Blogging

Steps to Creating a Successful Blog

1. 1) He is a successful web entrepreneur. He has more websites I'm sure, but the main one I know of is The Tech Zone not to mention that he made over $3000 off of his personal blog. Which he donated to his church because he didn't need the money! Must be nice. I'm sure he's a great guy, but regardless he is a great role model for anyone who is thinking about trying to make a little bit of cash to pay for their websites and blogs. Personally if I was making $3000 a month off of my sites, I wouldn't be working at my job anymore!

   
   not to mention that he made over $3000 off of his . Which he donated to his church because he didn't need the money! Must be nice. I'm sure he's a great guy, but regardless he is a great role model for anyone who is thinking about trying to make a little bit of cash to pay for their websites and blogs. Personally if I was making $3000 a month off of my sites, I wouldn't be working at my job anymore!not to mention that he made over $3000 off of his . Which he donated to his church because he didn't need the money! Must be nice. I'm sure he's a great guy, but regardless he is a great role model for anyone who is thinking about trying to make a little bit of cash to pay for their websites and blogs. Personally if I was making $3000 a month off of my sites, I wouldn't be working at my job anymore!
   

   2) John Chow is incredibly generous with his linkbacks in his posts, as well as his reviews. It's karma in action people. You want to see if Karma works, look at John Chow's blog. He gives links away and reviews posts and makes MORE MONEY. So don't be afraid to link to other sites, it will only benefit you in the end, because some are sure to link to your site as well. In fact, although I haven't recieved any linkbacks to my knowledge from anyone (I've only been blogging for a week cut me a LITTLE slack) John Chow was the first person to be marked on my blog. This could be for a number of reasons. I like to think that it has something to do with me obsessively linking his name in all of my posts. See karma really does come back on you. It gave me a boost to know that someone who is so successful actually took the time to look at my blog, and the first at that.

   
   

   3) Well... he did make $3000 in January off of his blog... enough said.

   
   

   You can make money off of your blogs and websites if you try hard enough and are willing to take the time to look at everything openly and honestly and look at criticism constructively. Any feedback on any of my sites would be greatly appreciated, and I will give a linkback for the help in understanding what I could do better. You can contact me via email or post on my blog and I will return your message.

   
   

   And while your still reading, here is a list of things to consider when creating a blog, that could help you make it financially successful. And although these are a good foundation on where to start, these are by no means the only methods to make money off of your blog. There are many people out there doing this right now. Not just John Chow. I highly encourage you to check out Tyler Cruz, his blog is one of my personal favorites; as is Matts blog Take More Risks. Or you can check out my very meager beginnings, although I hope that by the time most people reach it, my blog will be at least moderately successful. But without you guys going there, it never will be right? Everyone has to start somewhere.

   
   

   Anyway onto the list!

   
   
   

   1) Write well, and write often - This is actually easier said than done in the beginning stages. I had a massive case of writer's block when I first started, but over time, once you have developed a sense of what you want to accomplish with your blog. And an overall theme for it, you will probably find that writing becomes easier. For example, the thought of writing as much as I just wrote on this page, would have been very daunting a week ago. And in all reality, a week isn't very long. But it's all a matter of viewpoint. When writing a blog, you should make frequent updates, at least daily in most cases. If a reader does happen to get interested in the topics you are writing about, then checks every single day for a week, and there are no new posts to intrigue them, they are likely to get bored with your site and not come back. So when starting a blog, have an overall idea of what you want to do, and then put it into action. Save up posts for the future if you like, I try to keep about 3 articles on the sideburner for a rainy day. It helps when you can't think of anything to write, or just plain don't have the time. Just sit down one night, after you have established a writing technique, and write several entries to your blog just don't publish them. Most blogging software will allow you to do this, including the Blogger website. I personally use wordpress for my blog and I absolutely love it! If you don't know exactly what it is, it is a blogging program that is pretty simple to use, and if you have some web development skills you can make it look great, and if not, you can download and use a predefined template. If you can't seem to use anything else, and you really are trying to make money on the internet... try Squidoo it is absolutely wonderful once you get the hang of it, and they make it simple to promote your writing.

   
   
   

   2) Write about something that a reader might want to know. There really is loads of topics out there, you just have to find something that you are interested in enough to write about. It's very difficult to write about something that your not interested in... trust me on that one. Make it useful and link back to other sites and bloggers. Not only does that give them traffic as a thanks for teaching you something, it is a way of saying that I think your site or blog is worth the risk that someone may navigate away from my page. Besides if you have good content, most will come back. You will see growth over time, but don't expect your website or blog to be an overnight success. Sure it does happen, but it is a rare thing. If you write an article a day for a month, and you expect to have a ton of traffic just because you put it out there, think again. That brings me to my next topic.

   
   
   

   3) Promote Your Blog - This is one of the most important and fundamental steps once you have created good content. You have to promote it, think of ways that you come across websites. You could trade links with other sites, join a banner exchange and hope you get a few clicks on your banners. Post your link in a forum, but don't be obnoxious, and make sure it is allowed by the admin of the forum or you will find yourself banned from the forum. Put links on your myspace profile, sometimes your friends will be interested in what you are doing, although most of my friends seem to not care at all, I still have it up, and there is the occasional person that will be interested. Put a signature on your email account that lists your name and all of your websites, so that every email that you send is a promotion by itself. You can also see if you can put an ad up at internet cafe's, coffee shops, hotels, and other places that have wireless access points. You just might get a few interested people. Anything is worth a shot. I don't recommend manual or autosurfing in most cases, yes it does give you a boost of traffic, but for the most part that traffic is worthless, although just starting out, I think it can be worthwhile if you have really good content. I tried this with my site Your Television and it worked very well statistically, and I believe I even gained a few visitors from it. But make sure that you don't go against your sponsors terms of service or they may ban your account. I accidentally sent traffic to a page that had my Google Adsense ads on it, and I recieved a very generic response from them explaining to me that I am in violation of their terms of service. And that if I continue I might have my account deleted from their system... oh no! don't do that! So I made ammends within the hour and deleted most of my accounts. So be sure that you don't have Google Adsense if you use a manual or autosurf program. Which by the way when I emailed them to say that I found the problem and I believe that I am now in compliance with their terms, they sent me the same email with a different opening line... so don't count on good email contact from Google. I've heard that in order to get a real answer you have to call... doesn't that kind of take the point away from having email contact? Sheesh.

   
   
   

   4) Track you Statistics - Don't get obsessed with this though, I got to where I checked mine about 40 times a day, and that may not seem very sad to some, but they only updated 24 times a day. Yeah, you think I'm joking... you need to know your popular links and where your users come from, go, what they like, don't like. The demographics, who your blog will primarily appeal to. You can get most of this information by using Google Analytics it is absolutely fantastic and gives you way more information than you probably even know what to do with right off hand. I'm still learning how to use it to the most of it's capabilities. But it is excellent, you just install the tracking script into every page of your website you want tracked, and bingo! instant website statistics. Try it, I think you will love it! I know I do! I'm a Google junkie!

   
   
   

   5) Use multiple options, you can find my first post on this on my blog Byron Thurman. There will be more posts on this subject so if you want to stay up to date with my new developments I recommend that you check back to my blog and see what's going on! It's not just my company blog! It's my personal blog as well! Anyway back to the subject... I am currently using the following affiliates:

   
   
   
   
   Google Adsense
   
   Adbrite
   
   Ad Volcano
   
   Hostmonster Affiliate
   
   Amazon
   
   
   
   

   And although this isn't exactly your traditional affiliate, I will hopefully be making some money from Squidoo.
   
   

   6) Don't send mixed messages - Be clear and consistent about all of your viewpoints on every subject in your blog. Don't get in the habit of "reporting" to people. People want your opininion, that the whole point of a blog. And if you make a few people upset along the way, so be it, any publicity is good publicity.

   
   
   

   7) Link to Posts - When you're referring to something that can be found on the Web such as a news story, another business, person or other blog post (whether on your own or someone else's blog), allow your reader to chëck out the background info. Linking back to previous entries also builds page strength for those posts and can help you with search engine rankings. But don't be afraid to link off your site, this generosity can help you get noticed by other bloggers. And it's also nice to give credít where credít is due.

   
   
   

   8) Make yourself accessible - Some blogs can get away with having the mystique of no contact info, but really I don't feel that it's a good idea. If you are trying to make serious money, you need to be accessible to people, and the more legitimate you feel to your user base, the more they will trust you. Sure, you will probably get some more spam in your inbox, but hey what's new about that? You will gain the advantage of other webmasters who have sites, they may want to promote on your site, or you may just meet some new interesting people that help keep you motivated. Either way, to get email from your user base can be a very good boost in self-esteem when you wonder if anyone really is listening.

   
   
   

   9) Don't forget to Comment Back! - When you have other bloggers that comment the posts on your site, don't forget to comment on their site as well! This can be a common mistake for a new blogger. If their commenting frequently, you know that they are visiting your site regularly and you should do the same, especially if they have well written content and a decent user base, because they might like one of your articles and link to you, sending more traffic your way! What better way to promote your site than by talking to someone and eventually getting free traffic? Well that's the way it can work in the blogosphere.

   
   
   

   10) Never Give Up - Keep churning out the webpages, get yourself a hero, and strive to be as good as them, and then when you are finally there, make yourself better! Just keep going no matter how hard it seems. Learn more everyday. Every day sit down and make yourself more productive, make more progress, gain more traffic, clicks, and money in general. Keep it going perpetually.

   
   
   

   And finally to give yourself some inspiration, I give you one of my personal role models, he's the same age 23, and yet he makes more money than most people even twice his age. His name is Tyler Cruz, I've mentioned him before. He makes all of his money from the internet, and in this flash video he gives you a look into his life. I haven't found a better inspiration in years than this one video.