Friday 28 August 2009

Personal Blogging

Many of us keep of events that have occured over the last few weeks, months, years, even a lifetime. With the emergence of the and the great opportunities for reaching a wide and interested audience, many are now keeping these records online. There are 1,668,870,408 Internet users in the World; your audience. To have but one subscriber wanting to read your online diary on a regular basis gives one great satisfaction and a feeling of purpose. I believe that this is the attraction of personal .



The online diary, which we call weblog, often goes well beyond the boundaries of simple communication. There are gripping articles and lots of interactive features that create an entertaining environment for any Internet user. Many brilliant writers began by keeping weblogs, records of personal thought, comments and ideas. Personal allow a limitless space for expression of opinion and a clear record of ones development.

Personal blogging comes with caution as certain aspects of ones personal life can be detremental to other goals you may have set yourself, such as business success. Much caution now goes with pages and pages; what better way for a company to see the 'true' individual they may be hiring? It is sensible from the outset to keep personal and business blogging separate and to follow a few simple rules to ensure your personal is successful.

The first thing you need to put effort into is the topic of the articles you post; they are responsible for the overall image of the blog. There are many poor personal blogs, with uninteresting work and poor grammar and spelling. Please bear in mind that anybody with Internet access can view your blog and so you have a responsibility to self-censoring. This is for your benefit as well as others and unfortunately there have been cases of stalking and even stolen identity. Also remember that blogs are interactive; do not write about aspects of your life to which other peoples comments could hurt your feelings.

As long as you monitor your and others comments and adhere to your own self-censoring policy the outlook for your blog should be bright. When you write a personal blog you must consider its affect on your family and your friends. Do not fall into the trap of believing a weblog is a private, secretive place where you can store your opinions and thoughts. Your thoughts can have great power when you publish them to the World, but with great power comes great responsibility.

Next Time: Business Blogging

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Overview: How do I get started blogging?

When you ask how a successful communicates I am in not doubt that the main reply will be ''. Online communications are by far the most successful and effective ones worldwide. Email means no stamps, quick access and direct contact, no questions asked. More advanced techniques such as -conferencing even allow the user to meet face to face with their clients, even though they are half way across the world. Yes online communication saves money, time while also allowing transactions,advertising and administration. Now forming part of this trend is . There are a few outline rules you need to follow to get started blogging, but believe me, it can be as easy as putting finger to keyboard. Now a lot of sites and indeed other will try to make this process sound more advanced, specialised and technical than it actually is. I aim to make blogging as simple as learning your ABC's or 123's.


Image from http://edutech.csun.edu.

Purpose

The most important thing for the creation of a is the purpose, why are you actually writing it and who are you writing it for. Now be honest here, if you are writing a blog to make money then thats fine but realise this. Do not fool yourself into believing you are interested in a subject that clearly you are not; you may lose enthusiasm later on down the line and heres why:

Joe wants to so decides to write a . 'Great!' he thinks, 'This seems easy enough!'. He reads online about how and Camping are commonly searched for themes on Google. He decides to base his blog on Politics while making money from advertisements. Joe has no interest in Politics but realises the potential for making money from this area. Guess what, 4 weeks down the line and no new content is being posted to the blog, Joe has forgotten about it, members have moved on.

It IS difficult to continuously write about a subject that you have no interest in. There are ways around this by obtaining blog content from elsewhere but initially it is good to base your blog on a subject you are interested in. That way you have more to give and can interact with your readers honestly and effectively. You can make money from any blog on any subject.

Doing the Work

Who will create your blog, you? Or will you hire somebody to do it for you? If you are a business owner trying to promote yourself perhaps you do not have the time to write and maintain a blog, but you see the potential in it. This is not such an extravagant idea and quite a few people hire a blogging pro to get thing started and on the right track, then take over themselves.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Before even starting the actual blogging project, create a detailed plan. You really need this so that you do not get distracted from your true goal. Read alot, I mean alot. Download popular ebooks that will help you through this process, a favourite of mine is Blogging to the Bank. The author is a successful blogger now earning a living from his work. As with anything preparation is key and the 'Cash In On Blogs' blog will help you through this important process. You will need objectives, investment and the analysis of cost and profit, targeted audience, blog updates, administration and monitoring tools. You will need to really ask yourself 'Can I do the work?' 'Do people want to read this?' 'Will it make money?'

Attracting Visitors

The full potential of a blog is realised when you are attracting visitors. If your visitor numbers grow and consistantly return to check for regular updates, you know your content is sticky and interesting. To get the ball rolling search for special software that helps you choose the best keywords to use in your posts (the kind people search for all the time on search engines). This process is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO as you might have already discovered. You need to learn as many SEO secrets as you can. Note, you will not find all of these in books and guides. If you had found a way to get high traffic yields to your website, would you share it with the world and potential competition? SEO should be a buzzword for all bloggers.

Sources of Revenue

Bear in mind that if you have great content and lots of visitors you still are not making any money. The hard bit however is out of the way. Now you need to monetize your blog by placing advertisements, sponsored links etc in appropriate places on your site. This is known as affiliate and will be discussed further in a later blog post. A popular marketing scheme I use comes from ClickBank. The key point here is that great SEO + great advertising = $$$!

Do Not Forget the Basics

It is very easy to get caught up in marketing hype and trying to out do the competition and forget about the most important principle, content. Great content fill the best sites and is the reason why people subscribe to your blog and come back time and time again. Search engines love great content including videos and pictures. If you offer free email advice or a weekly newsletter, advertise it and use it as a way of retaining your members.

Be dedicated, punctual and responsible. Learn from the ground up and you will go far. You can even start write now, doing your research and learning about blogging. Choose a niche topic and start writing draft posts. If you really want you can even have a play with the free blogging utility Blogger. I have found a video for you on that should help:



As always any comments are more than welcome, I am here to help! This blog will step you through the process piece by piece, goal by goal and within no time you will have a successful Internet blog!

Next Time: Blogging

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Is Blogging Profitable?

I think we are all in agreement that the contains a wealth of opportunities for making some extra and supplementing an income. harnesses these revenue prospects but in a low cost way with little effort actually coming from the blogger. Is it really possible to earn money in such a simplistic fashion? If so, then why isn't everybody doing it? I have described blogging initially as an online but over time through confidence in personal expression and advancing monetization methods, blogging has evolved. Most desirable by bloggers is to now turn their work into a home-. Who wouldn't want to earn money for doing something which they enjoy? This is a goal for all of us.

We will start with the established . Great quality content, a witty and interesting author and the subject base 'Making Money Online'. This blog has a large number of subscribers and consistantly has 1000 hits from visitors per month. Now anyone running a business that specialises in delivering advice for making money online, runs an online marketplace or produces a product that delivers more traffic to a website etc would see advertising on this blog as a great money spinner. Heres why:

The visitors to the blog are clearly interested in making money online, perhaps they have their own businesses and want to make more money through increased sales or they just want to supplement their income using the Internet for this means. A well established businessman would see the marketing potential here and ask to advertise on the homepage of the blog, somewhere near the top of the page with a catchy slogan:

Fat Loss For Idiots

Now my this is bound to draw the eyes of the 1000 visitors away from whatever article they are reading on the blog for at least 1 second, yes? Well so far so good, 1000 glances at this advertisement per month. Now lets be really conservative here, say 10% of the visitors actually click the link attached to the slogan:

Fat Loss For Idiots

Thats 100 people per month following through to the business' homepage to read about the product, great! Now we are going to be even more conservative and say that just 10% of these people go and actually buy the advertised product. Thats 10 sales extra per month the business has gained. If the product is priced at say $20 then thats $2400 in extra sales per year. Most bloggers will advertise for a small commission, for continuity we will again say 10% (although much higher commissions can be made!). Now the blogger is earning $240 per year, and the business is earning and $2160 per year! Very lucrative!

So you can see that through little effort on either part, both are earning money. You can scale this up for yourself for popular recieving 100,000 visits per month etc.

A key factor mentioned here is visitor numbers, you must be recieving plenty of hits for this process to work.Luckily this is attainable for most by following a few simple procedures that I will discuss in the following weeks. To summarise though you must make web search possible directly from your blog using perhaps one of the Google programs available. Then your blog visitors should be able to interact with your blog; make comments, download images, subscribe etc. You must regularily update your blog to make it 'sticky' for the reader and then monitor your site statistics regularily; visitor number, time on site etc.

It is not just companies promoting single products that want to advertise on your site, there are also great advertising companies like Google Adsense, Google Adwords, Clickbank and Amazon Associates that allow you to advertise lots of different products for lots of companies using banners, link groups etc that are created by the marketing company for you.

If you have great content, great functionality and good adverts then word will get around and traffic will come to your site and you will make money. However there are a few tips and tricks that will make this a much quicker process, some of which will be discussed next time.

Next Time: How Do I Start Blogging?

Monday 24 August 2009

Who Blogs Anyway?

You may have a certain stereotype in your mind as to who actually 'blogs' and who reads a blogs content. Surprisingly everybody who has ever surfed the has probably contributed to a blog in some way or form. As stated in my previous post, blogs cover a wide range of topics; even has blogsearch. By browsing a few blogs (which I highly recommend, if only to gain an understanding of how works) you will see that everybody blogs; secondary children, 22 year olds such as myself and even the older generation are now blogging as a way of supplementing their pension. Yes blogging is no longer unique to the hardened Internet-ers but is accessible and attainable by both you and me.

Individuals tend to blog as a way of expressing their opinion or giving something back to or past-times they have enjoyed for many years. These blogs often feature tips and tricks and reviews from their chosen area and the bloggers make money through advertising on their sites. An example is Gone Camping UK ; the owner enjoys camping and has chosen to blog about his hobby, generating revenue through advertisements. Larger groups/well known individuals and businesses tend to produce blogs to advertise a product and generate revenue directly through increased web traffic to their website resulting in an increase in sales. Examples here are Blogging to the Bank and MagniWork .



However not everyone aims to directly make money from blogging. The popular TV show Top Gear has a blog which can be found here and acts as an extension to the TV show, of course raising awareness of the show along the way!


Next Time: Is Blogging Profitable?

Blogging....Seriously, whats it all about?

By inciting the curiousity of millions of people all over the world, has announced itself as one of the most popular related phenomena of this decade. Blogging, often quoted as 'the trend of keeping personal online', has now become far more complex owing to the fact that every carries the touch of the owners imagination, interest and wit. Blog topics vary immensely: from and economics to triathlon and . Blog content is by far the most important feature but after this it is usually the interactive format of the pages that tempt users into navigating and taking action on the site.

As you might expect the history of blogging includes the very first attempts to run an account of one's personal life, with many blog owners referring to themselves as journalists and diarists. Indeed the term blogger is a new way of describing the emerging journalists of this decade who have tamed the Internet and its many resources, creating effective means of publicising their opinions and ideas. In the early years of blogging, perhaps the mid 90's, blogs offered an online community to which people could belong and feel welcomed. Some of these blogs included the very first combinations of text, and videography while others began transmitting live images with the help of various portable devices. It was at this age that semi-automated blogging was born.

Initially blogs were not independent pages but were usually an add-on feature of most popular websites. With rapid improvement, it soon came into everyones power to create and support independent personal thought online. The only condition it seems to maintaining a successful blog is the ability to produce high quality,'sticky' content week upon week. Creativity, innovation and a slight sense of quirkiness are all good attributes of the modern blogger.

Presently, you can find an abundance of guides to creating successful blogs since many small owners believe blogging to be an idea opportunity to promote and sell products online. Blogs have now become a key player in Internet marketing and even the most basic of bloggers can now receive a small income from advertising programs. Blogging, thanks to the Internet and marketing, is an activity that promises to continue to grow.

Next Time: Who Blogs Anyway?

The advantages of having a blog...

Some people choose to create and others choose to read them, why? The answer comes from the very working principle behind the entire phenomenom. First off, bloggers are like journalists or columnists and the material we find on blogs is often personalised giving it a more associable and interesting theme. We cannot ignore the interactive dimension of blogs which promotes this form of communication advantageously. We have comment boxes for instant feedback, links to a variety of media across the web, the opportunities to make a two way affair are endless.

Lets face it, blogging is becoming trendy. We all have personal sites on popular social networking applications like or which in themselves are autobiographical blogs that are communicated through text, and . You get an idea of what people appreciate in your writing and get the chance to speak up and comment upon events of public interest in an environment free from discouragement and general demeanour. Everything that you post on a is easily accessible, reliably so, such that whenever you need it you know exactly where to find it. Blogging gives the amateur journalist the opportunity to get his/her ideas into print without the intermediary of another publication.

Many offer constructive debate on current where many will voice their opinions. The feed-back is not always what you expect but it is important to realise that it is what it is, feedback on a particular issue. Whether negative or positive this is at large what you want from interactive debate; a way of finding out how to improve a product, or website. If all feedback were positive we would have nothing to aim for.

Many businesses have discovered that blogs are the perfect way to regularily keep in touch with customers and even employees since these 'online journals' are regularily updated. Traditional websites are known for being static in their content and approach but blogs remain to be dynamic, informative and quirky enticing the reader to come back week after week.

Next Time: Blogging, Seriously...whats it all about?

An introduction to blogging....

Many people are attracted by the "" phenomenon thanks to the great opportunity of making themselves heard by a specific targeted audience. do not have to be complex web pages, it entirely depends on what the creator or author wishes to convey to the world. When you have great pieces of , funny links or a hobby to talk about, a may be just the right way to open up an international community. Most often, attract more attention than large and well designed web pages, but how is it possible for blogging to have reached such a status? I find the video below from offers a good introduction to blogging.



First of all, blogs generally tackle with one issue of interest for the user; fresh and rich informational content, extended friendly links to other sites or blogs in the domain. It has become common knowledge by now that blogs often receive more traffic than other web pages. Why is this? The answer begins to emerge when you examine the very essence of a search engine structure: whata search engine likes most is fresh and high quality content. This is the main driving factor in the success of the common blog and the emergence of the blogging craze.

If blogging started as the perfect online, it has now grown into many new dimensions. One of which, the commerical area, is the most well developed. As an example blogger Dave who has a keen interest in . His interest is such that he has started his own in gardening, mostly growing and selling plants. A blog on flowers, plants and their peculiarities would meet the requirements of other people who share your hobby, but it would also function as a great promotion tool for the development of your business. Therefore blogging conceptually is an ideal form of web and hence its success.

Next Time: The Advantages of Having a Blog

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