol is highly prized among serious eBay sellers, and there are five levels to strive for. The first is Bronze, and it’s a lot easier to reach than you might think. While you might set a goal for yourself to reach PowerSeller, you will find that if you build up your product range and gradually increase your sales, you will reach it in no time. And if you get off to a great start you might just do it in three months – the minimum time you can actually do it in.
Many sellers have their own shop on eBay, but it’s not necessary when you first get started. In fact you are often better off waiting until you have a good range of stock before opening a shop, since it can look rather empty if you only have a handful of items.
The final thing to think about is the price of the items you are selling. It stands to reason that if you sell a hundred different products in the $5 to $10 price range, you won’t make as much cash as you would selling a hundred in the $50 to $100 price range.
But you need to work out what you enjoy selling and what you can sell lots of to experience real success on eBay. Don’t go for expensive products just because they might bring a bigger profit. Go for your calling – that’s where you will experience the biggest success.
Above all, remember that it can take time to build a successful business – but if you’re determined to achieve real success on eBay you should be enjoying the journey.
If you have any questions or comments about making money on eBay, please leave your comments below.
13 Ways to Earn Money Fast
Everybody needs a quick infusion of cash from time to time. These ideas bring in money fast, and many can also be done at flexible times, so it's easier to arrange child care with a friend or family member for free.
1. Have a garage sale. By using a few easy tricks, like posting fliers at grocery stores and Laundromats, making signs that can be seen from nearby busy streets and displaying your items in a department-store style, you can increase the amount your sale brings in. Find out how to earn more with Garage Sale 101 tips.
2. Sell on eBay. Books, CDs, unused sports or exercise equipment, clothing, novelty items -- people buy all kinds of things. Even if you're selling several small items, the money can add up. Just make sure the buyer, not you, pays the cost of shipping.
Watch Video: Save Smart, Spend Smart
3. Put clothes on consignment. This is an especially good way to get rid of clothing like fancy dresses (think old prom gowns and cocktail dresses you'll never wear again), but anything in good condition can be put on consignment. You share the money from the sale with the consignment shop, but it's an easy way to squeeze some money out of clothes that would otherwise just take up closet space.
4. Perform household services. You can earn some money informally by letting friends, family, church members and others in your community know that you're available to clean their houses or apartments, or to take in ironing. If you find you have a knack and stamina for cleaning quickly and thoroughly, you can turn this into a regular, reliable way to earn extra money every month.
5. Have a bake sale. Do you make killera chocolate chip cookies? chocolate chip cookies? Are yummy breakfast burritos your specialty? If so, why not bring in your items once a week to your job and sell them to coworkers and other businesspeople in the vicinity? If you don't have a job, what about a friend's workplace, a community center or a nursing home? Put the word out beforehand and gauge the response as you go, so you don't end up with a lot of leftover food. By talking up your home-baked goodies and arriving at the same time every day or every week, you may find that people start to anticipate your arrival. You can start a cottage industry along the lines of Mary's Monday Cookie Break when you come around to hawk your wares.
6. Sell homegrown fruits and vegetables. You don't have to have a farm to produce delicious, organic produce. By presenting your goods in an appealing way (save the plastic or cardboard produce containers from the grocery store and tie them with a distinctive ribbon or desktop-printed label), you give them niche appeal, and you can sell them much the same way as baked items, listed above.
1. Have a garage sale. By using a few easy tricks, like posting fliers at grocery stores and Laundromats, making signs that can be seen from nearby busy streets and displaying your items in a department-store style, you can increase the amount your sale brings in. Find out how to earn more with Garage Sale 101 tips.
2. Sell on eBay. Books, CDs, unused sports or exercise equipment, clothing, novelty items -- people buy all kinds of things. Even if you're selling several small items, the money can add up. Just make sure the buyer, not you, pays the cost of shipping.
Watch Video: Save Smart, Spend Smart
3. Put clothes on consignment. This is an especially good way to get rid of clothing like fancy dresses (think old prom gowns and cocktail dresses you'll never wear again), but anything in good condition can be put on consignment. You share the money from the sale with the consignment shop, but it's an easy way to squeeze some money out of clothes that would otherwise just take up closet space.
4. Perform household services. You can earn some money informally by letting friends, family, church members and others in your community know that you're available to clean their houses or apartments, or to take in ironing. If you find you have a knack and stamina for cleaning quickly and thoroughly, you can turn this into a regular, reliable way to earn extra money every month.
5. Have a bake sale. Do you make killera chocolate chip cookies? chocolate chip cookies? Are yummy breakfast burritos your specialty? If so, why not bring in your items once a week to your job and sell them to coworkers and other businesspeople in the vicinity? If you don't have a job, what about a friend's workplace, a community center or a nursing home? Put the word out beforehand and gauge the response as you go, so you don't end up with a lot of leftover food. By talking up your home-baked goodies and arriving at the same time every day or every week, you may find that people start to anticipate your arrival. You can start a cottage industry along the lines of Mary's Monday Cookie Break when you come around to hawk your wares.
6. Sell homegrown fruits and vegetables. You don't have to have a farm to produce delicious, organic produce. By presenting your goods in an appealing way (save the plastic or cardboard produce containers from the grocery store and tie them with a distinctive ribbon or desktop-printed label), you give them niche appeal, and you can sell them much the same way as baked items, listed above.
How to Make Money
Some people receive unemployment or some kind of welfare. Other people own businesses or are employees. Some people got rich somehow and receive money from property they own, such as savings account interest, book royalties and so forth. In a country in which business is not subsidized, the business buys merchandise at a lower price than it sells it for, although this causes inflation. In the U. S. for example, the money the central bank creates is loaned to commercial banks rather than spent. Business borrows and then must repay the money by charging higher prices and hoping someone will buy something. In this credit-based economy, some people have reportedly become multi-millionaires by playing American football, while other people are homeless. Some people make money by selling stock at a higher price than they bought it for, but they find paying enough attention to the stock market to do that to be work.
Steps
1.
Use the law of supply and demand to your advantage. Most of us are familiar with the law of supply and demand--the more there is of something, the cheaper it is; conversely, the rarer the product or service, the more expensive it is. However, other than when we get to a toy store before sunrise to get on line for the latest fad toy that kids can't get enough of, we don't really apply the law of supply and demand to our own lives--particularly our careers. For example, if you're aspiring to do something that many, many other people want to do (so much so that they do it for free, as a hobby) then it will be far more challenging for you to make money doing it. On the other hand, if you do something that most people don't want to do, or if you get very good at doing something most people don't do all that well, then you can make a whole lot more money. In other words, choose a career in pharmacy over photography.
# If your career path is going nowhere, resign gracefully and switch careers. Research occupations to find out how much they pay and what their future outlook is (in the U.S., you can find this information in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook). Find an occupation that pays well, and invest in the education and/or training to get you that job. Look for employers that offer competitive salaries and ample opportunity for advancement.
# If your goal is to make enough money to retire early, prioritize earning potential over job satisfaction, since you plan on getting out of the rat race early, anyway. Consider the types of jobs that pay extraordinarily well in exchange for hard work, little psychological satisfaction, and a punishing lifestyle, such as investment banking, sales, and engineering. If you can keep your expenses low and do this for about 10 years, you can save a nest egg for a modest but youthful retirement, or to supplement your income while you do something you really love doing but doesn't pay much. But keep in mind that delayed gratification requires clear goal-setting and strong willpower.
2.
Recognize that time is money. This critical piece of advice is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who was an accomplished American inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, and statesman--the ultimate multitasker. Your ability to manage your time (and stop procrastinating) is a critical ingredient in your ability to make money. Whether you have a job or are self-employed, keep track of what you're spending your time on. Ask yourself "Which of these activities make the most money, and which of them are a waste of time?" Do more of the former and less of the latter, simple as that. When you're focusing on high-priority tasks, get the job done well, and get the job done fast. By working efficiently, you're giving your employer or clients more time, and they'll appreciate you for it. Remember that time is a limited resource that you're always investing. Will your investments pay off?
3.
Jack up your prices. If you're providing a skill, service or product that is in high demand and low supply, and you're making the most of your time, you should be making good money. Unfortunately, there are many people who are too humble or fearful to demand that they get paid accordingly. It's the pushovers in life who get taken advantage of and exploited, so if you think you might be one of them, learn how to stop being a people pleaser. If you work for someone else, ask for a pay raise or get a promotion, and if none of that pans out, revisit your career options as described previously. If you're self-employed, the first thing to do is to make sure your customers and clients pay up on time--this alone can substantially improve your income. Check your prices and rates against those of your competitors--are you undercutting them? Why? If you're providing a superior product or service, you should be getting at least the average, unless your profitability depends on mass production, in which case you're probably making a lot of money and wouldn't be reading this article anyway!
4.
Be proactive. Remember Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Make plans, complete with as many calculations as possible, then anticipate everything that can go wrong. Then make contingency or backup plans for each scenario. Don't leave anything to luck. If you're writing a business plan, for example, do your best to estimate when you'll break even, then multiply that time frame by three to get a more realistic date; and after you've identified all the costs, add 20% to that for costs that will come up that you didn't anticipate.[1] Your best defense against Murphy's law is to assume the worst, and brace yourself. An appropriate amount of insurance may be something worth considering. Don't forget the advice of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist who made several incredible breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease: "Luck favors the prepared mind."
5.
Redefine wealth. In studies of millionaires, people are surprised to learn that most millionaires aren't doctors, lawyers, and corporate leaders with big houses and fancy cars; they're people who religiously live below their means and invest the surplus into assets, rather than liabilities.[2] As you're taking the above steps to make more money, keep in mind that increased income does not necessarily equal increased wealth. Most people who flaunt their wealth actually have a low net worth because their debt to asset ratio is high--in other words, they owe a whole lot more money than they actually have. All of the previous steps have outlined aggressive strategies for making money, but you'll never get anywhere if you have a hole in your pocket.
*
They say that a penny saved is a penny earned. Actually, when you consider that you pay taxes on every penny you earn, you really do make more money by saving than by increasing your income, especially if the extra income will increase your tax rate dramatically. For example, let's say you have a choice between saving $100 or earning an extra $100. If you pay 15% taxes, then when you earn an $100, you only get $85. But when you shave $100 off of your existing budget, you keep it all. To sweeten the deal further, if you take advantage of compound interest as found in most savings accounts, over time you'll start making money on the amount saved plus previous interest paid on that amount saved. It'll be pennies at first, but eventually the amount will multiply exponentially.
* Take advantage of tax laws if you're self-employed. Money saved on taxes is still money saved. You may be able to deduct many of your business expenses (use of your home, use of your car, office supplies, etc.) if you keep good records. You may also qualify for tax breaks, such as deducting your health insurance premiums on your tax return. These laws are in place to encourage commerce and business growth, so don't neglect their benefits.
* If you're not self-employed and work for a company, find out if they have a retirement plan. If you're lucky, employers will sometimes match contributions you make into a retirement fund. Retirement plans also often have the benefit of being tax-deferred. The longer you get to keep your money (and make interest on it) the better.
*
Know the difference between an asset and a liability. An asset is something you own and a liability is something you owe. A home you own is an asset because you could sell it. A mortgage is a liability because it is money you owe the bank. A savings account is an asset. High risk investments such as stocks and mutual funds are also. Any patents and copyrighted works you own are assets also. Theoretically, if you save enough money or invent or write something, your assets could earn enough money for you to live on.
* Watch out for inflation chipping away at your assets. We've all heard an elderly person describe the purchasing power of a coin in their day. Inflation continues to make today's money worth less in the future. To win the race against time and inflation, learn to invest your money in the right places. A savings account might help you to keep up with inflation; however, to stay ahead of the game you'll want to invest in bonds, stocks, or some other investment that returns above the average rate of inflation (currently 3%-4%).
Steps
1.
Use the law of supply and demand to your advantage. Most of us are familiar with the law of supply and demand--the more there is of something, the cheaper it is; conversely, the rarer the product or service, the more expensive it is. However, other than when we get to a toy store before sunrise to get on line for the latest fad toy that kids can't get enough of, we don't really apply the law of supply and demand to our own lives--particularly our careers. For example, if you're aspiring to do something that many, many other people want to do (so much so that they do it for free, as a hobby) then it will be far more challenging for you to make money doing it. On the other hand, if you do something that most people don't want to do, or if you get very good at doing something most people don't do all that well, then you can make a whole lot more money. In other words, choose a career in pharmacy over photography.
# If your career path is going nowhere, resign gracefully and switch careers. Research occupations to find out how much they pay and what their future outlook is (in the U.S., you can find this information in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook). Find an occupation that pays well, and invest in the education and/or training to get you that job. Look for employers that offer competitive salaries and ample opportunity for advancement.
# If your goal is to make enough money to retire early, prioritize earning potential over job satisfaction, since you plan on getting out of the rat race early, anyway. Consider the types of jobs that pay extraordinarily well in exchange for hard work, little psychological satisfaction, and a punishing lifestyle, such as investment banking, sales, and engineering. If you can keep your expenses low and do this for about 10 years, you can save a nest egg for a modest but youthful retirement, or to supplement your income while you do something you really love doing but doesn't pay much. But keep in mind that delayed gratification requires clear goal-setting and strong willpower.
2.
Recognize that time is money. This critical piece of advice is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who was an accomplished American inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, and statesman--the ultimate multitasker. Your ability to manage your time (and stop procrastinating) is a critical ingredient in your ability to make money. Whether you have a job or are self-employed, keep track of what you're spending your time on. Ask yourself "Which of these activities make the most money, and which of them are a waste of time?" Do more of the former and less of the latter, simple as that. When you're focusing on high-priority tasks, get the job done well, and get the job done fast. By working efficiently, you're giving your employer or clients more time, and they'll appreciate you for it. Remember that time is a limited resource that you're always investing. Will your investments pay off?
3.
Jack up your prices. If you're providing a skill, service or product that is in high demand and low supply, and you're making the most of your time, you should be making good money. Unfortunately, there are many people who are too humble or fearful to demand that they get paid accordingly. It's the pushovers in life who get taken advantage of and exploited, so if you think you might be one of them, learn how to stop being a people pleaser. If you work for someone else, ask for a pay raise or get a promotion, and if none of that pans out, revisit your career options as described previously. If you're self-employed, the first thing to do is to make sure your customers and clients pay up on time--this alone can substantially improve your income. Check your prices and rates against those of your competitors--are you undercutting them? Why? If you're providing a superior product or service, you should be getting at least the average, unless your profitability depends on mass production, in which case you're probably making a lot of money and wouldn't be reading this article anyway!
4.
Be proactive. Remember Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Make plans, complete with as many calculations as possible, then anticipate everything that can go wrong. Then make contingency or backup plans for each scenario. Don't leave anything to luck. If you're writing a business plan, for example, do your best to estimate when you'll break even, then multiply that time frame by three to get a more realistic date; and after you've identified all the costs, add 20% to that for costs that will come up that you didn't anticipate.[1] Your best defense against Murphy's law is to assume the worst, and brace yourself. An appropriate amount of insurance may be something worth considering. Don't forget the advice of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist who made several incredible breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease: "Luck favors the prepared mind."
5.
Redefine wealth. In studies of millionaires, people are surprised to learn that most millionaires aren't doctors, lawyers, and corporate leaders with big houses and fancy cars; they're people who religiously live below their means and invest the surplus into assets, rather than liabilities.[2] As you're taking the above steps to make more money, keep in mind that increased income does not necessarily equal increased wealth. Most people who flaunt their wealth actually have a low net worth because their debt to asset ratio is high--in other words, they owe a whole lot more money than they actually have. All of the previous steps have outlined aggressive strategies for making money, but you'll never get anywhere if you have a hole in your pocket.
*
They say that a penny saved is a penny earned. Actually, when you consider that you pay taxes on every penny you earn, you really do make more money by saving than by increasing your income, especially if the extra income will increase your tax rate dramatically. For example, let's say you have a choice between saving $100 or earning an extra $100. If you pay 15% taxes, then when you earn an $100, you only get $85. But when you shave $100 off of your existing budget, you keep it all. To sweeten the deal further, if you take advantage of compound interest as found in most savings accounts, over time you'll start making money on the amount saved plus previous interest paid on that amount saved. It'll be pennies at first, but eventually the amount will multiply exponentially.
* Take advantage of tax laws if you're self-employed. Money saved on taxes is still money saved. You may be able to deduct many of your business expenses (use of your home, use of your car, office supplies, etc.) if you keep good records. You may also qualify for tax breaks, such as deducting your health insurance premiums on your tax return. These laws are in place to encourage commerce and business growth, so don't neglect their benefits.
* If you're not self-employed and work for a company, find out if they have a retirement plan. If you're lucky, employers will sometimes match contributions you make into a retirement fund. Retirement plans also often have the benefit of being tax-deferred. The longer you get to keep your money (and make interest on it) the better.
*
Know the difference between an asset and a liability. An asset is something you own and a liability is something you owe. A home you own is an asset because you could sell it. A mortgage is a liability because it is money you owe the bank. A savings account is an asset. High risk investments such as stocks and mutual funds are also. Any patents and copyrighted works you own are assets also. Theoretically, if you save enough money or invent or write something, your assets could earn enough money for you to live on.
* Watch out for inflation chipping away at your assets. We've all heard an elderly person describe the purchasing power of a coin in their day. Inflation continues to make today's money worth less in the future. To win the race against time and inflation, learn to invest your money in the right places. A savings account might help you to keep up with inflation; however, to stay ahead of the game you'll want to invest in bonds, stocks, or some other investment that returns above the average rate of inflation (currently 3%-4%).
Earn money via online from websites
Technology is the business extension of science and the greatest technology ever invented is Internet. Some people says the Internet has made more millionaires than any other means in history. Millions of people have found success with internet and millions of people still seeking gold coins on the internet.
Anyway we are not gonna teach you how to be a millionaire or billionaire. We are just trying to let you know that how you can make some money extra
* Earn with your own website - You can earn a decent amount of money if you dedicate some advertising space on your website or blog. You will get paid when someone clicks on a ad placed on your website or blog.
* Earn for visiting sites - You can Earn a few cents per website you visit, through a specific paid to click network.
* Earn by Writing article - There is thousands of websites want to pay you for your article or writings.
* Get paid to signup - You can earn some money by joining a website as a member.
* Earn from online Games - Play online games and win, you will get a reward by the authority of that site.
* Earn from your photos - If you have some photos captured by you, then you can sell them online. Some sites pays you if you upload those on that site.
* Earn from your videos - There is also opportunity of earning by uploading your videos.
* Work from home jobs - Actually i am talking about freelance and outsourcing jobs with what you can earn your livelihood.
Most of the cases You need to have a Paypal, E-gold or Moneybookers account to receive payments.
* Paypal - Paypal is a third party payment processor. It can pay or receive funds one behalf of you, all you need is to open a account with Paypal. But be careful if you are from Bangladesh then Paypal is not for you because Paypal does not support Bangladesh. So don't try to do anything fraud with paypal, you will loose all of your money. Mostly try to avoid Paypal fund receiving option where another payment option is available. If you do not have another option then just contact someone who have a verified paypal account. ask him/her to receive fund on his account for you. Or you can contact some hosting firms to receive fund for you. Learn more on www.paypal.com
* E-gold - E-gold is like paypal and it supports any country. just signup and start receiving funds. more on www.e-gold.com
* Moneybookers - It is also like paypal and supports all country.
If you have problem regarding this you can mail us (jobaerulkaes at yahoo.com).
Notice:- All websites and services described here is not a part of bangalionline.com. So bangalionline.com is not liable for those sites and services. Try to go ahead on your own risk. May be you get scammed several times but millions of people earning this way. If you can build a good referrals Then you will be able to earn a very good amount of money. Best of luck!
Anyway we are not gonna teach you how to be a millionaire or billionaire. We are just trying to let you know that how you can make some money extra
* Earn with your own website - You can earn a decent amount of money if you dedicate some advertising space on your website or blog. You will get paid when someone clicks on a ad placed on your website or blog.
* Earn for visiting sites - You can Earn a few cents per website you visit, through a specific paid to click network.
* Earn by Writing article - There is thousands of websites want to pay you for your article or writings.
* Get paid to signup - You can earn some money by joining a website as a member.
* Earn from online Games - Play online games and win, you will get a reward by the authority of that site.
* Earn from your photos - If you have some photos captured by you, then you can sell them online. Some sites pays you if you upload those on that site.
* Earn from your videos - There is also opportunity of earning by uploading your videos.
* Work from home jobs - Actually i am talking about freelance and outsourcing jobs with what you can earn your livelihood.
Most of the cases You need to have a Paypal, E-gold or Moneybookers account to receive payments.
* Paypal - Paypal is a third party payment processor. It can pay or receive funds one behalf of you, all you need is to open a account with Paypal. But be careful if you are from Bangladesh then Paypal is not for you because Paypal does not support Bangladesh. So don't try to do anything fraud with paypal, you will loose all of your money. Mostly try to avoid Paypal fund receiving option where another payment option is available. If you do not have another option then just contact someone who have a verified paypal account. ask him/her to receive fund on his account for you. Or you can contact some hosting firms to receive fund for you. Learn more on www.paypal.com
* E-gold - E-gold is like paypal and it supports any country. just signup and start receiving funds. more on www.e-gold.com
* Moneybookers - It is also like paypal and supports all country.
If you have problem regarding this you can mail us (jobaerulkaes at yahoo.com).
Notice:- All websites and services described here is not a part of bangalionline.com. So bangalionline.com is not liable for those sites and services. Try to go ahead on your own risk. May be you get scammed several times but millions of people earning this way. If you can build a good referrals Then you will be able to earn a very good amount of money. Best of luck!
How to Earn Money Through Google Adsense
Google’s AdSense is a fascinating revenue-sharing opportunity for small, medium and large web sites. Some webmasters are designing brand new sites specifically for serving AdSense text ads, however it’s against the AdSense rules to design a site purely for AdSense, so you’ll want to include a few Affiliate links or sell your own product, too.
Steps
1. Determine a goal for what you want to earn using AdSense. Of course, you want to earn a lot, but make sure it's realistic.
* Consider that to earn $1 a day per page, you need, per page…
o visitors, 5% click-through rate (CTR) and average 5c payout.
o Or 200 visitors, 10% CTR and an average 5c payout.
o Or 100 visitors, 10% CTR, and an average 10c payout.
o Or 100 visitors, 5% CTR, and an average 20c payout
2. Consider whether these goals will be possible given your site. If it's too tough, create two sites, each attracting half the number.
3. Start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site. For example, if your site is about topics such as debt consolidation, web hosting or asbestos-related cancer, you’ll earn much more per click than if it’s about free things. On the other hand, if you concentrate only on top-paying keywords, you’ll face an awful lot of tough competition. What you want are keywords that are high in demand and low in supply, So do some careful keyword research before you build your pages.
4. you’ll face an awful lot of tough competition. What you want are keywords that are high in demand and low in supply, So do some careful keyword research before you build your pages.
Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site and therefore provide the info you need to optimize your AdSense.
Tips
* Quality is the most important part of any web site. If your site does not contain the content of expected quality the visitor might not come back,
* A great resource for earning money is using traffic driving sites like Flixya[1]. You can sign up for Google Adsense and Flixya, without the costs or time needed to build traffic or your own site.
* Avoid non-English characters on English pages. There is a bug which can cause these pages to show irrelevant French ads.
* Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do say that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags.
Warnings
* If you don't have any content, Google will have to guess what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant.
* Do not click your ads. If Google catches you, they have the right and will close your account and retain any earnings you might have.
Steps
1. Determine a goal for what you want to earn using AdSense. Of course, you want to earn a lot, but make sure it's realistic.
* Consider that to earn $1 a day per page, you need, per page…
o visitors, 5% click-through rate (CTR) and average 5c payout.
o Or 200 visitors, 10% CTR and an average 5c payout.
o Or 100 visitors, 10% CTR, and an average 10c payout.
o Or 100 visitors, 5% CTR, and an average 20c payout
2. Consider whether these goals will be possible given your site. If it's too tough, create two sites, each attracting half the number.
3. Start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site. For example, if your site is about topics such as debt consolidation, web hosting or asbestos-related cancer, you’ll earn much more per click than if it’s about free things. On the other hand, if you concentrate only on top-paying keywords, you’ll face an awful lot of tough competition. What you want are keywords that are high in demand and low in supply, So do some careful keyword research before you build your pages.
4. you’ll face an awful lot of tough competition. What you want are keywords that are high in demand and low in supply, So do some careful keyword research before you build your pages.
Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site and therefore provide the info you need to optimize your AdSense.
Tips
* Quality is the most important part of any web site. If your site does not contain the content of expected quality the visitor might not come back,
* A great resource for earning money is using traffic driving sites like Flixya[1]. You can sign up for Google Adsense and Flixya, without the costs or time needed to build traffic or your own site.
* Avoid non-English characters on English pages. There is a bug which can cause these pages to show irrelevant French ads.
* Although Google doesn't release exact details as to how they determine the ads to serve on a given page, they do say that it's the text content of the page that matters, not the meta tags.
Warnings
* If you don't have any content, Google will have to guess what your page is about. It may guess wrong, and so the ads that it displays may not be relevant.
* Do not click your ads. If Google catches you, they have the right and will close your account and retain any earnings you might have.
Expose Your Blog - To Your Target Audience!
There are two ways for people to get to your blogs – links or social media. These are the place to put your effort to build your blog’s exposure.
Links: There are two types of links:
1. Links you make in other blogs:
• Links from your comments in other blogs.
• Your forum or social media signature.
• Your by-line as guest-posts.
2. Links you get from other blogs:
• Write great articles that people will link to.
• Ask them to link to you or exchange links with them.
The most powerful links that you can make or get are from popular blogs, sites, and forums related to your blogging niche. Not all links are equal - some links are better (in sending readers to your blog) than others. But it’s better to have all these links than to have none or just a few good ones. It’s unmistakable that if you have great and valuable content, links will come naturally.
Try also to write as guest-posts especially in popular blogs. But first, show that your content is worth it.
Social Media: The tip on social media (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc) is simply to be an active user. If you vote for other posts, they tend to vote for your article as this is naturally the easiest way to repay the favor. Once your article has been voted, other people will easily build it up the ladder on.
Some principles that guarantees her success are to be friendly, treat every person you interact with respect, always help out in the best way you can, focus on mutual benefit, and give more than you take.
Other Little Things
Without all of the above, the little things won't work. But once you have the essentials covered, consider putting some effort on the extras
• Make your feed button easily visible (e.g. at the top part without scrolling)
• Add the option to subscribe at the end of each post.
• Put effort on blog design. Readers see that authors’ are more serious with their content if they are serious about their blog design.
Links: There are two types of links:
1. Links you make in other blogs:
• Links from your comments in other blogs.
• Your forum or social media signature.
• Your by-line as guest-posts.
2. Links you get from other blogs:
• Write great articles that people will link to.
• Ask them to link to you or exchange links with them.
The most powerful links that you can make or get are from popular blogs, sites, and forums related to your blogging niche. Not all links are equal - some links are better (in sending readers to your blog) than others. But it’s better to have all these links than to have none or just a few good ones. It’s unmistakable that if you have great and valuable content, links will come naturally.
Try also to write as guest-posts especially in popular blogs. But first, show that your content is worth it.
Social Media: The tip on social media (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc) is simply to be an active user. If you vote for other posts, they tend to vote for your article as this is naturally the easiest way to repay the favor. Once your article has been voted, other people will easily build it up the ladder on.
Some principles that guarantees her success are to be friendly, treat every person you interact with respect, always help out in the best way you can, focus on mutual benefit, and give more than you take.
Other Little Things
Without all of the above, the little things won't work. But once you have the essentials covered, consider putting some effort on the extras
• Make your feed button easily visible (e.g. at the top part without scrolling)
• Add the option to subscribe at the end of each post.
• Put effort on blog design. Readers see that authors’ are more serious with their content if they are serious about their blog design.
Free SEO Guide to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
Traffic volume is the most important parameter when it comes to monetizing your blog (more visitors = more money). A large portion of traffic volume comes from search engines. To monetize efficiently, it's crucial to get your blog contents in the top list of any search engine result pages (SERP). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you to achieve this goal.
There are two types of search results:
• Natural (a.k.a organic).
• Paid (e.g. sponsored links in Google SERP).
We'll focus on improving your ranking for the natural search results. Getting in the first few pages of the SERP will ensure that most people will find your content.
Search engines basically need one thing to know where to put your blog on their list - your rank on the keyword(s) used to search. For example, if your blog title is Tiki Tiki Guide to Making Money, you might be ranked high if people search for the keywords 'tiki tiki guide'. But you might be far beneath the thousands of other pages on the keywords 'making money online'. The question is, which of these two keyword phrases people will most likely search for. The answer is obvious.
The key to performing SEO lies in knowing what keywords to use and how to optimize their use. Be warned that heavily searched keywords are usually targeted by millions of sites and blogs, whom you have to compete against to move up the SERP. Finding a balance between highly competitive and highly searched keywords is a challenge.
Keyword and SEO research takes time. Even professional bloggers take a few months to move up the SERP right into the first few pages. Above all, content is the heart of a blog. If the content isn't good, no SEO research will do you any good.
Target the Right Keywords
Deciding what to blog is the most critical part. You must do research on keywords prior to deciding your niche. Here are some list of what to check on:
• Search volumes on those keywords.
• Number of competitors writing in the same niche.
• Ads served based on those keywords, so that you don't blog on the ones serving very low cost-per-click(CPC).
• Variations of these keywords: their synonyms and related words or phrases (see which get searched more with less competitor).
The best tool to help you with this is Wordtracker, available at a price. The site offers free trial and limited functions available for free. There are other keyword tools available with different functionalities.
Choose Suitable Domain Name
SEO keywords begin from the URL. The best domain name is the one with keyword(s) in it. It's great to have a URL like www.yourownname.com, but you'll loose out on getting better SERP rank if it doesn't contain any keywords. Isn't it obvious that www.iwanttomakemoneyonline.com helps SEO better than www.johnjohnnyjonathan.com. Unless of course, you've built some high reputation and your name gets searched a lot.
The other perspective on domain naming is that building a brand name is better in the long run, with something easy and catchy to remember. So there's two side of the coin: you might want to flip on it. But once you've built your blog to a certain level, it's not good to change the domain name. Having a URL that's both catchy and keyword-friendly is ultimately the best. Problogger.net is both catchy and keyword-friendly. Use whois lookup to check if a domain is available.
Use Keywords in Other Sections
The idea is to maximize the use of keywords wherever you can (don't overdo it though). These are the places that you must put keywords in them:
• Blog Title - Search engines weigh your blog title heavily. Again, it's best to find a name that is both catchy and keyword-rich.
• Blog Description - This is where you want to write phrases that catches attention, but rich with keywords too. If you're ranked even at No.1, but your description is as dull as a bull, nobody is going to click to your blog.
• File Names - Use keywords to name files, pictures, photos, graphs, videos, etc that you're using in your blog.
• Internal Links - Some sites use image maps with hotspot hyperlinks, images, or buttons to navigate within the sites. This works against SEO. It's better to use text links instead of images as text links carry more weight when getting ranked in search engines.
• Tags or Labels - Each posts should be tagged or labelled with keywords to help strengthen SEO. Some prominent blog directories, like Technorati, uses these tags to identify your blog for others to search.
Blog titles, descriptions, and keywords can be enhanced by using META tags. Here's an article on how to use META tags efficiently.
Use Keywords Often in Content
How do search engine algorithms decide what each post is about? They'll scan for the the most-used keywords in the post, with different weights given to different elements. To make your posts 'acknowledged' as being related to any particular keywords, use and repeat them often in the posts. But don't do this too excessively to the point of being straight-out blunt and annoying. Having the right keyword-density in your posts have two benefits:
• Draws in more related ads to the post pages. Related ads have better click-through-rates (CTR).
• Contributes more towards getting higher rank on those keywords.
Build Links from External Sites
One way to get linked to is by exchanging links, commonly done in Blogrolls. Higher-ranking external sites helps your blog more in terms of SEO. Another way to do this is to submit your blog to directories (here's a tool for an automatic submission for multiple directories). Another highly trusted free directory is DMOZ. Posts can also be submitted to social media directories (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) that get voted up/down. Two benefits of submitting to directories:
• You're building links on external sites to your blog/posts.
• Others may stumble on your blog/posts in these directories and visit your blog from there.
Use Keywords to Anchor Hyperlinks
Don't use the term 'click here' to anchor hyperlinks - use keywords instead. Hyperlinks are valued more by ranking algorithms than the normal content text. Keyword anchors contribute better to SEO compared to the clickhere anchors.
Create Efficient Site Navigation Map
How to influence your readers to stay longer in your blog? Make it easy for them to see what's in your blog. To do this is to build efficient site map, something like an Archives or Categories lists. Even better is to list Related Posts items at the end of each post. Use keywords to anchor all links. This practice helps SEO as it build links to your own blog using keywords, albeit internally, and helps spiders to crawl up your pages easily.
------------------------------
This article has been adapted from an article by Randy DuerMyer at About.com (Alexa rank: 144). The main key points was summarized to shorten the text and expanded to include new and valuable information not available in the original article. The new article (1134 words) is much shorter by 40% compared to the original article (1880 words).
There are two types of search results:
• Natural (a.k.a organic).
• Paid (e.g. sponsored links in Google SERP).
We'll focus on improving your ranking for the natural search results. Getting in the first few pages of the SERP will ensure that most people will find your content.
Search engines basically need one thing to know where to put your blog on their list - your rank on the keyword(s) used to search. For example, if your blog title is Tiki Tiki Guide to Making Money, you might be ranked high if people search for the keywords 'tiki tiki guide'. But you might be far beneath the thousands of other pages on the keywords 'making money online'. The question is, which of these two keyword phrases people will most likely search for. The answer is obvious.
The key to performing SEO lies in knowing what keywords to use and how to optimize their use. Be warned that heavily searched keywords are usually targeted by millions of sites and blogs, whom you have to compete against to move up the SERP. Finding a balance between highly competitive and highly searched keywords is a challenge.
Keyword and SEO research takes time. Even professional bloggers take a few months to move up the SERP right into the first few pages. Above all, content is the heart of a blog. If the content isn't good, no SEO research will do you any good.
Target the Right Keywords
Deciding what to blog is the most critical part. You must do research on keywords prior to deciding your niche. Here are some list of what to check on:
• Search volumes on those keywords.
• Number of competitors writing in the same niche.
• Ads served based on those keywords, so that you don't blog on the ones serving very low cost-per-click(CPC).
• Variations of these keywords: their synonyms and related words or phrases (see which get searched more with less competitor).
The best tool to help you with this is Wordtracker, available at a price. The site offers free trial and limited functions available for free. There are other keyword tools available with different functionalities.
Choose Suitable Domain Name
SEO keywords begin from the URL. The best domain name is the one with keyword(s) in it. It's great to have a URL like www.yourownname.com, but you'll loose out on getting better SERP rank if it doesn't contain any keywords. Isn't it obvious that www.iwanttomakemoneyonline.com helps SEO better than www.johnjohnnyjonathan.com. Unless of course, you've built some high reputation and your name gets searched a lot.
The other perspective on domain naming is that building a brand name is better in the long run, with something easy and catchy to remember. So there's two side of the coin: you might want to flip on it. But once you've built your blog to a certain level, it's not good to change the domain name. Having a URL that's both catchy and keyword-friendly is ultimately the best. Problogger.net is both catchy and keyword-friendly. Use whois lookup to check if a domain is available.
Use Keywords in Other Sections
The idea is to maximize the use of keywords wherever you can (don't overdo it though). These are the places that you must put keywords in them:
• Blog Title - Search engines weigh your blog title heavily. Again, it's best to find a name that is both catchy and keyword-rich.
• Blog Description - This is where you want to write phrases that catches attention, but rich with keywords too. If you're ranked even at No.1, but your description is as dull as a bull, nobody is going to click to your blog.
• File Names - Use keywords to name files, pictures, photos, graphs, videos, etc that you're using in your blog.
• Internal Links - Some sites use image maps with hotspot hyperlinks, images, or buttons to navigate within the sites. This works against SEO. It's better to use text links instead of images as text links carry more weight when getting ranked in search engines.
• Tags or Labels - Each posts should be tagged or labelled with keywords to help strengthen SEO. Some prominent blog directories, like Technorati, uses these tags to identify your blog for others to search.
Blog titles, descriptions, and keywords can be enhanced by using META tags. Here's an article on how to use META tags efficiently.
Use Keywords Often in Content
How do search engine algorithms decide what each post is about? They'll scan for the the most-used keywords in the post, with different weights given to different elements. To make your posts 'acknowledged' as being related to any particular keywords, use and repeat them often in the posts. But don't do this too excessively to the point of being straight-out blunt and annoying. Having the right keyword-density in your posts have two benefits:
• Draws in more related ads to the post pages. Related ads have better click-through-rates (CTR).
• Contributes more towards getting higher rank on those keywords.
Build Links from External Sites
One way to get linked to is by exchanging links, commonly done in Blogrolls. Higher-ranking external sites helps your blog more in terms of SEO. Another way to do this is to submit your blog to directories (here's a tool for an automatic submission for multiple directories). Another highly trusted free directory is DMOZ. Posts can also be submitted to social media directories (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) that get voted up/down. Two benefits of submitting to directories:
• You're building links on external sites to your blog/posts.
• Others may stumble on your blog/posts in these directories and visit your blog from there.
Use Keywords to Anchor Hyperlinks
Don't use the term 'click here' to anchor hyperlinks - use keywords instead. Hyperlinks are valued more by ranking algorithms than the normal content text. Keyword anchors contribute better to SEO compared to the clickhere anchors.
Create Efficient Site Navigation Map
How to influence your readers to stay longer in your blog? Make it easy for them to see what's in your blog. To do this is to build efficient site map, something like an Archives or Categories lists. Even better is to list Related Posts items at the end of each post. Use keywords to anchor all links. This practice helps SEO as it build links to your own blog using keywords, albeit internally, and helps spiders to crawl up your pages easily.
------------------------------
This article has been adapted from an article by Randy DuerMyer at About.com (Alexa rank: 144). The main key points was summarized to shorten the text and expanded to include new and valuable information not available in the original article. The new article (1134 words) is much shorter by 40% compared to the original article (1880 words).
How to Produce Persuasive Writing?
If you're blogging with a serious goal in mind - building reputation, making money, selling products - you'll want to be heard and trusted. To achieve this you must first be able to persuade your readers. Telling them what your ideas are seems pretty straight forward, but making them believe what you're saying is a completely different thing. It is this ability of persuasion that will put you ahead.
In essence, people tend to agree with others when it benefits them more. The challenge to writers when persuading audience is to create a win-win situation and to present their case well and clear. Below are guides to improve yourself to become a more persuasive writer:
• Repeat your ideas - Not everybody gets it the first time. Repeat your ideas, again and again. But do it in different forms so that it doesn't get boring. Use examples, stories, analogies, or rewording to restate your ideas.
• Give reasons - People will ask 'Why?' to anything. Support your ideas or products with good reasons why they're so or why they're built. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Reasons that make sense convince people. The ones that don't invite debate and trouble. Think carefully before giving any reasons.
• Be consistent - Inconsistent thoughts show confusion, uncertainty, hesitation, and many other bad things. Being consistent shows that you have sound logic, rational thinking, and believable character. A powerful technique to show you're consistent is to present your case at the beginning. Then, convince your readers by supporting your case with evidence, examples, and proof throughout your writing consistently, while repeatedly referring back to the initial argument at the beginning of the article.
• Support with authority - An idea that has been well accepted socially, supported with scientific facts, or backed by prominent figures with strong credentials will easily get accepted by others. Your challenge is to convincingly show them how your case is supported.
• Compare with established ideas - Comparing or relating your case to the ones already established can help convince people. It helps to use metaphors, similes, and analogies. Readers are convinced more easily this way as they only need to see the connection between your ideas to those already established as true.
• Relate to your readers - When you're posting an article as a solution to a problem, don't just solve it. Present the problems clearly and make your readers know that you know well the stakes at hand and empathize with their trouble. Your readers will likely be reading your post because they're facing that problem. They'll trust you more if you can show them that you've dealt with the same situation before and know exactly how to solve it.
• Belong to a group - When you're writing on articles that target specific demographics (group of people), get into their heads and be (or try to be) part of them. You'll be more persuasive if you understand the specific needs and wants of your target group. Then focus your writing to fulfill those needs, rather than trying to generalize your writing to target the whole masses.
• Address disagreements - Not everyone will agree with your ideas. There'll be objections, counter-arguments, and debates. Assessing what those disagreements are and addressing them immediately will save you some trouble and improves people's perception towards your credibility on the subject matter, which increases your persuasive ability. Of course, you can't always think of everything that people will object.
• Tell stories - Unfolding your ideas gradually by telling stories first and relating them back to your core ideas is an effective technique. People believes in stories much easier than they do with dreary arguments. The challenge is for you to tell good stories and to relate them to your ideas. The better the stories you tell, the easier it is to get people to believe you. Hope that you're telling them the right thing then.
In essence, people tend to agree with others when it benefits them more. The challenge to writers when persuading audience is to create a win-win situation and to present their case well and clear. Below are guides to improve yourself to become a more persuasive writer:
• Repeat your ideas - Not everybody gets it the first time. Repeat your ideas, again and again. But do it in different forms so that it doesn't get boring. Use examples, stories, analogies, or rewording to restate your ideas.
• Give reasons - People will ask 'Why?' to anything. Support your ideas or products with good reasons why they're so or why they're built. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Reasons that make sense convince people. The ones that don't invite debate and trouble. Think carefully before giving any reasons.
• Be consistent - Inconsistent thoughts show confusion, uncertainty, hesitation, and many other bad things. Being consistent shows that you have sound logic, rational thinking, and believable character. A powerful technique to show you're consistent is to present your case at the beginning. Then, convince your readers by supporting your case with evidence, examples, and proof throughout your writing consistently, while repeatedly referring back to the initial argument at the beginning of the article.
• Support with authority - An idea that has been well accepted socially, supported with scientific facts, or backed by prominent figures with strong credentials will easily get accepted by others. Your challenge is to convincingly show them how your case is supported.
• Compare with established ideas - Comparing or relating your case to the ones already established can help convince people. It helps to use metaphors, similes, and analogies. Readers are convinced more easily this way as they only need to see the connection between your ideas to those already established as true.
• Relate to your readers - When you're posting an article as a solution to a problem, don't just solve it. Present the problems clearly and make your readers know that you know well the stakes at hand and empathize with their trouble. Your readers will likely be reading your post because they're facing that problem. They'll trust you more if you can show them that you've dealt with the same situation before and know exactly how to solve it.
• Belong to a group - When you're writing on articles that target specific demographics (group of people), get into their heads and be (or try to be) part of them. You'll be more persuasive if you understand the specific needs and wants of your target group. Then focus your writing to fulfill those needs, rather than trying to generalize your writing to target the whole masses.
• Address disagreements - Not everyone will agree with your ideas. There'll be objections, counter-arguments, and debates. Assessing what those disagreements are and addressing them immediately will save you some trouble and improves people's perception towards your credibility on the subject matter, which increases your persuasive ability. Of course, you can't always think of everything that people will object.
• Tell stories - Unfolding your ideas gradually by telling stories first and relating them back to your core ideas is an effective technique. People believes in stories much easier than they do with dreary arguments. The challenge is for you to tell good stories and to relate them to your ideas. The better the stories you tell, the easier it is to get people to believe you. Hope that you're telling them the right thing then.
Guides to Building Quality & Original Content
The single most important aspect on your blog that affects everything else is its content. It has to be unique, original, of high quality, and gives value and meaning to its readers. There are some pointers that you can follow to guide you towards writing these type of contents:
• Add value - The most common ways of finding good topics to write about is by reading other blogs to see which topics create the most buzz. But rewriting it without adding new perspectives or new thoughts simply means that your post is valueless. So, be original, independent, and add something new.
• Add personal experience - Adding your own experiences relevant to the topics does not only add uniqueness to your posts, but also get your readers more interested to learn from it because the value is real. Draw conclusions from your experience and share them with your readers.
• Brainstorm - Writing post isn't simply about typing whatever crosses your mind. A good writing has good ideas, substance, and structure. To achieve any good writing level requires you to do some initial planning and brainstorming. Here's an article that discusses some brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
• Write a journal - Ideas doesn't only popup when you're sitting in front of your screen. It comes in whenever it wants to. If not recorded, it'll be gone, never ever to come back. Writing any ideas you have on a journal keeps you organized. Journal also helps you refine the many ideas you have into a few solid ones that can grow into valuable articles. A post is better written only with proper planning, brainstorming, and editing - which can systematically be done if you make writing a journal a habit.
• Be patient - Some ideas can grow into something complete easily, but not always. Whenever you have a writer's block or have some ideas that couldn't materialize into something meaningful, just be patient and write them in your journal. Small unfinished ideas can be combined into larger and more substantial ideas.
• Be unconventional - When writing on critical issues, there's always two sides to it. The easy way is to go with the flow. But if you can build your arguments to go against the conventional thinking, it'll have a greater chance to strike more interest and be remembered.
• Expand old posts - Looking at some of your old posts (or even other bloggers' posts as well), you'll find that there are a few more popular ones than others. Look back into it and think about how you can broaden its scope or solidify it into something more substantial.
• Add more details - There are many posts that cover only the general information and the basics of some topics, scratching only their surfaces. Try to build on these topics by uncovering more details about them. Put effort to provide in-depth explanations and higher-level knowledge to your visitors.
• Grow your knowledge - What separates you from other bloggers writing on similar niche are your knowledge. Target yourself to be an expert, otherwise you'll never stand out among others.
• Solve problems - People commenting on your blog doesn't just praise or critic your blog. Some presents problems to you, hoping that you might be able to help them out. Choose the right problems to tackle on, work on it, and publish it as a substantial article.
• Act quickly - If you have new great ideas, or think they're great, write and publish them right away. Original and new ideas have a good chance of pulling huge traffic. If you wait, others might write about them first. You'll then loose the only opportunity to be original and the chances of pulling any traffic.
My Comments
The heart of a blog is its content. Without it, it's almost impossible to get anything else: high traffic, large readership, top positions on social bookmarking and directories, and large monetizing revenues.
Question
I haven't encountered any discussions on the style of writing (writing technique, intonation, structure, etc). Does it have any influence on readerships? For example, is writing with straight-forward conversation-style writing better than proper textbook writing when it comes to writing blogs? What about broken English? Better means drawing more visitors, of course.
What do you think? Which style do you like best, or don't you have any preference at all?
-----------------------
This post is an adapted and summarized version from the original post at VandelayDesign.com (Alexa ranking: 24,520). The original article has been shortened from 1231 words to 615 words (50% less) with the main points kept intact.
Adsense vs. BidVertiser - Which is the Best?
>> Browse templates, Money tips, 1 comments
Rafael Enriquez wrote the pros and cons about using BidVertiser and compares it with Adsense to see which one is the best money-making contextual advertisement program online. Because BidVertiser ads are similar to Adsense ads, both of them cannot be run at the same time on the same page.
Using BidVertiser: Pros
• Adsense pays using check but BidVertiser pays through Paypal, which is faster.
• Adsense’s minimum payout is $100 but BidVertiser’s minimum payout is $10, which is quicker.
• BidVertiser allows you to choose the ads to open in a new window, which lets your web/blog stays open and hopefully to have visitors come back easily to your site.
• You can approve ads manually with BidVertiser, not with Adsense.
• You can test to see the final ads template with BidVertiser, not with Adsense.
• You can choose to display eBay auction ads with BidVertiser, but not with Adsense.
• With BidVertiser, you can see the amount of money advertisers are bidding on the ads that will be displayed on your site. With Adsense, you have to use other system (e.g. AdWords) which is not as easy.
Using BidVertiser: Cons
• There are complaints of slow page loads using BidVertiser, not with Adsense. This creates major problems for users.
• Adsense ads are more relevant and thus get higher click-throughs. This is because Adsense has more advertisers in their pool to offer the right ads for any keywords.
• Because there are more advertisers competing in Adsense, chances are ads in Adsense pays more per click.
• There complaints that BidVertiser doesn’t pay on time after reaching the min payout of $10. Adsense reputation in payment is better.
The decision which is better to use is left for individuals to take.
-----------------------
This post is a summary of an original post by Rafael Enriquez at AssociatedContent.com (Alexa rank: 2638). The original length of 578 words has been cut down to 294 words (50% less).
• Add value - The most common ways of finding good topics to write about is by reading other blogs to see which topics create the most buzz. But rewriting it without adding new perspectives or new thoughts simply means that your post is valueless. So, be original, independent, and add something new.
• Add personal experience - Adding your own experiences relevant to the topics does not only add uniqueness to your posts, but also get your readers more interested to learn from it because the value is real. Draw conclusions from your experience and share them with your readers.
• Brainstorm - Writing post isn't simply about typing whatever crosses your mind. A good writing has good ideas, substance, and structure. To achieve any good writing level requires you to do some initial planning and brainstorming. Here's an article that discusses some brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
• Write a journal - Ideas doesn't only popup when you're sitting in front of your screen. It comes in whenever it wants to. If not recorded, it'll be gone, never ever to come back. Writing any ideas you have on a journal keeps you organized. Journal also helps you refine the many ideas you have into a few solid ones that can grow into valuable articles. A post is better written only with proper planning, brainstorming, and editing - which can systematically be done if you make writing a journal a habit.
• Be patient - Some ideas can grow into something complete easily, but not always. Whenever you have a writer's block or have some ideas that couldn't materialize into something meaningful, just be patient and write them in your journal. Small unfinished ideas can be combined into larger and more substantial ideas.
• Be unconventional - When writing on critical issues, there's always two sides to it. The easy way is to go with the flow. But if you can build your arguments to go against the conventional thinking, it'll have a greater chance to strike more interest and be remembered.
• Expand old posts - Looking at some of your old posts (or even other bloggers' posts as well), you'll find that there are a few more popular ones than others. Look back into it and think about how you can broaden its scope or solidify it into something more substantial.
• Add more details - There are many posts that cover only the general information and the basics of some topics, scratching only their surfaces. Try to build on these topics by uncovering more details about them. Put effort to provide in-depth explanations and higher-level knowledge to your visitors.
• Grow your knowledge - What separates you from other bloggers writing on similar niche are your knowledge. Target yourself to be an expert, otherwise you'll never stand out among others.
• Solve problems - People commenting on your blog doesn't just praise or critic your blog. Some presents problems to you, hoping that you might be able to help them out. Choose the right problems to tackle on, work on it, and publish it as a substantial article.
• Act quickly - If you have new great ideas, or think they're great, write and publish them right away. Original and new ideas have a good chance of pulling huge traffic. If you wait, others might write about them first. You'll then loose the only opportunity to be original and the chances of pulling any traffic.
My Comments
The heart of a blog is its content. Without it, it's almost impossible to get anything else: high traffic, large readership, top positions on social bookmarking and directories, and large monetizing revenues.
Question
I haven't encountered any discussions on the style of writing (writing technique, intonation, structure, etc). Does it have any influence on readerships? For example, is writing with straight-forward conversation-style writing better than proper textbook writing when it comes to writing blogs? What about broken English? Better means drawing more visitors, of course.
What do you think? Which style do you like best, or don't you have any preference at all?
-----------------------
This post is an adapted and summarized version from the original post at VandelayDesign.com (Alexa ranking: 24,520). The original article has been shortened from 1231 words to 615 words (50% less) with the main points kept intact.
Adsense vs. BidVertiser - Which is the Best?
>> Browse templates, Money tips, 1 comments
Rafael Enriquez wrote the pros and cons about using BidVertiser and compares it with Adsense to see which one is the best money-making contextual advertisement program online. Because BidVertiser ads are similar to Adsense ads, both of them cannot be run at the same time on the same page.
Using BidVertiser: Pros
• Adsense pays using check but BidVertiser pays through Paypal, which is faster.
• Adsense’s minimum payout is $100 but BidVertiser’s minimum payout is $10, which is quicker.
• BidVertiser allows you to choose the ads to open in a new window, which lets your web/blog stays open and hopefully to have visitors come back easily to your site.
• You can approve ads manually with BidVertiser, not with Adsense.
• You can test to see the final ads template with BidVertiser, not with Adsense.
• You can choose to display eBay auction ads with BidVertiser, but not with Adsense.
• With BidVertiser, you can see the amount of money advertisers are bidding on the ads that will be displayed on your site. With Adsense, you have to use other system (e.g. AdWords) which is not as easy.
Using BidVertiser: Cons
• There are complaints of slow page loads using BidVertiser, not with Adsense. This creates major problems for users.
• Adsense ads are more relevant and thus get higher click-throughs. This is because Adsense has more advertisers in their pool to offer the right ads for any keywords.
• Because there are more advertisers competing in Adsense, chances are ads in Adsense pays more per click.
• There complaints that BidVertiser doesn’t pay on time after reaching the min payout of $10. Adsense reputation in payment is better.
The decision which is better to use is left for individuals to take.
-----------------------
This post is a summary of an original post by Rafael Enriquez at AssociatedContent.com (Alexa rank: 2638). The original length of 578 words has been cut down to 294 words (50% less).
What It Takes to Build a Successful Money-Making Blog
Is it possible to make a comfortable living from blogging? Steve Pavlina launched his blog on October 2004. Within six months, he made $120/month from it. A year and a half later, the revenues increased to $30k/month. It cost him only $9/year on domain, $149/month on hosting, and $0 on marketing or promoting. So, he is making a pretty good living from it.
He wrote a long 7000+ words article on how to build a blog capable of generating such income, added with some reality-check scenarios to caution some overly-optimistic minds of what to expect: only 1% will succeed. I've summarized the main points from the article into a much shorter post (62% less) for a lighter read.
Commit Yourself
The first question to ask yourself before diving down a blogger's path to monetizing is 'Do you want to do this?'. It's a simple question and the straight answer is simple too, but the reality isn't obvious. What people see is that making money from blogging is straight-forward and think that it can be done effortlessly with great result.
But what's not told are the challenges you'll be facing. To really achieve real success, you need to commit yourself fully to it. Do it or don't do it. There's no 'just try it and see what happens' approach. It's not gonna work that way and will just waste your time down the drain.
Decent Income from Blogging?
It's definitely doable to make great money from it and many bloggers have done so superbly. If it's done right, you can achieve 5 or 6 figures annual income from blogging. The difference is in how long it takes you to get there. Doing it part time will take you a while longer than if it's done full time.
The fact is that not everybody can achieve success doing it. 99 out of 100 people will fail generating any reasonable amount of income from blogging. Only 1% will make a healthy and even great living out of it. And the recipe for this success is very simple - you have to be smart in the web-savvy kind of way.
Know Enough About Web Technologies
If you are web-savvy, or can learn to become web-savvy, then you have a great chance of making a real amount of money from blogging. Web-savviness doesn't mean that you have to be a hardcore programmer. You just have to have a decent functional understanding of web technologies, particularly the ones related to blogging and monetizing blogs.
Some examples of these web technologies that matter are blog publishing software (e.g. Wordpress), HTML/XML/CSS, full or partial RSS feed + feedreaders, pings, comments & trackbacks, blog or post directories, search engine ranking and optimization (SEO), page rangking, social media & bookmarking, contextual advertising (e.g. Adsense), affiliate programs, and traffic statistics - just to name a few.
Being web-savvy in these areas doesn't necessarily mean that you are an expert or have an in-depth knowledge, but enough knowledge to understand the basics and apply their functionalities efficiently where needed. Even if you're hiring somebody to do the grunt work, you need to have enough savviness to make any strategic decisions.
If you don't know much about web technologies, then either blogging for money is not for you, or you need to spend some time first learning those things. It's not worth an effort to drag yourself into trying to make big bucks if you're not ready to pick up the skills required. Having no knowledge at all in, say SEO, will put you at a disadvantage to the bloggers who know better what SEO is and how to use it to get their blogs to rank much much higher than yours. But knowing just SEO is not enough. Other areas are important as well and must not be left behind.
What makes things more delicate is that monetized blogging is not just about being web-savvy but also about optimizing your effort to fulfill the needs of so many: you, your readers, advertisers, search engines, etc. Each of these entities may have the same but sometimes differing needs. For example, when giving a post its title, its best to give a title that reflects the whole content and easily and directly captured by your readers. Sometimes you'll want to give it a catchy title that best reflect your ingenuity and wittiness. But, to get the best from SEO or advertising, the title may have to be re-thought to incorporate some critical keywords in it that may skew your original title in the first place.
The whole process is a balancing act, to find what works for everybody. And you can only do this well if you have the functional understanding and skills of the right web technologies.
It may be great to be an expert, but in the case of maximizing your revenue from blogging, this isn't so. Time is better spent if you learn five things just enough to apply them than if you concentrate on one thing to become an expert of it (unless of course this is the topic that you want to blog about). You need to strategize yourself to learn as many things as you can within a short period of time.
Keeping Up with Web's Fast Pace
Web technologies evolve and grow at such a fast pace that it's challenging to keep up with it. New tools keep popping up, that if used, can put you at a serious advantage ahead of your competitors. New opportunities to monetize your blog keep showing up as well. What's hard is the decision to either spend some time learning these new opportunities and use them or forget about them and just focusing on building content. The growth is so rapid that to really learn the new things needs a full-time commitment.
When it comes to decide what's better to do, the ground rule is that you'll be taking a huge risk not to update yourself on what's new. Your success is measured on how well you compete with others (that's what Alexa ranking basically is). To do this well means to keep up with changes in the web and to take advantage of it while you still can. Making mistake isn't the one that will cost you, but missing opportunities is. Each missing opportunities means a lost chance of growing your traffic, audience, and revenues. A good practice is to subscribe to others who are consistently updating their blogs with new opportunities. Darren Rowse's Problogger is a great place to start subscribing as he keeps an update of new monetizing and blogging-related opportunities.
Strategize How to Generate Income
Monetizing blog isn't just about setting up Adsense and affiliate programs and then have a go at it, blindly, hoping you'll cash out in the end. You must have a strategy of how best to generate income from your blog, depending on your overall philosophy and goal of your blog. Blogs that focus more on building long term readerships may have less ads compared to blogs that provide infos on products with lots of ads to help readers choose the best offers.
It's not only the amount of ads that needs careful thinking but also the source of income. You have to think what's the best revenue source for your blog. Is it advertising, affiliate programs, product sales, donations, or any combinations of those? Decide which one is the most important and optimize your dentent, design, and layout around that. Each monetizing platform is unique and require different approaches. it's important that you recognize the differences.
Strategizing also means that you have to create concrete goals, or targets, that you want to achieve within a certain period of time. Once you've set your target, you have to work at it to achieve it. It may sound trivial but will keep you focused on achieving your targets, and know when to say no to new opportunities that doesn't match your blogging strategy. Here's a more detailed account on why creating concrete goals leads to successful blogs.
Learn from other established bloggers (that have similar niche to you) on how they strategize their site and monetization methods. Their technique must have worked well so it's a good hint for you to start there and even imitate their style. Of course, copying the template and content exactly as it is is wrong and will get you in trouble later on.
Traffic
Without doubt, traffic is the most important factor to monetize blogs. Stevepavlina.com's blog, for example, receives over 1.1 million visitors and 2.4 million pageviews a month (on April 2006). Traffic is important simply because it's a direct function of traffic: more traffic = more money (i.e. more clicks, more affiliate sales, more product sales, more donations, more consulting opportunities). It also means simply that your content do gives values to your many visitors.
The main focus of any beginners must be building traffic. Until you've got significantly large traffic levels, monetizing your blogs doesn't make much sense. It's even better not to work on putting ads at all on your blog for the first few months, so that you can focus a 100% on building traffic.
As your traffic level increases, your chances of monetizing your site gets easier. Why? traffic doesn't just mean there are more people coming to your blog, but also more links to your site, more votes to your articles, and more exposure to you and your blog at many levels, both online and offline. All this synergizes to bring so much more, even in terms of monetizing revenues, and it all starts from just building traffic. As the saying goes, 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'.
Here are 15 tips on how to build traffic to your site. In addition to this, Steve added that he uses the free service of Blog Carnivals, a kind of post directory, to submit his best posts, which eventually brings more links and visitors to his blog.
Blogging Facilities
In terms of what software to use to publish your blog, Steve highly recommends Wordpress. The reason being that it's free and has lots of features and a solid interface. The hosting and domain fees are relatively cheap, but the hosting needs to be upgraded to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS) once the traffic grows that it's not capable to be hosted on shared accounts. The added benefit of running it under these types of server is that you can publish multiple sites under it without being charged extras.
To add more values to your blog, strategize to build a website from it. Stevepavlina.com gives the example that it's more than a blog. It has other sections as well: article section, audio content, forum section, etc. Many free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, don't provide this option.
Testing and Optimization
It goes without saying that the technique to know what works best is by testing trial and error. Do this when you want to know what monetizing programs (Adsense, Text Link Ads, Chitika eMiniMall, Amazon, Kontera, etc) work best for you. Do this also when you want to know the best layout for your blog (site design, colors, sidebars, ads position and configuration, etc). But, if you search well, you'll find some good tips already available on what people have experimented and what are their results. It's worth reading before you do some testing from scratch yourself. Here are some tips on the testing and optimization on Adsense.
Picking the Right Niche
Picking a niche is critical. For one, you have to have a sense that you can build a significantly large traffic from it. Choosing a niche too specific or too uncommon to have large followers would mean that in the end you can only build your traffic to a certain level only, no bigger than that. Basically, the target market is just too small. It maybe true that the number of competitors isn't large too, which is an advantage initially, but the opportunities to grow is already limited by its market size.
So, make sure that the niche you choose is broad enough to draw large traffic in. You surely have to compete with more sites and blogs, but if developed well, you have a chance to capitalize on its larger market. Broad enough topic also provide a larger pool of advertisers and advertisement to be served on your site.
When you have picked a niche, be clear up front to your visitors what your blog is about. There are blogs that worry too much on putting clever titles and description, but aren't direct and clear enough to provide meaning to visitors on a first glance. It's even worst if your title and description suggest to your visitors that your blog is just a personal blog, which is a drawback, when it's clearly not. Personal blog, while great on personal basis, aren't typically consistent on topics written, do not target specific readers, don't always provide valuable and meaningful content to others, and most of all, aren't capable of monetizing large income. But, as with anything in life, there's always an exception to this.
Picking a niche isn't just about capitalizing on its traffic size. The most fundamental issue of all is whether you are able to provide a quality content on it. Writing on something you're passionate or love will automatically be a driving force for you to be consistent, compared to writing on something that you don't have any feel for but want to write because you think you can make big money from it. A quick example, if you're familiar with high paying keywords, is writing on mesothelioma. It's by far is on the top list of highly paid keywords of cost-per-click ads, but how well can you write on that? Unless you're confident that you can pick up on the subject quickly, then by all means go for it.
Motivation
One of the biggest question during the early days of blogging when money doesn't come by quickly to drive you, is whether you can sustain your effort to write quality content for a long time. It's most sustainable if the topics are the ones you're most interested and passionate about. If your main motivation is money, then it'll be quite dragging for the first few months when money isn't big, yet. It might put you back even to a point of quitting. So, be realistic when choosing what topics to write about, and think whether it is something that you will have the heart and energy to write about for a long period of time.
Posting Frequency and Length
Which is better: long articles posted 3-5 times a week or short articles posted 10-20 times a week? Even top bloggers have different opinion on this. The basic rule is it depends on your type of information in your content. What you want is to give content of value and meaning to others. If short posts are sufficient to do it, e.g. specification on products which are preferred in short forms for quick reference, then by all means that's the best. But in other niches long posts are required for better explanation and in-depth scope of the subject, such as in the topics of personal development. If thought hard enough, frequency and length of posting are quite self-explanatory. If not, then experimentation with short and long posts are the way to go to figure them out.
Perks of Blogging
Given that your blog is successful, blogging is simply a great way to earn an income. For one, it's extremely cheap. you can work wherever you want, even from your home, which can be anywhere you want it to be. You can do it any time any day any hours you want. All that is within reach only if you put your energy in it and smart enough to learn and keep up with all the technologies that the web has to offer.
My Comments
I totally subscribe to his fundamental principle that to find success in blogging you need to be absolutely clear that you're in it for serious and need to commit to it. The fact that only a small percentage of people makes it through beautifully says that it's full of challenges but not often realized.
One thing that's clear here is that monetizing is not just about setting up blogs, putting some Adsense, and boom boom boom posting and posting. There's a definite philosophy and strategy to be thought out carefully, readiness to learn and absorb all old and new web technologies that keep popping up faster than a mushroom bloom. It's a whole new game, but a serious game notwithstanding. The fact that millions are doing it and millions more are just jumping in doesn't make it an easy toy to play with.
----------------------------
This article is an adaptation and summarized version from the original post by Steve Pavlina at Stevepavlina.com (Alexa ranking: 10,159). The original article is extremely long with a length of 7425 words. This adapted version has a much shorter length of 2815 (62% less) with most of the main points remain intact, added with some new insights based on other authentic tips.
He wrote a long 7000+ words article on how to build a blog capable of generating such income, added with some reality-check scenarios to caution some overly-optimistic minds of what to expect: only 1% will succeed. I've summarized the main points from the article into a much shorter post (62% less) for a lighter read.
Commit Yourself
The first question to ask yourself before diving down a blogger's path to monetizing is 'Do you want to do this?'. It's a simple question and the straight answer is simple too, but the reality isn't obvious. What people see is that making money from blogging is straight-forward and think that it can be done effortlessly with great result.
But what's not told are the challenges you'll be facing. To really achieve real success, you need to commit yourself fully to it. Do it or don't do it. There's no 'just try it and see what happens' approach. It's not gonna work that way and will just waste your time down the drain.
Decent Income from Blogging?
It's definitely doable to make great money from it and many bloggers have done so superbly. If it's done right, you can achieve 5 or 6 figures annual income from blogging. The difference is in how long it takes you to get there. Doing it part time will take you a while longer than if it's done full time.
The fact is that not everybody can achieve success doing it. 99 out of 100 people will fail generating any reasonable amount of income from blogging. Only 1% will make a healthy and even great living out of it. And the recipe for this success is very simple - you have to be smart in the web-savvy kind of way.
Know Enough About Web Technologies
If you are web-savvy, or can learn to become web-savvy, then you have a great chance of making a real amount of money from blogging. Web-savviness doesn't mean that you have to be a hardcore programmer. You just have to have a decent functional understanding of web technologies, particularly the ones related to blogging and monetizing blogs.
Some examples of these web technologies that matter are blog publishing software (e.g. Wordpress), HTML/XML/CSS, full or partial RSS feed + feedreaders, pings, comments & trackbacks, blog or post directories, search engine ranking and optimization (SEO), page rangking, social media & bookmarking, contextual advertising (e.g. Adsense), affiliate programs, and traffic statistics - just to name a few.
Being web-savvy in these areas doesn't necessarily mean that you are an expert or have an in-depth knowledge, but enough knowledge to understand the basics and apply their functionalities efficiently where needed. Even if you're hiring somebody to do the grunt work, you need to have enough savviness to make any strategic decisions.
If you don't know much about web technologies, then either blogging for money is not for you, or you need to spend some time first learning those things. It's not worth an effort to drag yourself into trying to make big bucks if you're not ready to pick up the skills required. Having no knowledge at all in, say SEO, will put you at a disadvantage to the bloggers who know better what SEO is and how to use it to get their blogs to rank much much higher than yours. But knowing just SEO is not enough. Other areas are important as well and must not be left behind.
What makes things more delicate is that monetized blogging is not just about being web-savvy but also about optimizing your effort to fulfill the needs of so many: you, your readers, advertisers, search engines, etc. Each of these entities may have the same but sometimes differing needs. For example, when giving a post its title, its best to give a title that reflects the whole content and easily and directly captured by your readers. Sometimes you'll want to give it a catchy title that best reflect your ingenuity and wittiness. But, to get the best from SEO or advertising, the title may have to be re-thought to incorporate some critical keywords in it that may skew your original title in the first place.
The whole process is a balancing act, to find what works for everybody. And you can only do this well if you have the functional understanding and skills of the right web technologies.
It may be great to be an expert, but in the case of maximizing your revenue from blogging, this isn't so. Time is better spent if you learn five things just enough to apply them than if you concentrate on one thing to become an expert of it (unless of course this is the topic that you want to blog about). You need to strategize yourself to learn as many things as you can within a short period of time.
Keeping Up with Web's Fast Pace
Web technologies evolve and grow at such a fast pace that it's challenging to keep up with it. New tools keep popping up, that if used, can put you at a serious advantage ahead of your competitors. New opportunities to monetize your blog keep showing up as well. What's hard is the decision to either spend some time learning these new opportunities and use them or forget about them and just focusing on building content. The growth is so rapid that to really learn the new things needs a full-time commitment.
When it comes to decide what's better to do, the ground rule is that you'll be taking a huge risk not to update yourself on what's new. Your success is measured on how well you compete with others (that's what Alexa ranking basically is). To do this well means to keep up with changes in the web and to take advantage of it while you still can. Making mistake isn't the one that will cost you, but missing opportunities is. Each missing opportunities means a lost chance of growing your traffic, audience, and revenues. A good practice is to subscribe to others who are consistently updating their blogs with new opportunities. Darren Rowse's Problogger is a great place to start subscribing as he keeps an update of new monetizing and blogging-related opportunities.
Strategize How to Generate Income
Monetizing blog isn't just about setting up Adsense and affiliate programs and then have a go at it, blindly, hoping you'll cash out in the end. You must have a strategy of how best to generate income from your blog, depending on your overall philosophy and goal of your blog. Blogs that focus more on building long term readerships may have less ads compared to blogs that provide infos on products with lots of ads to help readers choose the best offers.
It's not only the amount of ads that needs careful thinking but also the source of income. You have to think what's the best revenue source for your blog. Is it advertising, affiliate programs, product sales, donations, or any combinations of those? Decide which one is the most important and optimize your dentent, design, and layout around that. Each monetizing platform is unique and require different approaches. it's important that you recognize the differences.
Strategizing also means that you have to create concrete goals, or targets, that you want to achieve within a certain period of time. Once you've set your target, you have to work at it to achieve it. It may sound trivial but will keep you focused on achieving your targets, and know when to say no to new opportunities that doesn't match your blogging strategy. Here's a more detailed account on why creating concrete goals leads to successful blogs.
Learn from other established bloggers (that have similar niche to you) on how they strategize their site and monetization methods. Their technique must have worked well so it's a good hint for you to start there and even imitate their style. Of course, copying the template and content exactly as it is is wrong and will get you in trouble later on.
Traffic
Without doubt, traffic is the most important factor to monetize blogs. Stevepavlina.com's blog, for example, receives over 1.1 million visitors and 2.4 million pageviews a month (on April 2006). Traffic is important simply because it's a direct function of traffic: more traffic = more money (i.e. more clicks, more affiliate sales, more product sales, more donations, more consulting opportunities). It also means simply that your content do gives values to your many visitors.
The main focus of any beginners must be building traffic. Until you've got significantly large traffic levels, monetizing your blogs doesn't make much sense. It's even better not to work on putting ads at all on your blog for the first few months, so that you can focus a 100% on building traffic.
As your traffic level increases, your chances of monetizing your site gets easier. Why? traffic doesn't just mean there are more people coming to your blog, but also more links to your site, more votes to your articles, and more exposure to you and your blog at many levels, both online and offline. All this synergizes to bring so much more, even in terms of monetizing revenues, and it all starts from just building traffic. As the saying goes, 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'.
Here are 15 tips on how to build traffic to your site. In addition to this, Steve added that he uses the free service of Blog Carnivals, a kind of post directory, to submit his best posts, which eventually brings more links and visitors to his blog.
Blogging Facilities
In terms of what software to use to publish your blog, Steve highly recommends Wordpress. The reason being that it's free and has lots of features and a solid interface. The hosting and domain fees are relatively cheap, but the hosting needs to be upgraded to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS) once the traffic grows that it's not capable to be hosted on shared accounts. The added benefit of running it under these types of server is that you can publish multiple sites under it without being charged extras.
To add more values to your blog, strategize to build a website from it. Stevepavlina.com gives the example that it's more than a blog. It has other sections as well: article section, audio content, forum section, etc. Many free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, don't provide this option.
Testing and Optimization
It goes without saying that the technique to know what works best is by testing trial and error. Do this when you want to know what monetizing programs (Adsense, Text Link Ads, Chitika eMiniMall, Amazon, Kontera, etc) work best for you. Do this also when you want to know the best layout for your blog (site design, colors, sidebars, ads position and configuration, etc). But, if you search well, you'll find some good tips already available on what people have experimented and what are their results. It's worth reading before you do some testing from scratch yourself. Here are some tips on the testing and optimization on Adsense.
Picking the Right Niche
Picking a niche is critical. For one, you have to have a sense that you can build a significantly large traffic from it. Choosing a niche too specific or too uncommon to have large followers would mean that in the end you can only build your traffic to a certain level only, no bigger than that. Basically, the target market is just too small. It maybe true that the number of competitors isn't large too, which is an advantage initially, but the opportunities to grow is already limited by its market size.
So, make sure that the niche you choose is broad enough to draw large traffic in. You surely have to compete with more sites and blogs, but if developed well, you have a chance to capitalize on its larger market. Broad enough topic also provide a larger pool of advertisers and advertisement to be served on your site.
When you have picked a niche, be clear up front to your visitors what your blog is about. There are blogs that worry too much on putting clever titles and description, but aren't direct and clear enough to provide meaning to visitors on a first glance. It's even worst if your title and description suggest to your visitors that your blog is just a personal blog, which is a drawback, when it's clearly not. Personal blog, while great on personal basis, aren't typically consistent on topics written, do not target specific readers, don't always provide valuable and meaningful content to others, and most of all, aren't capable of monetizing large income. But, as with anything in life, there's always an exception to this.
Picking a niche isn't just about capitalizing on its traffic size. The most fundamental issue of all is whether you are able to provide a quality content on it. Writing on something you're passionate or love will automatically be a driving force for you to be consistent, compared to writing on something that you don't have any feel for but want to write because you think you can make big money from it. A quick example, if you're familiar with high paying keywords, is writing on mesothelioma. It's by far is on the top list of highly paid keywords of cost-per-click ads, but how well can you write on that? Unless you're confident that you can pick up on the subject quickly, then by all means go for it.
Motivation
One of the biggest question during the early days of blogging when money doesn't come by quickly to drive you, is whether you can sustain your effort to write quality content for a long time. It's most sustainable if the topics are the ones you're most interested and passionate about. If your main motivation is money, then it'll be quite dragging for the first few months when money isn't big, yet. It might put you back even to a point of quitting. So, be realistic when choosing what topics to write about, and think whether it is something that you will have the heart and energy to write about for a long period of time.
Posting Frequency and Length
Which is better: long articles posted 3-5 times a week or short articles posted 10-20 times a week? Even top bloggers have different opinion on this. The basic rule is it depends on your type of information in your content. What you want is to give content of value and meaning to others. If short posts are sufficient to do it, e.g. specification on products which are preferred in short forms for quick reference, then by all means that's the best. But in other niches long posts are required for better explanation and in-depth scope of the subject, such as in the topics of personal development. If thought hard enough, frequency and length of posting are quite self-explanatory. If not, then experimentation with short and long posts are the way to go to figure them out.
Perks of Blogging
Given that your blog is successful, blogging is simply a great way to earn an income. For one, it's extremely cheap. you can work wherever you want, even from your home, which can be anywhere you want it to be. You can do it any time any day any hours you want. All that is within reach only if you put your energy in it and smart enough to learn and keep up with all the technologies that the web has to offer.
My Comments
I totally subscribe to his fundamental principle that to find success in blogging you need to be absolutely clear that you're in it for serious and need to commit to it. The fact that only a small percentage of people makes it through beautifully says that it's full of challenges but not often realized.
One thing that's clear here is that monetizing is not just about setting up blogs, putting some Adsense, and boom boom boom posting and posting. There's a definite philosophy and strategy to be thought out carefully, readiness to learn and absorb all old and new web technologies that keep popping up faster than a mushroom bloom. It's a whole new game, but a serious game notwithstanding. The fact that millions are doing it and millions more are just jumping in doesn't make it an easy toy to play with.
----------------------------
This article is an adaptation and summarized version from the original post by Steve Pavlina at Stevepavlina.com (Alexa ranking: 10,159). The original article is extremely long with a length of 7425 words. This adapted version has a much shorter length of 2815 (62% less) with most of the main points remain intact, added with some new insights based on other authentic tips.
Factors for Success
There are 4 major factors to make Adsense more successful to bring money in:
• Traffic Levels - As the number of visitors increases, so does the total number of clicks.
• High Paying Ads - Ads that cost the advertisers $3 per click will add more to your revenue than ads that cost $0.01 per click. Finding the right keywords to be the niche of your blog that targets these high (or at least moderate) paying ads are very crucial before you start a blog. Targeting niche keywords that pay very little is not worth your effort.
• Relevant Ads - Ads that are more closely related to your blog are more likely to interest your visitors to click upon. 'Public Service Announcement' or ads that are not related to your content are less likely to be clicked upon because generally, they don't spark any interest in your visitors.
• Optimal Ads Position and Design - Ads position, colors, sizes, number of units, and borders do affect visitors' behavior in looking or clicking at them. Finding the optimal design and position is crucial to maximize your Adsense income.
Each one of these factors are as important as the other. Do not only focus on one or two of them and leaving the other parts weak. Your Adsense success is as good as the weakest part. This is a fact adviced by many probloggers. For example, having high paying ads served on your blog but with only a small number of visitors won't result in good amount of conversion. More details on these factors are explained below.
How to Increase Traffic
These are some practical tips to increase traffic levels that have worked well for many experienced bloggers.
• Build useful, quality, interesting and original content - Reflect on the blogs that you read often and think again why you read them.
• Good blog design - Do you tend to think that a blog has quality content if the design is terrible?
• Link to others - You'll only have others linking to you if you have shown your generosity in linking to others first. Linking helps in two ways: (1) Bring more visitors. (2) Increase your ranking.
• Comment on other blogs - Interact with others genuinely (not spamming) by giving thoughtful comments in other blogs. People will grow their interest in your blog as you interact more with them.
• Update frequently - a significant part of large traffic comes from frequent readers, who wants to see fresh contents all the time.
• Interact with readers - Interact with your readers actively. Answer comments, questions, create memes, games, etc.
• Optimize for search engines - Visitors that tend to click on the ads the most come from search engines. Doing SEO will increase your revenues and your rank as well.
• Add your blog add in your email signature - This can help increase visitor numbers to your blog too.
• Create RSS feed - Let your readers have the option to subscribe easily to your blog's content. Visit Feedburner.com for more details. This method eases their connectivity to your blog.
• List your URL in directories - This increases the chance for people of relevant interest finding your blog easier through many mediums and portals.
• Submit to search engines - Send your blog URL to search engines too and similar sites such as Technorati. Use the right and relevant keywords to describe your blog as this is the most crucial information that connects your blog to your visitors.
• Create a newsletter - This is another option to update your readers of new postings.
• Get involve in other blog projects - Make yourself visible in the blogosphere by actively participating in other projects or memes. The more visibility you have the better.
• Participate in forums - This are the places to find other with similar interest. You can draw visitors to your blog by making yourself visible through helping others in the forums.
• Promote your posts - Send your great posts to others or submit them in social media if you think they have a chance to get votted up. Be selective of which posts to promote to avoid being too annoying.
• Add an 'Email a Friend' button - Add this button below each of your posts to let your readers have the option to email their friends.
High Paying Ads
It's pretty obvious that you should target high paying keywords to get a higher money return from Adsense. There are some sites on the internet listing out a limited number of keywords that are high paying ones. The downside of targeting these keywords are that they are highly competitive too: others are doing it as well. It's now becoming more difficult to rank well in search engines on these keywords. But that this does not mean that you shouldn't do it if you're confident to write excellent and quality content on those keywords.
A more common high paying keywords are the ones related to technology products as those are expensive products and businesses are willing to pay more to get advertised. Examples of successful blogs running these types of contents are Engadget, Gizmodo, and PVRblog just to name a few.
Targeting these high paying keywords alone doesn't guarantee success. The rules of getting high traffic still applies - and you have to be able to build high quality content for that. If you're more comfortable writing on moderately paying content and get more traffic on these niches, then this is a better strategy to do.
There are some strategies and tools to use to find and research more on these high paying keywords:
• Do these keywords serve ads? - The first thing you want to check is whether the keywords you want to target serve ads. Simply type those keywords in Google and see if ads are served. If not, then your content related to those keywords are unlikely to serve ads too. By searching this way, you can also see other sites and blogs focusing on those keywords.
• Buy them - There are many professional tools available at a cost that gives you hundreds of thousands of these keywords.
• Use WordTracker - They have the best tool available related to finding and researching on keywords. They also tell you the number of other competing sites/blogs on any specific keywords.
• Use Adwords - If you are ready to invest some cash, try becoming the advertisers yourself and see how much people are bidding for any keywords and get a better feel how to optimize the keywords you use.
Remember again that you have to focus on building high traffic levels too. If you're not able to do this using the extremely high paying keywords, then they're not worth it. Try the more moderate paying ones, as long as you can build quality content on it. But at the other extreme, targeting those low paying ads is not worthwhile.
Relevant Ads
Imagine a blog that wants to target 'making money online' as keywords but have the word 'blog' or 'blogging' too many times throughout the content, even the title and URL. The keyword 'money' or its related keywords are not frequently used. As a result, the ads served are more related to 'creating blogs' and not entirely relevant to the whole content of making money online. This is one example scenario of irrelevant ads.
There are a few things that you can do to get more relevant ads served on your blog:
• Are there ads available? - Make sure the keywords you're targeting have ads available to be served on your blog. If not, look for other keywords or different keywords with similar meaning that serve more ads.
• Increase keyword density - Words that are used more frequently bound to be recognized as the main keywords of your blog. Try to increase the number of keywords in your content, title, header, URL, sidebars, footer, menus, outward links, bold text, etc. But don't repeat too much to the point that it becomes to obvious and annoying to the readers. Keyword Density at SEOChat.com is a good tool to use for this purpose.
• Reduce irrelevant keywords - Check for words that are not your keywords but have quite a high density in your URL, header, menus, content, sidebars, footer, etc. They may be recognized as important keywords by Adsense bots. Make sure that the ads served are not related to them. Otherwise, you have to change them a bit to reduce their density.
• One topic per page - Do not focus on too many keywords per page. This confuses Adsense bots to decide which keywords are the most relevant. If this happen to you, it's better to split the text into a few series in different pages.
• Block irrelevant ads - Adsense gives you the option to block ads unrelated to your blog content that may appear without you wanting it to be there.
Optimal Ads Position and Design
Adsense allows a number of different ads design and position to choose from. Depending on your blog design and content, some of these ads position and design work better than the others. Which ones the best for you?
One thing for sure, it work differently for different people and different blog. The best way is to test them all. But there are some pointers to follow to cut your work short:
• Blend content and ads - Most Adsense users found success when ads and content are blended together as if the ad blocks are not advertisements at all. A few tricks to do this is making the ads background and borders the same color as the content background, ads titles and links to be just like the content links. Many guides mention that blue is the best color for ads titles because they are the most common link color.
• Place ads in content - Ads will blend better with content if they are placed together with the content. For example, see this page where you have the ads wrapped with the content just below the Post Title. But too much ads wrapped with the contents can annoy your reader. So try to do this moderately. You can look for examples in well-established blogs and see how the pros do it and adapt those strategies into your own blog.
• Above the fold - Above the fold means that you put the ads where readers can see it without needing to scroll down the page. A substantial amount of visitors just check out sites for a few seconds only. Any ads that need scrolling would have missed their eyes.
• Follow the heat map - The heat map below has been produced by Google based on the statistics of visits to Adsense ads. Clearly, based on this map, the best place to put ads is just at the beginning of the post, blended with the content itself. The other good section is on the left and above/below the post.
• Not too much ads - The main purpose of a blog or site is to serve information to its readers. Crowding it with too much ads defeat the purpose, and people are not blind to see what you're trying to do. Avoid over-crowding yours with ads. Find a balance. There are other types of sites that are more commercial in nature - serving quick infos with lots of outward links. This maybe a place for you to place more ads to provide your visitors the option of finding the best products (i.e. ads) to go to.
• Keep changing ads position and design - Regular visitors and frequent readers to your blog are more 'blind' to your ads, meaning that they've seen it too often that they know where NOT to look at. Avoid this 'Ad-blindness' by frequently moving around the ads position and changing their designs. Many bloggers found that this technique improved their click-through-rates after the changes, until the next ads-blindness kicks in again.
Bringing All Together
The key to Adsense success is to work on all these 4 different areas. Working on only 3 and leaving 1 factor behind will mean that your return is as good as the weakest one that you leave behind.
There are other small things that you'll want to consider in addition to the core tips above:
• Not too much outgoing links - The less outgoing links you have, the less 'exit doors' your visitors have to leave. But not having any links at all would mean that you're not focusing on building quality informative site which is suppose to provide options for additional details. So, provide your readers with these outbound links but don't have them too excessively.
• Using frames - if you're using frames, place your ads and contents within the same frame. Otherwise, Adsense bots will not recognize the connection between the two.
• Don’t click your own ads - This is obvious. Google knows well. They'll even know if somebody else is doing this dirty 'deeds' for you. It's all in the IPs and correlating the click patterns. Don't even encourage your readers to do it by giving some incentives as this violates the rule and will get you banned from the program. Basic rule - don't do it.
• Monitor your statistics - One good tool to use is Adsense Tracker. This isn't a freeware. But, it does provide many options for you track your Adsense performance. It logs the performance of individual ad units, every pages, and basically answers the where, when and what ads are clicked. With this information, you'll be able to develop strategies to optimize your blog content and ads design and position.
• Use alternative ads - There may comes a time when Public Service Announcement (PSA) ads, that doesn't add to your revenue, are served on your blog. Get something more profitable to appear instead. In Adsense page, you can select alternative ads to be served, such as Amazon or other affiliate ads program.
Note: Here's a more compact tips on Adsense optimization based on an article by Sharon Housley at About.com. There are some additional infos not covered in this article.
----------------------
This post was written based on some of the major facts of Adsense optimization presented by Darren Rowse at Problogger.net (Alexa ranking: 3321). I've summarized his post, with some additional infos, into a more compact form to let you grasp all the important points within a quick read. The original post by Darren is 6922 words, cut 65% less down to 2425 words, with all the important facts remain intact.
• Traffic Levels - As the number of visitors increases, so does the total number of clicks.
• High Paying Ads - Ads that cost the advertisers $3 per click will add more to your revenue than ads that cost $0.01 per click. Finding the right keywords to be the niche of your blog that targets these high (or at least moderate) paying ads are very crucial before you start a blog. Targeting niche keywords that pay very little is not worth your effort.
• Relevant Ads - Ads that are more closely related to your blog are more likely to interest your visitors to click upon. 'Public Service Announcement' or ads that are not related to your content are less likely to be clicked upon because generally, they don't spark any interest in your visitors.
• Optimal Ads Position and Design - Ads position, colors, sizes, number of units, and borders do affect visitors' behavior in looking or clicking at them. Finding the optimal design and position is crucial to maximize your Adsense income.
Each one of these factors are as important as the other. Do not only focus on one or two of them and leaving the other parts weak. Your Adsense success is as good as the weakest part. This is a fact adviced by many probloggers. For example, having high paying ads served on your blog but with only a small number of visitors won't result in good amount of conversion. More details on these factors are explained below.
How to Increase Traffic
These are some practical tips to increase traffic levels that have worked well for many experienced bloggers.
• Build useful, quality, interesting and original content - Reflect on the blogs that you read often and think again why you read them.
• Good blog design - Do you tend to think that a blog has quality content if the design is terrible?
• Link to others - You'll only have others linking to you if you have shown your generosity in linking to others first. Linking helps in two ways: (1) Bring more visitors. (2) Increase your ranking.
• Comment on other blogs - Interact with others genuinely (not spamming) by giving thoughtful comments in other blogs. People will grow their interest in your blog as you interact more with them.
• Update frequently - a significant part of large traffic comes from frequent readers, who wants to see fresh contents all the time.
• Interact with readers - Interact with your readers actively. Answer comments, questions, create memes, games, etc.
• Optimize for search engines - Visitors that tend to click on the ads the most come from search engines. Doing SEO will increase your revenues and your rank as well.
• Add your blog add in your email signature - This can help increase visitor numbers to your blog too.
• Create RSS feed - Let your readers have the option to subscribe easily to your blog's content. Visit Feedburner.com for more details. This method eases their connectivity to your blog.
• List your URL in directories - This increases the chance for people of relevant interest finding your blog easier through many mediums and portals.
• Submit to search engines - Send your blog URL to search engines too and similar sites such as Technorati. Use the right and relevant keywords to describe your blog as this is the most crucial information that connects your blog to your visitors.
• Create a newsletter - This is another option to update your readers of new postings.
• Get involve in other blog projects - Make yourself visible in the blogosphere by actively participating in other projects or memes. The more visibility you have the better.
• Participate in forums - This are the places to find other with similar interest. You can draw visitors to your blog by making yourself visible through helping others in the forums.
• Promote your posts - Send your great posts to others or submit them in social media if you think they have a chance to get votted up. Be selective of which posts to promote to avoid being too annoying.
• Add an 'Email a Friend' button - Add this button below each of your posts to let your readers have the option to email their friends.
High Paying Ads
It's pretty obvious that you should target high paying keywords to get a higher money return from Adsense. There are some sites on the internet listing out a limited number of keywords that are high paying ones. The downside of targeting these keywords are that they are highly competitive too: others are doing it as well. It's now becoming more difficult to rank well in search engines on these keywords. But that this does not mean that you shouldn't do it if you're confident to write excellent and quality content on those keywords.
A more common high paying keywords are the ones related to technology products as those are expensive products and businesses are willing to pay more to get advertised. Examples of successful blogs running these types of contents are Engadget, Gizmodo, and PVRblog just to name a few.
Targeting these high paying keywords alone doesn't guarantee success. The rules of getting high traffic still applies - and you have to be able to build high quality content for that. If you're more comfortable writing on moderately paying content and get more traffic on these niches, then this is a better strategy to do.
There are some strategies and tools to use to find and research more on these high paying keywords:
• Do these keywords serve ads? - The first thing you want to check is whether the keywords you want to target serve ads. Simply type those keywords in Google and see if ads are served. If not, then your content related to those keywords are unlikely to serve ads too. By searching this way, you can also see other sites and blogs focusing on those keywords.
• Buy them - There are many professional tools available at a cost that gives you hundreds of thousands of these keywords.
• Use WordTracker - They have the best tool available related to finding and researching on keywords. They also tell you the number of other competing sites/blogs on any specific keywords.
• Use Adwords - If you are ready to invest some cash, try becoming the advertisers yourself and see how much people are bidding for any keywords and get a better feel how to optimize the keywords you use.
Remember again that you have to focus on building high traffic levels too. If you're not able to do this using the extremely high paying keywords, then they're not worth it. Try the more moderate paying ones, as long as you can build quality content on it. But at the other extreme, targeting those low paying ads is not worthwhile.
Relevant Ads
Imagine a blog that wants to target 'making money online' as keywords but have the word 'blog' or 'blogging' too many times throughout the content, even the title and URL. The keyword 'money' or its related keywords are not frequently used. As a result, the ads served are more related to 'creating blogs' and not entirely relevant to the whole content of making money online. This is one example scenario of irrelevant ads.
There are a few things that you can do to get more relevant ads served on your blog:
• Are there ads available? - Make sure the keywords you're targeting have ads available to be served on your blog. If not, look for other keywords or different keywords with similar meaning that serve more ads.
• Increase keyword density - Words that are used more frequently bound to be recognized as the main keywords of your blog. Try to increase the number of keywords in your content, title, header, URL, sidebars, footer, menus, outward links, bold text, etc. But don't repeat too much to the point that it becomes to obvious and annoying to the readers. Keyword Density at SEOChat.com is a good tool to use for this purpose.
• Reduce irrelevant keywords - Check for words that are not your keywords but have quite a high density in your URL, header, menus, content, sidebars, footer, etc. They may be recognized as important keywords by Adsense bots. Make sure that the ads served are not related to them. Otherwise, you have to change them a bit to reduce their density.
• One topic per page - Do not focus on too many keywords per page. This confuses Adsense bots to decide which keywords are the most relevant. If this happen to you, it's better to split the text into a few series in different pages.
• Block irrelevant ads - Adsense gives you the option to block ads unrelated to your blog content that may appear without you wanting it to be there.
Optimal Ads Position and Design
Adsense allows a number of different ads design and position to choose from. Depending on your blog design and content, some of these ads position and design work better than the others. Which ones the best for you?
One thing for sure, it work differently for different people and different blog. The best way is to test them all. But there are some pointers to follow to cut your work short:
• Blend content and ads - Most Adsense users found success when ads and content are blended together as if the ad blocks are not advertisements at all. A few tricks to do this is making the ads background and borders the same color as the content background, ads titles and links to be just like the content links. Many guides mention that blue is the best color for ads titles because they are the most common link color.
• Place ads in content - Ads will blend better with content if they are placed together with the content. For example, see this page where you have the ads wrapped with the content just below the Post Title. But too much ads wrapped with the contents can annoy your reader. So try to do this moderately. You can look for examples in well-established blogs and see how the pros do it and adapt those strategies into your own blog.
• Above the fold - Above the fold means that you put the ads where readers can see it without needing to scroll down the page. A substantial amount of visitors just check out sites for a few seconds only. Any ads that need scrolling would have missed their eyes.
• Follow the heat map - The heat map below has been produced by Google based on the statistics of visits to Adsense ads. Clearly, based on this map, the best place to put ads is just at the beginning of the post, blended with the content itself. The other good section is on the left and above/below the post.
• Not too much ads - The main purpose of a blog or site is to serve information to its readers. Crowding it with too much ads defeat the purpose, and people are not blind to see what you're trying to do. Avoid over-crowding yours with ads. Find a balance. There are other types of sites that are more commercial in nature - serving quick infos with lots of outward links. This maybe a place for you to place more ads to provide your visitors the option of finding the best products (i.e. ads) to go to.
• Keep changing ads position and design - Regular visitors and frequent readers to your blog are more 'blind' to your ads, meaning that they've seen it too often that they know where NOT to look at. Avoid this 'Ad-blindness' by frequently moving around the ads position and changing their designs. Many bloggers found that this technique improved their click-through-rates after the changes, until the next ads-blindness kicks in again.
Bringing All Together
The key to Adsense success is to work on all these 4 different areas. Working on only 3 and leaving 1 factor behind will mean that your return is as good as the weakest one that you leave behind.
There are other small things that you'll want to consider in addition to the core tips above:
• Not too much outgoing links - The less outgoing links you have, the less 'exit doors' your visitors have to leave. But not having any links at all would mean that you're not focusing on building quality informative site which is suppose to provide options for additional details. So, provide your readers with these outbound links but don't have them too excessively.
• Using frames - if you're using frames, place your ads and contents within the same frame. Otherwise, Adsense bots will not recognize the connection between the two.
• Don’t click your own ads - This is obvious. Google knows well. They'll even know if somebody else is doing this dirty 'deeds' for you. It's all in the IPs and correlating the click patterns. Don't even encourage your readers to do it by giving some incentives as this violates the rule and will get you banned from the program. Basic rule - don't do it.
• Monitor your statistics - One good tool to use is Adsense Tracker. This isn't a freeware. But, it does provide many options for you track your Adsense performance. It logs the performance of individual ad units, every pages, and basically answers the where, when and what ads are clicked. With this information, you'll be able to develop strategies to optimize your blog content and ads design and position.
• Use alternative ads - There may comes a time when Public Service Announcement (PSA) ads, that doesn't add to your revenue, are served on your blog. Get something more profitable to appear instead. In Adsense page, you can select alternative ads to be served, such as Amazon or other affiliate ads program.
Note: Here's a more compact tips on Adsense optimization based on an article by Sharon Housley at About.com. There are some additional infos not covered in this article.
----------------------
This post was written based on some of the major facts of Adsense optimization presented by Darren Rowse at Problogger.net (Alexa ranking: 3321). I've summarized his post, with some additional infos, into a more compact form to let you grasp all the important points within a quick read. The original post by Darren is 6922 words, cut 65% less down to 2425 words, with all the important facts remain intact.
Advice on Promoting Blog
To make money from blogging demands you to have large traffic, and to have large traffic demands you to work on promoting your blog early on. Here are some pointers on promoting your blog.
1. Search Engines Take Time
New blogs will take a few months to get significant traffic from search engines. Doing SEO is one way to improve on this. Other traffic sources, such as networking or social media, can boost up your visitor numbers quickly if you have the right strategy – so don’t focus on search engines only.
2. All Traffic Are Not Equal
Responses from visitors to your blog in terms of time spent, depth of pages, interest in content are best if they found what they’re looking for. Generally, these kinds of visitors arrive at your blog from either search engines, subscribers, and from recommendation from other blogs with similar niche. Traffic from social media has been commented to be less responsive and even unlikely to return back to their blogs. Try to consider what type of traffic is best for you when promoting your blog.
3. Post Consistently
Most successful bloggers post consistently and regularly even when they already have large search engines traffic drawn to their older posts. The reasons for posting new content consistently are to grow the number of subscribers, get new pages in search engines, and keep the blog fresh to get votes in social media. So why stop when you can get more?
4. Traffics Are Inconsistent
There are days that traffic goes up, and at times down. It’s natural. Be ready for anything or you might get upset. The most important thing is to get your mindset focused and not let down by a few hurdles.
5. Get More Repeat Visitors
The heart of successful blogs is repeat visitors. Unique visitors are great too, but nothing can guarantee they’ll be back. So, it’s good to really focus on getting more subscribers. They are also the most responsive in terms of giving comments, votes, etc.
6. Get Inbound Links
Having other blogs link to you helps in many ways. They bring visitors in, expose your blog more, and boost your search engine rankings. These links also signify that your content is valuable, trusted, and worthy to pay a visit to. Not only they help with search engine traffic but also build your credibility.
7. Get Traffic from Multiple Sources
Getting huge traffic from one type of traffic, say search engines, doesn’t guarantee it will always stay that way. For example, Google penalizes blogs that violated their guidelines. Likewise, other types of traffic can’t guarantee giving you consistent traffic all the time. So, diversify your traffic sources.
8. Don’t Ignore Small Traffic
Traffics that come from resources such as your comment or forum links are relatively small. But most of the time those visitors find your blog to be very relevant to what they’re searching for and are likely to become loyal readers. So, keep them coming.
9. Build Your Network
To be successful in blogging, you must have strong network. People in your network can provide you valuable advice, link to you, vote for your posts, inspire and encourage you, and even become partners in future projects. To build a strong network you must first be proactive and willing to meet and help others.
10. You Can Buy Traffic
You can buy advertisement to drive traffic to your blog quickly. PPC ads can be efficient and inexpensive if you bid on the right keywords. StumbleUpon also offers an advertising option where you buy traffic at $0.05 per visitor. Running these ads for a few months will drive significant traffic and give you good exposure at low costs.
1. Search Engines Take Time
New blogs will take a few months to get significant traffic from search engines. Doing SEO is one way to improve on this. Other traffic sources, such as networking or social media, can boost up your visitor numbers quickly if you have the right strategy – so don’t focus on search engines only.
2. All Traffic Are Not Equal
Responses from visitors to your blog in terms of time spent, depth of pages, interest in content are best if they found what they’re looking for. Generally, these kinds of visitors arrive at your blog from either search engines, subscribers, and from recommendation from other blogs with similar niche. Traffic from social media has been commented to be less responsive and even unlikely to return back to their blogs. Try to consider what type of traffic is best for you when promoting your blog.
3. Post Consistently
Most successful bloggers post consistently and regularly even when they already have large search engines traffic drawn to their older posts. The reasons for posting new content consistently are to grow the number of subscribers, get new pages in search engines, and keep the blog fresh to get votes in social media. So why stop when you can get more?
4. Traffics Are Inconsistent
There are days that traffic goes up, and at times down. It’s natural. Be ready for anything or you might get upset. The most important thing is to get your mindset focused and not let down by a few hurdles.
5. Get More Repeat Visitors
The heart of successful blogs is repeat visitors. Unique visitors are great too, but nothing can guarantee they’ll be back. So, it’s good to really focus on getting more subscribers. They are also the most responsive in terms of giving comments, votes, etc.
6. Get Inbound Links
Having other blogs link to you helps in many ways. They bring visitors in, expose your blog more, and boost your search engine rankings. These links also signify that your content is valuable, trusted, and worthy to pay a visit to. Not only they help with search engine traffic but also build your credibility.
7. Get Traffic from Multiple Sources
Getting huge traffic from one type of traffic, say search engines, doesn’t guarantee it will always stay that way. For example, Google penalizes blogs that violated their guidelines. Likewise, other types of traffic can’t guarantee giving you consistent traffic all the time. So, diversify your traffic sources.
8. Don’t Ignore Small Traffic
Traffics that come from resources such as your comment or forum links are relatively small. But most of the time those visitors find your blog to be very relevant to what they’re searching for and are likely to become loyal readers. So, keep them coming.
9. Build Your Network
To be successful in blogging, you must have strong network. People in your network can provide you valuable advice, link to you, vote for your posts, inspire and encourage you, and even become partners in future projects. To build a strong network you must first be proactive and willing to meet and help others.
10. You Can Buy Traffic
You can buy advertisement to drive traffic to your blog quickly. PPC ads can be efficient and inexpensive if you bid on the right keywords. StumbleUpon also offers an advertising option where you buy traffic at $0.05 per visitor. Running these ads for a few months will drive significant traffic and give you good exposure at low costs.
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