Blogging

"Blogging" is a common practice for making money on the net. If you make some investments, you can also own a blogging site. Once you start blogging on the net, you have many benefits. You will start receiving popularity when you start blogging. You can earn more money when you start blogging online. This process is called as blogging for profit!

Before you start blogging, it is important to find a perfect blogging spot to submit your blogs. You can also start your own blogging site to submit your contents. If you are new to this domain, you do not have to worry about the posting of your blogs. If you research on the net, you will be able to find many free blogging sites, which will allow you to submit your blogs. There is no need to pay to submit your blogs on these free blogging sites. However, before you start submitting your work on these free blogging sites, you have to get register on these websites.

This is considered to be one among the ‘passive income opportunities’ which the net has given to us. The passive income essentially means the money which is earned by not doing anything related to it. In the blogging context, this means one post their blog and they just forget it, whilst individuals who are grouping for reading his or her blog create certain web traffic and when the traffic is more than the pay will be better.

Passive income is synonymous to effortless money. There is also a concept of passive income streams, which means that one has to develop a strategy for getting some income. The same strategy when implemented and executed will generate excess passive income.

Therefore, passive income is nothing but earning money without much effort. Writing articles, e – books, cd’s, blogs etc are the best way of making passive income. These are also called passive income sources, as the basic strategy of these opportunities is to make money continuously without any further intervention.

While several people in this world are working so hardly and are still unable to make two ends meet, you can work smart and earn so much that you can become rich in a matter of days. Another way to earn residual income is by looking into the internet. It is surprising to see that internet has generated so many millionaires over the years. You can even earn residual income by joining MLM. When you just go about marketing you are promoting the same products over and over again and the income margin starts galloping on its own hence, it will increase your residual income opportunities.

You can grab the extra income opportunities by just posting your blogs! Thus, you have unveiled the secret of earning residual income.

To Attract People To Your Web Site

10 Cool Ways To Attract People To Your Web Site

1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays so it’s important to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe.

2. Provide your visitors with free content. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it’s up-to-date or original. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their e-zine or web site.

3. Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over.

4. Give your visitors a free ebook. You could also include your own ad in the ebook and allow other people to give it away. If you don’t want to take the time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles.

5. Hold free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your web site’s chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your web site. You will become known as an expert on the topic.

6. Give visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to
get the results.

7. Let visitors download free software. It could be freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software directory. If you created the software, include your ad inside and let other people give it away.

8. Offer free online services or utilities from your web site. They could be search engine submitting, copy writing proofreading etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.

9. Give free consulting to people who visit your web site. You could offer your knowledge via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very
expensive.

10. Give your visitors a free membership to your online club. People want to belong to something, why not your online club. You could also give away a free e-zine for club members only.

Web Hosting

What are the basic points related to web hosting?

Web hosting has proved to be a boon for websites with small and personalized businesses and also for ecommerce websites. The process involves creating a website, setting it on world wide web and promote it to the search engines as well. The first step that is to be done for starting a website is to select an original and apt domain name. After that website is being created using various page builders. It could include Macromedia Flash, Microsoft FrontPage and Dreamweaver. So be sure to design your website with search engine optimization factors in your mind. Submit your website to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. to get traffic to your site.

How is SEO of a site affected by web hosting?

Sometimes your website may require to hire a new web host, in such cases see to it that you don’t need to start the process of SEO from beginning to achieve the present status of search engine ranking. Try to keep the URL structure similar when you shift your website to a new web hosting service provider so that you maintain the ranking of your site. Also retain the initial inbound links to your website. Search engines indexes your website’s web pages individually apart from your entire site. Cheap web hosting services have adverse effect on the website traffic and also search engine spiders would not be able to access through your site links easily thus affecting SEO. Therefore try to avoid it.

What are the initial web hosting server types and their importance?

Selection of server whether shared or dedicated depends upon the various factors like intended web traffic, size of the website, expected growth and the content. In dedicated servers, it serves one client at one time. Dedicated hosting manages physical server and also offers many other services like upgradation, maintenance, system administration and installation of software. Such type of managed servers are preferred more as the host can offer immediate emergency service if the server crashes down.

Websites that are smaller and have average amount of web traffic to their credit may go for the shared server. Cost wise also it is cheaper in comparison to dedicated server, but the amount of disk space, data transfer, speed and bandwidth is restricted or limited. A single shared server hosts multiple websites with different businesses types.

How to be a Good Guest Blogger

• Research the Blog – do a little homework on the blog that you’ll be writing for. Your posts will be much better received both by the blogger you’re helping out as well as their readers by finding answering some of the following questions before you start writing:

  * who reads it?
  * what voice or style does the blogger write in?
  * what is the reach of the topic that is usually covered?
  * what posts get most comments?
  * what level is the blog pitched at
  * what are the unwritten rules of the blog?

  With this information in mind you’ll be in a much better position to write something that meets the needs of the reader, blogger and yourself.

• On Being Yourself – one of the fine lines that you need to walk as a guest blogger is that between being yourself and respecting the culture already established on the blog you’re posting on.

  While I would strongly recommend that you write in your own voice and style I think it’s important not to take the blog in a completely different direction while the blogger you’re helping out is away. While some readers won’t mind a radical change some will react against it and the blogger could come back to a disgruntled readership.

• Look for Gaps in the blog – one of the reasons that I love having a guest blogger come on at my blogs is that they bring a different skill set and knowledge base to the blog to my own. I attempt to find bloggers who will add something unique and different to the topic I’m discussion (while writing in a style that fits with mine).

  As a guest blogger you can really get on the radar of your readers by fulfilling a need in readers and plugging a gap in the topic of the niche.

• Sell Yourself – as part of the agreement that you have with the blogger that you’re helping out negotiate a byline (or by-paragraph) that will enable you to sell yourself (within reason). Include a link back to your blog and RSS feed as well as a brief biographical/descriptive sentence or two about who you are and what you do.

  Link back to your site if you have something write on topic that adds something to the post – but don’t fill your posts with self referential links – this looks cheap and nasty.

  Another aspect of selling yourself is sharing some of your story. While blog readers ultimately want great content on a blog – many also want to connect and relate to the person they’re reading to. This doesn’t mean writing a biographical post but it could mean sharing some of your experiences on the topic at hand.

  Lastly, part of selling yourself is to consider what is happening on your own blog during your guest posting stint. If you blog on someone else’s blog for a week but let your own slip you don’t provide those who come over to check more of your work out with much incentive to stick around. If anything – the times that you guest post you should put a concerted effort into making bigger efforts onto your own blog as it’s an opportunity to find new readers.

• Be Reliable – if you commit to post daily for a week – post daily for a week. If you promise to write a series on a certain topic – finish the series and don’t leave it hanging mid stream.

  If you can’t meet your commitments you let the blogger and their readers down and could damage your own reputation. It’s better to set lower expectations and over deliver than to promise the world and not deliver to the expectations that you’ve set.

• Add Value – don’t view guest blogging as purely an opportunity for you to get new readers and promote yourself. Remember the reason that we talked about guest blogging being a good thing was that it was a win win win situation where you as the guest blogger might raise your profile but where the blogger and their readers need to come away from the interaction better off too.

  Add genuine value to the blog you are writing on and you’ll win yourself new fans with readers and the blogger and could just find yourself with a regular guest blogging spot.

Being a good guest blogger is like being a good guest in any situation. Do everything in your power to leave the place you are visiting in better shape than when you arrived and you’ll create a great impression.

Dress Your Blog for Success

Have you ever heard the saying, “You should dress for the job you want, not for the one you have?” Obviously the point of this familiar line is that you need to prepare yourself and present yourself for the future that you want.

In a way, this saying should apply to your blog as well. Of course we’re not talking about a suit and tie, but rather the appearance of your blog that visitors are presented with the moment they arrive. This first impression can help readers to see you as the successful blogger you aim to be, or it can set you back if they see an unattractive look.

Dressing appropriately for a job shows that you are aware of your appearance, that you take your job seriously, and that you’re intending to go places. If you were starting a new job and your goal was to eventually be an executive of the company, you wouldn’t show up to work in jeans and a t-shirt. In order for others to see you for who you want to be, you have to present yourself as if you’re already there.

Take a look at some of the top blogs in your niche, and then look at some that get very little traffic and have few readers. You’re almost guaranteed to see some major differences. Sure, the more successful blogs may be able to spend more money on their appearance, but that’s not likely to be the most significant difference. In fact, with all of the blog themes available and resources for learning how to customize your own blog theme, money really doesn’t need to be a factor.

Now, take an objective look at your own blog. Does its appearance belong in the category of a successful blog or an unsuccessful blog?

If you could improve the appearance how would it affect your level of success? Obviously, blog success is far more dependent on content than on design and appearance, but the visitor’s first impression is more likely to be based on the attractiveness of your blog. Just like your ability to perform a job is determined by other factors than your appearance, but a sloppy presentation will kill your chances.

If your goal is to be among the top blogs in your niche, looking like you belong is a great start. Visitors are likely to immediately classify you according to your look. Yes, you can overcome a bad first impression with great content, but why not take advantage of the first impression? An attractive, professional-looking blog design will give you the look of a blog that’s on its way to success, and visitors are more likely to want to be a part of that.

The top blogs almost always have a very clean, professional look. The design of the blog should enhance the content, not distract the visitor’s attention away from it. Even the advertisements on successful blogs are chosen and placed strategically.

Free themes with no customization are rarely used by top tier blogs. Having a unique look is crucial to standing out to new visitors. The design doesn’t need to jump out and grab visitors; in fact, most good blog designs are subtly stylish. But it helps if your visitors are not seeing hundreds of other blogs with the same theme.

If a visitor arrives at a new blog for the first time and their initial impression is “amateur,” that blogger will have a hard time convincing the visitor that the blog itself is high quality.

So, what factors can help a blogger to create a great first impression? As most of us know by now, flashy ads that distract attention are an unwelcome sight for most readers. Harsh color combinations are also rarely used by successful blogs. Choose your ads and color combinations wisely when choosing a design.
Images and Theme Customization

Images can also be important, although many blogs don’t even need the use of photos to accomplish a good look. If you’re looking for free stock photos, try stock.xchng, FreePhotosBank, or FreeImages.co.uk. There are also a number of places to get very affordable, quality stock photos including Stock Xpert, iStockPhoto, and Big Stock Photo.

If you’re using a free theme (particularly WordPress users), try learning about themes from the WordPress Codex and forums. You’ll find plenty of information and help for making changes to a free theme. In many cases even small changes will help to make your blog more distinct.

If you’re not interested in doing the coding yourself, you may be able to find help for less money than you may expect by checking places like Craigslist and Elance. These services may cost you a little bit now, but how much will a new look help you in your journey to being a more successful blogger?

Take a look at your blog and see how you might be able to “dress it” for the level of success that you want to achieve. Focus on providing a clean look that that tells your readers you’re serious about your appearance and you’re ready to take your blog to the next level.

Not just anyone can be an executive at a large company. Likewise, not just anyone can be a successful blogger in a crowded market. Give yourself the appearance of success and you’ll be one step closer to achieving it.

3 Rules for Writing Effective Titles

In the age of blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites it is not rare to get overloaded with information. Technology makes it incredibly easy to produce content, whether we talk about text, audio or video. As a consequence people’s attention span is getting shorter and shorter.

On average I would say that you have a couple of seconds to capture the attention of the reader, and in those two seconds he will hardly read further than the title. That is why the title is so important, it can make the difference between people skipping your posts or reading and getting engaged by them. Below you will find 3 rules for writing effective titles:

1. It must grab the attention: if there is one place where the first impressions counts that place is the post title or headline. The title of your articles must immediately communicate why the reader should go on and read the rest of the content. Copywriters say that if you spent one hour writing the article you should spend just as much thinking about the headline. If you are looking for inspiration check out “10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work”.

2. It must reflect what is in the content: it certainly would grab the reader’s attention if your post had a headline like “The Ultimate Guide to Generating Website Traffic”, even if the post itself was just a couple of tips to generate traffic. The problem with this title is that it does not reflect the content, more specifically it overhypes the post. While you want your headlines to be as catchy as possible you also want to make sure that the reader will get what the title promises, else it will harm your credibility.

3. It must be search engine friendly: always write the headlines for humans and not for search engine robots. That being said often times it is possible to tweak the keywords that you use without reducing the quality of the title. It is a good idea to use a keyword suggestion tool to include terms that people are searching for (i.e. should you use “funny pictures” or “funny images”?). Like it or not most people find information through search engines.

Read to improve your writing

The most obvious (and perhaps the most efficient) way to improve your writing is to write as much as possible. Most bloggers cover that point quite well.

Another very efficient method to honey your writing skills, however, is to read as much as possible. And not all the people work on this area. When I say read as much as possible I am not referring to RSS feeds or online forums. While those sources can provide a lot of quality content they are not substitutes for a well-written book.

The next time you pass by a bookstore make sure to enter an pick a couple of good books, your blog will be thankful!

12 Writing Tips from George Orwell

George Orwell has arguably written some of the best essays of the 20th century. He is also famous for his novels, including Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Apart from reading his works you can also improve your own writing by following 12 tips that he wrote on the essay “Politics and the English Language”, check it out:

When writing a sentence you should always ask yourself those questions:

1. What am I trying to say?

2. What words will express it?

3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?

4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

5. Could I put it more shortly?

6. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

When choosing words, follow those rules:

7. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

8. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

9. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

10. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

11. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

12. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Blogging Content Matrix

Blogs emerged on the Internet as personal diaries where people would publish online their daily activities, personal experiences or comments about events. As the phenomenon evolved, however, many blogs started to focus on niches, providing services or information for readers and blurring the line between blogs and traditional websites.

Many people, specially those considering to start a blog, wonder if blogs oriented around personal stories can be successful. The answer is yes and no, depending on your goals and on your definition of success. If your objective is simply to share your experiences and to have a virtual place where friends and family can keep updated with you, a personal blog can certainly be successful.

On the other hand, if your objective is to promote your ideas, market your business or make money with your blog then you should choose a more specific topic. Ideally you will have some expertise and passion around this topic, and it will also provide useful information for your readers.

The Blogging Content Matrix is a two-by-two matrix illustrating 4 possible types of content. The vertical axis divides content that has value from content that has not. Bear in mind that value here is defined as being useful to a large number of readers. Personal diaries or poetry, for instance, will obviously have value for a certain segment (i.e. Friends), but that segment is too small to be considered. The horizontal axis divides timeless content from content that is time-bound like news or current events. Below you will find a description of the 4 possible cases:

Content is valuable and timeless: The first case refers to content that is valuable to the reader and does not depend on time. Blogs in this category usually give advice, share tutorials or explain how things in a certain field work. Alternative they can also provide entertainment or create a community around the topic. Examples include Copyblogger, Creating Passionate Users and Guy Kawasaki.

Content is valuable but time-bound: Blogs in this category will provide useful information for the readers, but such information is useful only for a certain amount of time. Those blogs usually publish several posts daily and the topics range from general news to technology, politics and celebrity gossip. Examples include TechCrunch, PerezHilton and DailyKos.

Content does not have value and is timeless: The third case refers to blogs that publish personal ramblings, poetry, narratives and the like. As mentioned before, this content will certainly have a value for some people, but those segments are too small to generate enough traffic. Bear in mind that some bloggers achieved tremendous success sharing personal experiences (i.e. Steve Pavlina), but the focus of their content is always on how those personal stories can help the reader and not on the stories per se (meaning that the personal experiences actually have value for many people).

Content does not have value and is time-bound: The last case involves the classic online diary where someone will share his daily activities. Famous people and celebrities could probably make a successful blog using such a model, but this is not the case for the average blogger.

In conclusion, if your objective is to promote your ideas, your business or make money through a blog you should be structured around the first 2 cases.

Do not rely on linking posts

Many bloggers start out writing 4 or 5 quality posts per week. But after a couple of months, due to lack of time or because they are running out of ideas, they gradually reduce the number of pure content posts on a weekly basis.

A common (yet not optimal) solution for this problem are the “linking posts”. Instead of sitting, thinking and taking the time to write a quality post said blogger will just gather a couple of links a post them with the title “Links for 2006-11-10″.

Even if those links offer a good reading you should avoid doing that regularly. Once in a while should be fine, just make sure that you are not throwing out linking posts every other day. You need to think why your readers are coming to your blog, after all. A good guess would be: because they value the knowledge you have, because it can help them in some way, because they are interested in your opinion. I mean, if the readers were looking purely for links they would rather head to Digg or Delicious, don’t you think?

Top 10 Misspelled words in Blogs

The Probabilist blog has a nice article with the most misspelled words in blogs. Those words are tricky because most of the times people are not actually misspelling but rather misusing them, and spell checkers can not detect those mistakes. Below you will find the 10 words, make sure to pay attention when you use them again:

1. Your – You’re

2. Then – Than

3. Its – It’s

4. To – Too – Two

5. Were – Where – We’re

6. There – Their – They’re

7. A – An – And

8. Off – Of

9. Here – Hear

10. Lose – Loose

Always preview before publishing

I confess I used to do that mistake, after writing a certain post I would proofread quickly and hit the publish button straight way, only to discover seconds later a couple of errors and misaligned pictures… and by the time some readers had already received the messed post through the RSS feed.

The preview is a simple yet valuable feature, when you get the chance to read the post on a different context, that is on the preview image as opposed to the text editor, you free your mind from certain blind spots and recognize errors more easily. It also gives you a better idea of the overall layout of the post.

Summing up, the next time you finish writing a post on the text editor HIT THE PREVIEW button!

Write Pillar Articles

Some time ago I wrote the post “101 Blog Tips I learned in 2006“. It received a lot of attention and positive feedback, but since the tips included are short phrases going straight to the point many people asked whether I could expand and explain a little bit better some of them. “Write pillar articles” is one of the 101 tips, and below I will try to describe what are pillar articles and how your blog could benefit from them:

Characteristics of pillar articles:

* they are longer posts

* usually above 750 words

* they offer a clear value to the reader

* their content is timeless

* their content is original and unique

* they outline the expertise of the writer around a specific topic

* they attract links from other bloggers

Pillar articles obviously consume more time and energy than traditional posts, they might require additional research around a certain subject or even the maturation of some ideas over longer periods (sometimes I will spend one week or more writing a pillar article as opposed to the 30-60 minutes I use for daily posts).

This extra work, however, is worth while. Pillar articles will give credibility to your blog and they will also contribute to increase traffic over the long term. When a reader comes across a well-written, informative and interesting article it is very likely that he will bookmark the website, subscribe to the feed or simply remember the site address to visit it again in the near future. If that was not enough pillar articles also have a higher probability of attracting links from other bloggers.

What are you waiting for? Start writing your next pillar article right now!

5 tips for writing timeless content

Some time ago I wrote that bloggers should focus on timeless content. Quoting the post “Blogs that are focused on news or current events die as soon as the articles stop coming on a consistent basis. If you write timeless content, on the other hand, people will still be reading your blog for months or years after you stop writing as long as the content has some value for them.”

Below you will find 5 practical tips for making your content more timeless, regardless of the topic you are writing about:

1. Avoid words that bring the idea of time: whenever you are writing about a particular topic try to avoid words like today, yesterday, recently or expressions like this week or this month. If someone comes across those words while reading your blog posts it is very likely that he will associate the article with a specific time frame, say “the summer of 2005″. The problem is that the reader might think that the content is not fresh and therefore no longer valuable.

2. Put dates at the bottom of posts: the standard design of many blog templates and WordPress themes feature the date at which the post was published right below the title. Many readers get discouraged to read a certain post if they see that it was written long ago. A good way to prevent this is to move the date to the end of the post. Do not remove the date altogether because a minimum time reference is useful.

3. Get rid of the calendar: if you wander through the blogosphere you will notice the enormous quantity of calendars on the sidebars. This feature could be useful if you write content that is dependent on time. Someone writing about his journey across the Sahara desert, for instance, would need to have a calendar so that readers would be able to track posts in a chronological order and find posts of a specific day. Most bloggers, however, write about topics that are not dependent on time. The first question you need to ask yourself is: “Will my readers benefit from having a calendar where they can click on a particular day and check what I have written on that day?”

4. Get rid of the monthly archives: the same reasoning of the calendar applies to the monthly archives. Unless it makes sense for your readers to search blog posts by month (for example if you are blogging about a long journey or about the World Cup) you should avoid using monthly archives.

5. When blogging about news or current events make sure to add value: every blog will mention a certain news or an interesting event once in a while. When you do post something that could not be relevant a couple of months ahead make sure to add some value to it so that a future reader will not lose his time completely by reading it. Value could be added through your opinion on the matter, a deeper analysis, a cross reference and the like.

Focus on timeless content

Unless you are blogging about news-related topics you should focus your writing on timeless content. This means that what you write should be useful today, tomorrow, 1 year from now and possibly 5 years from now.

Blogs that are focused on news or current events die as soon as the articles stop coming on a consistent basis. If you write timeless content, on the other hand, people will still be reading your blog for months or years after you stop writing as long as the content has some value for them.