StartupBooster.com » blogging

How to Convert Visitors to Your Blog to Avid Fans

Guna — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:16:05 +0000

Every blogger’s vision includes having a set of avid readers – his or her own fan base. Having a solid “fan base” helps a lot in maintaining and even gaining more traffic. Once you have an avid fan base, it becomes easier for you to Make Money on the Internet.

As a blogger you will need all the consistency that you can get particularly because regardless of how many times a blog is viewed, it is often likely that a lot of those views may not come back. People have many choices. There are ton of content, mostly garbage, on the internet. You need to learn to gain your visitors trust and convert them into avid fans.

That is, users don’t come back because of two primary reasons: they don’t find your blog helpful/interesting or they just accidentally clicked on the blog’s link. Either case, you have to make sure that you retain your page views. You have to solidify your reputation and one way to do this is to get your own set of devoted readers.

If possible, you have to target making every user or visitor into an avid patron. Having avid readers helps you blog in different ways: they help provide consistent page views and they can even refer your blog within their own networks. These are the very users that will also participate on your blog. The are the users that will leave a comment on your blog, hence even increasing the credibility of your blog.

They can serve as your marketers. Here are some simple tips to help you convert users into your own readers:

Be simple and professional – people will likely regard you as an authority or someone trustworthy if they see your professionalism. One way to project a professional aura is by offering readers a good yet simple template. Having a polished and sophisticated blog not only adds to the aesthetic appeal of your blog but it also helps visitors feel at ease as they go over your content. A good template enhances the reading experience so make sure that you invest enough on this. The template allows visitors to feel comfortable. Flashy designs will also drive them away. It’s important to provide visitors with a user friendly interface. If they can easily access your site then they also easily access different pages and content that you have to offer. See to it that information is not cluttered or too condensed. Anything that provides ease to the access of the blog is a plus point and one step closer in helping turn visitors to avid patrons.

Good blog content – having a good design is not enough, you have to make sure that you also provide good information. A good template can only do so much but a good and well presented content is the key in converting users to your devoted readers. If users feel that they can learn a lot from you then it’s highly likely that they will come back for more. However, you have to be extremely careful and writing and presenting your information. You have to make sure that your content is also amusing while keeping it informative. Try to study your target audience and see what blogs they prefer. By examining other blogs, you can get a good idea on how you can approach your audience.

You may want to interact more with your readers to add a personal touch and build good rapport. It’s important that users don’t feel intimated. Once you’ve established good rapport, you’ll certainly have them as avid patrons.

Basically you need to engage your users and make them feel part of your blog. You need to show them the true you and invite them to be part of your Blog. When users feel comfortable with you and your blog, they will help you Make Money on the Internet and it will be much easier to do so.

Have I gained your trust? I hope so. Please share this with your friends by clicking on the social bookmarking buttons below. Also please leave a comment with your thoughts and ideas on how to make a blog visitor an avid fan of yours.

Startup Booster Blog Update 1

Guna — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:26:15 +0000

Most of you must have noticed the changes that are taking place on my blog over the past few weeks. Let me tell you, there is lot more to come over the next few weeks.

I’ve received many emails from you, with questions and with comments, so I thought I would update the blog with more information and where I am headed so that you are all up to speed on the changes.

My blog has been growing steadily over the past few years. Recently I had the opportunity to spend even more time on my blog. Why? Because I’ve left a job that I had for the past seven years and I am currently in a job that is not taking up as much time as the previous one. Yes I am working for myself! More details to come on that front as well in the next few months.

However, going back to the changes about my blog. Here are the few changes that you may have noticed so far. As I go through the changes, I will do my best to provide you with information on the tools and plugins I’ve used.

Find a Good Word Press Theme – Old One is Gone!!!

I had my previous theme custom made by a developer. Well what I’ve recently figured out is that as Wordpress updates, my theme also needed to be updated to install new plugins, etc. Well I tried to update my theme but it was costly. Not worth it. So I was looking around for a wordpress theme that provides the following:

Powerful!
SEO Friendly
Customizable – allows me to produce unique designs for my site
Drag and drop or cut and paste!
Easy to use controls – I need to control the theme; not the other way around
Multiple Columns – 2 or 3 at least
Able to adjust the font and style
Been around or support by dedicated team
Regular updates
CLARITY! – This is very important for a blog to be successful.

I searched for days to get to where I am today. I’ve went to many successful blogs and I kept coming around this one theme – The Thesis Theme for WordPress. Almost all of the well known blogs were using Thesis Theme for Wordpress. I’ve realized the Thesis Theme was doing the heavy lifting for all of these website. Well I thought I can’t go wrong with this one. Most of the websites looked differently as well. So I was convinced and purchased Thesis.

I love it and I am making it beautiful everyday. One thing that I noticed right away – within few days, is that Google indexed three times more pages from my blog than what it has previously indexed. Not entirely sure if it was due to Thesis or if it was combined with other things I’ve done lately as stated below.

I will have more to say about Thesis in the next few weeks as I continue to customize it and add more plugins. If you want to learn more about this theme, click here to learn more about Thesis Theme.

Add SiteMap to Your Blogs

I’ve added sitemap.xml to my blog and I think it has also helped to get Google index three times more pages than what I had before. I also started using Google’s WebMaster Tools more than before. In the Webmaster tool, you can submit your sitemap.xml file for Google so it will index more pages. If Google has more of your pages indexed, then that means it can search through more of your pages for every search query. Hence, it will send you more visitors. Isn’t that what you want?

I used a Wordpress plugin called Google XML Sitemaps to generate the Sitemap for my blog. It is very easy.

Accepting Guest Post on My Blog

I have added a section to accept Guest Post from my readers. I am not going to get into the benefits of Guest Posting on this post but it is something you should consider if you have a blog. Guest Posting will not only expose your site but it will help you rank higher on Search Engines.

If you are interested in submitting a guest post, please use this link – Submit Guest Post.

I have also recently posted 10 Simple Steps to Killer Guest Posts That Works to Make Money. This will tell you the importance of Guest Blogging.

Added Forms on the Blog

I have added forms on the blog to submit a site, contact me and to submit guest posts. This should make it easy for you to send me information from my website. I am using a Wordpress plugin called Contact Form 7. I like it because it is very easy for me to create a form and have the information send to me through an email.

I have also added CAPTCHAs to my forms and my comments. My comment spam went down 99% right after I installed the Wordpress plugin called Really Simple CAPTCHA.

Placement of Advertisements on My Blog

I have removed the previous settings for advertisement on my blog. I had Google Adsense to the right hand side. As you can see on the top right, I have instead added display ads from sponsors. I will have more to report on this over the coming months.

There are many more changes to come for my blog. I have also finished writing a book that I will be giving away to all of you. It will tell you the story of how I think you can make money on the internet and covers a bit about how I made money on the internet. Remember, making money on the internet is not difficult, it all depends on who is teaching you.

Stay tuned. More updates to come. Let me know what you think! I would really appreciate your feedback as I make changes.

10 Simple Steps to Killer Guest Posts That Works to Make Money

Guna — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:26:51 +0000

“Location, location, location”, a common term most of you must have heard many times. It is a crucial term when it comes to real estate investment. Guess what, it is the same when it comes to online properties. This is why domain names are sold for millions of dollars. This is why websites with traffic sell for thousands of dollars. This is true when it comes to “Guest Posting” as well. You need to find top sites in your niche and then find a way to post a “guest post” on their site.

I am sure you have been looking into this and have been wondering why people don’t take advantage of it when it has been said time and time again, that “guest posting is the way to go to increase blog traffic and to make money on the internet.”

Well, why haven’t you started yet?

I am sure you are here today because you want to get started. Let me show you how you can get your guest post on top blogs with just a few simple steps. After I tell you how to do it, I will challenge you to submit a guest post right here. Yes to the one and only, StartupBooster Blog – Guest Post Submission!

Also, it is natural to feel that your post may be rejected and hence you procrastinate and not follow through. If you are feeling like this, let me tell you, you are not the only one. So if you want to succeed, do what others are afraid to do… that is to submit a guest post today to my blog and then tomorrow to others. Do not worry about rejection.

Now here are the 10 simple guaranteed steps to putting together a guest post and getting it accepted.

Are you with me so far?

Step 1 – Identify Guest Posting Opportunities and Review Their Guest Posting Guidelines

Identifying a guest posting opportunity shouldn’t be difficult. You must already have many of these blogs on your RSS feed reader. I can assure you that you must be visiting these websites on a regular basis to read their posts, etc but you never thought of submitting your own guest post to that particular blog.

Well let’s get started today. Go through your RSS Feed Reader. Identify all of the blogs that are of interest to you within your niche. Once you identify that, you go and read their guidelines to guest post submission.

Most of them only care about the following:

Relevant topic
Spelling and grammar
Original content

See like I said, it is very simple. You already know the topic you want to talk about. If you don’t identify a blog within your RSS feeds, then do a Google search for your niche. You will come across many blogs that will accept Guest Posting.

Step 2 – Get to Know the Blog

This is the step where many fail when it comes to blog guest posting. You need to get to know the blog and what gets published on that blog before you submit your guest post. You don’t want to submit something that will never be published on that blog… hence this step is crucial.

So browse through the blog. See what sort of guest posts have made it to the blog over the past few months. Some sites may be too new to guest posting, so you may want to look at the overall content to see what the blog owner is writing about.

You also should get to know the popular content on that blog. That particular blog must be attracting a specific crowd, and if you want to target that crowd, then you need to feed them what they want to hear.

You can research using the social media tools like Topsy and Delicious for this. Find out how many times a posting has been tweeted on Twitter or how many times it has been bookmarked on bookmarking sites like Delicious. You can do this without leaving the blog itself because many of them have numbers beside the blog post itself… so you can just note it on a piece of paper to identify the best content on the site.

Step 3 – Figure out What You Want to Write About

You’ve done your homework, not it is time to start writing. You know what is hot on the blog. Well then what are you waiting for? Do some Google search on similar topic and come up with a killer title and a few points to write about.

Once you have that in place you are set to go.

Step 4 – Write Your Post

Do whatever you have to do but do not step over this. You have to follow though this. If you don’t, you will never ever write a guest post. Trust me on this one. It is easy to procrastinate and not do a guest post.

Sit down, grab a coffee, pull up your laptop and start writing. Make sure you don’t copy a post from the same site. You have to be original and you have to add value to their users. You need to bring something to the table that is compelling and adds value. To make it easy, just brainstorm a few points for the title you’ve identified on the previous steps. Then do some research and bring forward killer content to your post.

It is time consuming but it can be done.

Step 5 – Work on Your Pitch

First impression makes a big difference just like in the real world! You need to make your pitch properly. You need to let the blog owner know that you are serious and you have a good post to submit. Please refrain from sending an email asking if you can submit a guest post on topic x, y or z. It doesn’t work like that. Once you have a guest post ready to go, you just need to submit it. That is how professionals do it. If you ask, then they are going to think you are not serious.

You just have to do it. Show them what you got instead of talking about it!

Step 6 – Link!

Go back to the research you have done in steps 2 and 3. Identify some good posts within their blog and link to them in your post. It is key to link to internal content within blog posting. The site owner will love this. Linking to old post helps with Search Engine Optimization and that is why the blog owner will love it. You are also giving credit to his or her previous work.

Step 7 – Add some Images!

Images are good for any posting. When you have relevant images in a guest post, the site owner will move you up the chain when it comes to deciding which guest post to pick from. Get a few screen shots or make one up and then include that in your guest post.

Step 8 – Add a Killer Bio of Yourself!

Yes you are almost done. Come up with a killer bio that will send some traffic your way. After all isn’t this why you are working on this guest post? Your bio should be precise and it should tell the visitor what you are all about. Convince the visitor that they should check your site for more of the same… please refrain from making the bio more than 3 sentences long. Also don’t self promote yourself! Just keep it simple and people will come.

Step 9 – Submit Your Post

Submit your post using the preferred way for that particular blog. Send everything they have asked for. Make sure you are meeting the guidelines.

Step 10 – Check for Your Guest Post and Promote

Most of the time a guest post will appear within a week. If not, you will at least get a comment back from the site owner that he or she will post your blog in the next few weeks. If you don’t get anything back, please send them an email after a week telling them that if they are not interested in your guest post, then you would like to submit elsewhere. If you don’t hear anything for that, then it is safe to submit your post to another blog.

Remember, if you have to submit to another site, you are not repeating many of the steps on my guide. All you have to do is find another relevant blog and submit your post. They will take it. So don’t get distracted at this point.
Most of these top blogs are busy and they don’t make as much time as they should for guest posting. Sometimes it is better to start off with a blog that is not on your top 10 list.

If your guest post is published, then you should do everything possible to market your post. Use social media and tell your friends about it. Let them promote it for you. Do everything you would do if that post was on your own blog.

Now here is the Challenge for You!

Well now that you have gone through this article, you must be pumped up to submit a guest post. I challenge you to submit a guest post right here at my site. Yes to startupbooster.com. This should help you break your fear and it will also give you a chance to discuss about the process.

I can guarantee you that I will get back to you and I will also give you feedback for your guest post submission. That will also help you prepare to tackle other blogs in the future. I am offering to help you get started.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

The Giant Falls – Five Reasons Why Security Is Not a Reason for Google to Drop Microsoft

Guna — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:49:03 +0000

Indeed a brilliant move by Google to set the stage for it’s own Chrome OS. Google choose to “security” as an issue to abandon Microsoft.

Here are five reasons why I believe “Security issue” is a cover used by Google to set the stage for Chrome OS.

Launch a public stunt against Microsoft - Google has the ability to reach mass market because they can. Look at me, I am taking time to write about it! They are using “security” as the main reason to let the people know that Microsoft sucks.
Align with Apple the Next Target – People find it hilarious every time they hear about Apple vs Microsoft. This goes back to the early days when Microsoft was formed by Bill Gates. The theory is that Microsoft stole ideas from Apple and made it better!
Release Chrome OS along with Apple to Google’s staff – a way to get the publicity started for Google Chrome OS. If you are employee of Google and you are given the choice between Apple and Chrome, which one would you pick? Chrome of course! Right?
Stage Chrome OS as the best alternative – Once tested with the next market’s bigger player (Apple), Google can then publicly choose to abandon Apple. I am sure Mr. Jobs is probably wondering why am I getting this unnecessary attention now? He has the experience to know that it will come back to bite him later. Google will abandon Apple once Chrome OS is ready for mass production.
Unleash Chrome OS – It’s that simple. Now all of a sudden, Google Chrome OS is the savior against security breach and people love it!

With Chrome OS just around the corner, it definitely make sense why Google is moving away from Microsoft in a very public way. Google isn’t loosing anything and Apple shouldn’t be celebrating this fame. It will come to an end for Apple as well.

You can read more about the news here on PC World.

How to Setup Your Own Blog and Make Money Online

Guna — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:17:47 +0000

You pretty much have two options at this stage. You can either setup a blog on your own domain name or on a pre-hosted blogging platform. If you choose to host the blog on your own domain name, which I suggest you do, you will have something like this – yourname.com, yourname.net, etc, etc.

However if you decide to use an existing pre-hosted blogging platform, then your URL may look like this yourname.blogspot.com or other blog-platform domain names at the end of yourname.

Setting Up a Blog on Your Own Domain Name

In order to setup your own blog, you will first need to register a domain name. I suggest you use GoDaddy.com to register a domain name. Once you have a domain name in place, you can choose a hosting company to host your website. This will cost you on a monthly basis. Make sure your hosting company and the service they provide works with well known blogging platform like Wordpress. You should ask these questions before you sign up for hosting. Having your own blog on your own domain names gives you the flexibility to do many things that you won’t get from a pre-hosted blogging service like Blogger.com.

One you have that in place, you should decide which blogging platform you are going to use to build your site. Some of the most popular publishing programs are Wordpress, Nucleaus and b2evolution. I use Wordpress for my own blog because it is stable and has been around for a long time. It also comes with many features and lots of themes for you to choose from to customize the look and feel of your blog.

If you also choose to go with Wordpress, there are many themes that are available online for all types of blogs. For some themes you may have to pay a fee to use while many others are freely available. I think you should go with a free theme that fits your niche first. Once you start making money, you may want to consider upgrading your theme to a paid one unless you know how to customize it on your own.

Don’t let yourself waste time deciding on a theme. Find a theme that fits your niche and move on. You can always go back. Many people, including me in the early days, wasted so much time trying to make my blog look pretty. Well pretty blog is not going to make you any money! All you need to make sure here is that the people can read what you are writing. Choose the right color and the right font for your site. Font colors and styles play an important role in attracting and keeping more users on your site. If your site is not easy to read, the user will click away to another site. You want to be able to provide content in a well planned out manner.

Follow the guide provided by each blogging platform to understand how you can tweak and make the blog work for you. This will take some time but you may want to leave this for another day. You will always continue to tweak your blog so don’t spend too much time here upfront.

Setting up Your Blog on a Free Blogging Site

If you want to save money in the beginning and want to try something out then you may want to start off one a blogging tool like Blogger. It is very easy to setup a blog on one of these tools. They provide you with step by step instructions as the above Blogger link. You just need to follow the instruction and setup a blog site that you are comfortable with.

Once you have decided on a niche for your blog, you are probably ready to setup your own blog. Setting up a blog is not difficult. Setting up a blog is probably the most fun part of blogging! Well yes it requires different kind of work and if you are creative, then you will definitely enjoy this. One point of caution though, don’t waste too much time at this stage because people don’t come to your blog because it is pretty, they come to your site because they are looking for some sort of information on the topic you are writing about.

You will find useful information on finding your niche in my previous articles:

- Finding Your Niche Market – Niche Marketing Research

- How to Identify the Best Online Business Opportunity

So again, once you have your topic or niche, you pretty much have two options at this stage. You can either setup a blog on your own domain name or on a pre-hosted blogging platform. If you choose to host the blog on your own domain name, which I suggest you do, you will have something like this – yourname.com, yourname.net, etc, etc.

However if you decide to use an existing pre-hosted blogging platform, then your URL may look like this yourname.blogspot.com or other blog-platform domain names at the end of yourname.

Setting Up a Blog on Your Own Domain Name

One you have that in place, you should decide which blogging platform you are going to use to build your site. Some of the most popular publishing programs are Wordpress, and b2evolution. I use Wordpress for my own blog because it is stable and has been around for a long time. It also comes with many features and lots of themes for you to choose from to customize the look and feel of your blog.

Setting up Your Blog on a Free Blogging Site

If you want to save money in the beginning and want to try something out then you may want to start off on a blogging tool like Blogger. It is very easy to setup a blog on one of these tools. They provide you with step by step instructions as the above Blogger link. You just need to follow the instruction and setup a blog site that you are comfortable with. It is almost like setting up a Twitter, Gmail or a Facebook account. If you know how to login to your email account and write/read emails, then you will be way ahead of the curve compared to many. Blogging using these platforms are easy because there is no real setup required. Once you signup, you will get your account and all you have to do is add your title, description and contact information. Then you just have to play around with the template to change colors and fonts. Once you finish that, you can post your first blog.

I hope you found this article useful. Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Advantage of Having an Online Income – One-time versus Residual Income

Guna — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:07:03 +0000

Most of you who would read this post would be looking for a way to make money online. You are not alone, in fact, thousands of people around the world everyday are moving to online ventures to make money. They are simply looking for an alternative income, to make a few extra dollars or looking to fully convert their income source to online.

I am sure you would agree with me that having an online income is a good thing. If you are also working and if the online income is in addition to your work, then it is really a good thing. One day you can consider to quit your day to day job.

What is a One-Time Income?

I believe more than 90% of the people around the world are accustomed to one-time income – they trade time for money. I am not sure what you do for living, but if you are just like most people, you are probably doing 40 hours per week job at a set pay per hour. This means you are not financially independent because you have to work to receive the paycheck. Based on how many hours you have worked that week, your paycheck will vary. Hence when you stop working, your income stops. Therefore, one-time, or sometime called the linear income, requires continued work.

It is difficult to be financially independent with such source of income. You have to continue to trade time for money on a regular basis. This doesn’t help you become rich but in fact, it makes the owner of the company you work for richer.

I find a kick out of watching people walk out of one of the busiest Train Station here in Toronto – the Union Station. I usually drive by there around the morning rush hour to get to my office. Usually on a typical day, I would see hundreds of people rushing to get to their work from the train station. I usually wonder where everyone is headed and whom they are making rich by rushing to work. All of these are smart people but they are working for someone else and they are making that someone else rich on a regular basis.

Of course everyone has to make a living and hence they work. What I am saying here is that, if you don’t plan to get yourself out of this sort of work, you will always be doing that until you retire.

What is a Residual Income?

A residual income is the most powerful and profitable source of income. This definitely is the income of the rich people. This is the source of income that keeps coming even if you are not putting in the required time. Yes this means you are making money even if you are not working. And yes, you don’t have to retire to get to this stage!

However, it requires time and effort upfront for it to work. For example, imagine you spend an entire weekend building a blog – yes a blog similar to mine. If you had worked elsewhere, you would have made 16 hours times the hourly salary (regular 8 hour job). But for the blog website, you did not get any money. However, in a month or so if your blog starts to make $10 a day, the story will change. Well this doesn’t really sound like a big number but just think about it for a second – this site is making you $10 every day, 365 days of the year. Within the first 30 days, you will probably surpass the amount of money you would have made over that weekend if you had worked elsewhere. From this website, you will continue to rake in the profits for the entire year and beyond.

This simple example demonstrates how people can enjoy the benefits for a long time on something they’ve spent time upfront.

This is the path to success and this is exactly what I am hoping to teach you on my blog over the next few weeks. Don’t be an employee, be your own boss and start making money online.

How to Make Money With Your Web Site – Part 2

Guna — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:21:36 +0000

Last week, I had a chance to talk to you about how you can make money blogging. Today I am going to focus on making money through affiliate marketing. As I said yesterday, making money through affiliate programs has been around for a long time and it is one of the best ways to make money. However, in order to be successful with affiliate marketing, you must work really hard to carve out your niche. If your web site is all over the place, you will not be successful with your affiliate marketing.

How to Make Money – Affiliate Marketing Tips

Your blog or domain is a great source of income- many webmasters and bloggers often fail to give attention to this fact. It is every bloggers goal to make his or her blog the gem among the pebbles in the vast blogging world. However, working hard for your blog or your website doesn’t end with having a steady stream of readers and followers. The challenge lies in converting this traffic significantly- and what could be more significant than earning decent money.

Affiliate marketing is a very popular method of making money online. The affiliate marketing train keeps getting longer and crowded every minute with lots of people jumping in. Affiliate marketing is relatively easy – all you need is a few minutes of your time for signing up, and sometimes a very basic knowledge of HTML.

Affiliate Marketing Defined – In this mode of making money online, your blog becomes an avenue for other e-commerce entities to advertise and campaign their own products or services. In much simpler terms, you help these business entities earn- and get a commission or percentage from their sale at the end of the day. Thus, it is a necessity that your blog or your website should have a decent number of traffic in order for the advertisements to become efficient.

Where To Find Them? Looking for affiliate marketing programs is not an intricate task anymore as they can be found almost everywhere. Among all the available affiliate marketing dedicated sites, Clickbank.com is proven to be on the a-list because of the variety of products to choose from.

Basically, your task is to become an affiliate by marketing the product in your blog or website. Becoming an affiliate allows you to post links of certain products (those you have chosen) in your own site. Every time a customer purchases a certain product through your link, you get a commission for it. You can make more money through affiliate marketing than Google Adsense. If you are using Google Adsense, you are referring potential customers to another site that may be affiliated with a product of some sort. You will probably get 25 cents per click through but if the website make a sale, the website owner may make anywhere between 5% to 50% plus. This means if the product he or she sold is $10, the website owner has the potential of making anywhere between 50 cents to five dollars. This is much larger than the 25 cents (or closer to it) per click through you’ve received. This is why affiliate marketing is better off to make more money online.

How To Market Effectively – Marketing the products you are affiliated with should not end with merely posting their links on your site. You have to be creative and resourceful- make use of available resources in the internet.

One very important and widely-used means of marketing affiliated products is through online magazines, e.g. Ezine Articles. These online magazines, just like tangible and real life magazines, are common sources of information, advertisements and reviews about products or services. Normally, people would dig into these sites and see which product would be better off purchasing.

Online forums and discussions are also good avenues of marketing affiliated products. With the help of these sites, you can directly identify the persons who are in need of products which you are affiliated with, thus leading to a more productive affiliate partnership.

You can also purchase advertisement through Google Adwords and or other similar advertisement programs to market your product. If you believe that you can convert certain percentage of your visitors, then you should try this sort of marketing. You will definitely make money if you can predict and calculate your outcomes.

I hope you find this information useful. Please don’t forget to leave a comment below.

How To Make Money with Your Web Site – Part 1

Guna — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:51:18 +0000

Nowadays, the notion of a world-wide-web being considered no more than a means of communication, acquiring information and stuffs akin, is by now outmoded. The internet has gone a long, long way since its birth in the 1980s. If we would be tracing the timeline of internet as to how it was used before, and compare it to the “modern” way of taking advantage of it, the gap would be wider than we could envision.

The internet has a wide array of usage. Communication, information, socialization, entertainment, news and current events- almost everything we do in real life has a virtual equivalent. But among all these, probably the most important thing that keeps the online world in a fast paced revolution is the fact that the internet is virtually a gold rush. Fortune can be found on the internet and millions can attest to that. Everyday, people are making money on Internet through selling used items on eBay, making money through trading domains on NamePros, making money by freelancing through elance.com, etc, etc… This is just a quick glimpse of what is out there and in this series I am going to show you how you can also make money.

Well it may sound a little embellished but in truth, the internet can be a good spring of profits- no matter how old or how naive you are, no matter where you’re from, or what background you have. The internet is a portal of earnings and without a doubt, one can make money online easily through several verified and tested money-making methods. Here are some of the most vastly used techniques. In this part 1 of the Money Making series, I am going to talk about Making Money with your Blog.

Blogging Your Way – Make Money Blogging

It has swept the entire world-wide-web and probably, still the most used form of expression in the internet. Yes, we are referring to blogging. But blogging is not anymore considered only as a means of exhausting one’s feelings and stating one’s opinions about anything under the sun. Blogging is an effective means of earning money. Who would have thought that this previously simple leisure-pursuit of keeping one’s daily activities posted online could be a great spring of income?

Earning money through blogging is not an overnight process. Before one starts to earn a decent amount of money in this venture, it takes some weeks to months in order to have your blog established and recognized by readers.

Know Your Niche. First step is to identify a certain alcove of expertise in which the contents of your blog will revolve around. If home and gardening is your forte, creating a blog out of this flair could turn out great for you. Next thing to do is to sign up for a blog of your own- there are many sites available in the web which allows you to set up your own blog free of charge like Blogger, Wordpress, and the like. If you want to be an instant webmaster and set up your own webpage, consider those cheap but reliable and efficient domains. You should take a look at my previous article on Niche Marketing Research: Finding Your Niche Market to learn more about how to research a niche and identify a niche. Once you identify a niche for your Blog, everything should fall into place. Don’t get started if you don’t have your Niche carved out. This would be one of my important advice to you on Blogging. You need to know what you are blogging about. If you don’t know, then you are going to be all over the place. Hence, you will not be successful.

Update Your Blog Regularly. After having your blog signed up for “operation”, next thing to do is to create contents and publish them regularly. Keeping a steady stream of contents is very nourishing to your blog as food is to human beings. Bear in mind however that there are some things to keep in mind in creating contents. You should refer to my previous post – How to get More User Engagement on Your Blog to Make Money – to help you get users on your blog. You need to write good content to gain Authority on the specific niche you’ve identified in the previous step.

The Power of Keywords. The most important tip in creating sizzling contents is to search for keywords which are pertinent to your content/ topic but at the same time, has a great “search” potential. Meaning, it is a must to inculcate keywords which are popular among the online community. This increases the chance of your blog or your article to be enlisted in any search engine’s top search results. You should learn to use Google Adwords Tool to gain access to the information on how many times a keyword has been search for over a time period. This information will give you an idea of what people are looking for. Then you can cater your Blog to satisfy their need.

You will soon notice that the number of readers who pass by your blog increases over time. The challenge now lies in making this traffic a significant one- that is, making money out of this traffic in your blog.

Here are a Few Ways for You to Make Money Blogging

As I said to you over and over again, you can make money from blogging. It can help you pay your bills for sure. Blogging can work for everyone but you have to be dedicated. I will repeat this again, if you are not dedicated, you will not make money blogging.

Adsense Your Blog

Once you have a specific niche and you are getting regular users, you can setup Google Adsense on your blog. This will generate money when people click on Google Ads that will be displayed on your site.

Introduce Affiliate Programs

By promoting affiliate programs on a blog, you can make more money than Google Adsense. For example, if you are only getting fifty cents per click through on Google Adsense, then it is going to take 100 clicks to make $50. However, if you join an affiliate program through Amazon or ClickBank, they may pay about $10 per successful sale. You may only need 25 click through with five people completing a purchase to make $50. The opportunity is greater with affiliate program but you must focus on offering products that are a good match for your own niche.

Pay Per Post for Blogging

You can make money by charging others to review their product, website, etc on your blog. Once you have a decent amount of traffic to your blog, other people may want to take advantage of your traffic. So they may offer you money to review their products or sites. This is simple and anyone can do this, but you need to make sure you are not just offering product and site reviews to your readers. This may be a turn off for your readers.

Sell Your Own Product (recommended)

I would encourage everyone to look into this way of monetizing a blog. If you want your blog to make lots of money, you need to offer your own product. It can be an eBook, a physical product, or even an opportunity. Once you establish a blog and you are ready to make your big move, think about what you can sell on your own to your readers. Imagine you sell a product for $25. It could be an eBook on your specific niche. You only need to sell two eBooks to make $50. Now, isn’t that easier than getting 100 people to click on Google Ads? I think so.

Direct Advertisement

You can sell direct advertisement on your blog and charge those that want to advertise on your site. This will work if your blog is established. Traffic is king for this sort of monetizing strategy.

Good luck to all of you. Look forward to Part 2 of this so you can learn how you can make money online. Please let me know if you find any of the methods that I’ve explained to you useful or if you have feedback for me on how I can provide more information on a specific monetization strategy. Your feedback, through a comment below, will help me provide better content in the future. So please don’t forget to leave a comment.

How to get More User Engagement on Your Blog to Make Money

Guna — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:18:04 +0000

ONLY A TINY PERCENT of all published blogs in the online world becomes a magnet of earnings. The rest either gets lost in the online space or gets read a little but left miserably untouched after some seconds of being read half-hearted. While many bloggers contend that the success of a blog greatly depends on the topic being written about, whether it’s hot-stuff or not; the truth is, whatever topic a blogger writes about, a blog can be a big thing when it is written perfectly and strategically.

Why then do most blogs fail and get lost into oblivion, and sometimes, even left untouched by online users, except of course the blogger himself? In order to understand fully the right things to do when blogging, it is necessary to give a rundown of the most common errors a blogger commits. Here are some of them.

Why Do Most of the Blogs Fail?

Blogging Without Direction

The most common mistake a blogger commits is not knowing the purpose of his own blog. While most blogs are purely intended for exhausting one’s feelings, opinions and points of view, there are also blogs meant for business purposes like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), sales and marketing, advertising and the like. With a purpose in mind, one can make the right blog which can attract more readers, and eventually, more flow of cash.

Writing For No One

Failure to identify the target audience is another gaffe of a blogger. Once the purpose of a blog is determined, definitely, the target audience should be identified. By identifying the right people to “converse” with in a blog, your blog becomes more “personalized” in a sense, and appears as though you are speaking with your readers in person. This make the readers “connect” with you personally, making your flock of readers steady going and increasing as time passes.

Hypo-Blogging

This is another common mistake of a “fledgling” blogger. In all cases, maiden blog posts do not make huge cash instantly. It takes time before one establishes his blog and makes a name in this hugely-contested market. Because of the “adaptation” time needed for a blogger to make a name, many bloggers give up after blogging a little- seeing no improvement in his blogging career.

The truth is, in order to adapt into this competitive blogging environment, one needs to publish a regular “dose” of blog entries. This increases viewership and “fans”, so to speak. And luckily, by word of mouth, your blog can earn good reputations.

Blog Clutters

Everyone wants order. Practically nobody wants to scour over a much cluttered blog as it would eat up too much time. Internet users are fonder of being spoon-fed with contents and very rarely you will find a successful blog without any tags or categories. In keeping you blog organized and clutter-free, it is necessary to make use of available blog features such as tags and categories. More importantly, one should see to it that the tags used are properly constructed.

It still remains, however, that no person is born a perfect blogger. Many of the most successful bloggers today have acquired the perfect mix of skills in blogging through experience. And now that we’ve had a quick rundown of the common blunders of a blogger, it is important to apply these things when you make your next blog.

How to Make Your Readers Stay on Your Blog

A normal reader stays on a blog post and attempts to read the first few lines of it. If nothing on the early part of the blog post is found interesting or worth reading, the user leaves and looks for other articles. Some researches say that an average user initially reads less than twenty percent of the words of the entire blog post. This means that the introductory parts of the blog is very crucial, and plays as a determinant in the readership of an article.

Apart from that, the overall appearance of the blog is also a pre-cursor as to whether the article will have a good number of viewership. A blog that appears to be very dragging will most unlikely pique a reader to stay and read further. The same thing applies to blogs which is underwritten- say for example a blog with only two paragraphs or so.

Excited to create your own blog post? Wait up a second- knowing the blogging no-no’s is not enough. You should first learn the right things to do when blogging. Here are some of the most vital tips one should learn to make blog posts with impact!

Right Title= Good Readership

The title of your blog should be catchy. It should be constructed in such a way that out of the hundreds of blogs which a user can choose from, it would stand out and shine. Your blog post’s title is like a “free taste test” of your creation and it should be made a delectable as possible in order for customers to bite in and eat the whole lot.

Shaping the Body

As much as the introductory part of a blog, the body is also equally important. Although it is not the part which is initially read by users, some if not most avid readers skim through the body in order to get a partial gist of the entire article before reading in details. The length of the body, as mentioned earlier is also a thing to give focus to.

De-Jargonize Your Blog

Too much jargon and highfalutin words does not make any sense for an average user’s perception. It’s plain flaunting and nothing sensible can be acquired from it. Readers need something their intellect could grasp. If you are to write about teeth whitening solutions, it would be impractical to write about the major chemicals structure of the teeth and give all sorts of dental and medical lecture. No one would dare to read this, and if read, probably users would swear never to read again from your blog. Normally, one would not want to spend on something which would not bring them good information so present something worth reading- an article which can bring information to average readers.

Focus, Keep It Straight and Shoot!

An introductory part containing 300 to 500 words is a dragging article. Readers don’t want endless introductions and beating-around-the-bush, most especially avid readers who have, more or less, background knowledge on the topic they have in mind.

Sometimes, a blogger gets too enthusiastic and so into blogging about something in mind. This is a double edge as it can make things either better or worse. It would be productive if the blogger makes a perfectly written blog; it would be otherwise if the blogger has been too obsessed writing, to the extent of being less focused and topic-oriented. This way, the blog becomes a hodge-podge of information, a salad bowl of ideas which go into all directions.

This instance may happen even to those who have developed blogging proficiency because enthusiasm hits anyone at any point in time. In order to prevent these blogging blunders from happening, it is an alternative to create another blog post in deviation to the original blog. This way, the writer exhausts his enthusiasm without sacrificing the quality of the original blog.

Breaking Your Paragraphs

Sometimes, a paragraph becomes too long making it look too lazy to read, it’s like swallowing a huge piece of cake in one bite which makes you too full to eat another piece. Short and precise paragraphs are better to look at and easier to read, it’s like offering readers just about a piece of everything, making their reading experience worth the while.

Making use of paragraph headings, bullets or enumerations is also advisable. It helps the blog post look more organized. By this, the reader can understand the blog post in an orderly and organized manner.

Double Check Before Hitting the Button

A rule of thumb is never get too hasty. Sometimes, due to so much fervor, a blogger just blogs his way without any second thoughts about double-checking his article. This is a gaffe which should be avoided. Check everything first before heading into battle. Imagine the jungle there is in the online world- your blog would compete with millions of other blogs published on a daily basis. Certainly, your blog should be armed with good content, proper grammar and spelling and perfect construction.

Keeping Things In Order

A steady supply of blogs in your site will eventually create an online “library” where interested users can spend their time reading your blog posts. Creating an orderly online archive of blogs is necessary so that users will not get virtually lost in your blog. With the help of tags and categories, users can have a smooth experience in browsing through your contents. This way, readers can be more enticed to find more and dig deeper into your archive.

Taking It To The Next Level

Now that you have created a well-constructed blog, it should be ready for publishing in the world-wide-web. However, the journey doesn’t end with just an endless cycle of creating blog posts and publishing them.

By publishing a steady stream of correctly written blog posts, you will notice the viewership of your blog increase day by day. And if news and reputations about your budding blog spreads like wildfire, it would be to your advantage. By this time, you should have kept your blog uncluttered and organized (as mentioned earlier on) to add more “reputation” to your site.

Blogging Bonuses on How to Make Money with Your Blog

Next level blogging also implies making something out of blogging. What makes blogging more interesting than other routines in the online world is that through blogging, one can earn a significant amount of earning.

After mastering the art of blogging, you should consider writing about the hottest topics and most-searched keywords. These blog posts may be just about anything from flower arrangements to best vacation spots- practically anything will popular will sell.

By writing about these terms and keywords, your blog might just make it big and may yield a big chance “clickability”. There are many affiliate programs in the world-wide-web which may offer you a chance to make something out of blogging.

“Adsensing” Your Blog

Google Adsense is a good example of a money making scheme which can be inculcated in your blog. In Google Adsense, your blog will be tweaked in order to contain links which are related to your blog posts. These links are directed to some websites which offer services and products. For every click your readers have made, you get a fair amount of commission or earning. Thus, your article should be a little more flaunting and promoting. You should keep in mind however the difference between advertising a product and nonsense spamming. Spamming can greatly hurt your reputation so be extra careful in publishing articles meant for advertising.

At this point, you are practically ready to blog. Remember that it takes time to make it big in the world of blogging, as it is a highly contested market. By keeping in mind these simple but very crucial steps in blogging, who knows, you might steadily climb up the ladder where contemporary blog celebrities have passed through painstakingly. Just learn by heart that the best blogs are founded on the best contents and are tested through time.

How to Make More Money in 2010 – Best of 2009 from StartupBooster

Guna — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 04:08:39 +0000

Happy New Year to you! May it be your best one yet! I hope you are enjoying the first day of the New Year and is excited about the changes to come… As an year end tradition at StartupBooster, I have picked out a few of my best blog posting throughout the year to help you achieve your financial goals – to make more money online!

This will be my last post for 2009… I have many new plans for 2010 and I hope all of you will share the excitement with me. In 2010, I will be focusing on helping startups make more money online. Many startups are going under everyday without making a penny. My goal will be to help every startup make some money; enough money for them to pay for their own expenses so they can keep going for a little longer. To give them a little boost so they can keep trying for a little longer. I hope you will help me help others this year. This is my New Year’s resolution… What is your’s?

List of the best postings of 2009 at StartupBooster

I hope you find this list useful. If you do, please share it with your friends.

Again, I wish you all the best in 2010. Have a wonderful day.

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