Blog for Fun and Profit

blogging fun
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When the Internet was “coming of age”, people who wanted to be present on the Internet had concerns in regard to the hassle and cost involved in having a website. Whether for enjoyment or profit, to be one of the many who had an Internet presence, you needed to have a website in those times. Amateur ones were less costly, but somehow lacked appeal.

The blog was conceived to be a kind of “poor man’s website” making it possible to give you your own spot online minus the expense and hassle of getting a website. From one mans blog to the other the blog spot became a method for people to relate to one another on the Net. It cost nothing although it was fairly dull; but change was coming.

After a short time the unassuming blog spot could boast interesting things that were previously only seen on websites. Very soon individuals had the ability to set up personal blogs that presented their opinions, their social life, information, warnings about scams, and even sold stuff. In comparison to a website, starting a blog was quicker and simpler – and very soon this promoted an explosion of blogging on a profusion of subjects.

Anyone can start blogging. This includes YOU – whether or not you have any Internet expertise. Start out doing it purely for entertainment.

Locate a blog in which you are interested and drop some comments. By taking this approach you will soon learn some basics of how to blog. As your skill level improves, start your own blog and I guarantee that you’ll find blogging a very pleasurable pastime. Plus it can be a source of cash if that interests you.

In order to succeed it’s critical that you choose a topic in which you’re interested. Previous to starting your blog, make certain you pick a topic you love. One man’s diversion for example, can make blogging a fun and rewarding endeavor.

You can initially talk about some personal experiences. As you gain experience, you can seek out news, hold exhibitions, network, make friends, and various other kinds of content through your blog spot. There are many people out there who would love to interact with people of similar interests It’s just as educational as it is fun.

When you decide to the time is right, you can use your blog to make some extra spending cash. At this point there will be several admirers who will advance your contacts even further.

The easiest means is to post Google Adsense and Adwords on your blog, thereby automating the monetization. If you feel like moving it to the next level you could start selling e-information items with little additional effort. The blog spot that you started for enjoyment could, in the end be earning a lot of money for you at day’s end.

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Traffic 1 (Fast)
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I am sure by now you know by now that in order to make money online, you need to have more than just a good website.

You need people to be able to find that website. So the term you always see for your site’s visitors is “traffic.” Your site needs to be able to convert, so of course the higher your traffic numbers, the better off you are in terms of ability to produce some sales. More or less, making as much as possible is the big goal for online marketers, of course. Ok, let’s move onto how you can make those traffic stats look impressive.

Press releases are an often-ignored method to get traffic. You’ll have no problems at all finding places to distribute a press release. As with most everything else, you can find sites that charge for premium distribution, and others are free to use. If your press release is well written, and the products you are offering are top notch, your press releases could get picked up by media outlets like Google News. This could send your traffic through the roof. Imagine how many sales you could get if you had thousands of new visitors!

Another strategy is to be a guest writer on blogs or sites. You’ll be able to tap into traffic from other blogs and sites if your content and name are published. You will get traffic if people read your content, like it, and it’s well done. All the better if you can approach highly trafficked and respected sites/blogs and convince them to publish your content. If you take the time and establish a positive relationship with these site owners, it will help a great deal to get published.

You should always provide Meta tag information in your site or blog, of course. If you have a blog, you will also want to learn how to use them in blog posts. It’s good on-page SEO factors if you use the page title and description Meta tags.

You can cause some SEO confusion if your meta title/description tags are different from your page content. Meta tags are not difficult to use, and there are certain benefits to using them.

It can be challenging to choose which techniques of traffic generation to use, as there are so many. If you confine yourself to using one single method to build traffic on any given day, you’ll get the best results. Work at each method for a few months and, if it isn’t working, move on to another method.

Then when you find something that works well, you can increase your efforts in that direction to get even better results. When you have a website, you want to bring as much traffic to it as possible; you really can’t have too much. In order to make sales, you need people coming to your site; more visitors means more customers!

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Gardener Gardening
Image via Wikipedia

I work from home and have found plenty of opportunities online to make money. I will admit that I have the most fun making money online through my hobbies and interests. The more I know about something the more opportunity to make money.

I do have web sites I make money with that are not hobbies or interests but I had to put a lot more effort into those sites because I had to research harder and learn more but the time was well invested.

I have also found that I make more money blogging that with static sites. I think this works better because people like blogs more and the most important factor for me is that blogs seem to be updated far more than static sites, so the search engines love them as well.

Host Your Own Domains

I prefer to have full control over what I blog about. For this reason I don’t use free blogging platforms for my important blogs. I have had a blog shut down by Blogger.com because some one complained about something that wasn’t even true. They didn’t even check it, they just shut it down. I had to ask them to check the account. It was down for almost a week before they admitted that I was right and turned it back on.

I do use free blogging platforms to setup blogs that will link to my main domains and pages though. I like to use them for back linking to my other blogs.

When you think about it you can host domains rather cheaply now and you can host multiple domains on one account if you desire to have more than one blog. Registering a domain is only going to cost you about $10 a year. So having and hosting a domain of your own isn’t costly at all but well worth the investment.

Stay Focused on Your Topic

If you are writing for the sake of writing and sharing you can say and do pretty much what ever you like, but if the goal is to make money online working from home you need to be focused on the niche you choose and stay on topic when you are writing. I work from home and blog about home gardening tips and fly fishing for trout and I get to write about my hobbies.

The search engines will send you much more target traffic is you do stay focused but you also need to do some research to see if the keywords you have chosen will make money.

Tips: One method I have used that works for me is to type my phrase into Google’s search engine and then see if there are Adwords ads showing on the right of the results page. If there are no ads showing then it tells me that those words are going to earn me much.

Even before I start a blog to earn money I look for affiliate programs that match my niche. I have a couple of blogs that I didn’t look first and ended up putting in a lot of work just to find I couldn’t get any good affiliate programs. So do your research first.

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WordPress
Image via Wikipedia

What is the goal of most bloggers these days? For me and other bloggers I know it’s all about getting more target traffic. Why? Because we need readers to earn money with our blogs.

Success with blogging is all about the marketing you do right from the get-go. Get it right and you will see success but don’t bother to research your niche and you may just be spinning your wheels like I did for a couple of year.

Ignore my warning and you will have to just find our for yourself, but you are going to find that you can not just create a blog, make a post or two and then expect to make money.

To Start Blogging You Need A Blog

Once you have a blog setup, which is so easy these days, you need to populate your blog with great content that’s relevant to your niche.

Posting regularly is what works best. You won’t be likely to find success if you just put up a bunch of articles and leave it at that. I often check the date on a blog to see how often it’s updated. If it’s not updated at least once a week I don’t bother with it. A blog that’s not updated gets old fast.

You can go with a free service for blogging but I have had bad experiences with free blog platforms. They can shut you down instantly if someone complains about your blog, even if it’s not true. Then you have to prove they are wrong.

I use Wordpress myself and also use blog themes that make my blogs look somewhat unique and then I even change the header and footer images along with the colours so that it’s all mine.

Do try to get a theme that is going to match the market what you’re promoting. I have a couple of travel blogs and took a bit of time and used Google to find a travel blog theme for Wordpress that looks great. I just popped a new header image in for both blogs and was good to go.

Get Links To Your Blog

Once you have your blog thought out and you are adding great relevant content it’s then time to start getting backlinks to your blog pages.

Don’t Only Link To Your Main Page

A big mistake I made when I started getting backlinks to my sites was linking to the main page all the time. Instead, I should have been linking to relevant pages in my site.

I use Bloglines as my RSS feed reader to keep up with related blogs.

I find blogs that are in my niches and then comment on blog posts that match my content. Once I have a blog that matches and then an article I like I will comment but not before finding a good match to link to on my related blog.

If I can’t find an article that fits I will take the time to write one and then link to it from the comment I am leaving. Don’t be in a hurry and do it right, it’s worth your time.

1. When you are going for links to your site do your best to get one-way links, they are more powerful than reciprocal links.

2. When commenting leave value-added comments and try to be first to comment. That is why having a RSS feed reader like Bloglines comes in so handy. You can see new blog posts immediately.

3. Leave your real name instead of a keyword where your name goes. I personally delete all comments now where keywords are used as their name. It looks like the comment was left as a comment when you use your name compared to seeing a keyworded phrase instead.

4. Do your best to comment on blogs that have good page ranks. It’s always better for your blog when you are commenting or linking from authority sites.

5. Hire a company to do a linking campaign for you. They are usually quite affordable and if you focus on one blog at a time you can really shoot your site up in the rankings.

Note: When you hire anyone to do a back linking campaign be sure to check them out first. There are a lot of scammers out there. Be sure you have some type of guarantee you can work with.

I used a place once that only offered 50% refund guarantee. I asked them about it and he just explained that they did this manually so labour was involved. I still gave them a try as it was less than $50 for 80 backlinks.

I was pleased with their service but we had a heck of a time with emails. I told them in the end that I was pleased with their work and they did a great job but I wouldn’t use them again because of the email problems. I would still be using them if not for that problem.

So, in conclusion, blogging is easy, fun and quite rewarding if you start right and keep focused.

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Creative Writing and How to Make Money

Creative Writers Unite
Image by Barbara.Doduk via Flickr

A great way to start profiting from your creative writing is to sign up for a blogging program, create a blog, and post regular content.  A regular basis means updating you blog in a consistent manner of at least twice a week. Remember, if you do not update your article regularly, it will not get the visits or readers needed to profit.

After you have Constructed your Blog

Once you have posted an adequate amount of articles on your blog (more than 10 entries), you can focus on connecting to businesses, both online and off, that specialize in connecting professional bloggers to businesses that wish to pay for reviews of their products or services. These businesses might also want you to have their links embedded on your website or on certain blog posts.

My 4 Creative Writing Tips

In this article, I have listed my top 4 tips to implement when starting a money-making blog by crafting a profitable online creative writing business:

1. What are you Interested in Most?

Blogging doesn’t have to be a full-time gig, but once businesses begin to invest in your blog, which is now a fellow business, you must deliver. Constant readership means you need to be constantly uploading content. You must have an idea of what you are most passionate about. What magazines do you faithfully read? If you love your current career or job, what excites you most about it? Once you realize your passion, your drive, and excitement for a particular subject, you can rest your mind assured that constant content and joyous research will follow.

2. Find Keywords that Pay Big

After choosing what your desired topic(s) will be, it’s a good idea to search for high paying keywords related to the topic. There are tools such as Overtures Keyword Selector Tool, and many more. Simply perform a Google Search, and then type in profitable online keyword generator, or anything similar to that phrasing. This will produce a list of websites offering the information you want. What is the information you want? The most popular keyword searches from last month.

3. On you mark… Get set… Write!

Once you have your niche idea, and you have identified keywords, you are set to begin the wonderful creative blog writing process. One thought to make the blogging experience easier for you to adjust to is, image that it’s like your personal journal. Remain true to who you are, and be as passionate in your posts as you are for the subject itself. Incorporate your keywords throughout the content without overdoing it; conversely, try not to only add your keyword just once or twice. Also, online pinging services can assist in alerting the search engines that you have uploaded new content. Services such as Pingomatic and Pingoat are but two of many other services that helps you alert existing readers, as well as many other search engines, that you have something fresh to offer.

4. Place Ads on your Blog

After you have established some readership, and some could be a mere 5 unique visitors a day, you might consider placing some advertisements on your blog. Adsense is, by far, one of the most popular online publishing goldmines. It’s best to place adverts in areas of your blog or blog posts that will receive clicks from visitors. Choose an ad format that fits the look and feel of your blog in a dynamic way, for example, the 336X280 is a great option to utilize, because it looks like regular links, and not like ads. So remember, the more content you create, the more people will visit your blog, and the more people that visit your blog the more likely they are to click on ads. The more ads your visitors click on, the more money you make, and just think, you can do it simply with creative writing.

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My My Article Network Review

myarticlenetwork-logoWell it finally happened. I have increased the number of my web sites to the point where I can’t keep up with the article writing needed to keep fresh content on them.

As the number of sites increased I started using PLR or Private Label Rights articles but that only helped for a while, then I needed to find something else to get the content I need daily.

That’s when I decided to give automated article marketing a try and turned to My Article Network . It was that or start working more days a week and longer hours and that’s just not going to happen.

So, here is my review ofMy Article Network by Matt Callen.

First, here is The Claim by Matt Callen, creator of My Article Network:

“Get Unlimited Highly-Targeted,
One-Way Backlinks, Quickly Boost Your
Search Engine Rankings, and Dramatically
Increase Your FREE Traffic By Force-Feeding
Your Content Onto Over 10,000 Blogs Online!”
… and do all of this in a 100% legit and Google-friendly way…

That’s a mighty big claim… but… I have never seen or been part of a network that has over 10,000 blogs, so I expect great things from this network.

What Does My Article Network Do For Me?

The first thing we need to look at is what the network is suppose to do for you. If it’s not what you are looking for you should know that right here before you waste any more of your time.

1. One-Way-Link Building Through Article Marketing

I spent a lot of years doing reciprocal linking and back in 2001 it worked great. Unfortunately as time went on and the search engines starting seeing them for what they were, stopped giving so much value to them and instead started paying more attention to the one-way-links.

When I write and publish articles on the My Article Network I include up to three links back to any pages I want. These are one-way-links. I do not have to reciprocate.

2. I Can Use Articles on The Network For My Own Blogs

I do use articles from the network and publish them on my blogs but unlike a lot of people I don’t use just any articles. I have a screening process I use to eliminate content and links that aren’t really going to benefit my site.

Because of my screening process I reject more than 90% of articles. I just checked a minute ago so I could put the value here. Today it shows that I reject 91% of all articles.

Positive Aspects of My Article Network

1. I get a ton of one-way backlinks to my blogs and web sites.

2. Writing helpful content that is relevant to the category gets more articles published. Which most likely means if you write crap you will not see as many get published.

3. Creating relevant content with links that are also relevant goes a long ways to getting all those one-way backlinks.

4. My Article Network allows the use of rewriting code so that you can make you spin your articles into multiple articles quite easily. It is a bit time consuming but far less time than it would take to write all those as individual unique articles.

5. There is an option that allows you to ignore articles rewritten less than 30%. I always have this checked as it weeds out a lot of potential duplicate content.

Negative Aspect of My Article Network

There are a few things I have an issue with but they don’t stop me from using My Article Network 5 days a week.

I Reject A Lot of Articles

I mentioned above that I reject about 90% of articles, allow me to explain a little further.

I feel to get the most benefit when using articles they need to be good, well written, by that I mean good english skills, and they need to be relevant, both the content and the links. If they aren’t I reject them.

Because people will always try to push the limits I reject more than 90% of articles at My Article Network.

Support Doesn’t Do Much From What I Can See

I don’t really need support but I have requested a few answers about what people do on My Article Network and didn’t get a response back for more than a month.

When I did get a response they didn’t answer my questions. Instead they apologized for not being there. Not sure what the problem is in that respect but I think they should have answered my questions after apologizing.

Sometimes Articles Just Disappear

There are times that I choose articles and then wait for them to appear on my blogs and sometimes they just don’t appear. This really annoys me.

The fact that I am so picky with the articles I accept and the fact I have so many blogs that when I get a day that they don’t appear I get really ticked.

It would still be a pain but if I accepted all their articles it wouldn’t matter so much but there are days I only have 1 or 2 articles in a niche and when they don’t get published I go without content that day, well from there. I still put up content but it takes up even more of my time.

Note: Time Is One Thing I Can’t Buy

I’ve said some postive things and some negative things. I hope it will help you decide if you want to giveMy Article Network a try. I still publish between 20 and 30 articles a day, to my blogs and I also write and submit one or two articles a day that get published by many other members.

I am happy and satisfied with the results I get and will continue my membership until the time that changes.

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Hey, Look at Me!
Image by wrumsby via Flickr

Shadow, my dog and I work from home these days sharing the what we know about our hobbies and interests. But I don’t just share this info on my blogs. I also make niche specific content available in a number of ways that make me more money.

1. Write Articles And Publish Them on Top Article Directories.

This does a couple of things for me.

  • I get a backlink back to the web page I added to my article resource box.
  • Other marketers use my articles but by law they have to keep my resource box which gives me more backlinks to that web page.

I have a favourite article directory which is EzineArticles.com but I also use numerous others. Just do a search in Google for ‘article directories’ and you will find the top ones on page one of your results.

2. Guest Blogging

I like to write and share content by guest blogging on other blogs. I don’t do this a lot because I usually use commenting on blogs as a way to get more of my content out there along with a link back to my site. It’s vital that you add value by staying relevant when commenting or no one will follow your link.

3. Create Private Label Rights Articles

If you have hobbies and interest that you know something about you have a great opportunity to write niche specific articles that you can sell from your sites.

Good content is worth gold in PLR format. Just look at Nicole Dean’s Easy PLR to see what you can do with your own Private Label Rights products and you will see there’s gold in them there articles.

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Have desk, will write
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I work from home and have been since early 2001. I love being my own boss even though it does require a lot of content and linking to make it all come together for the 20 or so blogs I have going currently.

My blogs are in a variety of niches and need niche specific content on a regular basis, which for me is at least one article per blog every 3 days. It does tend to keep me busy so I periodically I use writers to help me with my content. That’s when I turn to article directories to find good writes for my niches.

Note: Not all my articles are publish on my blogs. I also write articles specifically to get backlinks to my blog pages. At the end of each article I add details about me and the niche I am writing about, it’s called the resource or bio box.

The Article Resource Box

The first and most important aspect of article writing is to have focused, helpful content or you won’t get anyone finishing the article. If they don’t finish it they won’t be making use of your resource box. But if you take the time to write worthwhile content then you want to make sure you give the details that will get your resource box link clicked.

I get articles at a variety of place and notice a lot of people write about one thing and link to something non-relevant. I don’t use these articles for content and I don’t bother with the author. I am a firm believer that the resource box and article content should be relevant to each other.

I don’t find it professional at all to write about a specific type of fishing or perhaps gardening but their resource box points to an insurance, gambling, meds… you get my point, right.

When I am looking for writers I look for writers that link to what they talk about in their article.

In my humble opinion when a resource box is done correctly it should give information about the writer relevant to the content.

What Should Be In Your Resource Box?

Here are a few things that your resource box should include, their important:

Include Your full name: When I publish articles I like to include a little about myself but I make it a point to include my full name, not just my first name or my initials. It never seems completely real unless the full name is there.

Include A Relevant Link

Every once in a while I see an article in the article directories that has no link in the article or the resource box. What were they thinking. It’s that link that makes it all work.

The URL you use in your resource box is a link back to a specific web page on your site, don’t waste the opportunity.

So your resource box doesn’t need to have a lot of info and should only be about 1-3 sentences. Just enough for your details and a call to action.

An article is just an article, without your resource box you really don’t stand a change in article directories.

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Five Basic Rules For Blogs

Lines of law school
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As everyone knows blogs are everywhere. If a person would type the word blog into any search website you would millions of results. As the popularity of the blogs has increased, many people have deemed them as untrustworthy sources for info. This is as plenty of blogs are made by standard every day folk. But in the same aspect firms will also create a blog to generate more traffic and make money online.

So how do we go about fixing the unreliable factor? Well to do this all bloggers should go by a natural set of blogging rules. These are rules that aren’t in any way set in stone or anything but they’re basic rules that any one should follow. Most of your rules should follow the code of ethics tenets as code of ethics are a very important set of ethics to follow. In applying the rules to your blog there are 5 essential rules you must apply to your own site.

1. Facts

Make sure you check your facts before posting anything on your blog. Perform a little research on your topic and ensure the info that you have is true. Doing basic research can protect you from posting false info. When you post false information you may look bad and you may lose visitors to your set. Even after you have posted your blog check and confirm everything is correct . The more that you test your facts the better off you will be.

2. Copyright Regulations

Do not by any means walk into a site and simply cut and paste their info into your website. This is against copyright acts and can get you into some serious legal issues. Everything that is contained on the internet is copyrighted, which a lot of folks do not realize. You are better off making your own information and avoid any illegal misuse of copyright laws.

3. Implications

Think about the implications about what you are posting. When you push the post button there will be no way to change your words. If your post may cause repercussions against somebody later do not post it. Select all of your words thoroughly in order not to hurt any one’s feelings.

4. Comments

Monitor all of the comments that are placed on your blog page. Put restrictions on the sort of comments your readers are permitted to leave. This way they won’t leave a comment that might offend somebody or some place and cause vicious feelings because it will be you, not them, who will lose the visitors.

5. Credit

You must be bound to provide credit to any resources you use. If you fail to do this step you may fall into the rule number 2 of copyright laws and you’ll be deemed dishonorable.

These are just five common and essential rules that are out there but there are numerous more. Do a little analysis and discover which rules might apply to your internet site.

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