Monthly Archive for July, 2008
Choosing what you want to blog about
I suppose I could have written about this a little bit sooner as it seems that the very first step for most people will be to purchase their domain name, host, and even more importantly what they are going to blog about. Well at least I got to it early right?
There are many things to take into consideration when you are determining what exactly you want your blog to be about. First and foremost, you need to consider your goals. How much money do you want to make? Are you trying to make a career out of your blog? If so, then you came to the right place. I’m sure by now, and especially if you are reading this article, you already have a topic in mind. Here are some things to ask yourself before you make the decision to buy a domain name.
1. How passionate are you about the subject?
Choosing what you are passionate about is absolutely critical to determining whether or not you are going to succeed in making money from your blog. If you are not able to go on and on and bore most people you know about your subject then how do you expect to spend enough time on your blog in order to make money? Here is an easy way to figure out whether or not you will be able to survive in the field or subject you have chosen.
Do you belong to any forums on the subject? If you don’t then you need to. Online forums are a vast source of knowledge and just being in the community will help increase your reputation and you will learn a ton of information as a result.
What do you find yourself researching the most on Google? Chances are, that’s whatever you should be writing about. Though, be sure you don’t pick too broad of a subject like I did unless you have the right work ethic to succeed in whichever idea you are interested. In that case, go with what you know and work your very hardest to achieve the best results on Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
2. How much money do you want to make?
This is a very important question to ask yourself. How much money do you really, truly want to make? If you are trying to earn the absolute most money that you can, then you should immediately avoid any subjects that do not have timeless content. Timeless content is essentially content that people are going to be interested in for a long time. If you are writing about anything that can fall in the category of news, realize that you must spend even more time aquiring a list of dedicated readers because nobody is going to search for your topic for very long. Most of your search results are going to be geared towards the most recent topics you have written about.
When you write timeless content, people are always going to be interested in every article you have written. If you are writing a blog about self-help, then you will realize that people are constantly going to be looking for articles on how to give up coffee or how to make more friends. You see, with these blogs, every single post is going to increase your traffic. With each and every post you write, more of your articles are going to show up on google. It’s as simple as this. If you have one article that can get 10 clicks a day, why not create 2 articles that can get 10 clicks a day? In enough time you are going to have hundreds of articles that are each generating a certain amount of clicks per day. The main people that succeed with news related links are those that can answer yes to question 3.
3. Are you respected as an authority in your field?
If you are respected as an authority in your field for one reason or another or you already have people interested in your opinion on current events then you may as well increase your already existing reader base by a blog. A good example of building up a base like this a site like drunkenstepfather.com which is currently ranked 3,295 on alexa wheras a site with timeless content like http://www.problogger.net is ranked just 22,056. The difference? Well, authority. People want to know the gossip from drunkenstepfather. It has a massive audience and he ranks highly as a result. So if you are in the position to monetize your blog successfully with content that isn’t timeless, go ahead.
4. What is the difference between your blog and the other blogs out there?
Yet another important question. If you aren’t providing anything different, then how do you expect to get at the top of Google? Google relies on inbound links in order for it to respect a site the most. This will essentially rank your website and articles higher in their search engine. It’s a tough thing to do. It is essentially why I am trying harder to provide my readers with good, meaningful content. If people find what I write meaningful, they will link their friends. They will link in their blogs. They will do it naturally. There is no way I’m going to do it all myself.
If your blog is exactly like any other blog with the same subject and you don’t do anything different then why should people link to your article or look you up or even read you? How would expect to earn your traffic? If you are just spewing out the same stuff that another site has and using their articles to recreate your own, then why should people link to you?
Tags: Blog Topic, New Blogs, SEO
Time management is one of the most important things to consider for creating and maintaining a popular blog. Scratch that. It is the most important thing. It is one of the reasons most people aren’t capable of making decent money. Those that utilize their time wisest are the only people that will make good money. It doesn’t have to be with a blog or anything on the internet. Those that effectively manage their time will make more than those that don’t. It’s that simple. Why do you think they coined the “phrase time is money”?
If you are not sold with this idea or are unwilling to commit to it fully then you should just quit now. Do not pass go, do not collect that chest of pirates booty waiting for you. Here are some tips on efficiently using your time.
1. Keep your distractions to a minimum
If you are like me at all you can easily justify to yourself that having those extra tabs in your browser open is really important. You may also have the TV on your favorite show. Others may be talking on an instant messaging client, sitting with their family, letting your mind wander, checking that email that just popped up. When you are trying to accomplish anything in the religion of money, distractions are the devil. You must think of money as your god and serve it the best way you know how. For those of you that are religious and get offended, leave all the comments you want. It’s not blasphemy it’s the truth. Simple. For how offended you might be from that comment is how offended you should be at your distractions. When you do get distracted, realize what is happening and change your actions. Get back on track.
2. Make a list of your goals and make sure you work toward them.
Write down your goals and respect these goals. Set short term goals for yourself. Do not create goals about your expected earnings, traffic, or anything that is related to results. The reason for this is because you are likely to set yourself up for disappointment. Here are some examples of goals you should be setting for yourself:
- Write 5 good articles for the week
- Comment on 20 other articles from blogs that relate to yours
- Research for 20 hours during the week
- Write 1 article, comment 5 articles I’ve read, Join a respected forum in the field (daily goals)
Goals should be clear and concise. You should have both weekly goals and daily goals. You should have a specific day that you sit down and write up your goals for the week. I haven’t done this yet but I have been doing daily goals. Today, I had three different goals:
- write an article for blog4booty.
- sign up for linkshare
- write an article on my other blog including a linkshare recommendation
- Install 4 SEO modifications to my basketball forum
Well, that all didn’t happen. Instead of adding the 4 SEO modifications to the forum, I added one and upgraded the forum. During the upgrade though, I ran into an error that I had to fix which took up a bit of time. All in all, I’m happy with the effort I have put forth today and that is what you should be looking for when you create your goals. Not accomplishing your goals does not mean that you shouldn’t congratulate yourself at the end of the day but it certainly does not give you excuses. In other words, If you took too long writing because you sat and thought about what you were going to write too often, you were probably wasting your time.
3. Recognize when you are wasting your time and change your actions upon the realization.
One of the most important time management tools is realizing when you are wasting your time. You ever see those rich successful business men in movies that are short and to the point? Think Andy Garcia’s character in all three Ocean’s (11, 12, 13) movies. He played Terry Benedict who owned a casino and in perhaps every scene they showed his character, Benedict would act with a precise intent. If he was distracted and had to take care of another issue, he took care of that issue quickly then went on too what he was working on. In other words, If you are thirsty and get up to go grab a beverage from the fridge, go do so and get back to what you were doing. If you are taking a break because you need to get some time away from the computer, give yourself a certain amount of time. When you are done, get back and continue with what you were doing before.
4. Prioritize your life
You need to take some time for this one. Before you decide that you are going to get yourself rich through your blog you must realize what it takes. Get some private time together and organize all of your goals. Put them in order. If getting rich is your first priority then you must truly make it your first priority. If you have other commitments in your life, you must make sure that you have enough time to make money one of them. If you aren’t willing to put forth the effort or the time and you aren’t getting enough site traffic to make decent money from your blog, then don’t expect to get rich. If you accept that you aren’t going to get rich and don’t even make decent money, then don’t say I didn’t warn you. For me, it’s an all or nothing game and I treat it as such.
5. Know why you are here and what you are doing
This one is my personal favorite. I think it is the single most important factor to success and the single most important tool for time management. You need to ask yourself what you are doing this for. Why are you even here reading this article? Some of you may be entirely in it for the money. Good. Some of you may want to help others. Great. You want to retire at 35? Fine. You want to prove to your parents that you are not a loser? Fantastic. You want to make sure you are able to send your child through college? Excellent. You want to buy the original Spiderman Comic Book? lol, Awesome. Steve Pavlina already discussed how to make money from your blog and it was great!
Me? What am I here for? You see, my family has always wanted the best education for me. They have always wanted me to grow up in the right environment. When I was still in elementary school they had saved up enough money to buy a new house in a nice neighborhood. This was the time of change in my life. This was a time where I grew up around people who’s parents made a decent amount more than mine. They had the nicer toys. They had the bigger televisions. They had the brand new game consoles with all the new games. They had all the nicer clothes. We were a small fish in a big pond.
Eventually, years after graduating high school, I decided to go to college. I sold my car to afford being there and was forced to ride my bike or skateboard everywhere. That took me a lot of time and exhausted me because I wasn’t in ideal shape for riding uphill every day. I was broke as can possibly be and my lifestyle changed. I was donating plasma for money. At times, I ate Top Ramen for days straight. I lived in a competitive area for jobs because 25% of the population were students. My point is that living that lifestyle didn’t make me happy. Eventually I had to leave school and move back home because of financial reasons. So I got a full time job, moved into my own place and started anew. I worked as hard as I could and was doing very well, but just like the times before, I wasn’t happy working for somebody else because I realized that my efficiency was just making somebody else rich. I realized that all my hard work was futile. My supervisors rewarded me very little because when you work for somebody else and those above you realize your potential, they realize it is their job that is in trouble.
Eventually that job didn’t work out and I was forced to find new work. Debts increased and eventually I moved back in with my parents. I’m working now but it’s part to full time work. I’m going to stay with them until I can make enough money to get out. You see, that’s my motivation.
I want to live wealthy. I want to be comfortable. Whenever I get off work from I’m filled with the motivation to progress myself and increase my position. I’m fueled with ambition backed my discontent from my current status. Whenever I get home and begin work and hear the distractions all around me, I throw on my headphones, turn on some nice background music and start work. I’m driven by everything around me to get out of a situation that goes against everywhere I want to be. I’m driven by everything I despise around me. I’m driven by an unhappy situation that I turn into anger. Anger is one of the most powerful motivators I can think of. Use it. Embrace it. Realize exactly why you are here and exactly what you are doing.
Tags: Distractions, Goals, Motivation, Time Management, Work Ethic
Work Ethic
Making money from your blog takes a large amount of commitment. Half-ass effort will get you nowhere. Take a second and think about all the blogs you have been to and the articles you have read. Forget how you found them or what your expectations were when you clicked on the link. Just reading the article and how it is written, most people can come to some conclusion about how successful the blog is as a whole.
Readers can and will read between the lines of each and every article you produce. This is why you must do your best to provide your readers content with confidence and authority. If you don’t know exactly what you are talking about then people will recognize it and judge accordingly. They aren’t likely to subscribe to your RSS or support your website through links, respect, or your recommendations if you are just quickly paraphrasing a subject other people have written about. Sure, many different people can cover a specific topic as I am doing right now. But to cover a topic well and unique at the same time is a talent you must embrace.
It’s not always easy to be unique. Some subjects like celebrity gossip require your time to be managed differently. You must report all the current gossip you can find and make sure to be one of the very first sources of your content. If you have a blog about your favorite sports team, you probably need to write intelligent analysis of every game, trade, and rumor. Even though these types of blogs aren’t ideal to create because they don’t feature timeless content, you can still pull a decent income from them. Though, with these blog subjects you may need to focus your energy on content quantity even more than normal and you must work even harder to cover every important subject because you become more of a source of news than actual content.
Why most people will never make a living from blogging and why it’s the most simple obstacle to overcome
If you want to make serious money by blogging then pay attention because I am practically handing over the key to making all sorts of pirate’s booty. It all comes down to your personal work ethic. First off, realize you aren’t the only one trying to make money on the internet by monetizing a blog. If your goal is dominate your respective market by becoming a top 10 authority of the subject, then you must realize you have some work ahead of you. Me, I’m trying to dominate. I’m trying to take over. The most fierce competitors in my game have made at least six figures or more. While it’s often difficult to ascertain who is making the most money and exactly how much they are making, it’s clear that Darren of problogger.net is getting that serious pirate booty.
For those of you that are still here, my goal is take him over. I’m sure those of you who have subscribed to this site in it’s absolute infancy may have laughed upon reading that. I guarantee you one thing though, at some point, Darren Rowse decided to dominate. At some point, he told himself that he was going to become very successful and in more or less words, dominate. My point is that you must come to a position where you ask yourself, what your goals are. If your goal is to make as much money as possible from your blog great. If your goal is to become the number 1 authority or source, then you must acknowledge that there are other people out there that are attempting the same goal as you.
I haven’t mentioned this before, but I’m a big fan of basketball. During one of the games last season or during Sportscenter or something, I distinctively remember them talking about how hard basketball players work to get to where they are. As they began discussing the subject, they described how every kid that is a basketball fan wants to grow up and become a professional NBA player. Then they brought up an interesting point. They mentioned that few of these kids took the proper procedures in order to get to where they were. How many of them went to basketball camps every summer? How many of them went on to play for their school? How many of them took that scholarship to that school on the other side of the country in the middle of nowhere just to get a chance? How many of them worked on their footwork, shooting, dribbling or passing during times they didn’t have team practice? How many of them watched instructional videos or did any of the workouts that increase your verticle leap?
You see, making good money from your blog is easy. The instructions and procedures are out there and it’s not rocket science. But just like becoming a basketball player, you must take each and every step in order to make it. and you are going to have to work through it. You are going to have to ignore those countless people that don’t think you will do it. They may say you don’t have what it takes and maybe you don’t, yet.
The only true obstacle that is working against you is time. If you are just starting out and have a full time job, you are already sacrificing 40 hours of your week. Your spouse or significant other will demand time. Your hobbies are going to demand time. Your friends are going to demand time. Shopping, cleaning, eating, sleeping, family, friends and hobbies all demand time and as a result, it will take longer for you to go through the necessary steps. Seeing as how writing content is only a small portion of what it takes to make money with your blog and how consistently writing content is absolutely necessary, it is of utmost importance for you manage your time properly.
Tags: New Blogs, Work Ethic
Your robots.txt file is a text file that you put in the root directory of your website that gives directions to robots that search engines like google use to search your site for content. It lets them know exactly where they can go to look for the content. Without customizing or adding a robots.txt file on your website, a spider will crawl everything it can.
The problem with this, is duplicate content. Google will see the same content in
http://blog4booty.com/
http://blog4booty.com/category/new-blogs/
Optimizing your robots.txt file to dissallow robots from going to the category directory will prevent duplicate content. Ideally, search engines should find one version of your content to rank. Other urls are mainly used as features for humans to easily navigate through your blog.
Creating a robots.txt file
This is the first four lines of my robots.txt file
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
The first line addresses all spiders and tells them to avoid crawling into the wp- directories… you can use Disallow: /wp- as well but I’m avoiding any possible issues in the future by putting the 3 directories I am concerned with. wp-admin should be avoided for obvious reasons, while the wp-content and wp-includes folders are less obvious. wp-content does include images that you are using and google images does bring in a lot of traffic to blogs but they are already viewing your images when you insert them into your articles.
Every blog is going to be a little different but the main idea is to avoid duplicate content. So be careful when limiting too many directories and locations because in trying to tell spiders to avoid duplicate content, you may end up telling a spider to avoid the content you really wish to be indexed.
Currently, this is my full robots.txt file
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /category/
Disallow: /rss/
Disallow: /comments/feed
Disallow: /stats/
Disallow: /tag
Disallow: /*.css$
Disallow: /*.inc$
Disallow: /*?
User-agent: Adsbot-Google
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /
User-Agent: MediaPartners-Google
Allow: /
I have allowed certain spiders complete access to the site for various reasons. MediaPartners and Adsbot are used for advertisements. MediaPartners, shows google advertisments for the free version of Opera and Adsbot is being added now because even though I don’t yet have advertisements on my blog, I will add that feature soon and will have to do it anyway. This just allows adsense to come up with the best advertisements to show on every webpage. IE, the pages that do have duplicate content will still be showing advertisements and we need to make sure that appropriate ads are shown on those pages.
Tags: Bots, New Blogs, Robots, robots.txt, SEO, Spiders
These are my favorite Wordpress plugins to use that add the best functionality that every blogger should install on their Wordpress blog. This list is short but these are my babies.
Statpress: This plugin is very nice because along with publishing how many unique visitors, site visits, spiders, and feeds per day your site is getting, it breaks it down pretty nice and easy. It is no replacement for Google Analytics but it does provide a quick and easy location to check your recent stats. It has it’s flaws, no doubt, but for being a quick and easy plugin for a new blog, definitely worthy of being installed.
Akismet: This is a plugin that comes with your default Wordpress installation. Essentially, it’s a feature that decreases the amount of spam comments on your blog. It does it’s best work by limiting automated comments and comments that have too many links posted. You can change the number of links you allow per comment in it’s configuration. In order to set up Akismet, you need to get a Wordpress API key, which requires you to sign up for a wordpress account. Now, for those of you that are trying to monetize you blog, you should do so with a blog on your own domain.
All In One SEO Pack: This plugin is an absolute must. It allows you to edit your meta tags with each article. You can customize your title, description, and keywords. It’s quick and easy to set up, and if you neglect to add them yourself, it will do it for you. I’ve found that with each article you post, it’s best to do it yourself though because as with any sort of artificial intelligence for a plugin, it’s probably not as optimized as you can do it yourself.
As of right now, these are my favorite plugins that everybody needs. There are plugins for adsense and google analytics but when you run a blog on your own domain/host and have access to all of your files via FTP, sometimes having plugins such as these are flawed in that they don’t provide for complete customization. In other words, having the ability to manually insert your code exactly where you want it is more important than relying on another program to manage it for you. Monetizing your blog requires a lot of effort and requires you to learn as much as you can. Being able to customize any and all of your files will only help you out in the long run.
Tags: New Blogs, Plugins
Why I do not have adsense set up yet and why I do not care
When first starting out a new blog, writing content is more important than having adsense set up. There are sites that suggest that having advertisements set up first thing is best for the blog because people will understand from the start just what it is you are about. There are people that worry that by establishing a user base prior to putting up ads, they will anger their existing users and their traffic will decrease. This concept is absolutely wrong. The fact of the matter is that you can add advertisements whenever you want.
It doesn’t matter whether you are writing about basketball or whether you are writing about how capitalism’s sole purpose is to systematically destroy the internet. It just doesn’t matter. Even if you do lose some readers, which from my own personal experience doesn’t happen, there will be plenty more people that will take their place.
You need your product! Content!
If any of you have ever worked in sales, you understand it’s all about the numbers. You shouldn’t be worried about advertising yet because your time is better spent working elsewhere. Instead of getting those ads in the right spot and your site layout just perfect, you need to begin consistently writing good content so that you can become indexed by google and other search engines quicker. Put it this way, would you rather spend your first 3 days working on your site layout and ad placement and getting everything set up or would you rather begin earning google’s trust? If in the future you begin to make $1k/day and you could have started 3 days earlier, that’s an extra $3k that could be in your pocket. Right now you are not making any money so spend that time wisely.
How it all comes together
I worked B2B sales for about two months and loved every minute of it. For those that aren’t familiar, B2B stands for Business to Business. It’s door to door sales/marketing. The reason why I gave it up was not because I wasn’t able to put in the effort and make money. I quit because I truly felt that the application of the methods they taught, transferred over to Internet marketing far too easily. The only difference between what they are doing and what I am doing is while I work, I get to sit in a comfortable chair inside with air conditioning during the hot Arizona summer.
The other benefit of applying these strategies online instead of face to face is that it’s easier to focus on the truly important factors instead of trying to push the sale. Indifference is key when selling door to door. The premise is that you get out there, work a full day and show your product to as many people as possible. The law of averages states that the more people that see your product (your ads), the more people that will buy your product (click your links). Using a big enough data set, you will predictably sell one amount of whatever product you are pushing for every X amount of people you see. Instead of seeing 200 people and making 10 sales, our goal is to draw in as many people as possible. It’s very easy to avoid telling people to click on your ads because it’s a violation of Google’s terms of service to do so. In door to door sales, you can place the product in their hand and let them make the decision. If they don’t want it fine. On the Internet, if they don’t click on your advertisement, fine. Because instead of waiting for the customer to make a decision, online you are privileged enough to completely avoid your visitors (in the sense of out of site, out of mind). Once you create your content and publish it, there are other things you could be doing to efficiently make use of your time.
That’s the beautiful part about blogging. Instead of being limited by how many people we can physically see per day, we are limited by the quality of work we produce. As long as you consistently produce quality content that people will thoroughly enjoy and/or benefit from reading, you will create interest and a desire for people to come back. As long as you put forth your best effort in creating your content, then not only will you rank well, but you’ll get more subscribers and a better bounce rate.
When you should put up Adsense and modify your site design
This is tricky. I like to choose a template first because I want to make sure that I find one that will work well with the extensions I add. I find it best to spend a little time each day choosing the right theme. Then you’ll want to install it and probably customize it with your own graphics. Choosing the right theme and adding the right images/headers is often overlooked and is actually one of the most important decisions when creating your blog. If you don’t convey professionalism then it is likely nobody will take you seriously.
All too often, and I’ve experienced this first hand, we find it easier and easier to justify the importance of spending more and more time finding the right theme and making the design appear professional. It’s really easy to convince ourselves that all the time we are spending is going to pay off in the end but in reality it distracts us from continuing to write more content. A good layout is key, but not for new blogs. I can’t stress the importance of content enough.
Tags: Adsense, Content, Theme
Introduction
blog4booty.com has been created as both a personal project and a project to help others. This is not my first blog but it is a special blog for me because this is where I’m going to document everything that I have done and am doing to make money by blogging. Many people are interested in monetizing their blogs and it is blogs like these that I have found most useful to myself in helping me make money.
The problem I have found though is that most of them didn’t seem to speak to me personally. I don’t know what it is but all my life I have just done things differently. I’m the type that
- Begins a project and starts to run with it full speed, too often becoming overwhelmed
- Isn’t afraid to make mistakes, so I tend to make them often
- Treats every failure as a learning experience
- Isn’t afraid to take risks
- Cares about my success as well as the success of others around me
- Believes that the harder you work, the more you should be rewarded
- Is self-motivated
- Would rather avoid working hard to make others richer
I’m actually a big fan of the last one. In most every job I’ve had (a few too many) I’ve felt good about myself for every little thing that I did right that increased efficiency, helped somebody else out, made the company some extra money, upsold (when I was in sales), etc… The problem I’ve had wasn’t in that personal achievement of doing a little bit extra, it was that I don’t feel that most employers recognize those who excel at what they do. A pat on the back makes you feel recognized and happy but when you make a change that increases production by 200% (something I have done) I can’t help but think at how I’m performing the work of two people but am only getting one paycheck. That uneasy feeling also suggests that if I can do that well at this job performing this task then I should be able to do that for myself as well…
OK, the 200% increase in production may not apply to all fields, especially the one I was working on but it’s an example. I know many of you have done things that increase performance here or there. Maybe your idea made X amount of money for a certain application. Maybe you just feel that if you were working for yourself you could attain such goals. Maybe you have increased some activity by 400% or even more. The point is that I believe there are many people out there that feel the same way and would benefit from what I’ll be going through and writing about.
Why I will post in detail everything I’m doing to earn money with this blog
I’ll be honest, a lot of it has to do with proving to myself that I can do it. I’m optimistic to a fault sometimes and I hope this isn’t one of them. I’ve seen other sites like this and I know it’s very difficult to become that one guy up at the top that has massive amounts of incoming links and is ranked well by google and claims they are making quite a bit of money. I don’t know if I can make as much as them and quite frankly, I don’t expect to. I do become pessimistic when I read that anybody can make a lot of money blogging like some of the other sources tell you. I’ve also read some articles that suggest that not everybody could do it or that only 1% of people could do it but this is a fresh start. I know if I ran across a blog like this I would like to subscribe to the rss feed and track it’s process, if only for the curiosity. Yep, If you have a site like this or are doing the same thing, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll gladly subscribe to your site. I think that just by watching other sites and tracking what they do, you can learn a lot about what works and what doesn’t.
A lot of it is fueled by a strong desire not to work for anybody else. As I mentioned earlier, I feel most satisfied when I see results directly based on how much effort I make instead of relying on others to reward me accordingly. In most businesses it doesn’t matter how well you do. It doesn’t matter how hard you try. It doesn’t matter how good you look or how efficient you are because if the people above you feel threatened by how well you do, what is their motivation to reward you? This is an important lesson for those of you working that Initech type of job.
Part of it is because I’ve seen others do it. Call it jealousy if you want; it won’t bother me. Call it keeping up with the Jones’ or call it whatever else you want. But I’ve seen it happen and I’m going to publicly go step by step through my progress so you can see if this is legit. Seeing as how I registered this site last night and it hasn’t been previously registered, there is no previous history for this address. Any increase in traffic will be a direct result of my actions and my effort. Which leads to my next reason.
Part of it is because I want to prove it to myself that I can. I already know I can make money with a blog. I already know I can show people how to make money. But lets face it, cracking the top 10 blogs on how to make money by blogging is itself a very difficult task and to do so would essentially mean that I’d be making very good money and would be considered one of the premier authorities on the subject. When I explained my type, I’m not kidding. Remember running full speed? Remember not being afraid of making mistakes? In the end I know that no matter what, I’ll make money off this site so I’m not worried about failure. The only question is how much money can I make?
But I really think that most of it is because I think that if I can make myself and others better, at the end of the day everybody wins. This site is as much a learning experience for me as I intend it to be for others. Though, I’m guessing that it will inherently teach me more because of my first hand involvement. Every tip on how to make money or the best advertisers to use or anything of that nature will be honest advice because I feel that if I can genuinely provide the tools and understanding to others then it will naturally increase the number of my loyal subscribers and overall traffic. I have other blogs where I can write content that will get to the front of google with consistency and it’s a great skill to have but for the next few months at least, I won’t be worried about how many people view this site each day. There is more important work to do.
How visitors can make the most of their time here
For each and every reader that visits this site, first and foremost subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ll be posting at minimum four times a week. I think it’ll be especially important for you new bloggers trying to make money for the first time to follow along with me as I go through the steps involved. Sometimes I’ll go through the details and sometimes I won’t. It’s not because I’m not trying to do my best though, it’s probably because everybody starts at a different knowledge level. I’ll try to cover everything but if I don’t or if you would like certain topics covered in more detail, do not hesitate to ask.
As I said before, I’ll only be posting the best quality I can so if for any reason I’m not posting three or four articles a week, ask a question or suggest a topic you would like me to write about. It may be that I’m in the middle of writing about other topics or have different drafts in progress or maybe I just forgot to cover something. The more feedback I get from everybody else, the more I am able to deliver content that you all care to read about most.
There are some websites that suggest you turn your blog comments off for a while so it doesn’t seem like it’s a ghost blog that nobody comments on or that nobody cares about. Getting traffic for a brand new website (not even 8 hours old at the time of this post) is very difficult. There are ways to get traffic immediately but for this website, I’m not going to bother. I’d rather start from scratch and detail as much as I can on the full process.
There are only two things that I have done before writing this article (other than install Wordpress).
- I installed google analytics
- I installed Statpress
For a new website, I wouldn’t worry about getting either of these set up right away. Why? Because neither one of them is that important for brand new blogs. They are very important tools to use but it’s even more important to not expect too much traffic right away. I have installed them so that I can use them to show you how very little traffic I’ll be getting for at least a few months. Installing them right away will only distract you from what is truly important for new blogs. Content!
Tags: Content, New Blogs, Purpose
