Category — Pro Blogging

With the current bear market and an economy that is not doing too hot, we must find ways to maintain our high percentage returns on investments.  If you look to the stock market, you won’t find anything right now that can yield appealing percentages.  However, if you look online, you see a few options.  Even worse, those of us with money in the market, are seeing little or no returns.

No, please don’t go and get an online savings account with a .01% better rate than your local bank, because that is NOT what I am talking about.  I am talking about making money FROM the internet.  Here I will talk about one way you can yield high percentages online while doing very little work, and watching it pay off more and more over time.

We have all heard that blogging is a great tool to make some extra cash - right?  Well, that’s true, but you must stick with it and post often, and create “juicy” headlines and titles to attract readers, etc.  Some people just aren’t into that.  My suggestions are similar, but not exactly to that extent.  Here is what you do..

Figure Out What Topics You Have a Genuine Interest In

Seriously, it might be your career, or a hobby you spend time on when you get home.  It also might be a category that you frequently find yourself answering all the questions on Jeopardy!  Who knows.  We all have interests that we either supress or never find time for.  So dig deep and think about something that would really interest you.

Set Up a Wordpress Account

Once you have decided on a topic that intrigues or interests you  -  You can set up an online Wordpress account in a matter of a few seconds.  If you are an advanced web user, you can download Wordpress and install their standalone version on your web hosting account.  Either way, you will eventually be starting a BLOG.  Don’t worry, we aren’t trying to turn you into a journalist here.  We just need to use the advanced software that blogs are made from to get your site up.  They are also very easy to set up as well.  Some websites are run on Wordpress and you cannot even tell because they look like normal sites.  Wordpress has evolved into something much more than just blogging software.

If you are a Wordpress.com user (Beginner) then I recommend you change your theme to something that fits your blog’s overall theme.  You will find the option in your settings area on Wordpress.com.

If you are using the standalone hosted version of Wordpress, then check out some wordpress themes sites for some advanced looking themes that can easily and inexpensively be applied to your site.

Start Posting Information About Your Chosen Topic That Will Benefit Others

After you get your Wordpress account all set up and you have a chance to tinker and figure things out, then start posting!  Don’t just post a bunch of random crap, but think of things that you feel will benefit other people about your chosen topic.  Separate each point, tid-bit, or chunk of information into separate posts.  Be clear, but don’t worry about your writing skills.  People researching topics don’t want to see some corporate professionally written stuff, they want information from people that know what they’re talking about - like you!  Post as much as you can, whenever you think of something.

Don’t get upset if your site isn’t performing as well as you had originally hoped.  Sometimes it can take days, weeks, and even a month or two before search engines like Google and Yahoo come around and put all of your data into their search rankings.  Eventually, search will become your number one source of traffic.  When that happens, you will know it.

Implement Ads Into Your Site

Now you are ready to monetize this website into something that should make you a little extra money.  You can use Google Adsense or other advertising networks that are easily integrated into Wordpress.  The Wordpress.com (beginner) version offers easy to use tools that help implement ad placement.  The great thing about Wordpress is that almost any advertising model works very well with it.

When using the standalone version of Wordpress, you will find that most ad models offer some type of plugin that you can install and activate which will easily start working with little knowledge needed.  There are also tons of great resources on how to properly optimize your ad placements for the most clicks (PPC Model).

In the end, the more content you publish to your site, the more likely someone searching or researching your chosen topic is to come across your website.  With every post you submit and publish to your site, you are becoming more visible among the sites with your topic on search engines.  While there are some tricky ways to manipulate search rankings, you don’t need to worry about that now.  Just stay on track and post as often as you can with valuable information.  If you place your ads in the right spots, near and next to the content, then you will probably get a few clicks eventually.  The goal here is to accumulate a few dollars a week, month, or every so often.  But, when you add up the little money trickling in, and do the math… it turns out to be a nice little bit of change that can help offset your losses in the stock market and economy.  It can also help pay for gas, now that it’s averaging over $4.00 per gallon here in the United States.  The money your site generates can quickly grow as your site becomes more indexed into search results.  As I mentioned before:  Every bit of content you add, you are increasing your visibility among your chosen niche.

Extra Benefits

There are some extra benefits that can potentially come from running a successful website about something you are passionate about and knowledgeable on.  Often, when large media publications become interested in your niche or industry, they turn to the established pros, like yourself, to quote and cite.  This can lead to a career change for some people as they become the “go to” person in their niche.  If you are smart, then you will quickly figure out how to capitalize on your new found popularity.

Hopefully this post benefits some of you, because I sure find this very helpful to my income.  Most of my personal sites have gotten large enough I either have staff writers posting daily on them now or I turn them into destinations on the internet, rather than just trying to gather search traffic.  Eventually, you may choose to do the same.  I now make several hundred dollars each day from my network of websites and domains.

In my first juicy post, I am going to touch on a few of the basics.  Darren Rowse wrote an article about how bloggers make money a while back with the same title.  I am going to re-invent this post in my own words and hopefully give a lot of you newbies out there a better understanding of how bloggers make their money.

Advertising Programs

If you plan to make any money with your blog, you’re going to need to sign-up or enroll with an advertising program out there.  Well, here is a list of the most common advertising programs available to bloggers today.

Google Adsense
Google offers an advertising solution for publishers allowing you to place textual ads on your site.  Typically, this is the choice for most new bloggers.  Here is a little bit of info you might want to know before you enroll with Google Adsense:

Pros:

• Google’s text ads don’t destroy your website with unwanted banners and images.
• You get paid per click.
• Easy tracking allows you to see your money roll in.
• The ads serve relative ads to what content is surrounding them.

Cons:

• You are given a limited choice of ad block sizes.
• Google always has to brand everything, including their ads.  A small logo is shown.
• Limited to three ads per page.
• Per click payments vary, greatly.

I highly recommend using Google Adsense if you are a new blogger.  Until you get a large readership, you will not benefit from many of the other revenue streams very well.

With Adsense out of the way, I want to name a few of the other programs out there.  Some I have a bit of experience with and others I have never used but hear very good things about.

YPN - Yahoo Publisher Network
Still currently in beta stages, this network is not as easy to get approved when compared to Adsense but has been known to work well with websites on certain topics. (Ex. MySpace, Arcades, Celebs, etc.)

AdBrite
Another textual advertising option like Adsense and YPN but without all the branding.  Advertisers bid in a marketplace to place their ads on your website.  The ads from this program tend to lack relevancy to your content but can convert well if used strategically.

Kontera
This advertising program lets you insert a piece of code into your pages which then highlights and double-underlines several keywords which are then linked to advertisers pages automatically.  You are paid when someone click on these double-underlined words.

Other advertising options include Text Link Ads, WidgetBucks, Chitika’s eMiniMalls, Azoogle Ads, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Clicksor, Pheedo, Bidvertiser, Valueclick, and TTZ Media.