A radical change in the business of journalism has been evident
in recent months. During the last quarter of 2008 and the first
quarter of 2009 some of the most well-respected media
corporations have been facing economic challenges of major
proportions. Several daily newspapers in large U.S. cities have
been offered for sale, and if buyers cannot be found they are
likely to be closed. Others are facing bankruptcy. Not only are
these changes affecting shareholders, management and readers,
they are also forcing hundreds of journalists to look for new
sources of income.

In addition to these media upheavals affecting staff writers,
they also are causing many more freelance writers to seek out
alternative ways to generate revenue. One novel money making
activity that is being taken more seriously is blog writing.
Especially with online, electronic media on the verge of
replacing traditional paper-and-ink publications, it is not so
strange that web-logs, or blogs, may be ready to move from the
fringe sidelines to mainstream.

Although a handful of blogs, focused on politics and
entertainment, attract readers by the millions, these are
exceptional, not typical. Most blogs are lucky to attract a few
hundred or a few thousand readers per day. Given that such a blog
may be monetized to earn from five to ten dollars per day, how is
it possible for a would-be blogger to earn enough money from
blogging to pay the rent and put groceries onto the table? The
answer is volume.

If one blog can earn an average of eight dollars per day, it
stands to reason that 10 blogs could generate $80, which works
out to an average of about $2400 per month. Twenty blogs would
fetch $4800, and so on.

But, one may ask, how is it possible for any one person to write
enough blog posts to cover 10 or 20 different topics? The answer
is outsourcing. A clever, professional blogger can now find
sources that provide professionally written blog content for only
pennies per page.

This same savvy individual will also be aware that, through the
use of modern content management software, blogs can be set up
online in mere minutes. There are expenses, of course, such as
domain name registration and web hosting, but these can be
minimized to about ten dollars per blog per year.

Returning to the previous example of 20 blogs earning a gross
annual revenue of $57,600, expenses of $200 seems like a very
small investment.

It is no wonder that many underemployed freelance writers are now
considering setting up a network of blogs to replace the steady
income they once earned by selling articles to traditional
newspapers and magazines.

Andy Henry

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal
WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability
to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and
track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic
to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top
blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with
literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an
average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to
“Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts” by TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo
it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google’s Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS
to Google’s Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links
like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than
simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is
perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software
such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time
you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as
AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ.
Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google.
DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as
possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be
done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy
comments like “I agree.” Leave well thought out replies that will
force readers to wonder “who wrote this?”

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or
quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track
back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few
interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards,
business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible
know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups,
Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE
group services and find like minded people and talk with them.
Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for
advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you
leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get
annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own
site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted
across the web. Sites like Del.icio.us, Technorati and many
others have a social feature that allows you to place your
article under keywords or “tags” that everyone interested in that
tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic
to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your
imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive
traffic to your blog!

Andy Henry

One type of Internet marketing that you must be taking advantage
of is social media. The truth is your Internet business will not
survive unless you are involved in various forms of social media.
The only exception to that would be is if you do paid advertising
such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Marketing.

Perhaps you do not understand the various ways you can utilize
these many types of social media to brand yourself and expand
your business. Here are 7 types of Internet social media you
should be doing everyday.

1. Blogging

Your competition has a blog and so should you. Blogs can serve
many purposes. A couple of key points are host your own blog and
consistently add fresh content. Never let your blog go stale.

2. Social Networking

My Space and Facebook are 2 of the largest. Building
relationships online are a big part of having a successful
Internet business. Social networking allows you to hang out with
people that have similar interests to you.

3. Micro Blogging

Twitter.com is a combination of social networking and blogging.
Building a large list of followers is a great way to meet people
and increase traffic to your blog and websites. Plus it is fun to
Tweet!

4. Social Bookmarking

Directories such as Digg and Technorati serve as search engine
bait for your blog posts and for new traffic from people who read
your blog articles. Bookmarking a blog post is very easy to do
and the rewards can pay off for years to come.

5. Discussion Forums

This really was one of the first forms of social media and still
is a great way to learn about the niche of your business and to
drive traffic to it. Hanging out in discussion forums can be
addictive so be careful to use them the right way and not waste
time. There is an art to forum marketing and you must learn to do
it correctly, but the benefits are many.

6. Email Marketing

There has always been money in having a list. The trick is to
build relationships with your list and then sell to it after you
have done that. For that reason we include it in social media.
Today you can add video, audio, graphics, and other things to
make your email more interactive.

7. Video Marketing

When Google bought YouTube everyone was put on notice that video
marketing was going to be important. Today internet marketers can
drive traffic and build credibility by adding videos to their
blog and website.

This is 7 forms of social media you must be using everyday to
build your Internet business. The most successful Internet
marketers already are!

Andy Henry

If you are trying to sell things on the Internet and you do not
have a blog you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Would you
go to play golf without a putter?

Your competition is blogging and they are beating your pants off
every day with ease. A part of blogging is submitting your
articles to social directories.

Here are 3 reasons social marketing must be a part of your
Internet business.

1. Social marketing is a popular way to get information.
Directories like Digg and Netscape are quickly becoming the
choice of people all over the world as a way to keep up to date
on what is going on.

If you are not blogging and submitting to relevant social
directories you are missing out on this easy form of traffic.

2. Social marketing is easy to do. Here’s what you need. You
should get a WordPress blog and set it up so that you can quickly
bookmark the top directories. Then you should post in your blog
everyday. If you can talk and type you can blog.

3. Social marketing is an interactive way to develop
relationships with your readers. This has become know as Web 2.0
and it is important to the future of your business.

People still like to deal with people. This is an age-old sales
trick that sometimes gets lost on the Internet. By making
yourself and your blog interactive you become a real person. This
will help increase your chances for sales and repeat sales.

4. Search engines love social marketing. You are making their
life easy when you blog around keyword rich topics that a person
researching can find. When you master the techniques of social
marketing you will find you can get on page one of Google and
other search engines very quickly.

The reason for this is search engines are spidering Digg, Reddit,
Newsvine, and many more non-stop looking for fresh relevant
content to put online. This may as well be you as opposed to your
competition.

If all of this seems confusing it really shouldn’t be. Read “The
Authority Black Book” by Jack Humphrey. It is a free ebook you
can get online. In it you will learn everything you ever wanted
to know on social marketing and how to use it to increase your
business.

Do not wait until tomorrow to get started. Do it today and your
Internet business will thank you.

Andy Henry

To say that blogging has exploded in popularity in recent years
would be a tremendous understatement. Currently, it is estimated
that tens of millions of readers regularly peruse an equally
voluminous number of blogs. This has led to many would be
bloggers feeling inspired to carve out their own fame on the
blogshpere as well. In order to do this, it is necessary to set
up a blog account. This involves choosing between a free blogging
service or a fee based service. Now some may wonder why anyone
would pay a monthly fee when a free site is available. The answer
to this is based on the individual blogger’s needs. Sometimes, a
free site works just fine whereas a paid site has far more
benefits.

A free blogging site is easy to set up and can be up and running
within a few minutes. All one has to do is select a free service
such as Blogger, Word Press, Live Journal etc. A paid blogging
service requires opening an account, setting up a monthly payment
plan and registering a domain name.

Relax, this is not as expensive as it sounds. Many excellent paid
blogging sites offer domain (the URL name of your blog)
registration for under $10 a year and often charge about $3 per
month to host your blog. Obviously, this is not going to bankrupt
anyone’s budget yet still some wonder, why pay at all?

Free blogging sites come with several terms and conditions that a
paid site does not. For example, many free blogging sites may
restrict the commercial ventures of a blog. That is, they may ban
certain advertising or promotional strategies. If the blogger
does not comply, then the blog may be shut down. With a paid
site, there is much more freedom regarding monetizing a blog.
Therefore, if your intention is to earn money with a bog, a paid
site is better option.

Also, with a free blogging site, the URL must include the name of
the free site. For example, all Blogger.com blogs must include
blogspot.com in the title. This is a fair deal since the service
if giving the blogger a venue for public writing. If the blogger
however is looking to brand their blog in the marketplace and
draw a huge audience, a unique domain name will be more appealing
and more professional. As such, a paid blog site would be a
better idea.

The bottom line is that there are several positives to both free
and paid blogging sites. If you are looking to be a blogging
“star”, it would be a better idea to choose a unique domain name
and pay for your site. If you are just looking to be a casual
blogger, then a free site is probably all you need.

Andy Henry

What is pinging?

Pinging is a way of letting search engines know that you’ve
created a new post, or updated an existing post on your blog. A
‘ping’ is a message sent to a ‘ping server’ notifying it that the
blog has been updated with new content.

What is a ping server?

A ping server is a web-based service that accepts messages in the
XML-RPC format. It uses the information in these XML-RPC messages
to publish a list of blogs which have updated content. Some of
these ping servers run their own blog search engines, and some
propagate the information to a number of other ping servers and
search engines.

How does pinging work?

Many blog publishing platforms, such as Wordpress, have a
built-in pinging tool. In the case of Wordpress, pinging is
turned on by default and pings go out to one ping server which
updates several search engines.

You can also notify a ping server that you have updated content
manually by going to their website and submitting your blog’s
name and URL.

One popular ping server is PingOMatic, found at
http://pingomatic.com/. When your blog pings PingOMatic it then
notifies a number of search engines that your blog has been
updated. Many of these search engines also have their own ping
server as well.

These search engines can then update their listings with new
content almost instantly. This of course will give you one-way
backlinks to your blog from these search engines, many of which
have a high Google PageRank.

4 things you should know about pinging

1. Only ping when you have updated content. Otherwise, your site
might be blacklisted as a spam blog, also known as a splog.

2. If you tend to post to your blog and then re-write the post
frequently you might want to make sure you only ping when you
actually post new content, not on updates. If you are using
Wordpress there are a few plugins that make sure that pings are
only sent when a post is created.

3. It’s a good idea to ping several ping services, especially the
ones that notify several search engines. Don’t overdo it though.
Make sure that if you are pinging a niche search engine that your
blog falls into the relevant niche.

4. Make sure that if a search engine is notified by a ping server
you are already using that you don’t add that search engines own
ping service to your list of servers to ping. Because blog
spammers have abused ping servers if you are pinging a search
engine multiple times your site might end up being blacklisted,
and not appear in the search engines at all.

Popular ping servers

Finally, here’s a list of popular ping servers you might try to
get you started.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

Andy Henry

WHAT IS BLOGGING?

Blogging is a method of sharing information over the internet for
work, pleasure or both. ‘Blogs’ are often described as an online
diary, with dated posts displayed chronologically. ‘Blogging’ is
the action of posting a message on a blog. A ‘blogger’ is the
person posting the message. Many blogs also allow you to post
pictures and receive comments from readers.

Blogs can be about anything. They are usually based on a
particular topic or an individual’s personal thoughts and
opinions. They often contain links to other related sites and are
commonly free to operate. They require little knowledge to set up
and are simple to update.

WHO USES A BLOG?

Who DOESN’T use a blog? Teenagers have blogs, celebrity clubs
have blogs, news agencies have blogs, businesses have blogs -
even your aunt Sophie could have a blog.

The wonderful thing about blogs is that there are virtually no
restraints on what it could be used for. This means that while
it’s an easy way to share news among family members and post the
latest baby pictures, it’s equally well suited for a business to
post updates and data to inform the public, employees or other
interested parties.

IS A BLOG GOOD FOR MY BUSINESS?

If you want to develop a rapport with your customers, make
regular postings about your business and gain interest from other
media outlets or potential customers you would certainly benefit
from starting a blog.

Because blogs by nature are considered a source of information
rather than a commercial advertisement it makes perfect sense for
a business to use blogs as a means of establishing a reputation
in their market.

Posting information about their industry or field will create a
sense of community involvement that potential customers will
appreciate. Using links to your business page will create traffic
from search engines and blog readers. You can even add a
subscription form to your blog so that interested readers can
immediately be emailed when you make a post.

HOW DO I START A BLOG?

You can create a blog for free. There are many free blog hosting
sites you can locate by searching for ‘blog’ in the search
engine. Blogger.com is a popular one.

Blogs are the simplest form of creating an online presence. You
do not need any experience in website design as most blog hosts
will provide you with pre-made templates. They also provide easy
to understand instructions for creating your posts along with
options such as allowing comments from readers or uploading
photos.

Whether you want to post your personal thoughts on a world
crisis, share your poems with appreciative readers or start an
online business, your blog could be set up and people could be
hearing what you have to say - today.

Andy Henry

Blogging is the latest, greatest thing that you hear about on the
internet. But does that automatically make it the right thing for
you or your business?

First, let’s look at what a blog is. A blog is simply a special
type of website. It has features that set it apart from other
websites such as: the content entries (posts) are arranged in
chronological order with the newest content at the top; reader
comments are usually an important part of a blog; a subscription
system called RSS is offered so readers know when the blog has
been updated; and the posts are arranged into some type of
archive system so readers can find information easily.

The best way to find out if a blog is right for you or your
business is to look at the top 5 reasons to start a blog.

1. You don’t need any programming skills. Whether you use a free
blogging platform like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, or a
self-hosted blogging platform like WordPress.org or Typepad, you
can literally have a site up and running within minutes. Simply
select a theme and go.

2. You can add content easily and often. Adding content to a
blog is no more difficult that typing a Word document and hitting
save. In the case of a blog, though, when you hit publish your
information is immediately available to the whole internet
community.

3. Search engines love them! Search engines are ravenous for
up-to-date, useful content to meet the demand for information on
the internet. By their very nature, blogs provide fresh content
on a regular basis–usually daily.

4. They build communities. Blogs are meant to stimulate
conversation between the blog owner and the blog readers. Through
this interaction, they build communities and the blog owner can
learn valuable information for his business (if it’s a business
blog).

5. You can monetize them easily. Whether through Google Adsense,
Yahoo! Publisher, or affiliate links, monetizing a blog is one of
the easiest ways to begin making money online.

Those are the top 5 reasons to begin a blog. Blogs have other
advantages as well.

They are simple, flexible and focused. Because they are simple to
master, it makes it possible for more people to have an online
presence or even begin making money online. Because they’re
flexible, a blogger is able to design a site with the look, feel,
and features that he and his readers desire. And finally, because
blogs are focused on a specific niche or topic, they are able to
attract focused readers and buyers.

One good way to get a feel for blogging is to get a free blog
from Blogger.com or WordPress.com. Simply write and develop your
own blogging voice on whatever topic comes to mind. If you want
to make money with your blog, however, you should get self-hosted
blogging software, decide on a market niche, and focus your
content to match that audience.

Blogging is still one of the easiest ways to start an online
presence and also one of the easiest ways to make money online.

Andy Henry

How many times have you heard the words blog or web log or how
about online diary? If you have been active online for the past
few years, you’ve probably heard it thousands of times.

What you might not realize is that blogging is not only one of
the fastest and easiest ways to get indexed in search engines but
it is also a huge source of income that is just waiting for you
to grab your share.

Blogging has actually been around for quite a while but only up
until the past few years have online as well as offline
marketers, become aware of how powerful this medium is.

You can find plenty of free to very inexpensive places to start a
blog. A few of the top rated blog hosting services are Blogger,
which is owned by Google, Wordpress and Moveable Type. If you
already have a web hosting account somewhere, that runs cPanel &
Fantastic, then you’re in luck, because Wordpress blog software
is just a couple of mouse clicks away from installing on one of
your domains.

The easiest to get started and set up would have to be
Blogger.com, since they are not only free, but they have a very
simple step by step process for creating your blog. The only
downside to Blogger is that the features that they offer are very
limited. The upside to Blogger is that it’s owned by Google,
which is not a bad thing at all, if you know what I mean.

The most common ways that most Internet marketers are making a
profit from blogs is by integrating Google Adsense into their
blog. This is very simple to do and Blogger makes it even easier
for you. You can also insert many other contextual advertisements
into the blog such as Yahoo, Kanoodle, Chitika and many others as
well as any other affiliate links you may have.

The other benefit to blogging is also the ability to add back
links to your blog that point to your other websites. This is
very important since the more back links that you have coming
inbound to your websites, the better you will rank for the
keywords you are promoting. You will also have to setup the
proper keyword anchor links in your blog and on the pages of your
websites that the links are pointing to.

Let’s look at a summary of what needs to be done in order to take
advantage of blogging.

First, you need to setup a blog either at Blogger or one of the
other online services mentioned earlier or create a blog on your
own domain name & web hosting account.

Once you have your blog setup, it’s time to start monetizing it
by adding in contextual advertising such as Google Adsense and or
affiliate links. Now add in some targeted keyword anchor links
that point back to your other websites.

All you have to do now is post to your blog a couple times per
week and make sure that you are pinging after you make your new
post. Sending out a ping is a way to let the search engines know
that you have new content on your blog. The search engines will
come to crawl your blog and start indexing your new content and
follow all those targeted links that point back to your other
websites. Are you starting to see how powerful this is?

Now just keep posting to your blogs and if you keep up with it
and continue to add new content on a regular basis, you’ll start
reaping the rewards of blogging.

Andy Henry

Most people would probably have a personal blog if they
understood the power that a daily release of rants or raves could
give them. There are many choice words that you want to say to
someone, like a boss, or even some thing, like a car that refuses
to start in the morning. In many cases, blurting out those
choice words to these people and things just might not be
appropriate! If you speak your mind to your boss you could very
well regret that outburst once you are handed a pink slip. If you
start screaming obscenities to your car, your neighbors just
might start avoiding you all together.

Years ago many people recorded their deepest, most personal
thoughts within a small private book called a diary (or journals
for the guys). Thoughts and expressions from the day, whether
good or bad, were revisited in a personal diary that quickly
became the most sacred possession for many. The diary has moved
into the technology-age and has become quite acceptable for both
women and men now that it has a new name – a blog. A blog is the
same record of thoughts except words are now displayed
electronically instead of with paper and ink. Let’s take a look
at a how a blog can be a method of recuperation from the day’s
events.

A Blog to Tell Your Problems To

Everyone has problems they just cannot be avoided. Whether these
problems are due to finances, health or relationships – everyone
has them. The “experts” always say that you have to talk about
your problems. But talking about personal issues to others can
be difficult. You might want a chance to complain and even hear
what other people think about what you are going through, but
sharing personal issues with friends and family is tough. Your
blog can be that special friend that is always there to lend an
ear.

Your blog will not ridicule you, make jokes, lecture you or tell
you “I told you so!” By blogging about your problems you are
able to formulate and express what you cannot tell someone close
to you; you are able to organize your thoughts; you are able to
record your feelings on a daily basis; and you are able to see
the progress you make as you work through your issues.

Of course when we express our deepest concerns, we quite often
want some type of feedback. Even if it is simply a friendly
voice saying, “I understand.” While a blog cannot talk back and
give you words of encouragement, those who read your blog can.
Since your blog is published on the internet for millions to
view, you a very much in a position to receive the kindness of
strangers in the form of encouraging comments and funny anecdotes
about themselves that let you know you are not alone with your
problems.

The key to being successful with blogging for your mental health
is to make it a new habit. Writing your thoughts and feelings
daily will allow you to get a better grasp of your situation.
Instead of sitting and thinking and pining and complaining to
yourself about your problems everyday, sit down at your computer
and write away!

Andy Henry

Does the thought of scheduling your blogging seem so…
uncreative? Posting to your blog shouldn’t happen only when you
feel “moved” to create an award-winning post. Blogging needs to
be done regularly to provide good content for your readers and to
maximize your profits.

Set yourself up with a schedule to post on your blogs. Take a
realistic look at your business and figure out how blogging can
fit in. The object is not to be constantly blogging, forsaking
all else, but to bring blogging forward a bit from your low
priority pile of things to do. Take a look at your business model
and where blogging fits in. If your blogs are currently your only
platform for making money, then blogging should be high priority.

Your blogging schedule is up to you and can certainly be changed
when your circumstances change. Perhaps you’re going to
temporarily blog daily on your Internet Marketing blog because
you’re promoting an affiliate product or you’re just about to
launch your new ebook. On a regular week you might consider
blogging everyday, but alternating between all your blogs.

The important things is to think about your blogging ahead of
time and create your schedule for the week. Also keep in mind the
time of day that is available to you for blogging, especially if
you’re a part-time internet marketer. Will mornings from 7:00 am
to 7:30 pm work? And how about lunchtime from 12:00 pm to 1:30
pm?

While you’re thinking ahead about your blogging, get a rough plan
down on paper about what your blog subjects will be for each of
the posts you’re going to post in the week ahead. If you can’t
think of something right away, it will be a seed planted in your
mind and you’ll come up with a great idea before it’s time to
write it.

Try to find ways to streamline your posting. If your blogs are in
a related field, you can sometimes modify your blog post to fit
all your blogs. If your blogs are in very different fields you
may still want to do the same sort of post to save time. For
example, if you want to post a YouTube video, you can look for
different videos for your different blogs all at once.

Scheduling your blogging may not be a creative endeavor, but it
can make your blogging more successful nonetheless. A blogging
schedule can help you become a consistent blogger who doesn’t
lose readers for lack of posts and can also help you maximize
your profits.

Andy Henry

You’ve heard about Online Marketing as a way to make a nice chunk
of change, but you don’t have any programming skills and wouldn’t
know an html code if it bit you. Can you still become successful
and make money Marketing Online?

Yes. You can.

There are a number of ways to make money online without a
website. We’ll discuss how you can blog your way to big bucks.

Blogging is a website (don’t worry no website skills needed) that
you update every few days with posts about your chosen subject.
Visitors can comment on your posts for others to see. You can
place advertising on your blog - provided automatically by
Google - and get paid whenever anyone clicks on one of those ads.

You can also use a blog to sell products as an affiliate.
Affiliates get a commission, determined by the product owner, for
each sale that is generated as a result of one of your visitors
buying the product. Clickbank is used
by thousands of product owners as a payment processor and as a
method to pay affiliates. It is free for affiliates to sign up
and find products they would like to promote.

LiveJournal, blogger.com, and wordpress.com, are just a few of
the free sites where you can quickly and easily set up your blog.

Pick a market niche you’re familiar with as the topic for your
blog. Every few days post on your blog. Of course that’s not all
you need to do. You have to get people to your blog to read it
and hopefully click on your paid ads, or on the products you’re
promoting as an affiliate.

Most of the blog sites are searchable by keywords. Search on the
same words you’ve used for your site to find other blogs. Then
leave a comment on the relevant blogs and include your link to
your own blog. If you don’t have time you can hire people to
comment for you. The cost runs between 10 cents and a $1.00 per
comment posted.

You can submit your blog’s url to search engines so if someone
wants information on ‘how to raise guppies’ and that’s the
subject of your blog, your blog shows up for visitors to find.

You can also write articles on ‘how to raise guppies’ and
distribute those articles to directories. Ezinearticles.com and
GoArticles are two directories which are favored by Google. Again
if someone is searching for ‘how to raise guppies’ your article
will show up. They click on the article and then click on your
blog.

With a little bit of research and time you can become successful
and increase your bank account with Online Marketing just by
blogging.

Andy Henry

The derivation of the word blog comes from web logging, as it
used to be known. It has changed a lot in its development and now
blogging is a front line tool in the Internet promotion tool box.
It is now used to promote products and services and presents
another platform to to communicate with the visitor and develop a
lasting relationship with them.

Having created the the business blog you can then monetize it as
well as personalize it to your own requirements. Once created,
you can make money out of the blog by syndicating it through RSS
to your business website. If you have decided that you will set
up a blog for business, below are a few tips on how to make it
one of the more interesting and popular blogs.

1 - Your audience.
You are writing your blog post for your audience to read, so
don’t forget that what you write is of interest to them. They
have searched for through a keyword, or keyword phrase, and
arrived at your blog. So, make sure they are happy with what they
find and even interested enough to look a little further into
your blog, and maybe visit your website.

2 - Words fail - see sketch.
A large block of text can become very boring when reading,
especially online. A picture or graphic or two placed within the
text breaks up the strict framework of the post and keeps the
reader interested through to the end. It is especially true if
the picture is relevant to the subject of the post.

3 - The content needs to be relevant.
The posts made to your business blog need to be relevant to the
subject of the blog. In other words the blog is set up around
your niche market and with keywords and keyword phrases that are
relevant to the subject. The intent is to draw traffic to your
blog based on those keywords and keyword phrases. The business
blog needs to create a special relationship with its visitors
with the aim to sell products or services/ If you consistently
write good quality posts to your blog the visitor will return for
more of the “good stuff”, and will eventually trust that you know
what you are talking about and buy one of your recommended
products or services.

4 - Keep things simple.
The art of good communication is to keep things simple. Keep away
from the technical jargon unless absolutely necessary and try to
keep the sentences short and to the point.

5 - Make it interactive.
Audio and video are very good interactive methods, but all blogs
come with a “comments” facility for each post made. Make sure
that this feature is not turned off, and all comments must be
approved before publishing them.

Before starting out with your blog you will need to do some
pre-planning as to how you will personalize and monetize the
blog, as well as how often you will post to it. An important fact
to resolve is where will the content for each post come from. A
good business blog needs a steady stream of interesting and
relevant content in order to become a profitable venture - how
will you complete this task? Remember that no plan is a plan to
failure.

Andy Henry

More and more people are starting to blog nowadays. If you are
new to blogging, the most pertinent thing is to understand the
difference between a blog and a static website. A static website
is one written in a computer language such as HTML or javascript.
It contains pages relevant to what a website is about. A blog
also contains pages about a certain topic but the main difference
is that a static website is generally unchanged unless updates
need to be made to the content or if the webmaster decides to
change the design of the website whereas a blog is dynamic in its
contents. A blog’s content is updated regularly as often as the
blogger desires (it can be several times a day). That’s what
makes a blog interesting, and that’s why search engines in their
quest to bring relevant and fresh content to searchers favor
listing blogs.

So a blog is an ongoing updated series of content about a
particular topic. Many people blog just for the fun of it by
keeping an online diary of their activities regularly. But if you
are intending to make your blog profitable, it takes a lot more
skill. What are some of the skills needed for a profitable blog?

Firstly, there is the skill of finding a profitable niche. A
niche is a topic people are interested in and therefore would
draw readers to the blog. Many internet marketers advocate
choosing a niche based on your likes, interests, hobbies and
experience. But that would be too restrictive. If your aim is to
make money with your blog, then it follows that you need to blog
about what people are interested in and not necessarily what you
may be interested in personally. Two sources to find niches
people are interested in are Google Hot Trends and Wordtracker.
Google Hot Trends gives you an hour-by-hour listing about what
topics receive the most searches in Google. Go through this list
and find any you may want to blog about. Once you identify one,
insert the main keyword of this niche into Wordtracker.
Wordtracker gives you a daily search count on a particular
keyword and a list of related keywords. A good rule of thumb is
that if a keyword gets above 100 searches in Wordtracker, it is a
profitable niche. So if you find a niche topic in both Google Hot
Trends and Wordtracker to blog about, you’ve got a potential
money maker.

Secondly, there’s the skill of getting your blog in front of as
many people as possible. This is also called traffic generation.
For this, the important thing to do is find people interested in
the topic of your niche. Visit forums related to the topic and
become a participator. You will be able to add your blog URL to
your signature file and when people want to find out more about
your topic, they will click on your URL and be brought to your
blog. Another important thing to do is introduce your blog to
others by bookmarking it in social bookmarking sites like Digg,
Delicious, Furl etc. If your blog topic is a popular one
according to Google Hot Trends, chances are there would be many
other people interested to read whatever is in your blog.

The final thing that is needed is the means to monetize your
blog. This can be done through on-topic advertisement services
like Adsense and Chitika or in-text advertisement services like
Kontera.Once your blog has generated a large enough readership
over time, you can further monetize it by selling advertisement
space.

Making your blog profitable is a challenging venture. If you like
blogging, making money from it would be an added bonus.

Andy Henry

Every day millions of people start blogging. Indeed, the best
estimates show that a new blog is created every single second of
every day. As if this weren’t enough extra material being added
to the Internet, there are of course millions of blogs already in
existence. There is a vast amount of new information being added
to the Internet every minute of every day.

Many people have been told that blogging helps increase your
visibility on the Internet. That’s true enough, but if you are in
business at what cost?

Let’s assume your time costs $100 an hour and that you spend a
total of two hours a week adding to your blog. That’s $200 a week
or $10,400 a year. That’s the cost of blogging to your business.
You really should calculate the amount of time and its value to
your business.

Once you’ve found out how much blogging is costing your business,
you need to consider how much money it is actually making. How
many people bought items or services from you as a direct result
of your blog? If you don’t know, you need to add tracking codes
to your blog links to ensure you can work this out.

Also, add up all the advertising income or affiliate income
you’ve generated via your blog. Then look at the total. If it is
less than the cost, you’re wasting time and losing money by
blogging. Don’t let the fashion for blogging overcome traditional
business requirements of profitability. For many people blogging
is actually draining their profits, but they are unaware of this
because they are not measuring their blog.

Ensure you measure your blog using tracking codes so you can
check the real value of your blogging efforts. To do otherwise
could seriously affect the profitability of your business.

True enough, blogs can raise your visibility on the Internet and
can help boost search engine rankings. But being top of the
search results for a particular keyword is of no value to you in
business unless being top of the page actually translates into
sales. Far too many people chase search engine ranking at the
expense of chasing customers.

If you are using a blog to gain search engine ranking, but have
not measured the income generated as a result, you could be
wasting your time by writing your blog. As ever in business,
measurement is essential if you are to do your best. So don’t
blog hopefully; measure its real impact

Andy Henry

There are three key areas that you can enhance on your WordPress
blog that will help you optimize it. The areas are adding
additional ping service websites, using Feedburner, and using
keyword-rich categories.

Ping Services

The first thing that you should do is add additional ping
services to your WordPress blog. You must have administrative
rights to your blog and be logged in to gain access the ping
service option.

Once logged into your WordPress blog’s backend, click on the
“Option” tab and then click on the “Writing” tab and scroll down
to the bottom of the page. You will see “Update Services” and a
box under this title. There are a couple of ping services listed
but you can add the following list by copying and pasting in the
ping service list box. To complete the process, click on “Update
Options”.

http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

Feedburner

As a blog owner, being able to capture your blog traffic and
generate reports is very important to knowing what you need to do
to optimize your blog. One blog tool that works to help optimize
your blog is Feedburner. Feedburner allows you to redirect your
blog RSS feed through their service so that it can reach targeted
blog visitors better.

This helps with optimization by allowing your RSS feed to have
built-in options for bloggers to use as they read your blog’s RSS
feed. This brings in a stickiness factor which is always good for
optimizing your blog. Some of the blog tools that Feedburner
allows you to use so that you can increase the effectiveness of
your blog are:

Analyze: you will be able to see real-time and accumulated
statistics about your blog’s visitor information. This will help
you understand the traffic that is going in and out of your blog.
This allows you to better target your optimization efforts to
specific areas of your blog.

Optimize: allows you to make your blog “browser friendly” so that
subscribing to your blog is easy. SmartFeed(R) is an option that
you can use to make sure that your blog is compatible for most
blog readers. You can even build interactivity into each
individual post by using FeedFlare(R) which allows you to add
links at the end of each post such as “Email Post” or “Subscribe
to Feed.”

Publicize: is another way for you to make sure that your blog
attracts web visitors. A couple of the tools that you may use is
“Email Subscriptions” and “BuzzBoost”. Email Subscriptions will
give your web visitors the opportunity to receive an email once a
day alerting them that you have updated your blog. Then
BuzzBoost(R) allows you to republish your feed as HTML so that
you can add it as a Page on any of your other websites or
WordPress blogs.

Using Categories as Keywords

The easiest way to optimize your blog with keywords is to use
categories that not only define each post but also relate to
other posts on your blog. WordPress blog software uses categories
as a way to “tag” search engines so they can be alerted that a
new post has been added to your blog for a specific topic area.

Categories are also another way to easily organize the content
your blog. When you list the categories on the sidebar of your
blog, it gives your blog visitors the opportunity to see all the
content of your blog for a particular topic.

Andy Henry

The process of “blog and ping” or “tag and ping” is used to bring
internet traffic to a website or blogsite. The process is fairly
simple and effective with several valuable benefits and very few
disadvantages.

Pinging Defined

In simple terms, a ping is a way to electronically verify the
presence of a particular location on the internet and to get that
location’s attention. A ping is a basic program that checks the
validity of an internet IP address and that the address can
accept a request. An acronym was invented to give validity to the
word “ping;” Packet Inter-Network Groper.

The Process

A ping is most often used when a person updates the entries on a
weblog or blog. A blog is designed to be a very active website
where new information, ideas, and discussions are regularly
posted. Static websites are less frequently updated and not
usually pinged.

Blogs are designed to be easily updated, sometimes several times
daily. Blogs frequently feature new products that the author has
created or feature reviews of products that the author promotes
through an affiliate relationship. Since the author will receive
compensation through the sale of the product it is important to
the author that the search engines are alerted to the fact that a
new blog page has been added and is immediately available to the
internet.

Not all blog posts are written to promote a product or to create
a sale. Often an article is written solely to offer good
information to the reader or to provide interesting
entertainment. In these cases as well, the author will want the
new article to be quickly indexed by the search engines so that
internet traffic will find its way to the article.

To receive the desired publicity the author needs to send a ping
to a large number of servers. The easiest way to accomplish that
task is to use a pinging service that will ping multiple ping
servers. The many blogging platforms that are commonly used
provide an automatic notification to a pinging service for the
author.

Advantages

However, there are advantages in notifying multiple pinging
services rather than just one. Using multiple pinging services
will result in a larger number of servers receiving the ping and
receiving notification that there is new content on the blog.

Since the search engines are constantly roaming through internet
sites and pages, their visits to the many servers that have been
pinged by the pinging services will alert them to the new content
that they have not yet visited. That’s the first step toward the
goal of bringing the search engines to the new blog post, finding
it to be worthwhile and new, and indexing the page so that the
internet community can find it in the future. The more servers
that are pinged when the new content is posted, the more likely
the search engines are to find the new page and begin their
evaluation process.

The many blogging services allow the author to add additional
pinging services to those that the blogging service already
notify automatically. The author can easily search the internet
for lists of the most popular pinging services and manually add
their list to the appropriate area with their blogging service.

Disadvantages

The many different pinging services ping different servers but
also ping many of the same servers. The result is that using
multiple pinging services means that some servers will receive
multiple pings for the same blog article. It is possible that a
particular server could consider the multiple pings to be a form
of spam and will block the blog article from their server.
However it is not possible to determine how many pings is too
many. The author should use their best judgment to decide how
many pinging services to use.

The wise use of the pinging technique has been proven to bring
traffic to a website. The of “blog and ping” is one of the many
valuable tools that an author should learn to use in order to
build traffic and popularity.

Andy Henry

How many blogs do you suppose there are on the Internet? Whoops
another one was just started, and another, and another and..

There are millions of blogs online today and everyone is
practically tripping over each other to start their own. My
question is why?

You can answer that in word. Money! People think blogging is the
magic bullet they have been missing to make money for the first
time in their life. The other thing is blogs are so simple to
start that a child of 10 could do it.

Of course after a few days the new blogger begins to realize that
the money is not flowing in and this is going to become work.
They sure are spending a lot of time working on their new blog
and they have not made one penny off of it yet.

This is the bad side of blogging. It takes a lot of work to get
traffic to your blog and it takes even more work to convert some
of that into a paying customer.

If you value your time you lose money every time you set down and
post in your blog. Let’s say you spend 30 minutes writing a
400-word blog post and you do that everyday for 1 month. You have
just spent 15 hours and you may not have even made any money
yet.

That’s the rub right there. First of all most people will never
write 30 posts in the first month or maybe ever. The Internet is
cluttered with blogs that were started with good intentions and
abandoned like an orphan.

Someone should start a blog orphanage for abandoned blogs that we
could adopt and offer tender loving care to. The bad side of
blogging is you may be the next victim of “blogging is work”
syndrome. Another blog started and abandoned because blogging is
work and is not the easy road to riches you hoped it was.

A really good blog is one that is started by someone who would
keep it up if they never made any money at it. The reasons for
this are that the topic of the blog is a passion for the blogger.
They have an interest in the subject matter. They may even be an
expert in what they write about and their expertise shows.

The reader comes back over and over to see what the blogger will
say next. They pull out their credit card to buy a product the
blogger recommends. They click on a Google ad or subscribe to a
newsletter. It is all so easy when the blog is kept up to date
with useful information. The blogger has avoided the bad side of
blogging.

Andy Henry

Blogging is very popular today. The two main blogging platforms
are blogger.com and WordPress. The platform that will work best
for you depends on many factors. Learning the advantages and
disadvantages of each will help you make that decision.

Blogger allows you to put up a blog quickly and easily. There is
no need for you to have a website or a domain name. Blogger hosts
the blog for you.

Registration is free and takes only minutes. Once you are
registered, you can immediately begin to set up your blog.
Templates are provided for you to use and can be easily changed
at any time to give your blog a new look.

When you add a post, you simply name it and, if you have a
website, link it to your site so visitors can easily visit your
site by clicking on the title.

Type in your text and preview it to be certain it looks good.
Then publish it. Your blog is now live.

If it’s this easy, why would you not simply choose Blogger and be
done with it?

When you get done posting, you need to ping your blog. Let
blogging networks know you have just updated your blog. You can
do so by going to Pingomatic.com and entering the name of your
blog and the URL address of your blog. Click on the websites you
want to ping and you’re done.

If you don’t take time to ping, there’s a good chance no one will
find your blog. This pinging is not hard, but it is an extra step
you need to take when you post, unless you are posting for just
family and/or friends.

The fact that Blogger is hosted at Blogger also means they can
delete your blog at any time. You don’t have total control over
your blog. Chances are this will not happen, but it does tend to
make many marketers worry a bit.

WordPress, on the other hand, is hosted on your hosting service.
You use your domain name and the WordPress blog is in it’s own
folder. You have total control over your blog.

Once setup, it is very easy for you to post to it. You go into
the administration area and write a post. When you are finished,
you click to publish it. If you have setup WordPress properly and
have listed auto posting at Pingomatic, your post will
automatically be pinged to the blogging networks. You do not have
an additional step.

There are also many templates for you to use and it is possible
to configure these templates to fit your needs. Once again, you
have more control.

However, WordPress can be a little complicated to install and, to
take full advantage of it, there are many different plugins you
will need to install as well. This can be a bit of a daunting
task and something you might not want to be bothered with.

You do have to have a domain name and you have to have web
hosting set up. These costs may limit the number of different
blogs you might want to publish, whereas Blogger allows you to
make as many blogs as you want on different subjects and you
never pay anything.

Some people have blogs using both platforms. You need to weigh
the advantages and disadvantages of each and make your decision
accordingly. The best way is to dive in and give it your best
shot.

Andy Henry

Almost everyone has heard of blogging these days. Simply put a
blog is a web page that is made up of posts and is updated
regularly. That is the simple definition however, a blog can be
much more then that. If you are starting a business with a small
budget then there are so many ways blogging can help.

First, with a click of your mouse you can put your thoughts, sale
pitches, articles and various web page links out to the world by
publishing it on your blog. This is especially great if you have
started your business using any type of affiliate marketing. The
blog owner registers with any affiliate program of choice and
then puts various links, banners and products on the blog site.
When visitors click on these links and purchase a product, the
blog owner is paid a commission for generating the sale. How
much easier can that be?

The second way a blog can help in starting your business is that
it is a whole lot cheaper then getting a web site. You can
usually set up a blog site for free. Compare that to buying a
domain name and paying for the cost of designing a web site. Add
to that the monthly cost of web site hosting and the cost starts
adding up real quick. A blog is a great alternative until the
money starts coming in from your business.

Third, less technical knowledge is needed so it is easier and
faster for the beginner to start on the web. There is no need to
learn html or programming because the software is already there
for you to use. Also most successful marketers agree that to get
traffic to your site you must update the content often and
consistently. With a blog you can add or update the content
whenever your want without hiring someone else to do it for you.

Also, blogging can give your business an edge over the
competition because it is in real time and there is no waiting.
Customers and visitors of your blog can easily join in and post
their own comments and suggestions to your site and your
products. It is a good tool to have testimonials about your
product or service on your blog. Also be sure to post answers to
any questions or problem in a quick and complete manner. It
shows that you like to reach out to prospective customers and you
will quickly gain repeat customers and acquire a following.
Customers always prefer personalized attention.

In summary, blogging should not be overlooked as a great business
tool. It is especially helpful to the beginner Internet marketer
because it is cheap and it has no boundaries. Add to that your
own creativity and you are well on your way to establishing a
successful business.

Andy Henry