Make Money Blogging

More and more people are looking to start a business now-a-days. Since job creation is still at a stand-still, and our future is uncertain, people have to adapt and create a future for themselves. Luckily, I got in on that early and have not had to struggle to find work. If you are one of those people that are struggling, there is no better time than now to create your own future.

To help you get started, I will provide you with 5 methods of making money from your very own home.

Start an actual service - I have coached and consulted many, and most of them want to make millions in the niche site market. The problem with that is that it takes time to build that kind of business. If however, you want to make money TODAY, then you can start by offering a service.

It is very easy to create a service based website. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, then you can always hire a web designer. But if you are in a slump and struggling, chances are that you cannot afford to go that route. You can however, afford a cheap hostgator account, and you know how to click buttons right? Hostgator offers one-click installs for many web platforms including but not limited to WordPress. You can even find open-source designs that you can customize with your name and logo.

Setting up your website is simple. After that, you only need to imput information about your service and your experience in that industry along with some contact information.
When you have your service-based website up and running, it is easy to get traffic to it. Sign up with services like MerchantCircle.com and utilize Craigslist. You would also do good to promote your site with blog hopping and guest posting, as if you were promoting your blog. The same marketing rules apply, as well as the same traffic benefits.

You can use PayPal, AlertPay, or Google Checkout to accept payments. When offering a service, be warned. Make sure you receive a payment in full or at least with a down payment to avoid possible fraud. If you accept checks or money orders through the email, or echeck payments, make sure they clear before starting work or you can end up wasting a lot of time with the wrong customers that have bad intentions.

TIPS:

• Services are the fastest way to make money online. If you don’t believe me, go to Craigslist and look under the gigs section to see how many people post their needs daily.
• Services can be sold worldwide right from your own home. With the use of the internet, and merchant services that allow credit cards and other payment transfer, there is no good reason why you can’t make money online.
• Services can result in word-of-mouth. Provide the best service that you can, and your customers will tell others about it.

Setup niche websites - As I said before, this takes time to build. But there is no reason you can’t do this while you are working your full time job, or while you are being paid for services. Over time, niche sites will rake in some decent dough.

A niche website is easy to start. You can find a popular niche with Market Samurai, other tools, or good ole’ fashioned manual research. Once you have your niche, you simply setup your website. Again, if you have hostgator this can be a one-click process. The content of the website itself should be rich with keywords, and using lots of related words to show the pages relevance to search engines.

When your niche site is up, you can link to it via your social network profiles and any other sites you have. You can also submit it to directories. Once it’s linked from somewhere, Google will find it. Work on inbound links, and get the site paying some money. Don’t look for riches with one site though. Accept only a handful of dollars a month from a single site, and proceed to create more niche websites with unique content. It will all add up to a respectable income.

TIPS:

• Niche sites can make little money by themselves, but pay your entire collection of bills when added up together. You want more than a few niche sites to make it work.
• Once you setup the first niche site, and promote it with articles and other methods, don’t hesitate to get started on the next one. If you can do 5 per week or so, you will have good momentum going for yourself and the money will come in faster than you can imagine.
• Niche sites can make money even if the niche is competitive. Don’t leave a niche on the table because you think it’s too hard to monetize.

Blogging income - As you know, this is one thing I like to do. I make a great income from this very blog, and I work entirely from home. As I sit here now, I sent my family off for the weekend on vacation while I relax with peace and quiet.

The success of a blog comes with lots of content and traffic. If you are capable of creating unique content on a regular basis, networking with others, and being consistent, then you can earn a living blogging for income.

When blogging, leverage is key. Make sure you solicit guest posts so that you can get others to provide unique content for you. Guest post on other high traffic blogs to leverage their traffic to trickle down to yours.

Blogging income comes from many methods. Those include affiliate marketing, CPA, AdSense, ad sales, paid reviews, and offering services on your blog. Make sure you have a good blend of those so you are not relying on a single money source.

Once you have a few hundred blog posts, you should have a steady flow of traffic from Google alone. But that does not mean you can skimp on the other traffic methods that you picked up along the way. The more traffic your blog gets, the merrier.

TIPS:

• Make sure that you write regular content. You can even schedule content ahead of time to be safe, and still update your blog while you are on vacation because it is automated.
• Utilize guest posts to avoid burnout. You do not want to abandon your blog because you can lose progress if you do.
• Don’t quit your day job waiting on money from blogging. It can take a year or two before you see a respectable income, or you may never get an income if you make mistakes.

Membership sites - I am saying membership sites, but that is not the only thing I mean here. A membership site is where you provide information or a set of tools, and it’s updated regularly. People will pay a monthly or yearly membership to access what you offer.

I like to also include other kinds of websites when I say membership sites. For example, you might have a real estate classifieds, or freelancer website. These kinds of websites make money from customer payments, and can build a large group of clientel.

To start a membership site, you can find turnkey scripts all over the internet. You can also use member plugins with WordPress and other software for the traditional membership subscription site types.

TIPS:

• With membership sites, it’s a numbers game. Work on getting lots of members. You don’t have to charge $100 a month to make money. You can charge $9.95 and it will add up with a good amount of members.
• Update your member sites regularly. If the site is informational, your members will want to see lots of new information all the time or they may not see a value in their subscription.

Ecommerce is easy - It may not sound simple with stories about all of those late night infomercial ripoffs out there. But keep in mind that selling stuff online is pretty simple with the right knowledge.

You can sell products from dropshippers, and use open-source (free) software for the shopping cart. If you decide to make products by hand though, you can use resources like Etsy.com to help you sell them.

With ecommerce, all you need is a product and some traffic. Building traffic to an ecommerce site is the same as if you were promoting a blog or service based website. Aim for real traffic rather than paying someone for “shortcuts”. In the long-run, you will save your money and earn even more by doing things the right way.

TIPS:

• Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that customers will simply find your website when they want to buy. Put your website out there on a regular basis with the various marketing methods found all over this blog.
• You can use services like Adwords, but be careful not to experiment with them if you are new to this kind of business. You can end up spending money without an ROI if you don’t know how to manage a campaign.
• Don’t rely on your ecommerce site alone. You can also sell on Ebay, Amazon, and other sites to help move product.

Opportunities are everywhere

It is easier to make money online than it is to find a decent job. Don’t let the stress of your current situation prevent you from pushing forward with a plan of action. The time is now. Back when I was a kid, I always dreamed about working for myself. It wasn’t until I was 21 before I made it happen. That was 3 years past the goal that I set for myself. The only reason I started late was because I lacked the knowledge to make it happen. There is no reason for that to be an issue for you.

Get my coaching service for $170 the first month and learn how to make money right from your home. The monthly cost is $200 if you wish to continue after the first month.

I can show you how to make at least $30,000 a year right from your own home. This is NOT what the other guys are teaching. Learn how to make REAL money in your first month, and have that extra cash you need to make life great.

To get started, contact me. This is a limited time promotion and may be cancelled at any time.

A new months means a new coupon! I have my latest coupon for $10 off of OIOPublisher. I like to give these out every month when I remember. The latest coupon to use at checkout is SPRING11-FLING so make sure you copy and paste it during the checkout process.

In case you have no clue, OIOPublisher is the ad code I use here on my blog. It is the most versatile plugin for WordPress that allows you to place turnkey ads anywhere on your blog. They are automated so your blog can generate it’s own revenue while you sleep. In addition, it is a standalone script, so you can use it on static websites and your niche sites as well. Basically, you can use the functionality on any given website you may have.

Grab OIOPublisher by clicking on any of these links or click on the banner below! Remember to use SPRING11-FLING as your coupon during checkout to receive $10 off of the $47 price-tag.

Search engine optimization is more important today than it ever was. There are those out there that will disagree, but as a marketing professional, I rely on hands-on knowledge rather than industry gossip.

Without search engine optimization and search engine marketing, a company can easily end up going out of business before they get their feet off the ground. That’s why every internet marketing campaign should include the search engines.

I am providing this as a general article rather than blogger-specific because many bloggers end up getting into the niche website business. This article will benefit everyone looking for information on search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

Onsite seo factors that matter

The following issues must be taken care of before the offsite marketing can commence.

Meta Tags - While many seo professionals (and I use that term loosely) would disagree, meta tags still matter. As a matter of fact, they matter now more than they used to. While it used to be easy to manipulate the serps with meta tags alone, that is no longer the case. Your meta tags can make or break your results however. It is a must that your keywords and descriptions match the page that they are on. Mismatching these items can result in a penalty. Not having the tags can also hurt your site. Matching them however, can result in a boost in your results.

Alt Tags - If your images are lacking alt tags, then you are leaving a huge seo item off the table. You will also hurt your rankings by not using the alt tags. Search engines like to know what an image is saying to the real people viewing your page.

It also helps the blind with accessibility because of text-to-speech technology that is available today. Having alt tags will increase your visibility in the search engines, and perhaps some directories.

Keyword-Rich URLs - Those dynamic urls that look ugly at the top of your browser aren’t as bad as they used to be. Search engines have come a long way since php and other languages were introduced. But it is still a must that dynamic urls get changed to be search engine friendly.

It is important that keywords are introduced into the urls of the pages they are relevant to. This makes it look as if your dynamic website were actually static html. There are plugins and modules for many scripts that are available, and provide this seo-friendly functionality.

Anchor Text - The anchor text is all of that text which is linked. For example, if a link said “click here”, then the words “click here” are the anchor text. Of course, click here is not a good keyword.

It is important to use keywords in your anchor text that match the page or website they are linking to. An example of this would be if you were linking to a website about Michael Jackson Memorabilia, then you would probably want to use that as the anchor text.

Using anchor text that matches the content of the actual link will benefit you by telling search engines that your website is as relevant as it gets. Avoid using general keywords like click here when linking to something.

Anchor text works for both internal links, and external links. If you are doing onsite optimization, you want to link to pages on your site using keyword-rich anchor text. If you are a web designer and have multiple services, then you want to link to the service pages like this… Graphic Design; Web Design; PHP Development; etc. Those are keyword rich anchor text linking to relevant pages, and are more likely to help you rather than using a general term.

Outbound Links - Outbound links matter a lot. Anchor text is just one issue you need to consider. More importantly, never link to another website that you feel is questionable. Also, it would be wise to not link to unrelated websites. Linking to a website that turns out to be bad can end up costing you. Remember, you are the one that’s vouching for them, so you are responsible if they do something bad in the eyes of Google.

Offsite seo factors that matter

Article Marketing - There are many websites out there that allow you to publish articles with author links back to your website. Some of them will allow keyword rich anchor text to be used in those one-way links to your website too.

Social Networking - Google relies on social networks to tell them how popular a blog or website is. For example, if there are 20,000 tweets on an article, it has more social network weight than one with a hundred tweets.

It is wise to sign up with all of the major social networks. They not only provide backlinks and provide traffic, but the shares actually matter more than you can imagine.

Social Bookmarking - Social bookmarks are similar to what social networks do for you. It shows Google your popularity. Sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are a couple of the majors, and a must-have in your search engine marketing arsenal.

Video Marketing - Youtube is a very important tool to utilize when marketing. When you create a video, you can benefit from the traffic that Youtube already has, but also get some good links through your video description.

Video marketing is more than link building though. You can use it to generate a crazy amount of traffic. If a video goes viral, it can really explode your traffic and result in many people linking to you on their own websites.

Link Building - This can be done in many ways. The best way is through one-way links rather than reciprocal linking campaigns. To build links, you can do many things including but not limited to:

• Directory Submissions
• Forum Participation
• Blog-Hopping
• Guest Blogging
• Link Baiting
• Web Template Sponsorship

Direction submissions are easy, but can be very tedious work. You can find a good list of directories that are free by doing a quick Google search for “free directories” or something similar. If you have an auto-fill feature on your browser, then the work can become easier for you over time.

Forum participation is tough to get going because you have to establish yourself on a forum as a decent contributor rather than a newbie spammer. Take part in actual topics on the forums, and only include your link in your forum signature. I promise you will get traffic this way.

Blog hopping is something I do often. Commenting on an article on a blog is a great way to get backlinks and traffic. Make sure you actually contribute with a thoughtful comment, and not just a “me too” comment. You want to get links and traffic, not blocked.

Guest blogging is one of the best ways to get backlinks, and a ton of traffic. You are establishing yourself as an expert this way, and putting yourself out there in a manner that gets results.

Guesting on some blogs can also result in your article being copied across the net with your link in-tact which results in even more backlinks. I have had every guest post on ProBlogger copied against their rules, but I still benefitted from the stolen article. It’s when people steal and take off your link that you should be offended and in pursuit of justice.

Link baiting is all about writing in a way that turns an article into a viral machine. Such things can happen with resource posts where you link to a lot of useful resources that people just can’t resist referencing.

If you use something like Ninja Affiliate when linking to outside resources, you can easily change those links in the future to ensure they never become broken links.

Web template sponsorship is a trick I have had up my sleeve for years. As a web designer, I have been able to create some nice templates, and offer them under the Creative Commons license for free as long as my designer credit remained in place in the footer. This allowed me to get backlinks using the anchor text that I desired. People love free!

If you want to jump in one template sponsorship, I actually offer the service of designing such templates with your link credit in the footer.

Remember that seo matters

These tips are just the tip of the iceberg. When done correctly, seo can transform your website into a money-making machine. Whether you just want to collect leads, or you want to generate an affiliate revenue, seo will decide how effective you are in your pursuits.

Looking for local search engine marketing? Try Leads2LocalSearch.com and increase business by over 300-1,000%

I said I wasn’t going to do anymore contests until people started interacting more on this blog and the forum, but I just couldn’t resist. This latest contest is your opportunity to win a brand new Kindle 3G from Amazon.

Contest Rules:

1. Write at least 1 guest post for brandonconnell.com on blogging or blog marketing, and it must be unique rather than something that is re-hashed over and over.
2. Publish a supporting article that references this guest post on your blog, and link to it.
3. Promote your guest post, and the supporting post in order to get as many comments and video comments as possible on your guest post at brandonconnell.com
4. The contest ends on August 30th, 2011, and the winner is the blogger with the highest response on their guest post (most comments, backlinks, social media response, etc). This contest winner is determined by many factors this time rather than relying on comments alone, so go all-out!

To join this contest, login and submit a guest post if you already have an account here. If you don’t, then contact me to have one setup. Make sure you fill out your bio and profile completely before submitting your article.

ENJOY!

In case you haven’t noticed, I have not been posting on my blog lately. Ever since my trip to Atlanta, I have been busy building my new business @ http://leads2localsearch.com, and that takes a lot of time and money. The new business offers clients a 300-1,0000% increase in business, and the target market is service-based industries that rely on local customers in their region.

Here at the blog, I have posted a few guest articles as a part of a contest. That was the extent of my involvement here, other than a little bit of back-end marketing.

My comeback will be much more noticeable though. I decided to kick it off by submitting a new guest article to ProBlogger about the fastest route to making money online. I will update everyone when that is published. I will also be making my rounds with guest posting on various other blogs where I have appeared in the past, and possibly a few new ones.

Keep an eye out for some serious updates.

Back in February, I posted the contest to win 50 free ad banners. Surprisingly only 1 person took part in this contest, but her 3 guest posts could have stood their own ground if she had competition. I do however, want to note that this is the last contest on this blog for awhile, until I see more people taking part in things here. If I start seeing more legit activity on the free marketing forum or commenting on articles here on the blog, I will start doing contests again.

Mandy from Learn to Blog is the contest winner, and will be able to specify the sizes of the 50 ads that she wants. Check out her own blog and show her some love for taking part in this contest.

This is a guest post by Mandy Allen @ http://learn-to-blog.org

One of the most difficult process for newcomers when they start building blogs is to find a niche that will become popular and bring in some income.  Most, but not all, new bloggers make serious mistakes when they first start blogging by thinking about their blog as a fun project and not a distinct business.

The abundance of free WordPress blog templates, free plug-ins that will do almost anything you can think of and free hosting can blur the importance of adopting a business mind-set when all you initially need can be downloaded for free.  Effective business creation requires some tight focus and a good dose of learning about new processes and techniques that can make or break your hunt for success.

Try as hard as you might, mistakes will happen.  They do not have to be a blogging disaster, however.  You can learn from your mistakes.  In fact, I don’t believe a successful marketer exists that hasn’t made several mistakes while they were building their businesses.  You can learn a lot by stepping back, fixing your mistake or repairing accidental damage in your journey.

Let’s look at five common mistakes many new bloggers make.

The first mistake many make when they start blogging is to avoid the costs of getting a domain name and paying monthly hosting fees by using free blogging accounts like, Blogger and a long list of others.  When you use free blogging sites, you lose control of your own blog.  The hosting site will put ads on your pages and, at times, control what content you can publish.  When that happens it is not truly your own blog and any hope of establishing a blog that starts your branding and building your reputation doesn’t exist.

Another mistake to avoid is not using a designer to create your own logo.  It’s part of branding you and your products just like any major company on the globe and it is usually not expensive.  Think about it!  Major businesses do not spend money on any processes that do not work.  All those logos on sporting equipment, T-shirts, major commercial businesses are branding the company involved.  Can you visit any page on Google and not see their colorful logo?

If you are serious about making an income from your blog, you can add Google’s Adsense or direct links to products you are promoting as an affiliate.  Another way to make money from your blogs is to sell space on your blogs to businesses with products that bear some relationship to your focus.  Don’t waste the opportunity for those first inroads to your online income.

It is important to remember that your readers come to your blog to read the information you post and any other enticements that take them off your blog might be a problem. Carefully consider the possible results before you jump into selling commercial ads.  To keep your members happy with you, do not promote any product you haven’t used or read yourself.  If the product is useless or poorly written, you will lose a customer.

On my blogs, I’ve never promoted a product I haven’t used myself.  Neither should you.

Finally, if you are serious about making money with your blog, you have to be serious about building a list of customers to market to.  Emails describing your latest post or announcing your latest freebie or product will be welcome by your members and keep them visiting your blog.  Another way to get the same result is to send a regular newsletter to your membership on a monthly basis.

Any good autoresponder, like Aweber, will do the “sending” for you based on whatever time frame you set up.  You should start list building as soon as your blog is online.  Offer a good free gift for registering and allowing your email marketing efforts.  Aweber will take care of the double opt-in required by the Can-Spam Act.  Make sure you use a reliable auto responder right from the beginning.  Many big name internet marketers lost their early lists due to using cheaper alternatives that don’t guarantee the same service.

When you are starting out with your first blog and make some mistakes, just remember that, at the end of the day, mistakes can be repaired.

This is a guest post by Mandy Allen @ http://learn-to-blog.org

I know you want to get right into the details of setting up your blog and taking the steps to monetize it immediately.  Without doing some work BEFORE you get into running the actual blog, you just have to work for a time in the background.  Most of the value you are looking for in your blog comes from the details you complete in the background.

The first thing you have to do is settle on your focus for your blog.  The most popular and lucrative blogs on the Internet are sharply focused on a specific topic that has a lot of online interest.  Start with your hobbies or interests, make a list of topics that are pertinent to your interests.  Think about how potential customers are going to search for your information or products.

Let’s start with “gardening”, for example.  That term, “gardening” is very vague, but useful for a first look at keywords.  Use any of the keyword tools you can find with a Google search and either print out the list or make notes of the keywords that relate to your focus.  If you write notes, make sure you include the number of searches for your favorite keywords.

Select the top 5 or 10 keywords that have some value for your chosen niche.  For “gardening” you might want to focus on “patio gardening,” “container gardening” or “flower gardening,” for example.  There are many other gardening topics you can choose.  Even the three examples I’ve listed here can be focused more tightly, like “patio herb garden,”  “growing tomatoes in a pot” or “orchid tips.”  Start searching your keywords in broad terms and drill down until you have a nice balance between the actual keywords and the depth of  the interest.

Once you have a few powerful keywords, move your focus to actual online interest, like blogs, forums and membership sites related to your major keyword selections.  Google will be your best friend here.  For example, I just searched “patio herb gardening” on Google and discovered this interesting detail: “About 452,000 results.”  Those 452,000 sites focused on patio herb gardening are your competition AND your market.

Visit several popular sites and notice everything about them, including colors, use of photos, items for sale, presentation, Google adsense, comments and the information provided.  One fact you might not know is that if your Google search delivers a list of related sites, but there’s no paid ads down the right side of the results page, there’s not enough interest in the subject for businesses to spend money on an ad.  What does that mean?

NO ADS = NO INTEREST = NO VALUE TO YOU As A Subject To Create A Blog Around.  It really is that simple.  That old saying, “Follow the money,” is accurate.  It’s always worked for me.

Once you get this far in your research, it is time to think about creating your products.  What your potential customers will want from you is some very good information on your selected topics.  Do not settle for a PLR ebook or short report without rewriting it extensively and adding a good dose of new information.  As a newcomer to blogging, you need to remember that, while those PLR ebooks might be well-written, they also will be on other blogs all over the Internet, offered by those too lazy to rewrite them.

You will need a good cover for your products.  If you cannot design one for yourself, outsource it to a designer.  The same advice applies to your header.  The Internet is a visual production and looks are everything, including colors, spelling and grammar, graphic placement and the use of white space.  Don’t cram blocks of text together.  No one will read it.

Take your time and use the Internet, particularly your competition, to see how successful bloggers do the same steps you will be walking.

This is a guest post by Mandy Allen @ http://learn-to-blog.org

In today’s failing, world-wide economy, the thought of making money online has become more popular every day. Dreaming about working from home and making a good income while you sleep or play with your kids has become a major topic on thousands of wish lists.

Many might believe that it is way too difficult to generate income with unfamiliar Internet marketing processes or that it is too complicated and expensive to set up and run a blog. Others might believe that blogging is just a pastime and not a powerful and lucrative tool that will create a steady Internet income. They all would be wrong!

If you do a Google search for “blogging,” you will find almost 80,000,000 blogs online and dedicated to almost as many niches.  That number alone indicates how popular blogs are.  Blog topics can be related to hobbies, family ancestry, health discussions or making money online, to suggest just a very few niche topics. Putting the numbers aside, setting up a blog can be free and, other than the few processes you will have to purchase, like a domain name, a money-making blog will be very easy on your wallet.

Before you ever put anything online, it is vitally important that you define your goals. Do you want to make an income by blogging? Is it your intention to just promote your offline business? When do you expect to make money from blogging? Do you just want to have fun with your blog? If having fun is your goal, this discussion and the following posts are not for you.

After you identify your true goals with your blog, you will have a running call to action that can keep you focused on making money online. While you are examining your initial options, be sure to keep good notes and keep YOUR goals in your mind, so you don’t wander off topic and get lost in the Blogging wonderland.

Just putting up a blog will not do anything to help you succeed. What you need to do as soon as possible is to identify your market. You have to know what the members of your blog want to learn and what they need to really accomplish their own goals for making money online. How do you do this? You could simply ask them or add a questionnaire to your blog. You could also check out forums and other blogs focused on the same or similar niche that you selected. Reading posts in competing blogs will give you great insight on the needs and interests of your market.

Your next step would be creating your content, including a product to sell on your blog and one to giveaway for registrations. Those products can be anything that suits your blog’s focus, but most of the time it will be an ebook or report with related information for your members. You could sell physical products, but that would include shipping fees, packing materials and trips to the post office. eBooks that fill a need or solve a problem are sent attached to an email or downloaded directly from a webpage…no fees to pay or trips to the post office.

If you are unable to create your own products to sell or giveaway, I suggest you outsource that part of your marketing plan. Freelance ghostwriters can be found on many websites.

In future posts, I will address, in more detail, how you can create your own blog, get it online and making money for you. Right now you have a simple skeleton for your beginning. Plan your goals, make notes of what you want to do and don’t want to do and choose your first products to sell or giveaway on your blog.