Have you ever heard the saying that “everyone learns through failure”? Well failure is something that I simply do not believe in. I would be lying if I said that I have never had failure. As a matter of fact, I learned seo over 15 years ago through trial and error. But in order to pursue your online dreams of making money with the fastest route possible, I am going to tell you how to avoid those failures by doing the right things from the beginning.

Articles are your biggest asset

You will notice that this article you are reading is pretty massive. I am shooting for around 2,000 words here because I want to be as detailed as possible, and provide you with a resource. The cool thing is that such a dedication has an added benefit of being link-bait, bookmarked, retweeted, and everything you can imagine.

The size of an article doesn’t matter, as long as the quality is there. But remember that you can offer a LOT more quality in a larger article. You may say to me “people don’t read large articles like this”, but the fact remains that your readers will skim your entire article. They are looking for key points which tell them this is the best article they can find right now about this subject. If they see enough content-bait, they may end up scrolling right to the top and reading the entire thing. Take that to the bank!

Share the wealth

When I say share the wealth, I don’t mean you have to open up your bank account to your readers (although they might appreciate it), but rather to share your leverage with them. If you have 50,000 twitter followers, you can help them grow their follower count by passing them around. Take for example me asking you right now to follow a friend and fellow blogger of mine, and pass him around @pizaazz.

You can also reach out to fellow bloggers, or your readers, and find out what projects they are working on. Find out how you can help. You may find that someone just completed an ebook, and you can help them by promoting their product via clickbank to your massive subscriber list.

Participate

There are lots of new bloggers (and some old ones) who think that being successful in the blogging world means that you can rack up article commentary without having to reply. I have seen others call comment replies by a blog owner a way to inflate comments. But the simple fact remains that it is called participation, and respecting your readers.

Obviously, people can see that your comments are there, so you aren’t hiding the fact that you are commenting. Therefore, an argument about inflation is just not a valid argument.

Participating on your blog is a great way to get subscribers. People want to be in touch with the blog owner that they are dedicating their life to. Think of it like this. A subscriber is basically inviting you into their home. If you went into their home and refused to talk, wouldn’t that be rude?

Pro list builder

Have you seen a blog that has a newsletter subscription option, but they don’t offer any type of incentive for signing up? Or worse, a blog with no newsletter option at all! In that case, it would be rather impossible to build a subscriber list now wouldn’t it?

Your newsletter is not something you will ever want to cut corners on. It is important to build that list from the very beginning. I cannot stress this enough. A lack of a newsletter, and incentive to sign up for it means that you will be playing major catch-up later on. Your newsletter is a vital tool for making money with your blog. Even if you do not have the goal of making money blogging, you still need to build your newsletter, even if you had other reasons such as updating your readers with the latest and greatest. Besides, what happens if your motive changes later on? You would be screwed!

Spam is tasty when fried

Blog hopping is something you are supposed to do because you want to network with others and make friends. You simply benefit from the traffic too. It is not meant to be a traffic method that people remember you by in a bad way.

There are software programs out there that are designed to locate blogs by doing keyword searches, then post generic comments with links back to your blog. What does this do for you? It gets you blocked! Basically you spent $50 for the latest blog promotion software which was nothing but a blog spamming piece of junk that does not work due to bloggers being able to easily detect non-relevant comments. I hope it was worth it though…

Avoid the spam techniques you learned from some “traffic guru” who focuses mainly on black-hat. Learn the tried and true methods that we dedicated bloggers have used, and that we vouch for with our reputation. Leave the spam for the frying pan (hold the booger).

Safelist investment

It is very possible that you do not have a decent sized subscriber list yet. Whether it’s rss feeds, or newsletter subscribers, they just might not be there yet. But you can leverage someone else’s list though, and invite others to join yours.

A safelist is basically a double-optin list build by a lead company. They rent or sell these lists targeting different niches. This is a great way to build your list, by offering a freebie if they come to your site and subscribe to your newsletter. If you made the smart move of offering incentive, then you should already have a free ebook or software to give them. If not, you can create one or use a PLR.

it is important to avoid the “safelists” that are single optin. It is OK to have single optin on your blog if you want, but you do not want to take risks on a 3rd party list. Double optin should not cost much more than single optin. You just have to find the right company to work with.

You’ve been drafted!

I am not talking about the selective service here. What I refer to is the wonderful ‘draft’ feature that your blog has, which allows you to fine-tune your content until you are satisfied that it is of the highest quality before your readers ever see it.

A draft post allows you to ensure that:

• You have included pictures to break up content and keep readers interested.

• You have a list item area to help with the flow of the article.

• You don’t have any crazy grammar or spelling errors.

• You provided resources if you had some to further help your reader.

• Many other reasons I have not thought of just now.

If you utilize the draft more often, you can easily weed out the bad content that makes readers not want to… well… read.

Guest posting is a tool

I was offended not long ago by someone saying that guest posts were useless. As you can see, I have a nice list of guest posts (currently on my sidebar), and they have brought me some decent traffic. A lot of that traffic has turned into subscribers.

The reason why that person said guest posting was useless is because there are many new bloggers who use it to regurgitate the same old crap over and over in order to inflate their traffic. But if you think responsibly about it, such guest posting will not result in traffic, but rather a bad reputation as a low-quality writer.

Utilize your guest posting quest to gain subscribers by giving your best articles to other blogs. I have done this on many occasions with many of my guest articles being large and in-depth. I have also focused mainly on blogs that get decent amounts of traffic which will convert into clicks.

ASK for word-of-mouth

The best kind of value I like to think you can get from a newsletter blast, is the kind you get when someone forwards the newsletter to a friend or colleague. You can actively pursue such sharing if you simply ask for it. I have personally requested that subscribers forward the newsletter to others that they think can benefit from it’s contents.

Word of mouth is the best kind of advertising because it costs you nothing. One subscriber forwarding an email to 10 can turn into 10 new subscribers! Are you really leaving this kind of leverage on the table?

Parasocial activity

I know. It sounded like paranormal activity (hope you like the movie reference), and I used it to gain your attention. But what I am really talking about is social networks. You may be using them to just import blog notes onto your wall, or posting affiliate offers here and there. But have you actively sought out subscribers by linking to your offer page?

I utilize my social network profiles all the time. The two best performers for me have been Facebook and Twitter. These platforms have excellent reach because of the simplicity in the way they allow others to share. A single “like” or “retweet” can turn into multiple subscribers. Especially when those that make those shares have massive networks following their activity.

Parasocial activity = It’s scary isn’t it?

Outlook Express, Windows Mail, …

Being in business for MANY years, I have acquired a huge list of contacts in my mail reader. I can easily reach out and ask friends and business contacts to help me get subscribers. When you have excellent references, you can utilize them  for leverage.

In addition to that, I can utilize my mail platform by leaving a short “signature message” underneath every email or email reply. This is a very effective method of gaining massive amounts of subscribers if you send out lots of emails like I do every day.

3rd Party Promote!

There are methods that I use through 3rd parties that get me subscribers. One such method I have found useful is to occasionally link to my offer page in leu of an author credit when I publish articles. Whether it’s on Associated Content, EzineArticles, or whereever, the possibilities are endless. Who says that writing articles for 3rd parties just has to be a way of getting anchor text backlinks?

I use the same tactic sometimes in my guest posts. But to be honest about this, most blogs that publish my guest posts allow me to have a good anchor text link and a pitch to sign up for my newsletter. It’s a great thing!

Auto-responders

Those auto-responders are cool things. You can not only promote affiliate products, your own products, or something else. You can also request that the person who contacted you sign up for your newsletter. Have you ever gotten a thank you email when you contacted a website through a form? They tend to just say “thank you for contacting us, someone will be in touch”. But what if you had a link to your newsletter offer page on there?

You do not have to wait for a sign-up in order to use an auto-responder. Technically, the person did contact you, thereby giving you permission to respond to them. Utilize it rather than let it leak and trickle down the table.

== Finally ==

Understand the various things you can do to attract subscribers. Your subscribers are a great way at gauging how well you are doing in the blogging world. They are also a major source of income for many blogs. More importantly, your subscribers are those who care enough about you to keep coming back and reading what you have to say. Engage with them, and ensure they remain subscribers for many years to come.

What do you do to attract subscribers?

Incoming search terms:

• no fart
• not Bloated

Over the many months that I have been blogging, I have worked hard to produce content that I thought my readers would enjoy and learn something from. I have worked hard to produce content that hasn’t been said over and over because I like to think I say things in a very different way than others.

I recently started thinking more about how I can reach out to my readers to see what they would like from me. I decided on a simple blog post with that question.

During my time as a blogger, I have released two ebooks with information related to my niche of making money online and blogging. I am now working on a 300 page manual for driving traffic to your blogs. In the meantime, I want to learn what readers would like to see happen around here. I would like to increase the participation level on the free marketing forum as well as comment increases on my articles. I would also like more guest post participation on this blog.

With the above goals in mind, I would like to open up discussions in the comments area to find out how I can make these things happen.

What can I do for you?

Respectfully,

Brandon Connell

As you may have read on many blogs about blogging, list posts are very popular. But did you know just how popular they actually are?

I have my homepage set for Yahoo! and it’s been that way since I was 13 years old. I am now 29, so that’s a pretty long time. Having Yahoo! as my homepage means I get my daily news from them, and that’s how I keep aware of what’s going on in the world. A lot of the time, a health article or something about specific industries pop up. One of those things popped up today, and it was something like “35 things airline pilots won’t tell you”. At the end of this big list post, there was a list of other list posts.

Think about this. If Yahoo’s Shine blog is posting list posts like nuts, maybe it’s a good idea for you right? RIGHT!

List posts are popular for specific reasons. One of those reasons being that it is very easy to follow a list post. The items are broken down into an organized, controlled format. List posts also provide summarized information that you feel you must know.

Over my career as a blogger, I have posted many list posts. A lot of them were about coming up with blogging topics, blog topics that are popular, etc. I have written list posts about failure and how you can prevent it. This goes on and on. Why? Because list posts have brought me a ton of traffic! I have not written a single list post that hasn’t been well received.

Alas, I finish this post with a list of reasons to use list posts.

• List posts are easy to create content with. You know how it becomes hard to write all the time? With list posts, you only need a subject and then you can just list out things related to that subject.

• List posts are popular. If you did nothing but write list posts, the chances of your blog becoming popular faster than any other is great.

• List posts do well in search engines. I have seen tons of list posts come up on the first page of Google which have turned me into a regular reader for the blog hosting the post.

• Lists are a great way to make money. You can flip the way you do reviews and do a list of great products for your niche.

• Lists create loyal readers. Something about a list posts brings out the best of everyone. Even people who don’t read very much will go through a list post. They will most likely bookmark it and come back to read more.

• List posts get linked to. If you want to build some deep links to your blog, create list posts that other bloggers will rave about. People love to share list posts as reference material.

There are tons of ways that list posts can work in your favor. If you have not looked into the power of them, then you are truly missing out.

This seems to be a popular topic with many these days, because newbies want to know how to get on the blogging and niche fast track. People are in an extreme hurry to make money online so that they can quit their jobs and work from home. There is nothing wrong with this, because it is the perfect mentality for coming up with a winning game plan.

I have been blogging full time since February 2010, and it is now November. There is a full 8-months in between now and then. I have wasted a lot of time with things that I wish I didn’t, when I could have done the things that I know now. Luckily, you now have a blueprint to follow. Bookmark and share this with others.

My first steps

If I had to start blogging all over again, I would setup the perfect WordPress install. This would include the following plugins.

• Akismet – This is a must for any blog that wishes to become popular. If you follow my marketing directions, becoming popular will not be an issue. Prevent spam from the beginning with this plugin so that you may focus on productive tasks to build up your blog’s reputation.

• All in One SEO Pack – A must for any blog wishing to be fully optimized for search engines. This plugin will do all of the work automatically, and you have the option to add custom meta tags for each article if you want to.
• Author Box – This plugin puts a box under or over your articles and shows your bio, or the bio of your guest posters that are contributing to your blog.

• BM Keywordlink – The best free plugin to automatically link keywords to any URL that you wish. I use this to interlink articles, automatically link to other websites, or affiliate offers.

• Bubblecast Video for WordPress – The Bubblecast Video plugin will allow your commentators to publish a video comment on your articles.

• CommentLuv – Show your commentators some love by allowing them to get a link from your blog to their latest article on their blog. It entices readers to comment.

• Comment Referrers – This plugin reports where the people who comment on your blog come from. It then adds a line to the end of your comment notification or moderation emails with that information. Good tracking info provided here. The more information you have, the more power you have over your blog.

• Comment Reply Notification – Any blog that does not use this plugin is asking to be left behind. This plugin allows commentators to subscribe to comment replies. It can keep the discussion going on an article and ensures you get more traffic and interaction within your blog.

• Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress – I used to get a ton of spam. Even with Akismet, I had to go in and browse the spam folder. This plugin works with Akismet to block spam by making anyone who was caught my Akismet as possible spam, enter a captcha to prove they are human. Most bots will not get through this, so if the captcha is incorrect, then the spam won’t even go to the spam folder. I RARELY get a single spam comment to moderate now, even with my heavy traffic.

• Constant-Content Widget for WordPress – This baby shows off your Constant Content author status. It links your readers to Constant Content.

• Contact Form 7 – By far, the best contact form for WordPress. I was using another one, but it was horrible and had to be updated manually every time. Contact Form 7 has excellent functionality and allows for multiple forms anywhere you want to put them on your blog. It powers the contact forms I have right here on different pages of this blog.

• Facebook Comments for WordPress – You notice the Facebook comment area below? This allows you to have people comment through Facebook, and they can publish it on their wall as well, which gets linked to your article. It also provides a “like” button to help get you additional traffic.

• FeedBurner FeedSmith – You know what feedburner is right? I use this for my rss feeds to keep track of all of my rss feed subscribers.

• Follow Me – This is that purdy’ “follow me” button hovering on the right side of my blog at this time. I placed a lot of different ways on here where you can connect with me.

• Follow My Links – This removes the nofollow from links created by the comment author.

• Google Analytics for WordPress – I keep track of my stats with Google Analytics. This plugin adds the code for me.

• Google Sitemaps – Google is my site map provider, and this plugin automatically indexes all content within my blog, and pings Google. This way, I get deep linking.

• KB Countdown Widget – A good countdown widget for events that you may have coming up, and want to share with others.

• KeywordLuv – This makes commenting on my blog more attractive because if the commentator were to put without quotes “Yourname@Your Keywords” then they can get a good anchor text to their blog/site. It also makes people want to actually use their first name when commenting. I don’t allow just keywords as a name in my comments.

• Lijit Search – It’s a search for content. Lijit seems to bring me some decent traffic without me even interacting with it in any way.

• LiveJournal Crossposter Remix – Every time I update my blog, this crossposts to LiveJournal which results in more traffic and subscriptions. Don’t leave home without it!

• Modal Dialog – Have you noticed that pop-up on my blog? I have it configured to be non-obtrusive for my readers. It is FREE!

• Most Commented Widget – This shows the posts in my sidebar that have the most comments. It gets more traffic to old posts for me.

• Newsletter Pro (satollo.net) – The best newsletter subscription management plugin. I don’t have to subscribe to a 3rd party to manage my subscribers. I prefer to control my list rather than rent one, but thanks! So, I got the free version of this plugin, then I paid for the low-cost upgrade to get pro functionality which was worth it.

• OIOpublisher Direct – Again, I like to control my blog entirely! That is why I use OIOPublisher to sell my ad space on this blog. Want to buy some ad space? Do so before the prices go up!

• Page Links To – This cool plugin allows me to add static links in my navigation. That’s how I link to the marketing forum in a sub-directory on this domain. Cool right?

• Please Link 2 Me – That nifty html code underneath every article which asks readers to link to the article if they enjoyed it. That’s created by this plugin. It’s an ease-of-access thing for other webmasters.

• Pretty Link – A wonderful plugin that shortens and masks affiliate links, or whatever I want to link to. It includes it’s own tracking.

• SEO Friendly Images – Automatically makes any images I upload search engine friendly with alt text.

• SexyBookmarks – This plugin allows my content to be shared across the web on many social networks and social bookmarking sites. You see it below all of my articles.

• Smart Youtube – This embeds Youtube videos when I simply link to it in my article or page, and use httpv instead of http. Very easy to use.

• Static Toolbar – This adds a toolbar on the bottom of the screen when you are on my blog. It shares social links, and provides a stream of the latest content on my blog. It’s all about convenience for my wonderful readers

• Top Commentators Widget – This is a must for anyone who wishes to being consistent commentary on their blog. If someone wants a free link to their site, they need to be a top commentator on this blog. I have it set to reset to zero every month to be fair to everyone. At one point, Scott Barron was a regular commentator here and racked up a huge number of comments, so he was always number 1. Sorry Scott!

• TweetMeme Follow Button – The button shows a live count of the number of Twitter followers a particular user has.

• TweetMeme Retweet Button – This is the cool Retweet button you see on my articles. It allows for easy tweeting to share with your own followers. Care to click it for me on this article? Thanks!

• Twitterlink Comments – Shows a link to follow the comment author on twitter if they have entered in their username at least once in the comment form.

• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – A handy tool to automatically backup and upgrade your WordPress installation.

• WP-Ban – It’s sad when you have to use this, but handy to block abusers who spam you constantly or like to start trouble in your community.

• WP-Cumulus – A flash based Tag Cloud for WordPress.

• WP-PageNavi – Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.

• WP-Sticky – I use this sometimes to make a post stay on my homepage longer, even if there is a newer article published. I can set it as an announcement to keep it on the homepage, or set it as a sticky to keep it on the top for a specific date.

• WP-UserOnline – This handy tool shows me in real time, the people or bots who are visiting my blog. It also tells me how they were referred to the page that they are on.

These are the main plugins that I use on every install. I do use other plugins depending on the blog/site, but to keep it simple, I will leave those out. I listed these because I have been asked what plugins I like to use.

Once I have my plugins all installed and configured, I would then make sure that my permalinks and other standard wordpress settings are all in order.

The next thing to follow would be my creative writing. I would assemble 15 articles, each with 1,500 words or more, and then post the first one and schedule the rest for 2-days apart. This will ensure regular updated for an entire month.

After the first article is published, I would immediately start blog hopping and commenting on as many as possible. This will get the initial traffic and commentary on my new blog. It will also build up some backlinks to my blog, and to articles for deep-linking from blogs using the CommentLuv plugin.

After I have the traffic, I would immediately get to work on my first ebook, and have an announcement for it so I can build up some suspense. I would have the ebook complete in less than 4 days, fully proofread and put together with an ebook cover. I would use this ebook as an enticement to build my mailing list.

Social Status is Everything!

Facebook and Twitter have been the best social networks to bring me traffic on this blog. I am very active on both networks, and it is a must to build up a huge network on these. Start building your followers on Twitter, and add lots of friends in Facebook. This pays off big in the future.

With Facebook, I wished I started sooner. At first, I used it for personal friends. Then I realized I didn’t have many, so I started adding people who are interested in things that I am.

Twitter is great for a quick boost in traffic, and getting to know people in 140 characters or less

There are a bunch of other social networks and social bookmarking sites that I use as well, and are vital to your success as a blogger, or niche site promoter. Don’t neglect your social networks or you will regret it. Start early on in your venture.

Expert Profile

Associated Content and EzineArticles have been great at allowing me to establish myself as an expert in my niche. I write articles for both outlets, and it is well worth the time and creative content to do so. Associated Content also paid me in advance, and pays in residuals for CPM when you write for them.

I wrote recently about becoming an expert on a guest post. I suggest you check out that article so that you can see why it is important to establish yourself as an expert, and how you can go about doing so.

Niche Income

Setting yourself up for a monthly niche income will ensure that you can take care of your bills without worry. If I had to start all over, I would buy up prepackaged niche sites and insert my affiliate codes. I would then use blog hopping, guest posting, and article publishing to build backlinks and traffic to these sites.

I would have setup at least 50 of them initially, and then expanded that number over time to 150. Each site would only need to bring in a small amount daily in order to add up to something that will make a serious dent in your financial needs.

When starting from the beginning, I would have invested a small amount of money into excellent resources like Affiliate Kung Fu. You may think it’s a good idea to just learn this stuff through trial and error, but in this case you’d be wrong. Saving serious time by learning everything ahead of time is well worth it when you are trying to build up an affiliate income.

Wise Tips

If I had to start over, I would establish my blog with articles that were all 1,000 words or more. This would have brought me a higher amount of natural search engine traffic much sooner. Today, Google is my single largest traffic source. But it would be much better had I added lots more content for spider food.

I would have spent more time with my blog hopping and guest posting. While I have done a large amount of guest posts, if I put out a good 500 of them in a few months, I would have build up my Alexa Traffic Rank much faster, and much better, as well as my PageRank and generated a serious amount of targeted traffic. This would have resulted in more newsletter and rss feed subscribers.

My mailing list would be something I would have started from the beginning. If I did that, I would not have had to play catch-up later on down the road. I would also have created free ebooks as incentive to join my newsletter because everyone wants something for free.

Conclusion

I know this isn’t the most detailed list of things I would have done, but it is a list of the most important. If I had to do it all again, my blog would have been making serious money for me within the first two months. Most bloggers can take a year and a half to two years before they can make that kind of income. The biggest reason for this is because they waste a lot of time with things that are unproductive, when they could have been building their following and traffic sources.

Marketing is your largest asset, and if you know how, things get much easier. Remember to bookmark this article and share it with your friends and colleagues. Comment below if you like what you read, or care to share anything that would have made things easier and faster for you.

There are problems in every niche. Much like a crossword, there are puzzles to solve, questions that require answers and things that people need help with. While they might not ask someone, nor make it obvious that they require assistance, at least one of your readers needs help with something.

If you can be the blogger that reaches out to them and says, ‘I’m here, I can help’ they will be in debt to you forever. Now I’m not saying that this will make them buy all of your $20 ebooks just because you helped them to fix a theme but they will most likely feel obligated to come back to your blog and read your posts because they  they will feel that your posts and know-how are of use to them

Make It Clear

As I said, it’s not always obvious that your readers need help but you need to make it clear that you will do everything you can to push out the boat and go that extra mile to help your readers overcome their troubles. Whether that be by specifically stating on your about or contact pages that your readers can contact you with questions, or if that means asking people what they need help with in different posts.

By making it clear you automatically establish yourself as the sort of blogger who is kind, generous and helpful, key qualities that will make your readers trust you, which is vital if you intend on persuading them to do anything as simple as commenting.

Not only that, but your ability to help people shows your knowledge of a niche and it can also become part of your overall brand, making it even more important.

How to Reach Out

Now you’re probably thinking, ‘but Jasmine, what if I can’t answer their questions?’ well, to answer your question I will say this

1. If you can’t answer the question, that’s a failing on your part, I’m sorry, but it’s true, you need to step it up. Read up on your niche, head to Wikipedia, do whatever you have to do to gain the knowledge required to answer that question.
2. Don’t ask for questions then. There’s an easy and simple work around to your inability to answer the question. Scour Yahoo Answers or ask your friends if they’re interested in your niche and find out what they have trouble with. That way, you can cover the questions on your blog that you can answer with no hard feelings if you can’t because they will all be specially hand-picked by you.

Another way to answer your readers questions is to host a posting series called ‘Ask [insert your name] – Your [Niche] Questions Answered.

Doing this clearly shows your reader that you can and will help them and if you decide to encourage them into submitting questions, you’ve successfully gained another level of reader interaction, again making them more likely to keep visiting your blog.

Benefits

Establishing yourself as someone who can help and showing your authority are 2 great benefits but here’s one that I haven’t mentioned. How you feel.

There’s a sense of achievement that is only accomplished when you help someone. When you’ve answered all of these questions and have seen that your readers are grateful that you have fixed their problems, you will feel a sense of humbleness, which will make you want to keep blogging, something that is often the reason that many blogs don’t make it through their first year.

What other ideas could be used to reach out to your readers? Leave a comment!

My dearest friend, and most hated enemy (or enema as I like to call him) Alex Whalley challenged me. The challenge? He said I could not get on the first page of Google for the keyphrase “Make Money Blogging”. Keep in mind that this is my target phrase and it has over 12 million results now. The first site on their is ProBlogger, and I intend to knock them down and replace their listing with mine (nothing personal to Darren Rowse, but this is business).

I am stating this challenge publicly because I want it to hold me accountable and keep me on course. I will post my updates right here to let you know what I am doing and the results I am getting. I plan to own that first page within 3 months!

How do I intend to do this?

If you recently noticed, I released a web template called “Ghostly Acres” the other day. That template was released under creative commons and can be used for personal or commercial purposes. The only catch is the footer link requirement which links to this blog with my anchor text. I invite you to download this template and use it as you wish.

The reason why I did this is because I have previously tried this experiment on another website I was marketing at the time. I released it on an open source web design site under the same terms, and it was downloaded over 180 times. I used “Chicago Web Design” as my anchor text and easily killed it within 3 weeks. I am not taking any chances this time, and I am releasing multiple web templates. I may even release a few WordPress themes if I get around to it.

This technique is called Google Bombing, and it is a well known method. Funny thing… most people think that this method was “patched” by Google but unfortunately their algorithm relies heavily on outside factors such as links. There is no reason for Google to de-index me because I am not doing anything bad. In addition, I have build up many backlinks to this blog with other anchor texts, so an advance in this specific phrase wouldn’t look improper. It also matches the title of my blog, and more specifically, the niche. So again, I am 100% relevant to this phrase. The only difference between me and ProBlogger is that Darren has had since 2002 to build up his links and his reputation. I have only had since February of 2010.

Aside from the whole google bomb thing, I still blog hop and write articles everywhere. Expect my request to guest post on your blog or at a blog near you

BOOKMARK THIS PAGE

I will be updating you on the progress on this specific blog post. Make sure you bookmark it now and intend to check it here and there.

UPDATE #1 October 29th 2010 @ 2:49 PM CST

Last night when I wrote and scheduled this post, I was at #83 for my target keyphrase. I just checked and I am now at #65. Keep in mind that this may be just Google shifting around because of my recent template release which has already been downloaded a huge number of times. I am keeping an eye on my ranking for the keywords and will update accordingly.

UPDATE #2 November 6th 2010 @ 12:01 AM CST

I spent a large chunk of the day today (or last night depending on how you look at the time) hand submitting this blog to maybe 200 directories. I used my anchor text every single time, and switched the description and keywords on the listings here and there.

I believe it took me a few hours, and half of them were PR6 directories. These links should all be approved in sprinkles over the next month. I will probably submit another couple hundred tomorrow. Luckily, I have the holy grail of a directory list with a huge number of free directories (maybe 1,000 or so).

All of these links, paired with the links from the free template(s) I released or am releasing should really take a huge bite out of the ranking I am trying to achieve for make money blogging.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I have gotten to the #3 spot on Google for “make money blogging” right under problogger and nicheblogger. See below for yourself! I did this in under 2 weeks time. If you cannot see the image below, access it directly at http://www.brandonconnell.com/makemoneyblogging.gif or of course do a Google search.

Incoming search terms:

• ghostly acres com

You have been feeling bloated all day. You have pains in your stomach, and cramps down your sides. Later in the day when you are watching the latest House episode, you release a whopping fart that makes others leave the room. Now wasn’t that satisfying? No more pain in your stomach and sides, and probably more peaceful with less people in the room.

What does you ripping a ground-breaking fart have to do with blogging? Well, think about it. Installing WordPress and all of the plugins that make it nice and social as well as spider friendly, then promoting the hell out of it just to get some commentary. Not to mention all of that ridiculous writing of articles anywhere from 500-3,000 words each. One day, you will realize that your blog is making money on it’s own, and bringing in commentary with little effort on your part.

TIME TO FART!

Ok, so you made the realization. Go ahead and let one rip now. Don’t be all sneaky and look around to see if anyone is there in the room with you. It’s much funnier when you don’t.

The problem with farts is that you are taught all of your life not to do that in public. So when you go about letting one go, you feel all embarrassed. I on the other-hand, have been going against the grain all of my life. So it is common for me to let one go in a restaurant and embarrass everyone I am with. I can care less what others think about me. They can kiss my smelly gassy butt.

But let’s assume here that you are not like me. When the blog success hits, you may feel weird about it. You may even strangely not want to tell others because you don’t want them to criticize what you do for a living. Believe me when I tell you that I have had nothing but crap flung at me by mostly family members who have watched me start business after business. Some failed, others prevailed. Either way, they were haters.

I never let anyone, and I mean anyone tell me what I could do. When people told me that buying real estate with zero down and bad credit was impossible, I bought a 5,000 square foot historic victorian mansion with zero money and not even talking with a bank. I even negotiated payments of less than $450 a month for 15 years! When it came to business, I simply started any business I wanted. I put my hard work and later my reputation behind it.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that making your blog a success is something that just happens regardless of whether that was your aim. It simply happens over time, and you have to accept that it is going to happen. When it does happen, don’t be afraid of it. Before it happens, don’t let others persuade you to quit because of their negative views toward it.

Incoming search terms:

• fart
• farting
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• person farting
• do not fart
• dont fart
• picture of person farting
• people farting
• fart pics
• success

There are so many blogs out there in which I interact with on a regular basis. Lots of them come back to me and comment, and I like to browse through old comments and click on the blog links. But do you know what happens when I do? Sometimes I come across a url with an error message because no website exists there anymore!

The reasons for each blogger giving up the world of blogging vary. They may have had unrealistic expectations; They aren’t earning any money; Their real life prevents them from giving their blog any attention; They couldn’t afford the domain and hosting; and many other reasons. Whatever that reason may be, it is always sad to see another blog bite the dust. But I am here to help you prevent that from happening to you.

What I would first like to say is that I am not assuming that your blog will sink. I prefer to stay optimistic, and so should you. If you have the ability to keep your mind-set in the game and positive, then your chances of surviving the blog world increase dramatically.

On to the goods…

Survival of the shittiest

Pardon my American because I know that wasn’t french. But the fact is that a lot of blogs that make it in the long term are just plain worthless. They are blogs that have no originality or they spew reviews for profits. That makes me want to blanch. Sorry to anyone named Blanch. The reason why they are still making it is because they are trickling in some sort of pocket change and it all adds up into a workable income. But those kinds of blogs do not have a following. They simply rank well and get traffic which is why they survive longer. That does not mean you have to join them in their dark ways in order to stay afloat as a blogger.

Review sites have a purpose. People go to them when they want to find out information on a product or service. The problem with affiliate review sites is that they are getting paid for that review, so it is not going to be objective most of the time. They simply want to hype up a product or service in order to get you to buy it. After you gain some experience online, these affiliate review sites are easy to spot and avoid.

Unoriginal blogs are those blogs which either write about a topic that has been covered millions of times by others, or they are sites that simply republish other articles that already exist on the net somewhere. The unpublished ones are often referred to as splogs aka spam-blogs.

The bad thing about those kinds of blogs is that they do not gather followers and subscribers. The whole thing that allows a blog to grow and build into a community is the fact that they gain subscribers and regular loyal readers. Because of this, review sites and splogs may make a few bucks, but they will never bring in the big time dollars that some bloggers dream about. Why? Because people aren’t coming back every day to read the articles!

Readers into subscribers

It is a tough thing turning readers into subscribers. Believe me I know. There are some of you who are reading this now and have been here before, but are you subscribed to my newsletter? What about my rss feeds? My subscriber count gradually increases every day, but it is still a ”job” to get that to happen.

The trick to getting readers to become subscribers is to actually put some thought into your content. Work hard on coming up with the right words to say in order to make sure your message gets across. Make sure to include vital aspects of a certain topic you are covering to that the reader does not have to keep looking elsewhere to find what they thought they found on your site. If you can make them remember that you provided information that they needed badly, then they are sure to want to stay in touch with your blog.

Subscribers want value. I know some blogs out there that build up their newsletter list just so they can proceed to spam away with affiliate reviews and links. What a horrible use of a newsletter subscriber list! I would never!

Newsletter content value is important because it is an extension of your blog. If you are willing to provide some extra time coming up with value packed articles just for your newsletter email blast, then your subscribers will take notice and tell others. Your newsletter might even get a mention in someone elses blog post!

How do you solicit subscribers? That is a key question to answer. Notice I have a popup here that appears once every month. I do not smack you in the face with it every day, or worse… every time you load my blog! I only show it to you once every 30 days as to not piss you off. But I am smart enough to understand the value behind the pop-up because it does have it’s worth when used properly. I also provide a way to subscribe on my sidebar as well as automatically linked text to my newsletter page when certain keywords are used in my articles.

Spill the beans

Readers want to know how the hell you made it so long as a blogger without giving up. They want to know the secrets to your ability to make money with your blog. They want to know how you get subscribers, and how you keep them. They want to know what plugins you use, and how you market your blog.

The perfect way to keep readers is to not be secretive. If you just trust your readers and share your knowledge, you will gain some loyal readers who will stick with you until the very end. That does not mean that you have the provide the details about how much money you are making, or anything you value as personal. It is fine to have a secret here and there. Just don’t go overboard with it and get greedy with the techniques you use.

Be honest when posting your stats and techniques. It will be noticed if you are… and if you aren’t. Disinformation completely defeats the purpose of why they started reading your blog in the first place. The last thing you want to be known for is lying about something. You will NEVER be trusted ever again! It is ok to have low blog stats, or not making any money yet from your blog. Be honest because honesty will earn you growth to the point where your stats are high and so is your wallet. Everything takes time, so don’t rush it. Karma pays off in the end.

Sacrifice in order to grow

Your readers will take notice when you do things like hold contests where the prize is either money or tangiable items. An example would be my $100 prize contest from October to the end of November 2010. The $100 is something out of pocket, but for me it is nothing because I am making money online to pay for it. For the winner, it is something that tells them that they have made it. It might be the first $100 they ever make online as a blogger! Or maybe it is the incentive that kept them in the blogging game for awhile.

I remember a blogger who did an iPad giveaway, and I also remember that she had over 400 comments on that post. Contests and incentives are a great way to grow your blog. Don’t just assume that when the contest is over that the participants will not show up at your blog again until there is another one. Chances are that they will become loyal visitors and subscribers to your blog.

Now maybe you say that you don’t have anything to give. Well, one of the first contests I held right here on this blog was for free ad space. I had quite a few participants and two winners. Your blog space can be your prize, so don’t worry about not having anything. Or perhaps you can save up a hundred bucks and offer it as the prize. If it grows your blog in the end, then it wasn’t a bad investment. A lot of people look at a giveaway as them having to lose something. They don’t understand that they are actually getting more in return than what they had to give up.

Get yourself noticed

It has been said before. Especially by me many times. But in order to get readers, you have to go out there and pull them in by the shirt sleeve. Ok, not literally. But if you want instant traffic, get your butt out there and comment on blogs and guest post on established blogs. Those two methods combined will bring in traffic like crazy. It is most important to do this when you have a contest running so that the contest gets the most exposure.

Getting noticed is what lots of bloggers have a hard time with and that’s the common cause of a blog shutting down. When a blogger reads that all you have to do is comment and guest post, they think that it is too simple to work so they never give it a try. Then they shut down their blog before they have the chance to realize how badly they were wrong. Commenting and guest posting is something that can give you an instant boost and keep your blog alive when you’re sinking. But if you are using this technique in the first place, then your blog will never have the chance to sink.

You can also get noticed by investing a little money and advertising on an established blog. What’s a few bucks for some quality targeted traffic? I would be happy to offer you some affordable ad space here on this blog to get you started.

Stand out or get stepped on

I like to say stand out or get stepped on by someone who will. What does this mean? It means be unique and instantly recognizable. When I first started out with this blog, I stood out by posting articles every single day for months. It was exhausting. I even guest posting on tons of other blogs and commented all over on top of it. Imagine doing that on top of running multiple businesses and home life with the wife and two young kids.

I know of another blogger who stand out to me. It is Ryan, and the reason he stand out is because I see him putting others first and promoting tons of other bloggers articles via his social network profiles. I was thinking “man this guy is trying hard to stand out”. He is a friend on Facebook and I notice his update stream regularly.

Are you making money?

Making money with your blog is rather easy when you establish yourself. I am making money right here on this blog in multiple ways. One of the ways is by selling direct advertising. Another is by offering consulting services. Consulting services for blog analysis as an example is one of my best selling things here on this blog. People want to know what I am doing that they aren’t, and I can point them in the right direction for a minimal fee. Another way I make money is by affiliate offers. I am unlike those serious pushers who spam newsletters, or do nothing but post reviews. I post an occasional review like this one and people click on the links and buy the product.

If you intend to make money with your blog, don’t be shy about it. Put your ads right out there smack in peoples faces. Do you take donations? Then ask for them. Are you trying the affiliate route? Then by all means, use a plugin like Pretty Link Pro and link keywords throughout your articles that go to affiliate products. Occasionally write a good review about a product you are passionate about. Just don’t over-do it.

Let’s review…

• Don’t be shitty – Avoid becoming one of the bad guys and provide quality content instead. Believe me when I say that this is the only way to go. I have been to the dark side. Otherwise, how would I know so much about it?

• Convert readers into subscribers – If you can’t convert them into subscribers, then you are not growing your blog. Work actively on increasing newsletter and rss feed subscribers. The more the merrier.

• Be open about your methods – People want to know what works and what doesn’t. What works for one person may not for the other and vice-versa. But if you share your experience, it helps the reader be objective about the decision ahead of them.

• Make a sacrifice and invest in your blog – Do you know the saying “it takes money to make money”? Well that isn’t entirely true, but it helps alot! So make an investment in your blog. Give something away, but make sure you are actively commenting and guest posting to ensure that your generousity gets noticed.

• Don’t get stepped on – Stand out from the crowd in some way. I have had a face that is recognizable all of my life. It sucks actually because I run into people years later I wish I never see again, and they know who I am. But from a marketing standpoint, if you are noticable in some way, you are most likely to succeed at ANYTHING!

• Make that money – Don’t be shy about making money. And don’t be hard-headed either. Some people say that making money from your blog is selling out. Well guess what? I am happy to be a well paid sell-out. My wife and kids thank me for it. They have this tendacy to like eating food and having heat in the winter. Those gold-diggers!

Now do me a favor

If you enjoyed this post, be a pal and comment below. Even better, become a subscriber to my newsletter or my rss feed. It is appreciated. Also adding me to your blogroll makes me smile

Unlike some bloggers we all know…. I only post a review here once and a while rather than every day Sorry Alex. I had to bust your balls man It’s too fun! So anyways… I am inviting you to take the opportunity to get OIOPublisher at a $10 discount through all of October 2010! Just use my unique coupon code WINDFALL-GASMASK when checking out!

Why OIOPublisher?

Ummm why not?! OIOPublisher allows me to sell direct ad space right here on this blog. It’s complete functionality allows me to check for reciprocal links too if I want to do that. I can easily place ads anywhere within my blog with the copy and paste code it provides. Once that copy/paste code is in place, that ad space is completely automated!

I have seen lots of blogs using 3rd part ad providers, but there is absolutely nothing about them that gives you this kind of control. You may think that it’s easier to sell ad space because they have a large network of advertisers, but you would be WRONG! Why? Because even with a network of advertisers, you still have to gain traction with your blog before anyone is interested in buying ad space. So why when you gain that traction do you want to share your profits with a 3rd party?

OIOPublisher gives you 100% control of your advertisers. You get excellent support, and free upgrades! You would be totally stupid not to jump on this offer, ESPECIALLY with my $10 discount coupon code.

Don’t forget to visit OIOPublisher and type in WINDFALL-GASMASK during checkout!

Incoming search terms:

• autopilot blogger
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I had a hard time coming up with a title to describe all of the diverse posts out there in the blogosphere, so I figured I would just tell you that the posts don’t suck. That is after-all, what you want to know right?

Ok, so the first on my list is on Alex Whalley’s site. I was worried that Alex was crossing over to the dark side with all the review articles, but he has been publishing some good non-review ones lately. Ignore the fact that this one is a guest post, and give him credit anyways

The article in question on Alex’ site is called 3 Ways to Find a Profitable Niche and should be an excellent resource should you want to actually find a niche instead of jumping into your blog head first so you can just shut it down later.

The author of that guest post is Joshua Noerr. I usually take offense when I find lists of blogs that bloggers read and I am not on them, but I guess I will leave him alone for now because he doesn’t know me.

Do you want to actually keep track of how well your blog is doing? Then check out Jean’s guest poster article titled Why and How to do a Quarterly Report for Your Blog. My suggestion though would be to not take the report way too seriously in the first few quarters of starting out as a blogger. It is a good guide that will help you improve upon your blog, but you should not get upset with the feeling that you are not making much progress should that be the case. Blogs take time to build up. Reports help you keep track of your progress and allow you to make changes.

Sally Neill quit her day job to join us bloggers who are making good money. Consider this article a good motivator that one day you will do the same if you have persistence. You can just be plain hard headed too…

My friend Mark needs a good kick in the ass to get back into the blogging game, as this was his last post. Feel free to drop by there and complain. Some people just need a good lashing to get back into the blogging mindset. He was good. Why the heck did he stop? Sheesh! Come on Mark! Get your butt back on track man.

Darren Rowse posted a video about what he learned during his 6 years with ProBlogger. Check it out. You might learn something too! Now if only Darren would RT my posts on Twitter already! Come on bro, we need to stick together!

Well, that’s pretty much that. If I forgot anyone, know that I didn’t forget you. I just didn’t include you this time around. No worries. There is always tomorrow.