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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

How To Earn $7.50 For Reviewing Blog Posts

Did you know you can make money writing blog reviews? Did you also know you can make money getting your own blog reviewed? In this article we will look at another unique way to make money from blogging.

I am always amazed at the many different ways to make money these days. One I just found involves making money from blogging and reviewing other people's blogs. You can even make money now by getting your blog reviewed and recruiting new bloggers to do the same.

Besides earning money when your blog is reviewed I see one huge advantage to this and that is backlinks to your blog. When someone reviews your blog they are putting a live backlink to it in their blog post. The more of these links you get the better it will rank with the search engines. Google especially likes backlinks and it is one of it’s main criteria in how you rank for various keywords.

You can join a company like PayPerPost and make money for posting as well. You need a blog and you have to get it approved from them which takes 48-72 hours. If you do not have a blog yet shame on you.Seriously you can set up your own blog in 3 easy steps with Blogger.com. Of course they are owned by Google and they have really added some nice features to it.

It makes no difference to PayPerPost where and how you blog. They are looking for blogs that are active and offer something to your readers and to their advertisers. This is a cool concept and another example of how being creative can have you making money from blogging and providing value to your readers.

There are many ways to make money from a blog. You can add Google Adsense ads on each post. You can put affiliate programs in the sidebar of your blog. I do this with a couple of eBooks as well as my JV With Jeff program to help people make money online. Of course you can link to just about anything in your blog post. You can add banners with your link as well.

Then it all comes down to traffic. Getting as many visitors to your blog will make the difference in how much you earn from it. This is no different than building a website except that social marketing has really given you many options for getting more traffic via social directories like Digg.com, Reddit.com and others.

Making money from a blog really comes down to effort and getting it monetized with programs to make money from the traffic that visit your blog. You should not be ashamed to make money from your blog as long as you are providing an enjoyable experience to your visitors.

How To Earn Money From Your Web Site Or Blog

One of the most often asked questions from novice webmasters is: How do I monetize my site? How do I earn an income from my site or blog?

The solution is quite simple, yet the effectiveness (read how much you will make) can be very complex and complicated. There are so many factors involved, it is more than just throwing a few banners or text ads on your site. Factors that will greatly determine how much income you will derive from your blogs or sites.

Maybe it is better to start from the very beginning, before you even start to build your site or blog. The first factor you have to realize, the Internet is run by search engines. There are exceptions but for the most part the search engines will determine how many visitors your site will receive.

And to simplify things further, by search engines read Google. Mainly because Google will deliver the majority of your traffic. MSN and Yahoo will deliver traffic but not in the numbers Google will.

Next, while the Internet is run by these search engines, its powered by KEYWORDS. Understand this fact fully, and your life as a struggling webmaster will be over.

Keywords and keyword phrases are what people place in the search engines when they're searching for information or searching for a product to buy. Obviously, keywords are the source of your online income, they're the building blocks of any income from your site. Therefore, you have to choose your keywords carefully. You need ones that people are using and searching for on the web.

Use resources like Wordtracker.com or Overture.com to find the best keywords. One excellent resource is www.nichebot.com, it will not only give you the number of searches made for any given keyword but it will also give you the ratio of numbers of sites to exact keyword phrases, i.e. it will give you the amount of competition for your keywords. You can proceed or act accordingly. The lower the ratio, the better chance you have of placing your site on the first page SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Getting on those pages will be your first step in really monetizing your site or blog. You can do yourself a big favor by placing your main keyword phrase in the title of your Domain. For example, if you have a site on Gaming Laptops, place those keywords somewhere in the title of your site or blog.

In your content or webpages always construct or create pages around keywords that have a product attached. For example, if you have a page entitled 'Best Gaming Laptops', more than likely your visitors will be searching for the best gaming laptops to buy. Monetizing your site will then only be a matter of finding affiliate programs to match this keyword phrase. (High end gaming Laptop Manufacturers). Or placing Google Adsense text or image ads on this page. Another popular alternative to Adsense is the new upstart -- Chitika eMiniMalls, interactive/search/product review banner ads.

Another good strategy is to pick affiliate products that are high paying where just one click can result in $100 or more. Where to find these affiliate products? Some top general affiliate programs are Amazon, Commission Junction, LinkShare, Clickbank -- all these reputable programs lists thousands of products that sell well online. These programs will also send your checks out on time!

Once you have this simple system worked out: high searched for keyword + low ratio competition + matching affiliate link or banner = $$$

You will be well on your way to monetizing your site or blog. Look for popular unexplored niche areas for your content or webpages and you will increase your earnings. Try out different keywords and see which ones develop into an income stream on your site. Explore the successful ones with variations of your main keyword. Example, 'Gaming Laptops UK'. Then get affiliate products to match these variant keyword phrases.

It is a simple formula you can follow time and time again, with all your keywords.

There are countless ways to monetize your site or blog, but trying the system described above will give you a head-start on your competition. Perfect this system and you will be on your way to becoming one of those much talked about success stories on the web. Better yet, you can remain totally anonymous, and quietly earn an income from your webpages day after day. Keep everyone guessing and wondering just what's putting that smile on your face?

How To Create, Promote And Earn Money From Your Own Blog

For starters, what is a blog? In general terms, it is a sort of interactive, regularly updated online journal. A blog owner is called a blogger, the activity of keeping a blog is called blogging, and the blogging community and everything related to blogging is collectively known as the blogosphere.

How are blogs created? There are several options. The cost-free way is to start a blog at one of the countless free blog services, such as the Google service called blogger. Another option is to use one of the free blog scripts and install it at a paid or free hosting service. Such free blog scripts are also numerous, the most popular of them being wordpress. It is also possible to sign up for a paid hosting service with an already installed wordpress blog, but this service is somewhat costlier.

Now let's assume that we already have a blog. The next question is: Where do we get content? Choose the subject for your blog. It may be your professional occupation or hobby. In any case, you must have solid knowledge of the subject. For instance, if you are a proctologist, you may write about hemorrhoids, their treatment, prevention and suchlike as long as these are not scientific articles, but materials written in layman's language. To give you a more practical example, if your hobby is dogs, write about them and people will enjoy it. There is another way to get content. The web has many services offering free articles. All you have to do is select the most interesting ones and publish them. In this way you can quickly fill your blog with content.

Moving on to the question of promoting your blog, it is worth noting that blogs are better indexed by search engines than ordinary web sites due to the specifics of the algorithm used in blogs. For instance, a new article in a well-promoted blog may appear on the search engine results page already on the following day. Of course, this requires registration in special catalogs devoted to blogs, which is what you will do next. Another way is to publish articles with a link to your blog. There are also services meant for just this purpose.

But most importantly, a search engine needs external links to your blog from other web sites. These should be good links generating heavy traffic. What does it mean? It means that ideally the link should be on the web site's main page. What's more, this page should have a PR rating of at least 4 (PR or Google Page Rank reflects the significance of any particular web page). Five or six such links will do more than hundreds of other ordinary links. How can you get such links? There are also various options. For instance, you can find a resource thematically related to your blog and offer its owners to reciprocate links. Finally, you can buy such links. The higher the web site's PR rating, the more such links will cost you.

Now let's move on to the question of how you can earn money from your own blog. The scheme is quite simple: traffic is converted into money. Your income increases proportionately with the traffic volume. One way to earn from a blog is to place ads, which is done most often through google adwords. Another way is to participate in partnership programs associated with the subject of your blog. So if your blog is devoted to dogs, you should advertise flea control products and other dog-related merchandise. A third way is to sell your own merchandise or services. Of course, you can combine several ways of generating income in a single blog. Last but not least, remember that strength is in numbers, which is why it's a good idea to maintain several resources at the same time.

Optimise Your Blog Traffic and Earn More Money

When blogging first came to prominence it was little more than a glorified – and public – online journal for many people. However, with its great increase in popularity, it has now become a popular way of making money via the use of affiliate links and advertising programmes such as Google Adsense. If you are considering trying your hand at earning money from blogs, or if you already have a blog set up, it is crucial that you know how to make it a success.

Produce a good quality blog

First of all, it is imperative that you are providing quality content. Make sure you know your subject well so that you can produce a blog which is informative and well written. If you are enthusiastic about your chosen subject, so much the better, as you will know what your target audience are interested in and can tailor a blog suited around those wants or needs.

If you have set up a blog purely as a potential get rich quick scheme and have not invested the necessary time and effort into researching your topic, it will show in your blog. Unless your blog is targeted at a particularly narrow niche there are likely to be hundreds of other blogs competing with yours for traffic, so if you have produced a poor quality site people will have no hesitation about going elsewhere. They certainly won’t be staying long enough to take a look at your affiliate links or click on any adverts.

Update your blog regularly

If you have produced a good quality blog you should receive a steady stream of interested visitors and be earning a little money. However, the bloggers you are probably aspiring to – those who are earning 6 figure incomes from their sites – are earning good money because they are constantly building on their success by constantly adding fresh content, maybe even as frequently as several times a day.

It is in your best interest to keep your target audience hooked, and returning to visit your pages again and again. A regular reader is much more likely to tell people about your blog or link to it from their own sites, and in the long term this is going to be very beneficial to driving up your traffic.

There is a second way in which regular blogging can greatly increase your traffic. There are sites specifically dedicated to bloggers announcing the new addition of content to their sites. Post a link to your new blog entry every time you add new content as when the search engines trawl the internet these links will help speed up the indexing of your pages. Services such as pingomatic.com can help you do this automatically.

Use of keywords

Keep in mind what keywords are likely to draw people to your blog. Within the text, some keywords are going to be given more value than others by the search engines, such as those included in the header, bold text, or those used for hot links. The more emphasis given to the targeted keywords on your blog, the better your search engine ranking will be.

However, try to find a balance between your use of keywords and providing quality content. Over use of keywords can mean the quality of your blog suffers as the text may not ‘flow’ so well. It is also worth noting that if the keyword density is much more than 5% some search engines may regard your blog as potential ‘spam’, and your engine ranking will suffer.

Blog Directories

Seek out blog directories such as blogwise.com and bloghub.com. As well as increasing the number of back links to your sites (thus raising your search engine ranking) you will also be taking advantage of the fact that many people searching for blogs do so through these directories rather than using search engines. This is particularly beneficial if your blog is still fairly new and not particularly prominent on the search engines yet.

Building a succesful blog takes time. Do not be discouraged if it does not immediately attract good traffic as this will come with time and perseverance. Your efforts will eventually be rewarded and with an increase in traffic will come great money making potential.

Different Ways To Earn Affiliate Commissions From Your Blog

You can profit with your blog in more than one way. The first way is to get readers to your site to read your sales letter, or to your affiliate site. Unfortunately, many people leave it at that, not using the blog for any other purpose. They are leaving money on the table!

First, add Google AdSense to your blog. You will profit from clicks on the ads, and there is no reason not to do this. Remember, the important thing is that profit is made, and it ends up in your pocket. You should have one Google AdSense unit on the border of your page, and then paste in the code for each blog post as well.

Add affiliate banners around the borders of your blog. Don't use annoying banners, and make sure that all affiliate programs are relevant to your main topic. Also, promote affiliate programs within your blog posts, using your affiliate links or directing the visitor to your sales page. When doing this, however, make sure that the post is informative. Avoid just posting an advertisement as a blog entry.

If your blog becomes very popular with a high readership, sell advertising to other people on your blog! It may take a long time to get to this point, but with time and effort, you will get there.

Always be on the lookout for ways to profit from your blog. Use every opportunity for profit as it presents itself. Just remember that while people like to buy, they do not like to be sold to. Use your blog to inform people about your niche, and also use it to build a relationship with your readers.

Once the relationship is established, and you've proven yourself to be an expert in your niche, you can easily make recommendations to your readers, and your most loyal followers will buy the product, solely based on your recommendation. This is very powerful.

Think about this. Is it better to market to a huge list or readership of people who really aren't all that interested in what you are saying, much less in what you are selling or is it better to market to a small list or a small following of devoted readers, of which the majority will make a purchase every time you make a recommendation? The second option is the one you want, and this is where you should focus your time and energy.

Freelance Blogging: Get Hired To Blog And Earn Thousands A Month

Blogging gives you a great way to learn some extra cash. You can even turn blogging into a full-time career, or a new business. Getting started as a freelance blogger is simple. All you need to do is create a blog, make a few blog posts (these are your work samples), and then look for blogging gigs.

Create a blog If you don't already have a blog, creating a blog is your first step. You can do this very quickly. Creating a new blog at blogger.com (which is owned by Google) only takes a minute or two. This is your "sample" blog. Think of this blog as your blogging portfolio.

Your blogging topic can be in any subject area that you choose, but give some thought to your potential clients - don't make your blogging topic too personal. If you have expertise in a particular area like finance, technology or health, make this the subject area of your blog.

Write some blog posts Now your blog has been created, it's time to make some blog posts. Your entries are published in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry first. Your first entry can be a brief statement (no more than 100 words) about the general topic of your blog.

For example, if your blog is about dieting, you could summarize the areas (recipes, weight lost tips, health tips) you intend to cover. Or your first post could be an introduction: tell your readers who you are, and why the topic of the blog concerns you. Or you can skip the idea of an introductory post altogether, and just jump into your topic.

Look for blogging gigs Great - you've created two or more blog entries. Now it's time to look for your first blog-job. Your first step is to write a blog post about your availability to blog. You can make this entry detailed, or extremely brief. If you wish, you can add a link to your online resume or CV.

Where do you find blogging jobs? You'll find that several sites have already been set up to match bloggers with companies that want to hire them. Enter "blog jobs" into a search engine to find your initial leads.

You'll also find companies looking for bloggers at out-sourcing venues like guru.com. However, be aware that on these sites, you're competing against others for gigs - don't be tempted to underbid others. Under-bidding is a bad idea because it's terrible marketing. Once you set your price low, it's hard to lift it. Have an awareness of what blogging is worth, and set your price appropriately. Companies which want bloggers don't want the cheapest option - they want the best they can afford.

So there you have it: everything you need to know to get started as a freelance blogger today. Create a blog, make some entries, get a gig. Good luck with your blogging career. If you're a born blogger, you can turn your freelance blogging into a full-time career.

Good luck, and happy blogging.

Adsense Blog: The Easy Way To Earn Thousands Of Dollars From Your Bedroom PC

The blog or web log, is a wonderful new medium that is just perfect for the Google Adsense program.

The truth of the matter is that the blog and the Adsense program were made for each other and this powerful combination makes it possible for any home based entrepreneur working from the privacy of their bedrooms to pull in substantial amounts of cash. Blogs are just the right medium where plenty of fascinating and useful information can be posted and easily accessed by those hungry for information.

But there is a right way to do everything and this is the ideal and correct way to ensure that rather than frustrations, you pull in significant amounts of revenue using only your blog and the Adsense program.

Take your hobby or the subject that fascinates you the most and set up a blog with your favorite free blog host, apply to join the Google Adsense program.

Next settle down and start having some real fun exploring your favorite subject, researching and writing posts at your brand new Adsense blog. Do not forget to make available to your visitors all the valuable and useful resources you come across.

The idea is to create the most interesting Adsense blog covering your particular subject of interest. Then as you go along just ensure that you read up as much as you can about the Adsense program and how to maximize your revenue from it.

That's how simple it is to make thousands of dollars from your bedroom exploring your favorite topic with nothing more than a PC connected to the web and a Adsense blog.

Find out how you can learn more about the best Adsense make money secrets from an expert who makes over $19,000 a month from Adsense. Or discover an easy way to increase traffic to your Adsense blog using only free articles marketing.

Blog Internet Affiliate Marketing Secret That'll Earn You A High Unbelievable Monthly Income

There is a blog internet affiliate marketing secret that most blog affiliates fail to make use of. And this is the very secret that high earning blog affiliates use to rake in their huge monthly affiliate income.

The fact is that most blog affiliates who make little or no sale, have very low conversion rates. What this means is that the number of people who chick through to the main affiliate site and make a purchase or sign up is very low.

If you want to increase your conversion ratio and earn a high unbelievable monthly income, here is a blog internet affiliate marketing secret for you:

Always pre-sell to your blog visitors.

The secret to earning an unbelievable monthly income is to pre-sell to your potential affiliate blog visitors. When you pre-sell to your affiliate blog visitors, then you are actually increasing your conversion ratio which means increase in the number of sales that you make. Pre-selling to your potential affiliate blog visitors actually means painting of good picture of what you have in store for them when they eventually click through to the affiliate site you are promoting. It is important to note here that giving your potential affiliate blog visitors long lectures on how good your offer is will never work. The way to do it is create a “glutton” desire in them such that they’ll crave for the solution which is located at the affiliate site you are promoting.

Articles are very good pre-selling tools that you can use to effectively describe the benefits of the affiliate site you are promoting. All you need do is carefully generate articles that pre-sell the affiliate site you are promoting. Make sure that you also carefully include popular but low-in-competition key words or phrases that you can easily rank for. Post some of the articles you have generated to your affiliate blog and post the rest at leading high traffic article directories. There is one last thing that you must take note of. When linking to the affiliate site you are promoting, don’t make it look as if you are advertising. Make it look as if you are linking them to more information that will solve their problems.

You’ve been armed with a blog internet affiliate marketing secret that will change the way you do blog affiliate marketing. Follow the simple rules and you are guaranteed of earning a high unbelievable affiliate monthly income.


How to Keep Your Blog Traffic - Tips for a Stickier Blog

So you finally figured out how to get those visitors to your site, huh? Well, partner, it's not over. Now you've got to keep them there if you hope for your blog to be effective.

So, how do you keep your blog traffic? I knew you'd ask that...

1. Your Audience Is More Important Than Your Search Engine Rankings

Who knows what way the wind will blow in years to come. You may be able to do without traffic from Google one day - just like you're probably doing without traffic from Hotbot right now.

However, you'll never be able to do without your clients and prospects. If you could you wouldn't be in business, would you?

So pay attention to what your audience wants to hear. If you configure your blog correctly in the first place, you won't have to worry about a good ranking so much.

2. Don't Add to the Noise.

It's okay to be silent for short periods if you have nothing interesting to say. In the meantime, while you're keeping your lips tight, find something *really* interesting to say.

Of course, I believe that there's never nothing to say. But I'm a writer and not everyone thinks that way.

After the first six to eight weeks, post every day if it suits you and you have words of interest. But after that, if you can sense that your posts aren't full bodied and home brewed, it really is fine to make us go without for a few. We'll live. We won't think so, but trust us, we will.

Just make sure you have something darn near-earth shattering to share when you get back, so we will all sit up and take note... and realize that we missed you.

3. When You Do Talk, Do It Loud and Proud

(Even if you find out later you were Loud and Wrong)

It's considered impolite to behave like a Rock Star when you're having a business dinner, even if you are one.

But guess what? When you're blogging, you aren't at a business dinner. That's not to say that you must indulge in Rock Star behavior if it doesn't suit you..

You don't even have to be *a* star. But you definitely want to be noticed, maybe referenced, and hopefully linked. A great way to do that is to be different. The most unique thing about you is You. Inject your personality in all that you do online.

So if you have news, share it. Heck, if you have gossip share it, just always, always, always, link to your suspicions or sources. On the rare occasion that a high-profile blogger's information is totally off-base, they print a retraction. So don't be afraid to suppose. Just let us know whether you are sharing a rumor, hunch, a fact or opinion.

4. Do Unto the Blogosphere, and Make It Easy for Them to Do Unto You

When I have credible sources, I link to them. Even if I read something from the Google Blog, but know when I first saw it first at Micropersuasion, I'm still linking to Micropersuasion. That's all there is to it.

(And let me tell you - it's a Huge deal when Steve Rubel links to an article that you wrote even when it's not posted on your site - think about that the next time you're tempted not to link out because "they have enough traffic.")

For the majority of people, I realize, that situation may never be in consideration. Most of the people reading this have nothing to do with search engines, public relations, or internet marketing.

Well, I'm here to tell you that even if your business is timeshare resales, you should still link to your sources. You never know who is reading and who is going to link back. Especially if you're in a business niche where twenty visitors eventually means at least one sale, find out what the neighborhood is like in your part of the Blogosphere, look around, and play nice with the other kids.

5. Blog Like You Talk - But if You Talk "Funny" Get Someone Else to Blog with You

Nothing will scare your visitors away faster than landing in techno-babble by accident. I landed at a friend's site about search engines, and the first paragraph I saw said something about (a+n) times the square root of pi and I clicked out before I even remembered why I went there.

Don't get me wrong - if that's how you talk, keep it real. But if that's not the language your clients speak, you might want to either have an employee represent your company in the blog, or do a team blog that represents all the prominent voices.

6. Give Every Subscription Option Under the Sun

Most people paying online are going to use their credit card or debit card, by far. How crazy would you have to be to say, hm, 90% of people use credit cards, but the hell with that. If they want my binoculars, their only choice is to send me a $20 check by snail mail on Tuesday mornings.

In this same way, refusing to turn on your site feed, because most people are currently following you by email, makes absolutely no sense. Refusing to start an email list or offer subscriptions to your blog headlines, summaries or posts via email is equally nuts, particularly now that there are tools in place that will translate feeds to email for you.

Not serving as much of your audience as you can is turning down money, plain and simple.

Hopefully these tips will help keep visitors coming back to your blog. It's like the old adage said, it's easier (and cheaper) to keep your present customers than it is to constantly find new ones.

The same thing goes for your blog visitors.

How To Get The Most From A Blog

This question is all I hear when someone realizes the power of blogging.

In an attempt to give real information to users and not the run around I have decided to post this article. When approached with the question of how to create a blog because everyone else is doing it so I do too. I have to say this is not an easy answer. Even though there are tons of sources to start a blog that does not make it successful.

6 Steps to a successful blog:

  • Choose a popular location to start your blog and choose one that allows you to load the blog on your site directly. Blogger and WordPress are my favorites.
  • Be prepared to add at least 3 articles a week to your blog. When I say articles I mean "ARTICLES". Don't try and use your blog to sell a product or a service, otherwise you are defeating the power of blogging. Why do I say this? Well the idea of blogging is to post information useful to the readers and the sites that offer these abilities did so for this purpose only. I want to really emphasize that making your blogs rich in content and useful is very important.
  • Make sure to use fully the ping services available. Every time you post a blog it pings blog servers so that the release of your post can be read by many. By using the typical default pings servers you are limiting your exposure. www.surrealblog.com offers a complete list of current ping servers.
  • Always have a link back to your main site either on some or all of your blogs that you post. If your blog is interesting and useful the readers may think that your services or products you are selling are useful as well and click on your links because now you have become a trusted resource.
  • Add your blog to your main site. Create an extra directory specific to your blogs. Most blog programs will let you run your blog directly on your own site. Add a link from your main site to your blog as well. If you build up traffic for your blog from doing the above mentioned things, then you are building up traffic for your main site. If you don't have a main site and just want to blog to help others with your important information, find someone with a great service and mention them sometimes.
  • Find a list of popular blog directories and list your blog on them. Most of these offer a small fee or a free listing if you link back. I suggest you pay the small fee as it will benefit your blog in a much greater way. You can feel free to contact me if you want a complete list of popular blog directories.
  • Blog Traffic: Does How or When You Blog Matter?

    What do I mean by how you blog?

    One of the most common mistakes made by the novice blogger is to fill their blog with 60 - 80% recycled content. Sure, it's fine to quote other sources and give your opinion. But just re-blogging other posts, or cutting and pasting reprint articles does not a great blogger make.

    And maybe you don't want to be a Great blogger. Perhaps you don't have the time.

    But you do want to be at least a good blogger, or you are killing your blog’s incredible potential to be a search engine magnet, as well as boost your traffic and sales from both first time and return visitors.

    Your content doesn't have to be picture perfect, and you don't have to make article-length posts to your blog.

    But what you do need is:

    * Blog Posts that Engage Your Audience * Blog Material that is either Original in Topic, or Original in Approach * More Original Content than Re-Hashed * Unique Viewpoints, Sources or Perspectives to add to content that you quote.

    Does when you post to your blog make a difference?

    Yes. You're going to find that some days of the week get you a better response, maybe because more people are online. Or perhaps if you're an entrepreneur, informing other micro-business owners, you might find that certain times of day work best for you.

    Paying attention to trends that work best for your site for the time of day, week, and even year, can bring a measurable boost to your readership. Some people, myself included, even find that blogging when more people are likely to be on their site brings a boost in sales.

    There isn't much hard data as to why that is, but when you think about an offline analogy, it makes sense. I don’t know about you, but if I'm browsing a store in a mall, it greatly increases the chances that I'll leave without buying if no one is around.

    Does that mean you have to be around and blogging all the time? Not necessarily. But if you see a dip in traffic or sales when you haven't posted in a while, a few short posts may help reverse the trend.

    Blog Definition - What's A Blog And How Can I Make Money With One?

    The more time you spend on the Internet, the more you tend to take things for granted. Though I've been around long before blogs, I've come to take them for granted as well once I saw how popular they became. What I tend to forget, is that there are people new to the Internet who don't yet know what blogs are, what they're for and even better yet, how they can make money with their blogs. Well, this article is going to answer all those questions. Hopefully, after reading this, you'll have a pretty good idea of whether or not you want to set up your own blog.

    The first order of business is to explain what blog stands for because it's actually short for weblog. A weblog is a log where people jot down their personal thoughts about a number of subjects. Most weblogs are very specialized, meaning that they are on one topic and one topic only, such as Internet marketing. There are blogs dedicated to nothing but Internet marketing topics, such as how to make money online, how to set up an autoresponder, how to write articles and so on. Then there are some blogs that are simply random thoughts and touch on a variety of topics.

    The concept of blogging really started long before blogs came into vogue, when people would set up their home pages featuring photos of their dog, what they ate for breakfast, who they're going out with and so on. Back then, they weren't called blogs. They were simply home pages. But as these pages began to get more specialized and as their look began to change, the term blog came about.

    As blogs became more popular, sites started popping up that made it easy for a person to create their own blog easily, such as blogger.com, which is one of the biggest ones. This makes it so that a person doesn't have to create their own blog from scratch. Just type in some text, push a button, and you've got a blog. Technology has come a long way.

    So, how can we make money with these blogs? Well, it's certainly not by throwing up pictures of your dog. But imagine that somebody is looking for information on Internet marketing. All you need to do is put up a blog with some information on the subject and then redirect this person to a resource where they can get more info if they like. This resource will most likely be your affiliate link to an Internet marketing product that you endorse. And there you have it, income in the making.

    7 Secrets to a Successful Business Blog: How to Blog Smart

    Today's software makes it so easy to set up a blog that it seems like everybody and their neighbor has a blog. Yes, they are a fad right now. And yes, they are a great business tool for any business, large or small – and they're here to stay.

    Especially for the independent professional, a blog is an easy communication tool to build credibility and trust. Most importantly, blogs make it easy for people to find you on the Web.

    But 9 out of 10 blogs created will be abandoned because they can take up a lot of time in a busy professional’s life, and results may not be evident right away.

    There are several keys to making your blog work for you, instead of the other way around. Once you learn and integrate these steps, it should take you only 10-20 minutes per post. It's recommended that an additional 20 minutes a couple of times per week should be spent reading and commenting on other blogs and sites on the Web so you can bring valuable information to your readers.

    7 Secrets to a Successful Business Blog

    1. Write valuable content and share stories to showcase your knowledge and expertise. Don’t forget to explain how you work with clients and let readers know how to contact you, hire you, buy a product or register for your services.

    2. Write 2-3 times a week, short articles of 250-350 words each time. Occasionally, a longer article can be shared, using the extended post feature.

    3. Link profusely to other resources on the web. This is essential for building traffic and enlarging your reading audience. Spend some time, 2-3 times a week researching your area of expertise on the Web. Leave comments on other blogs.

    4. Submit to blog directories and ping each time you post. If you don’t know how to do this, get a blog coach or buy and read an instructional manual, such as the ebook at www.BuildaBetterBlogSystem.com.

    5. Track and monitor your visitor stats. Install a counter on your blog so you know what’s happening. For example, a free counter can be found at www.SiteMeter.com.

    6. List all your products and affiliate products and make sure you have the landing pages properly linked. Use your affiliate links and ad-tracking features if you have a shopping cart.

    7. Don’t forget to link to your own website and vice versa! This is one reason we prefer to have the blog separate from your website, rather than installing blog software incorporated into your website. It’s like having two fishing poles in the pond.

    Like any marketing effort, persistence pays off. In six months of regular blogging, assuming you are providing valuable content, you should see a significant increase in your web site traffic, the client leads, and overall total revenue for your business.

    If not, you’re not blogging smart!

    As the The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman have teamed up to work with professionals to maximize their marketing strategies by implementing blogs, ezines and ecommerce tactics. They have co-authored "Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide for Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog", "Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger: From Boring to Brilliant in 30 Days" and "Secrets of Successful Ezines: A Guide to Writing and Publishing an Ezine that Gets Results."

    Blog For Profit - How To Monetize Your Blog

    Do you have a blog you want to make some money from? How do you go about monetizing your blog? Blog monetizing is becoming increasingly popular using affiliate products.

    One of the ways people are using for blog monetizing is Google AdSense which is a pay per click affiliate program. There are also a number of other pay per click affiliate programs which one could use to monetize your blog. Other AdSense type adverts that one could use for blog monetizing are SearchFeed, AdBrite, ClickSor, or Yahoo's Publisher’s Network (YPN).

    Though pay per click affiliate programs generally offer a low cost per click rate, another method you could use is cost per sale or cost per lead affiliate programs such as ClickBank products, PayDotCom, or Amazon products. An easy way to integrate ClickBank and PayDotCom products into your website is to create AdSense-style ads with the same look and feel but where you can earn more money on a per sale basis.

    Another way to advertise affiliate products on your blog is to recommend them in your blog posts. Focusing on the subject of your blog, you could advertise different products related to it in each blog post. If you are careful to build up a relationship with the people who visit your blog, they'll begin to trust you and as a result will be more likely to buy your affiliate products and create a blog monetizing focus for you.

    Offering a paid newsletter is another way of blog monetizing. Start by offering a free newsletter and then have a way that people can upgrade to a paid newsletter or eZine. Your paid eZine for example could be in PDF format and look more like a magazine than your free newsletter which could be a simple email. You could also offer your affiliate products in your newsletter and eZine to earn extra money from it.

    Another way of monetizing your blog is to sell advertising space on it. Many people are looking for places to advertise their website or blog and if you have a popular blog pulling in good page views then they will be prepared to pay you something to have their website advertised on your blog.

    Although blog monetizing is normally done using affiliate programs you can also use other ideas such as having a paid newsletter or selling advertising space on your blog. You could advertise affiliate programs using AdSense style ads or by recommending affiliate products in your blog posts.

    How to Use a Blog? Different Business Blog Applications

    You might have some ideas about how you can incorporate a blog into your marketing mix but don't have a hint about how it can be used in different applications. Don't worry though, if you are still confused about how to do that because you're in for a treat.

    We hear of success stories on a daily basis regarding the use of a simple tool like blog, from micro businesses to large corporations. Yet, despite this, the majority of people running businesses still overlook the myriad ways that a blog can be used in their business.

    The good news is that, when trying to find out how you can implement a blog as part of your business website, or as a standalone site, most of the time if you look long and hard enough, you will find a way a blog can fit in. After all, a blog is just another website with interesting features like automatic archiving, commenting, easy management and publishing. And what business doesn’t need those features?

    To save you time, though, here are a list of common blog application ideas:

    1) Content management system (CMS) - Albeit far from a full blown CMS, a blog is more than enough for small to medium size businesses for managing content. Some blog software allow multiple authors, multiple blogs and static pages. This actually means more flexibility as a usable CMS.

    2) Company news and updates - Blog software sort blog entries chronologically: the most recent entry appears at the top of the page. Anyone who can write e-mail can post to a company blog, skipping the tedious workflow.

    3) Customer support - Manage knowledge base articles on a blog, allow customers to retrieve information easily by using a properly categorized system or search function. Let users ask question, receive feedback and others to read the conversation. I admit, this is scary for some companies as it knocks up against cultures that aren’t used to being so transparent. Actually though, if used correctly, a blog can increase credibility and customer relations to a higher level.

    4) Product development and launch - Keep customers updated about the current development of products, build anticipation and buzz, even before product launch. Do you want a bunch of ready to buy readers flocking to your website? Consider using a blog.

    5) Press releases - Let interested parties get recent news release and let them subscribe to the site feed.

    6) Education based marketing - Prospective customers can learn about a company’s products or services by reading the blog. Answering customers’ concerns on the blog allows other visitors to relate to the problem and immediately develops interest in the product.

    7) Focused community - Even a solopreneur can secure a tiny niche and build a sense of community around that niche by regularly posting content related to the topic.

    8) Demonstrate expertise - Service professionals use blogs as a tool to build credibility by demonstrating expertise in almost any imaginable topic. The buzz allows them to gain recognition fast.

    9) Internal collaboration tool – A blog is a great medium to keep all staff members updated about a company’s happenings, among other things. Who said keeping up with events is impossible? With a blog, that excuse doesn’t exist.

    10) Project notes – A blog is more powerful than e-mail for exchanging ideas, sharing resources, and other project related tasks. Other benefits include centralized archives and instant documentation.

    It helps if we think of a blog as another server side website publishing tool. Instead of having to design and create static pages, complete with all HTML tags and coding, we only need to write and submit plain text, ideally with simple formatting.

    With that said, a blog really can be used for almost all content based website applications. One thing stands out about a blog, it encourages conversation, much like a forum or discussion board does. The difference, however, is only one (or a group of authors) can post to a blog, although all readers can participate in the comment sections of the blog.

    A quick tip: Clearly define the purpose of your blog in the planning process. This can help you focus on the right direction and achieve the goal faster. It sounds simple, but many businesses try to accomplish many of the applications above in a single blog, resulting in a confusing and mixed content blog.

    It’s better if you concentrate on just two or three purposes at a time, which in turn will help your readers who can easily identify what the blog is about on the first visit. Doing this properly often translates into increased readership and more targeted audience.

    Critical Steps to Online Success - Getting Blog Traffic - Here's How to "Ping" Your Blog!

    So you've published some articles on your blog and you're waiting for results…but nothing seems to be happening…

    First Question: Do you have a "Hit Counter" on your Blog?"

    If you can't measure the "hits" to your site, how can you know what's going on? You can get a hit counter by Googling the term "Add a Hit Counter to your Blog".

    If you are using Blogger.com then just go to their Help menu and you'll find directions. Now you can see how many visitors you're getting, you can start to add some traffic generation add-ons to your Blog. The first and easiest thing you will want to do is to add a new post every day and then update your Blog on all of the major Search Engines.

    The easiest way to do this is to "Ping" your Blog every time you update it with new material. Pinging simply notifies from 10 to 50 or so of the top search engines that there is new material on your blog and increases the likelyhood that their "spiders" will visit. (Spiders are the little routines operated by the search engines that run around on the web searching and indexing all of the sites for SEO relevancy).

    This is a good thing-you can't get your site indexed until you have a visit from the spiders and to maintain your ranking you need new material to keep them coming back.

    To "Ping" you Blog you simply register with the Ping services, select the sites you want to have pinged and press "ping".

    And Bingo…you're starting to become visible on the web.

    Here are some of the top Ping engines:

    Ping-o-Matic: pingomatic.com

    Pingoat: pingoat.com

    Technorati: technorati.com/ping

    King Ping: kping.com/

    Pretty much, Ping-o-matic is the most popular and gets the job done.

    Would you like to learn the secrets to start and run a Successful Online Business?

    I have just completed a new book called "How to use the Secret Magic of Article Writing to Start and run A Successful Online Business".

    You can Download it FREE here: "The Secret Magic of Article Writing"

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    Jim Keayes is an expert Internet Marketer. He teaches people to be successful online.

    Google Blog Search-How Your Blog Can Be Found By More Than 21,000 People At Once

    Sure, you can get your blog listed and exposed at Technorati, Sphere or DMOZ, to name a few. But your blog doesn't get the maximum exposure. You must get at least 21,000 people to find your blog at once for free! Here's how.

    As of December 28, 2006, Google Blog Search is used by 0.0025% of US Internet users, and this number keeps rising (weblogs.hitwise.com/leeann-prescott/2006/12/google_blog_search_surpasses_t.html). It surpasses Technorati which is used by 0.0023% of US Internet users. The population of US Internet users itself is 232,057,067 as of January 11, 2007 (www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm). Translated into number, Google Blog Search is used by 5,801 US Internet users.

    While this statistic only counts US Internet usage, if we can assume that it holds true for the world Internet usage which is 861,472,625 users (www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm), Google Blog Search is used by 21,537 Internet users! Imagine how many people can find your blog using Google Blog Search.

    This is very good news for bloggers and small business market that blogs are in the rage now. Aggregators are getting more powerful and more usable, and the number of people bookmarking their favorite sites and topics via readers is growing. The growth of blog-specific search sites like Technorati and Sphere shows that people not only want to read blogs, they quite often want to look for specific topics on them. Google's introduction of a blog search engine will help triggering the other engines to offer similar features and will help boosting the growth of blog readership.

    As Google puts it, "Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you're looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice."

    How to find Google Blog Search:

    • blogsearch.google.com,
    • search.blogger.com,
    • The Blogger Dashboard,
    • Or from the navigation bar on any Blogspot blog

    How to get your blog listed:

    • If your blog publishes a site feed and automatically pings an updating service, it will be found and listed by Google Blog Search.
    • You can manually ping Google Blog Search at blogsearch.google.com/ping. However this is a one time notification service so every time your blog changes you must submit your blog again.

    What are you waiting for? Submit your blog to Google Blog Search now to be found by more than 21,000 people at once!

    Aldian Prakoso is a life-time student. Currently he focuses in learning and improving his Internet marketing skills. He shares what he learns, practices and does in his blog.
    Visit his blog at http://aldianprakoso.com to learn how to set your blog to automatically ping Google Blog Search everytime your blog changes.
    Subscribe to his newsletter at http://aldianprakoso.com/subscribe to receive your free guide "How To Optimize and Get The Most Out of What You Put Into Your Business."

    Blog Marketing Tips - How To Start A Blog

    One of the easiest ways to generate free traffic and get your pages indexed in the search engines is to install a blog on your website and post unique quality content on a regular basis to create a loyal following of readers.

    For those who don't know, the actual term is a web log and it was shortened to just plain blog. You may have noticed on some blogs you browse that the owner posts regular snippets of information about the latest news around the world. Its basically an online opinion column or news piece that is written in a journal format.

    Blogs have evolved from just another person posting their thoughts online to an important and vast source of information. The contents of blogs can be in the form of news, commentary, information, and samples of the unusual and insane, but most of all they are popular. This is a great opportunity to showcase what is going on in your business and to get people involved in what you do.

    Generating traffic is the main reason that you post new content on your blog. Visitors will become attached to reading your blog (as long as its interesting) and they will surf their way back to your website on a regular basis. If you want to improve your search engine rankings a blog is a great way to get listed quickly and any new pages are usually indexed within several hours of first appearing.

    One of the problems with many websites is that they don't have a regular update on them to keep people coming back. If you have a blog and your potential customer base enjoy it they can translate into sales when the right opportunity comes along. Whenever you can start to build a relationship (as informal as this might be) you are going to draw your prospects one step closer to driving your sales higher.

    Having visitors come back to your website everyday to read your blog is something that is very satisfying. A regular post in an ongoing saga or always having something interesting to say is a great way to generate free traffic. Some blogs are interactive (like forums) and allow the reader to comment on the daily post. Getting people involved in your website gives visitors a feeling of ownership and can result in a boost of sales and subscribers.

    Once you start to develop a following for your blog you will build rapport and gain credibility with the masses of web surfers out there. Credibility will translate into higher response rates and more sales. If your visitors can identify with you the chances of making a sale are dramatically higher.

    Another benefit of a blog is that you can keep people updated on things like pricing or special promotions that you might have spur of the moment. Most blogs are simple HTML pages with whatever you want to say on them. There is nothing technical about it so it doesn't take a great deal of time to create new posts or update them.

    You can quickly and easily start a new blog for free and type until your heart's content. If you don't have a website you can set up a blog for free with a service such as Blogger which will host it for you, but if you want complete control you should install a blog on your own website using a script such as Word Press.

    A blog is only as good as you make it and the success of your blog is measured by the number of people who keep coming back to read it. Make it interesting and offer value to your potential customers through quality information, interesting reports, or an ongoing story that people just can't turn their back on. Keep them coming back with intelligent and applicable content.

    Keep it focused. One of the biggest mistakes by bloggers is trying to be an expert on everything under the sun. Focus on what you are knowledgeable about and stick with that for a while and build some credibility. Cater to your target audience by keeping your articles on topic and you will build a loyal following of readers who will keep visiting.

    If you keep your blog to a specific topic you can also tailor it to boom in the search engines as well. This is one of the best ways to send free targeted traffic to your website. If someone types in a keyword that comes up often in your blog there is a greater chance they could end up at your website because of your rankings in the search engines.

    A blog is a great way to generate repeat traffic for your website. Its also a way to build relationships with your potential customers so they can feel comfortable buying from you. If you have the urge to write and you want to keep people up to date with news about what is going on in your business a blog is a great way to do it.

    To see an example of a blog using the Word Press script just go here: http://www.marketingoasis.com/blog/

    This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com

    Blog Affiliate Secrets - Discover This One Affiliate Secret That'll Earn You Big Money

    There are many blog affiliate secrets that are capable of giving you the turnkey for making tons of affiliate sales as a blogger. But there is also this affiliate blog secret that is capable of earning you big money from affiliate marketing if used correctly.

    The blog affiliate secret you are about to discover is what seperates the big guys from the small ones in the world of affiliate marketing using blogs.

    The big money from blog affiliate marketing is made from work you do once but will continue to earn you income for many years to come. What this maens is that when you promote an affiliate program on your blog, you can still continue to make money from such an affiliate program even when you stop promoting it.

    There is another name that can be given to affiliate income that you continuallly earn you money from the work you do once. The name given to such an affiliate income is residual income. To make residual income, you have to join an affiliate program that gives you the opportunity to do so. It is a huge advantage that you join any affiliate program that allows you to earn residual income. Join an affiliate program that will continually alLow you to earn affiliate profits from those that you have referred. This kind of affiliate program should be well worth joining.

    The best way to earn big money from your affiliate blog is by joining and promoting residual income affiliate programs. This will always pay off on the long run. Your affiliate income will be on the high side and and you'll definitely become a super blog affiliate. Get started now!

    Sam Ayodeji is a successful blog affiliate. Click here to visit his blog now to discover an amazingly brilliant idea that will help you earn serious money blogging as an affiliate

    Blog And Monetize Your Blog To Generate A Blog Income Today

    With the popularity of blogs and blogging on the rise, many are making an income just by blogging. So how can you do the same?

    Blogging can give internet users a place to express what they may feel. As though he or she has always wanted to express certain thoughts, but never felt like they had a place that they could do this freely. Well, posting blogs is a perfect way to be able to accomplish this desire. Blogs are easy to maintain and is able to keep a record of their blog entries and what they write about, people slowly look to it as a tool to help them post information as well.

    Bloggers can be anonymous because the power of anonymity give bloggers the freedom to write about anything and not be judged for their opinions. However, it is definitely recommended for bloggers to have their full profile on for anyone to read because it establishes credibility as well as trust, especially if they are hoping to generate an income through their blog.

    In order for you to earn an income through blogging, you need to concentrate on providing good information and details to your blog readers. You must educate your blog readers and build personal relationships with them in order to cause your blog reader to want to take interest in the products and services you may be promoting on your blog.

    However, it does not mean that when you blog, you're sure to make big money. Writing blog posts is just the first part. You as a blogger, can join affiliate programs and promote them or sell your product or other people's on your blogging space to earn money. Google adsense also pays to you when your blog reader clicks on the ad on your blog. You can also sell advertising space on your blog to companies when readership is high and they can be sure that their products and services gain exposure on the net through your blog.

    As blogging grows and evolves the opportunities to make money doing so will only increase. So, start blogging today! Well, nobody said that making money for no cost, except for maybe taking up some of your time, is a bad thing.

    So what are you waiting for? Starting a blog is very easy. It's as simple as sending an email to a customer. It is no wonder so many people are starting to blog and even more are creating an income through them!

    Calvin Woon is a young entrepreneur as well as a blogging enthusiast. Learn more tips on blogging for money through a ton of blogging and also other related Internet Marketing tutorial videos by visiting his website http://www.Kanggie.com

    Blog Tutorial - How To Create A Blog

    A blog is a personal journal that you update online frequently and the author points to other links to support the author's commentary. Readers post comments on the journal entries and this makes the blog interactive. Readers can also subscribe to blogs using Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

    Brainstorm ideas on paper. Find topics that interest you like karate, dancing or fish to name a few examples. An example of a good niche is product reviews of digital cameras. Preferably choose an idea that you already know a lot about. You can use the Overture Inventory Tool or Wordtracker to find words that get traffic from search engines with little or no competition and write content using these keywords.

    I suggest using the two main types of software for creating blogs Blogger or Wordpress. I recommend Blogger if you starting out on the internet as it is very simple. If you want more features use Wordpress. You may want to hire a professional to set it up for you and do your layout of your blog as it it can get technically complicated to work with. I recommend registering your own domain and signup for your own web hosting to publish your blog to. If you decide to choose the hosted blog on Blogger and Wordpress and you migrate to your own domain once you become well established this will cause you to lose your search engine rankings.

    You can use Technorati tags to tag your posts. This will allow you to dominate niche conversations. You can also use Social bookmarking services like Addme to generate code to install on your website that will allow your visitors to tag your posts thus creating popularity for them on social bookmarking sites and giving you backlinks.

    You can use Google Adsense to monetize your blog. Use different layouts to test which generates the most income for you. You can also use affiliate links related to your article. If you offer a blog on a highly technical subject like digital cameras you can also use Chitika eMiniMalls.

    You can market your blog in the following ways. Submit your blog to blog carnivals. These blogs host a carnival featuring blogs related to a niche. You will also receive backlinks from these and this will boost your link popularity. You can use a service like Onlywire which creates a link in your toolbar that allows you to submit a blog post to several social bookmarking sites at once allowing you to get visitors from many different websites. Submit your blog to the most popular blog directories and also the rss directories.

    Master these basics and you can build a successful blog. If you build a number of blogs you can eventually turn this into a full time income.

    Would you like to know more about the techniques that have helped me to quit my day job? I have just completed my new guide.

    Earn Big Money From Low Traffic Even As You Work To Increase Your Web or Blog Site Traffic

    Everybody knows that they need to increase their web or blog site traffic to start making money online. Sadly what most folks do not know is that it is possible to cash in on low traffic even as you increase your site traffic.

    There are various ways of doing this. There are special programs that target low traffic web sites and there are also affiliate programs that will work with very low targeted traffic. There are even specific techniques that low traffic web or blog sites can use that will guarantee that they start earning money from low traffic much sooner that most people think possible.

    As I have often said before, the big problem is that most of the revenue generating advice given online is designed for high traffic sites. So we have a situation here where some very frustrated webmasters are busy flogging a dead horse, because it is common sense that most affiliate programs will only work with high traffic sites. Many affiliate web sites require 500 hits to yield a single sale. If a small site usually takes 4 months to achieve that kind of number on their hit counters, the results are easy to predict with great accuracy. They will be making one sale every four months or so. That will be $15 every four months or $3.75 monthly.

    Actually many blogs and low traffic sites do not even manage $3.75 per month. Yet there are various low traffic techniques that can be implemented to help a low traffic web site earn hundreds of dollars every month.

    There is a way for example to make the Google Adsense program yield significant revenue from very low traffic web or blog sites. The idea here is to use the right keywords so as to maximize on the earnings from each click.

    There is even one particular program that I personally use for my very low traffic blogs where a certain site pays $5 for every link I include in my regular posts. This may not appear to be much money but it takes moments to install one link on a post so dozens can be done within a very short time.

    It is amazing, the revenue earning opportunities that you will suddenly find when you focus on finding revenue specifically for a low traffic blog or web site and focusing specifically on the techniques best suited for low traffic web sites.

    Do you have a low traffic site? You don't need to wait to build up high traffic to earn from your site. Get Big Money from your low traffic site right away even as you work on building your traffic. Email me now for a personal reply, Free Special Report and a valuable free online course.

    Blog, Blog, Blog - Who Cares What You Think?

    Somebody needs to care about what you think or you might as well be talking to the wall. The Internet allows you to blog about anything you want. It doesn't automatically create readers though. If you're blogging about something nobody cares about it will never be found and read, let alone responded to. One way to increase your blog topic response is to make sure there is a market for your topic. How could you do that?

    Search On Your Topic

    Go to the major search engines and type in the words you typically use when writing your blog posts. What web sites come up? As you visit each web site look for several things: how they talk about the topic, the types of products and services they offer, their Google Page Rank, articles, information pages, ezines, testimonials and, particularly, blogs.

    The goal is to get a sense of how your topic is covered by other web site authors. This help you determine who cares about your topic and whether you've got a market place to connect with. When you explore other related blogs look for posts with comments to gage the level of interest in your topic.

    Searching the Internet using your own words helps determine the size of the audience who sees things from your point of view. Is it a brick wall or an open door to a huge market of interested fans?

    Evaluate Their Keywords

    Make a list of the keywords and phrases you believe people you're interested in connecting with would use to find web sites on the topic you blog about. This is different than searching on the words you use to cover your topic. Although, it may be a good idea to merge the two lists to effectively reach your target market.

    With list in hand, go to http://www.overture.com and click on "Visit the Resource Center" and then click on "Keyword Selector Tool". Use the Keyword Selector Tool to see how many people are searching on your blog topic. How many people using your topic's related keywords are likely to care about what you think?

    Another way to check out who might care about what you think is to use the Google Suggest tool. Go to http://www.google.com and click on the "More" link. Next, click on the "Labs" link and scroll down to the "Google Suggest" link on the bottom of the left column. Again, how many people care about your blog topic?

    Which ever way you use to size up your blog topic's market place of interest, you'll have a better handle on who cares what you think. If your blog is only an exercise in expression the numbers won't matter. But, if your blog is part of a small business marketing effort, you'll want to constantly search on your topic and evaluate their keywords.

    So, if you blog on a particular subject and want your blog to be read make sure what you think is something that somebody cares enough about to search on using the keywords you're writing about. Or else, you might as well be talking to the wall.

    Don Osborne authors The Profit Puzzle course to help you plan, finance, start up, run, grow, sell your small home based business ideas. The web site's small home based business directories link articles, books, courses, products, services, web sites, blogs, and software covering objectives, management, finance, personnel, marketing, operations, production and resources. For your free course and directories: http://www.profitpuzzle.com

    Make Your Blog Available in Many Languages - How to Add a Free Translation Tool to Your Blog

    Only 29.5% of the people online right now know English. If your blog is written only in English, not even 1/3 of Internet users can read it. However, there is a quick solution that will open the doors to your blog to Internet users around the world. You can integrate a machine language translator that will translate the content in your blog and attract an international audience.

    There are few free website translators, but the easiest to integrate is Babel Fish Translation from Altavista. We used a blog hosted by Blogger in this step-by-step instruction on how to integrate Babel Fish.

    1) From the Altavista home page, click Babel Fish Translation, then Add Babel Fish Translation to your site.

    2) In the section titled “Translate your page” click the button, I want this one!. This will give you the code for the web page translator in a popup window. Highlight and copy the code to your clipboard.

    3) In your Blogger interface, go to your Dashboard and then go to Layout.

    4) Click Add a Page Element. A window will popup with various choices. Choose to Add HTML/JavaScript.

    5) In this window (Configure HTML/JavaScript), you can title your translation tool and paste the code in the Content text box.

    6) Next, click Save Changes. You can drag and place your Babel Fish Translation into the bottom bar or side bar of your blog.

    This will add the AltaVista Babel Fish translation box to your blog and readers can simply click on their flag to read your blog in their native language. Cool huh.

    Google