The Rich Blog

People start blogging for a variety of reasons. Some people create a blog to express their views or opinions while others do it just because they think they can make money out of it. As it gets very exciting and fun in the beginning, especially when choosing a domain name and a blog theme, not all people can stay motivated for a long time.

Here are the top five reasons why bloggers quit blogging:

Lack of Interest

Many bloggers start blogging just for the sake of it. Free blog providers like Blogspot and Wordpress can entice this kind of people into starting something that they are not really passionate about. If you want to start blogging, ask yourself this question: Would I be willing to pay $20 a month to start a blog? If your answer is yes, then blogging is or at least will be your passion. Otherwise it will become a burden on your shoulders as you progress and you will eventually quit.

Lack of Time

Some bloggers can’t devote enough time to update their blogs and their blogs become boring. They don’t publish new posts, they don’t reply to comments etc…Well, there are many reasons why these people can’t find time for blogging. They can be busy with their daily tasks, browsing social networks, or maybe working on different projects.

Lack of Skills

Blogging requires some basic skills like writing and editing. Some people are actually not that good at writing as they think they are. They start blogging but later they find it difficult to write a new post or an article. If you can’t produce quality content, you will lose your own attention before that of any other readers.

Lack of Readers

We always seek appreciation for our work, right? Blogging is about distributing your messages online and receiving feedback on those messages. Comments, star ratings and social bookmarks are the typical feedback types that bloggers like to see after they publish new posts. If you are not receiving any feedback, this can be very frustrating and a good reason to lose your interest in blogging.

Lack of Income

This category applies to those who start blogging as a way to earn an extra income. Many bloggers get discouraged when they don’t see any earnings in the first couple of months. You need to keep in mind that making decent money from blogging is not that easy. To be realistic, you cannot expect your blog to reach millions of readers and earn you a decent income in less than a year. Of course there are exceptions, but if you keep your expectations low in the beginning, you won’t get disappointed. Patience is the key.

Good Luck!

In order to make money from your blog you don’t need to be a programmer, but you need to have a basic knowledge of some of the web technologies. Before we start, just make sure that you are familiar with some technical terms like search engine optimization (SEO), RSS feeds, pay per click advertising and affiliate programs. If you do not know what these terms mean, look it up on Google right now. To make money from blogging, it’s important to become a web savvy person.

Before we start talking about methods, you need to understand that no matter what you do to make money, first thing you need is to get TRAFFIC to your website. Why is traffic so important?  Because your income is a direct function of your website’s traffic. The more traffic you get, the more income you will earn because more visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations and so on…

If you want to know how to build up traffic, please read my article “10 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website”.

Here is the list of methods:

1. PPC Advertising Networks

Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category. First, you need to sign up for an Adsense account. Then you can either post the codes provided by Adsense on your website (if you know how to) or just use a plug-in provided by your blog provider. The network will then put ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click on your ads.

2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions. With this method, you get paid according to the number of page views that the ads displayed on your site generate. CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio like online forums and magazines.

Popular CPM advertising networks are Value Click and Advertising.com

3. Direct Banner Advertising

Selling your own advertising space is one of the most profitable monetization methods, because it cuts out the middleman commissions. The downside of direct banner advertising is that your website needs to generate high traffic to attract advertisers.

4. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very popular method. Merchants are willing to pay other people a commission for selling their products and services. This type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) and CPL (cost per lead). Clickbank is the most popular affiliate network.

5. Selling an E-book

Selling an e-book is a very efficient way to generate revenue. Make sure you have a PayPal account to accept payments.

6. Membership

Although most of the forums and message boards offer free membership, there is always a possibility to create a private one where members need to pay to be able to read and post. However, in order to charge for a membership you need to provide exceptional value for the members.

7. Marketplace

Sitepoint and Digital Point are great examples of online marketplaces. You can allow your visitors to buy and sell products on your website and possibly charge a small fee for new product listings.

8. Paid Surveys

Vizu Answers pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. All you need is to sign up with them and select the kind of poll or survey you want to run on your website.

9. RSS Feed Ads

With the quick adoption of the RSS technology, you can now make money displaying ads on your feeds. You can sign up with Feedburner and start displaying CPM based advertising on your feeds.

10. Donations

Placing a “Donate” link or button on your blog can be an efficient way to earn money. Please do not underestimate the potential of this method and make sure you have a PayPal account to use this feature.

Good Luck!

Having a blog doesn’t mean anything if you don’t start promoting it. You need to attract people’s attention to your new website.

The sooner you start promoting, the better results you will get. The reason is that it sometimes takes months to establish a regular visitor base.

Social Media

One of the best ways to promote your blog is to create a profile or a fan page on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a Facebook fan page, a profile on Squidoo, MySpace, Flickr and even a YouTube account. These pages often act as backlinks to your site.

Submitting Articles

Write an article about your website and submit it to Technorati and EzineArticles. You can even send your original posts to other content publishers like Associated Content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a base of incoming links. By submitting your articles that include a link back to your blog, you are not only getting better at search engine rankings, but also creating a traffic stream to your site.

Search Engine Optimization

If your blog has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a must! The appropriate keywords should be integrated into all posts you publish. Make sure you use tags when publishing a new post. There are even plug-ins that you can use to create automatic tags. If you are using WordPress, I recommend the “All in One SEO” plug-in. This will take care of this step for you. Without optimizing your site, nothing will help you get better in search rankings.

Search Engines

Although search engines find your site on their own these days, I strongly recommend that you submit your blog to the main search engines. However, when you submit your blog’s URL to a search engine, submit it only once to avoid getting banned.

Create a Sitemap

In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, you must have a sitemap. Google XML Sitemaps Plug-in will automatically create a sitemap every time you update your blog.

Link Building

Backlinks play a significant role in search rankings. There are a number of ways you can work to grow your backlinks. You can post on forums, message boards or other blogs and leave a link to your website.

In conclusion, do whatever you can to promote your blog. You have a lot of free advertising options. Try to get links from every relevant source you can think of. The more attention you get, the sooner you will start to see progress in your reader base and search engine rankings.

Good Luck!

A blog is an online journal where people can publish their thoughts and opinions. It may include images, audio, video and all other media components. Most blogs are frequently updated to include new posts and commentaries.  And in general, they are focused on a particular topic such as web design, sports or technology.

If you are interested in starting your own blog, here are the five easy steps for you:

1. Decide what you want to blog about. Pick a topic that you are passionate about.
2. Choose a provider. The most popular providers are Blogger and WordPress. These sites are free and offer pre-made templates and easy publishing tools.
3. Find a domain name. This part is really fun. Use your imagination and find a good domain name that would match your blog’s theme.
4. Choose a template. Most sites come with a set of predefined layouts and schemes that you can choose from. Select one and personalize it.
5. After you have set up your blog, write a few posts and make any adjustments to the layout or style if necessary.

Congratulations. You’ve made it! Now it’s time to promote your blog.

Tips:

• Update your blog frequently
• Keep the posts interesting
• Spell check your writing before posting
• A picture is worth thousand words
• Be yourself, it’s your blog!

Good Luck!

If you want to make money out of your website, you need traffic. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a dime to generate high traffic. The bad news, it doesn’t happen overnight. So be patient.

You can use these useful tips to add traffic to your site:

Offer original and quality content
This is the most effective way to increase your traffic. Offer your visitors something unique, something interesting that they can not easily find elsewhere.

Keep your content fresh
It is very important to keep your website updated. Relevant and up-to-date content is what keeps your visitors happy. Keep building and updating your website regularly.

Establish link partnerships
Your backlinks are very important since search engines use this information when ranking your site. Not only the quantity, but also the quality matter. What I mean by quality is how the backlink is relevant to your site’s content. Value Exchange is a good place to start.

Use Online Forums and Blogs
Most forums and blogs allow you to leave a comment and a link to your own website. You gain credibility by giving advice and finding solutions to problems posted on these websites. When you comment, make it useful and build credibility.

Use Social Networking
Social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter can present limitless opportunities to promote your website as they allow millions of people to connect and share.

Submit your website to main search engines
Google, Bing (MSN), Yahoo and AOL are the most popular search engines right now. When you submit your website to these engines, please be patient as it may take some days or maybe weeks for your site to appear on the search results. Do not repeat this process more than once. Your URL may get banned.

Get Listed In Directories
DMOZ is a good place to start. And find other directories that are relevant to your site, and get listed there.

Use keywords in the filenames
Search engines use filenames to help determine your page rank. Instead of naming your page like page1.html, name it useful-tips.html. It is also a good idea to separate words with a hyphen instead of running them together.

Create RSS Feeds
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. Instead of going to a website, people can subscribe to these feeds and receive the content. If you have a blog that creates automatic feeds, then you can sign up with Feedburner and promote your feeds.

Offer Something Free
Everyone loves free. It is a great way to your visitors’ attention. It can be an e-book or a trial of your product or service.