Archive for the 'Make money with a Blog or a Forum' Category
How to Get Traffic to Your Blog
From Seth Godin. A fairly comprehensive checklist to help maximize traffic to your blog:
- Use lists.
- Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now.
- Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
- Break news.
- Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
- Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
- Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
- Announce news.
- Write short, pithy posts.
- Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
- Don’t write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
- Write long, definitive posts.
- Write about your kids.
- Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
- Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
- Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
- Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
- Coin a term or two.
- Answer your email.
- Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
- Be anonymous.
- Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
- Post your photos on flickr.
- Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
- Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
- Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
- Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
- Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
- Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers–like gadgets and web 2.0.
- Write about Google.
- Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
- Don’t include comments, people will cross post their responses.
- Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
- Run no ads.
- Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
- Write about blogging.
- Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
- Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
- Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
- Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don’t bore your readers.
- Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
- Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
- Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
- Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
- Don’t promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader’s attention.
- Be patient.
- Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
- Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
- Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
- Write in English.
- Better, write in Chinese.
- Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
- Don’t be boring.
- Write stuff that people want to read and share.
From JohnChow dot com
They always say that blogging is already saturated. Saturated especially if you are going to use blogging to target a wide audience and then make money. I’m always observing the blogosphere and while I can’t argue that there are so many blogs out there on a certain topic, I think it’s not enough to call it saturated yet. Not even close if you ask me.
I always classify bloggers into three. There are those who we call professional bloggers, the medium caps bloggers and the average bloggers. Pro bloggers are those who are considered the experts, the famous ones or simply “web celebrities”. Mid cap bloggers are the ones who I describe as bloggers who do things right but not as popular as probloggers are yet. And obviously average bloggers are the pollutants, they are the majority of what comprise the entire blogosphere.
Ok, I understand that pollutants is a bit of a harsh term but unfortunately, most people don’t realize that they just fall into this category. In this post I will give a list of 10 signs why you are just an average blogger. Without further ado, here they are.
1 .You don’t have a goal (and specific goals)
Goal Setting is a very important part of every business. And blogging is an internet business, so you need to set one as well. When I ask people what is their goal, their usual response is to make money. David Risley recently made a very good post on how people should get things done. In that post, he outlined that most people just put a long haul general goal and the problem is that almost all of the times, it’s not attained.
Setting goals, targeting specific tasks and outlining subtasks are important for online success so make sure you’re not neglecting this one.
2. You don’t build a list
I used to think that list building was for spammers only. But as I’ve observed how famous people use list to their advantage, I realized that it’s really a must-have for all serious bloggers. My blog has been up for 2+ years and its just last year that I started building a customer’s list.
Remember each and every of your readers is your potential customers. They build your business for you and it’s really imperative to collect them.
3. You think of making money too much
Most bloggers get into this mistake. They start a blog then put some content, market it a bit and then go full force into making money. Most of the times they do it by plastering ads to their site or by simply switching from giving good value to their readers by having the obvious intention of making money.
Listen, do you really just want to waste all the effort you exerted by forcing your monetization tactic? It’s hard to build a loyal base of audience and once they start clicking that unsubscribe button, it’s gonna be hard for you to make them come back.
4. You have a crappy design
The problem with this is that usually people really don’t realize their blog design sucks! Just because you think it’s cool it doesn’t mean it’s great in the eyes of the majority as well. The thing is you really need to follow the majority. If they think it sucks, then ditch it!
One of my tips is to actually just make use of forum review sites. Most people think its sole purpose is for quick traffic but the use of it is still to provide reviews. Most forum lurkers are pretty straightforward so you’re going to expect some great suggestions there. People always say content is king, but isn’t it that design is part of the content?
5. You don’t utilize social media
Social Media represents Web 2.0. I’ve seen some bloggers who skyrocketed their profiles in their blogs by just maximizing its use of social media. If you’re new to social media then please consider taking some time on reading about it, understanding it more.
When I was in my early stages I even studied how each of the social sites work, built relationship with reputed people and just invested an ample part of my time. If you’re not into social media as one of the tactics in your blog then you’re missing out a lot.
6. You think blog commenting is the best marketing tactic
Blog commenting is cool especially if you just started a new blog. It’s a pretty great way to say “hey I exist!” But one thing I see most bloggers do is use it as their no.1 marketing ploy. Sure there’s nothing wrong in commenting but just doing that will bring you nowhere!
Consider who’s going to gain more traction between the two. The first blogger comments on 150 blogs everyday while the second blogger do guest posts at least thrice a week. Who’s going to get more traffic and readers at the end of one week? You judge!
7. You don’t do Guest Postings
Reading the previous one, it’s obvious that we’re going to head into this topic. Guest Posting is probably the quickest way to spit your brand out there and get noticed in a very wide scale of audience. I bet all of you guys reading this article know it but I doubt you put this into work.
Writing guest articles is not just doing it three times, four times or eight times. Man, you have to do it in bulks! You can easily notice as well that even popular bloggers do guest posting. That’s because of the unending search for a new audience that would turn into a loyal customer. Guest Posting is probably the most cost-conscious method that you can use to drive great traffic to your blog.
8. You spread yourself too thin
This is the common mistake that most bloggers make. They believe they already know the recipe for success and as a result, they create multiple blogs. In order for anyone to be successful in blogging, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. In short, you need to spend a considerable amount of time in your blog to make good progress. Don’t fall for this common mistake, don’t spread yourself thin.
9. You mass market your blog
There is nothing anything worse than seeing someone create a thread in popular forums only to say “hey check out my blog, its cool”. Or going to a high traffic social site like BlogCatalog only to spam your link out there. This is another crucial mistake that most bloggers are still doing! They think that by letting as much people as possible see their blog, they’re going to convert well.
It’s really a huge mistake not only because you get to annoy people there who cause them not to even look at your site, but more importantly you’re most likely targeting the wrong demographics. Remember, quality is more important than quantity.
10. Your content doesn’t make sense
OK, assuming everything is in line now. You now have that good design, have done a ton of really great guest posts, have an awesome list, you focus only on one blog and stuffs. In the end it all boils down to this last point, writing good content.
This has been rehashed probably a million times already but obviously everything that you’ve done is useless if you don’t write good content. Just imagine, you managed to guest post on several authority blogs, people love what you wrote and as a result they are clicking to your link. What if what they saw in your site is post about your cat? Or how ugly is your enemy? Or how you loathe you Math teacher?
In the end it all goes to waste. You see, it’s really a tough pill to swallow isn’t it? How do you write good content then? By sticking to your niche. I discuss a lot how professional blogging isn’t about having perfect grammar, superb fluency and being boring. And writing good content doesn’t have to be like that. As long as you think you’re connecting well with your readers, you’re fulfilling their needs; you’re doing your job.
Conclusion
So to end this one, I would leave it all to you. If you have been blogging and you think you’re exerting some effort and still not growing, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate, time to jot down notes on things that you are working hard with, yet are not producing good results for you. Remember those average bloggers never evaluate things. Just by doing your job now will put you way ahead of most bloggers.
How to make money with a Forum
This isn’t one of the most obvious ways to make money online, which is precisely why it is something of an untapped market for generating an income from.
There are plenty of subjects you could tap into for building a worthwhile forum – all you need to do is choose one that you already have a good deal of knowledge in. Alternatively you could add one to a site you have now, which can be an excellent way of monetizing your existing traffic.
A forum or community is also an excellent way of providing more value for your visitors. They have a reason to return to your website because they know there will be regular fresh content on there. That same fact will also mean the search engine spiders will tend to visit your site more often too, which can eventually result in a higher ranking.
Want to know more? Read on!
Building a forum or community can take a bit of effort initially, but there are a lot of rewards to be had. It might also be a lot cheaper than you think, since there are plenty of providers who will let you have the software and hosting you’ll need completely free of charge. Have a good look round the internet to see which ones appeal to you the most before deciding.
That’s all very well, but how do you actually make money from this?
Well it does depend on the subject of the forum, but you can charge a fee for people to gain access to it if you provide them with decent information and there is something worth gaining for the money. Some news related sites charge a fee for access which encourages people to visit the site on a daily basis, but obviously your site might be on a completely different subject altogether.
You could also think about building a community or forum where basic membership is free, but in order to get access to premium features you would need to pay a small monthly fee. This strategy often gets a better take up rate as people get the chance to sample what the site is like before deciding whether or not to pay the extra money. A good example of this (albeit one on a large scale) is the Second Life virtual reality site, where membership is free but in order to take part on a larger scale and gain access to better features you need to pay the monthly amount stipulated.
You can see that it’s a good idea to do your homework before getting involved with anything like this, because you want to make sure your paid membership options are desirable enough to bring in the customers. If you end up giving your subscribers something they can get elsewhere at no cost whatsoever, then there is no reason for them to carry on subscribing with you. That’s a good point to bear in mind when you get started; if your subscriber drop out rate seems rather high, you might need to reconsider what you are offering.
Some people also offer membership only websites which have a members’ only forum as part of the overall package. These are usually based around a popular subject but go into it in more depth and offer unique content that can’t be found anywhere else.
For example, there is plenty of content out there about writing and selling e-books, but there is at least one person offering a members’ only site that goes into the whole process step by step, sharing their own success of writing and selling e-books in an in-depth fashion. This is the kind of format you want to aim for.
So if you have some ideas on creating a forum, community or members’ only site of your own, why not start making steps towards making them a reality? You might find those ideas hold a monthly income for you that you only need to start tapping into.
How to make money by blogging
More and more people are realising that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business. It requires minimal start up costs, you can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you don’t update your blog.
There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use Wordpress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.
If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.
It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.
Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.
But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.
Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.
But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.
You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.
So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.
One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.
All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.
There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.
And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?
But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.
And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!
So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.
Start Blogging right now and make fast money
Working stiffs take heed. Lots of bloggers are finding ways to make money out of their blogs and generate enough income to work from home. The employment playing field has changed dramatically in the past decade and it is continuing to evolve. Anyone interested in working at home should look into blogging as a viable way to bring in revenue.
Though with the new FTC regulations, you have to disclose any affiliate relationships with what you’re selling, you can still use your blog to work at home. Write reviews of products you endorse and be paid commissions from sites like Amazon.com or even for products you find on ClickBank.
The blog People of Walmart was founded in August of 2009. The blog features photos of people shopping at Walmart. Along with the photos there are sarcastic, critical, usually tasteless and often funny captions… and that’s it. The sit has blown up with over 4 million hits per month. The owners of this blog have reportedly been able to sell advertising on the blog to the tune of almost $50,000 per month in addition they have recently added a web store selling novelties to capitalize even more on their popularity.
The fact is, you never know what is going to catch and if you never do anything you never will. You can dream about working at home or you can make it a reality by actually taking steps to do it. Will you make $50,000 a month from the get go? That is unlikely. Will it take work to monetize your blog? YES. No one makes money online without doing work. But, it is very possible.
You can use a blog to promote affiliates, you can review products or you can set up a Cafe Press store, sell e-books, use your blog to drive people to a squeeze page and build your list. The terrain is to a large degree only limited by your imagination.
The bottom line is this. If you want to work at home and you are not blogging yet. Start today.
Make moeny from you blog another idea
Blogging is a wonderful option for people who desires to make money online but do not have much to start with. It allows you to convert small introductory investment into huge gains. However, it is not an automatic key to make money from home. You need to construct a loyal readership if you strive to take your business to the level of achievement. Once you master the art of blogging, you will very soon become an important part of internet marketing. It will make you to earn tokens even on days when you are unable to post and update your blog, thus ensuring regular earnings.
Weebly, Word press, Blogger, free blogging sites, etc. are some of the platforms to create your blog. All of these sites provide domains to host your blog. To dominate the world of blogging, there should not be any sorts of constraints or restrictions so that you can freely post stuffs into your blog. Free blogging sites won’t allow you to rule and there you are abided by certain conditions. But you can have your own domain name at the cost of a small sum and can acquire a web server to host your blog.
When you own your personal blog, the next crucial step is to emphasize on its looks and then decide a suitable theme to work on. To attract customers and to market your blog, you have to be little innovative. You can search templates in any of the search engines.
Still you have an important issue to take on and that is the content of your blog. Customers always search for freshness and newness in your writings. People have their prospects and depending on that they pen down their thoughts. Some prefer to write on controversial topics, some on day to day life, some share their personal experiences, some write on technologies and inventions and so on. But concentrating more on the field you are seriously involved or passionate about, will help you to regularly update your blog and allow you to actively participate. There are several social bookmarking sites which help you to increase popularity of your blog.
How to use Wordpress to make cash
Many people often wonder what software they should use to run a blog or website. There are literally dozens of different applications and platforms to choose from. However, there is one platform that sticks out from the rest. Here are five reasons why WordPress is the best choice for your next website or blog:
It Is Open Source
Of all the reasons to use WordPress, one of the biggest reasons is because WordPress is Open Source. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it basically means that WordPress is free to use, regardless if you are running a personal website or a commercial one.
Why pay hundreds of dollars for software when you can use this one for free. Even if you plan on running a commercial website or blog, you can still use it for no cost to you.
Updates Are Free And Easy To Install
One of the great things about WordPress being Open Source is the fact that updates are often available. Whenever a bug is reported and fixes, an update is created to address the problem. This ensures you that your blog or website is secure and free of any bugs or technical issues.
Instead of having to spend a bunch of time applyting the updates, you can simply click the upgrade now button from Within the WordPress administration panel. It then runs the automatic update and only takes a few minutes to complete.
It Uses Themes And Plugins
If easy updates weren’t enough, WordPress also uses themes and plugins. Themes allow you to install a new look for your blog or website. All you have to do is choose a new theme from the directory and WordPress will automatically install it for you. Best of all, you can also customize themes to suit your needs.
Plugins are another great feature of WordPress. They allow you to add advanced functionality to the platform, which are not included by default.
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