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You may be asking, "So, what is blogging?" Blogging is simply putting thoughts, opinions, advice, memories, and anything else you want to write about on an online journal that the public can see. Instead of writing in a little book hidden away that only your eyes will ever see, blogging is the idea of making content public on the internet. Many online businesses and individuals have taken advantage of the power that posting new content on the web can bring and are making money blogging on a regular basis.

If you have been online for any amount of time you will notice that there are literally thousands upon thousands of blogs on the internet. It shouldn't surprise us any, as the majority of people on the internet are content hungry. Google in fact rewards websites that post new updated content frequently. Content is King. How many times have you heard that statement before? There is a reason you've heard it so many times.

The internet revolves around content. If you have an online business you should be posting new content on a regular basis. The best way to do this, and by far the easiest, is to have a blog. Post articles, product reviews, product announcements, tips on a particular subject or niche. The possibilities are virtually endless when it comes to the type of content you can post on your blog.

Blogger and Wordpress are the most popular blogging software. Blogger is very easy to use and setup. Your blog can be hosted on the Blogger domain, or on your own domain. Wordpress is the same as far as the hosting goes; however, the features available are a lot more complex. Wordpress has many powerful features that are at your disposal, and it can be a little hard to figure everything out. There are many tutorials and videos on how to use Wordpress and all the add-ons that it has.

Once you have your blog setup it's time to start posting. You want to provide relevant information about whatever topic you want to write about. Provide information that will help your readers. Post as often as possible and your readers will stay loyal to you. Once you have a following, you can monetize on the traffic your blog is bringing in. There are many ways to do this, and I will point out a couple of them.

One way you can be making money blogging is by putting Google Adsense ads on your blog. Advertisers pay a fee, a cost per click, to have their ads placed on other people's websites. When a visitor comes to your blog and clicks on one of the ads, you get paid a percentage of the cost. This is a great way to earn some extra income with your blog.

Another way you can be making money blogging is by signing up for an affiliate program and advertising it on your blog. The program should relate to the content of your blog. If someone signs up for the program through you, you get paid a commission. Depending on the program, you can even get paid every month for each member you refer. You can also sell individual products as an affiliate. Great places to find products are at either Clickbank or Commission Junction.

These are just a couple out of many other ways that you can be making money blogging. Use your imagination and get creative. Blogging can be fun, but it is also hard work posting new content every day. It will take a lot of time and effort, but if you are serious it can be done. Any online business should provide a blog for their readers because it is a good way to help their website ranking in the search engines. Hopefully now you have a better understanding of what blogging is and how you can be making money with it.

Copyright (C) Alan Mater

What is Blogging and How Can You Be Making Money Doing It?

Be sure to check out the Work From Home Blog

Starting your own blog is a very good idea. Having a blog can generate a lot of traffic to your site. You can market your own products or affiliate products and make very good money. However, blogging takes a lot of work, and you have to keep it updated frequently with new, fresh content.

Here are some resources for newbies that want to start blogging...

You can sign up for a free Blogger account and start posting today. They will host your blog on their server, or you can choose to have it reside on your domain.

Take a brief tour to learn more about blogging.

WordPress is another blogging tool. It is a weblog platform that is downloaded and installed on your domain. Or, you can sign up for a WordPress.com blog account that is hosted on their domain.

You can take a look at the WordPress Tutorials to learn more about WordPress and how to use it.

I suggest installing a Wordpress blog to get the best SEO benefit and marketing power for your blog.

Want a Wordpress blog but need it installed? Check out Jeff Houdyschell's Worpdress installation service.

Jeff also provides a Wordpress optimization guide so that you can optimize your blog for the search engines.

Once you have your blog set up, you're ready to start posting to it.

The idea here is to post content to your blog on a daily or weekly basis. You need original, fresh content.

I suggest hosting your blog on your own domain to get the most benefit from it. The search engines like it when you add new content to your website, so if you're posting to your blog all the time... well, you see the benefit here.

I suggest writing articles about your niche, or write reviews about products. Keep it relevant to your site.

You can read 65 ways to get traffic to your blog to learn how to drive a huge amount of traffic to your blog.

Remember, you can advertise whatever you want on your blog. Put Adsense Ads on your blog and earn advertising revenue. Promote affiliate products and services and get paid a commission. The possibilities are endless. Blogging is a great way to market on the internet, so take advantage of this popular medium.

Article marketing is a "white hat" technique. It doesn't cross the ethical or moral boundary of what may be considered wrong or devious, as opposed to "black hat" marketing techniques. In fact, search engines love articles. Writing high-quality articles on a consistent basis is the best form of free advertising, and thousands of websites are always looking for new content.

The whole concept behind article marketing consists of placing a link to your homepage within the article resource box. A lot of people, however, fail to realize that having just a link to your homepage is not enough. In order for your marketing efforts to be effective, writing articles must be part of a larger, more comprehensive strategy that includes "on page SEO."

I'm sure you've heard the term "keyword phrase" before. Choosing the proper keyword phrase is essential when it comes to article marketing. You must choose specific and relevant keywords and optimize your homepage using those keyword phrases. Once you have accomplished this, writing articles will help boost your website to the top of search engines.

As I said earlier, the idea behind article marketing is to place a link to your homepage in the resource box section of the article. However, there are many people who don't do this properly. Many think that just by putting http://www.SomeWebsiteName.com they are helping their rankings. While it doesn't hurt any, it is vital to your marketing efforts to use an anchor text link instead.

Let me explain what an anchor text link is. You have a particular keyword phrase that you want your website to rank well for in the search engines. What you do is take that keyword phrase and make it a hyperlink that links to the homepage of your website. An example would be <~a href="http://www.SomeWebsiteName.com">Your Keyword Phrase Here<~/a>. Just make sure to delete the "~". Now you have your keyword phrase text anchored as a link to your website.

This will boost your search engine rankings for the keywords you choose. The more links for a specific keyword you have pointing to your site, the higher your rankings will go for that keyword and the more traffic you will receive. People who promote article marketing as a wonder cure to generate traffic and get search engine rankings don't understand the concept of using an anchor text link. Instead, they only link to their website like the first example, not utilizing the full potential that their articles have.

Do you have a blog? You should, but be certain that if you post your articles to your blog that it's not the exact same version you submit to directories. You will severely damage your article campaign. You don't want duplicate content posted on your blog. Change your article by at least 30% to be safe, more if possible. Don't forget the anchor text link for your blog posts.

Write targeted articles that are as niche specific as possible. Article marketing should be based upon you wanting to help your audience, or target market. Give your best effort because this will yield better results for you in the long run. Don't forget to keep your audience in mind. Write as though you were actually talking to someone. Be sincere and personal, and people will respect you for it.

Copyright (C) Alan Mater

Article Marketing: Getting the Most out of your Marketing Efforts

Download your Free copy of Article Submitter - Submit your article to hundreds of article directories.

Check out these article marketing resources.

Article marketing is a form of advertising where one writes interesting and informative articles on a specific niche or topic and submits them to popular article directories, ezines and newsletters in order to brand your name, product and/or service.

It is a very cost-effective method for marketing your website and services/products, increasing your search engine ranking and is ideal for providing original and unique content for the thousands of website owners that are looking for it. It provides quality exposure for your website, helps establish its credibility amongst high competition and is probably the most effective one way link building strategy.

Article marketing has many benefits; some include establishing yourself as an expert in your niche market, lead generation, increased site traffic and a boost in the search engine rankings. It has become very popular among internet marketers as a method to get exposure and quality traffic for their websites.

It is a perfect form of one way link building for your website for your most important search phrases and keywords. It will help you increase your link popularity, search engine positioning, it will help you reach more potential customers for your products and/or services and is a tremendous way to generate traffic to your site.

Article marketing does work if done correctly. There is fear among the internet marketing community about placing duplicate content on their sites. If you write an article make sure to post a different version of your article on your blog or website. Change the article by at least 30%, but try for 50%. Submit the other version to article directories.

Also, I would recommend changing the "about the author" section for each article you send out to the directories, using a different keyword phrase linking to your homepage in each one. You want your incoming links to look as natural as possible. The search engines will usually only rank one version of the same article, so vary your articles and change the keywords in the resource box. If the search engines find hundreds of duplicates of the exact same articles you will most likely not get credit for the backlinks and this will limit the impact of your article marketing efforts.

Writing articles in a poor manner is far more damaging then if you didn't use the technique at all. The high popularity of marketing with articles has caused a big reduction in the quality of articles. This is because many individuals write low-quality articles as a quick one way link building strategy just to get their website free exposure. They don't care about the quality of the article as long as they have a link to their website. You do no want this to be you.

While gaining backlinks is important, efficient use of writing articles requires a lot of time and effort on your part to write high-quality and relevant articles. Also keep in mind that a good word count for your articles is around 500-700 words in length.

Article marketing is a very hot topic in the internet marketing community and for good reasons because it has proven itself as a very effective marketing strategy time and time again and shows no signs of becoming stale. You many not consider yourself to be a "writer", but you don't know until you try and may find out that you have a hidden talent.

You could even hire a "ghost writer" to write your articles for you. Just make sure you own the rights to the articles and they are in fact unique, and you will do well in your efforts. Either way, you will have to figure out a way to produce quality articles on a consistent basis if you plan on using article marketing as one of your marketing and one way link building strategies.

Copyright (C) Alan Mater

Article Marketing - A One Way Link Building Strategy

You would be amazed at what lengths people will go to get that coveted top 10 spot in Google. Some strategies are outright evil, while others are legit but on the verge of being considered morally wrong. So how do you increase your page rank to get a top 10 listing in Google and other major search engines without risking your name, reputation and business? This article will detail the best and ethical ways to get back links, mainly one way links, to your website.

First of all, before I delve into the details, I must stress the importance of search engine optimization. You may think that this is an overused term and that it doesn't concern you. Well, you couldn't be more wrong! Without optimizing your pages for the search engines you are setting your website up for failure. Nothing else I explain here will matter, or more importantly help you, if you don't optimize your website.

With that said, let's continue. A commonly used form of marketing, and quite frankly the most effective, is article marketing. This is the easiest way I know how to get your website listed in the top 10 on the first page of Google, if not the number one spot, and at the same time increase your page rank. I have personally achieved this myself, all with just writing and distributing articles. Do a search on Google for "honest online income." At the time of me writing this my website is currently ranked number two on the first page. I'm not a professional writer by any means, so if I can do it, so can you.

The key principle behind article marketing is getting as many one way back links as possible. The more websites pointing to your site, the more relevant and authoritative it looks in the eyes of Google. This is where search engine optimization comes into play. You want your website ranking high for the keywords that you have chosen. If you don't know how to do this I suggest you do some research. I've written other articles that cover SEO and article marketing in more detail.

Now I will talk about other ways to get more one way links to your website. Again, remember that back links are what help your website to move further up in the search engines. In conjunction, this will increase your page rank at the same time. You want to get as many one way links as possible. With a top 10 listing in Google, your website will receive a lot of targeted traffic. This is essential for your business.

Other ways to get more one way links include social network sites. Sign up for a service like OnlyWire and when you post to your blog, bookmark the post with OnlyWire and your post will show up in all the major social network sites. This creates a lot of back links to your post. MySpace and Facebook are social sites that you can use to your advantage as well. There are places where you can advertise and place links to your website.

Become active in forums. Place a link to your website in your signature file. Every time you make a post, your signature will be at the end of that post. So, the more you participate and post, the more links you have pointing to your website.

Submitting your website is another way to gain more links. There are literally thousands of directories on the internet. Do some research. Find directories that have a higher Page Rank than your website. This will be very beneficial.

I hope by now you realize the importance of getting back links to your website and increasing your page rank. It is relatively easy to achieve. Start out small. Over time create more and more one way links. You can never have too many; the more the better. Eventually, your website will be in the top 10 listings on Google for your keywords.

Copyright (C) Alan Mater

Increase Your Page Rank, Get More Back Links and Get That Top 10 Listing in Google

There are many ways to market your home business, but some are better than others. There are endless opportunities on the internet to advertise and the cost varies. There are even free advertising methods available that work great as well. No matter how you market your business, some methods are more cost-effective than others.

If your home business is new or you are just starting to advertise, it is probably not reasonable to spend a lot of money right away. If you want to advertise locally you could place an advertisement in your local newspaper or on bulletin boards. You could also send out fliers and postcards and print them out at home to save on costs. It is okay to spend some money on advertising costs, after all a business is an investment, even a home business. Most offline advertising has a small cost that must be allowed for, whether it is sending out postcards, printing fliers, placing an ad in the newspaper or bulletin.

The only true free advertising you will find is word of mouth and online advertising methods. One form of online advertising is forum marketing. You can post links to your website in your forum signature and gain backlinks to your site and increase its ranking. Another method is posting to classified sites such as Craigslist or AdLandPro. There are many free advertising methods, but there also many paid advertising methods as well. You can pay a small fee to post to some classified sites, pay a one-time fee to send out a solo ad in an ezine newsletter, or use pay-per-click advertising. Some ezine's even allow you to send out free solo ads to their list as well.

Depending on your budget and how much you are willing to pay, your methods of advertising can be limited. It is a good idea to try different methods and mix things up a bit. Once a certain method works, keep using it. A word of warning though, if the return you earn is less than the amount you paid for the advertisement, it isn't worth it, period. There are plenty of free advertising methods that work very well, so you should start there first. Once you start bringing money into your home business you can reinvest some of it on paid advertising.

If you prefer the offline advertising methods, or want to start there, you can survey your customers and ask them how they found out about you. This way you will be able to determine which method is working, and more importantly, profitable. You will also be able to get rid of an advertising method that is not performing as well, saving you money. You can then use that money you are saving towards the marketing strategy that you know is working well. If you like the idea of online marketing, there are many ways to track your ads, usually in real time. This allows you to test your ads and see the results in a few hours, not days or months.

Finding the best marketing method for your home business will take time, so you must be willing to be patient and test different methods. Your best bet may be to try a combination of free and paid methods and not limit yourself to just a single avenue of advertising. In any case, you must advertise your home business if you expect to get any customers. Finding the best advertising solution is not difficult but will take some time and effort, but in the end it is well worth it.

Copyright (C) Alan Mater

Is Free Advertising Better, or Should You Just Pay?

Social networking allows people to interact with each other by the use of forums, instant messaging, videos, pictures, and a lot more. Users are able to post a profile that contains information about themselves, pictures that they want to share, videos that they find interesting, games, etc. Users can send friend or contact requests for others to add them to their list. People can post bulletins, message someone on their friend or contact list or someone who isn't, tag other people's pictures to their profile, interact through forums and much more. The best part about social networking is that you have the ability to post ads on your profile. This can be used to promote your business. Bulletins and messaging and also forums can be used to market your business. Bottom line... if you're not using social networks to drive traffic to your website, you should be.

Here is a list of some of the social networking sites. You can also do a search for more if you want. I'm gonna start with some of the social networks that actually pay you.

Direct Matches

Advertise your business and network with 1,000's of business people. Plus they have one of the best payment systems... known as MRM. The Multi-Referral Marketing (MRM) system improves common theories in network marketing and provides you with the tools, training and technology to help build your business.

Refer people to your personal Business or Non-Business Website to sign up for a free account and watch how the MRM system works for you. Your free referrals will reserve a position in the company and receive a free profile. They can preview member matches, have matches delivered directly to their e-mail inbox and are notified as new members come into their group. This is simply the MRM system in action, working for you, silently, online, and 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Some people struggle to earn income in network marketing because they lack sales experience and the ability to close sales. Simply refer people to your site to join at no cost to them. The MRM system takes over and reduces the pressure of selling. The MRM system works with you to upgrade your referrals to paid sales.

Join Direct Matches for free and start advertising your business.

Yuwie

Yuwie is somewhat new but has gained a lot of momentum. I'm personally not a member of this site, but I know a lot of people who like it. They pay you for doing everything you would do on MySpace. It's worth checking out.

Of course some others are MySpace and Facebook, but they don't pay you. If you use them correctly you can build leads for your company or affiliate programs.

You can find an extensive list of social networking sites here

Ahh... and of course there is Squidoo. If you are not yet a member of Squidoo then what are you waiting for? Google loves Squidoo, and your lens will get indexed quickly. And... you can get paid with Squidoo!

Click Here to create your own Squidoo lens.

Check out this lens to find out how to get tons of traffic to your Squidoo lens: Getting Your Squidoo Lens Noticed. On Squidoo

You can also use the sources in that lens to promote your website as well... definitely worth checking out. In fact you would be stupid not to :)

Also, add your lens here to gain popularity and more traffic: The Isle of Squid

Nothing is better than getting free traffic from the search engines. Unfortunately, for many this can be a very complicated and difficult task. It involves picking good keywords for your website, optimizing your website for those chosen keywords, and then marketing your website for those keywords.

It will take time, and your search engine placement is not going to change over night. The best thing to do is be patient and work it one step at a time.

You should go to my Search Engine Optimization lens to learn more about how to SEO your site and start receiving free traffic from the search engines.

Download this free report that will show you 77 different ways to drive traffic to your site. Almost all the methods are free. This is a concise report with 77 ideas and strategies you can implement to obtain more traffic to your site.

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