The Older, More Handsome Posts for "Making Money"
photo credit: M i x y
Here we go again. The 7,809 word series on how to blog and do it well. Remember, this is part two in the series. You can find the first part in which we covered content that sells and setting up your blog for success right here. In this post I am going to cover a lot of areas so make sure you bookmark it for future reference. If you read the whole thing in one go you might need to get some sunshine.
Breaking it down part two
In this post we are going to be covering a lot of ground. Like last time, I want to give you a sort of contents here at the start so you can move around the post to areas you are interested in. They are:
- Using social media
(Facebook, Twitter and all the reasons you need them, etc.)
- Growing your blog’s traffic
(SEO, keywords, going viral, analytics etc.)
- Making money from your blog
(Adsense, Ebay, affiliates and how to make good money from home)
As I am writing this post mostly in the evenings there is a good chance I am going to miss some important points. Feel free to drop a comment and point out my ineptness or make some suggestions that you think might help some other bloggers. I always love hearing what you guys have to say.
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photo credit: Cara Photography
Believe it or not there are people out there who don’t know how to blog. And without being rude, a lot of those people have been blogging for many years. In this two part series I am going to go through every component of blogging from choosing the right blogging platform to writing titles, articles, social media and networking. This series might actually kill me. But hopefully it helps you learn how to blog and do it well.
May I suggest bookmarking this post now? Hopefully you will want to refer back to this one and PART TWO in the future.
Breaking it down
This is a pretty massive undertaking so I want to break it down in to some clear sections which allow you to skip through and read areas that you are interested in. Of course, I encourage you to read the whole lot as you might learn about something you have thus far overlooked. The sections are:
- Starting a blog
(hosting, platforms, themes, plugins, etc.)
- Creating content that sells
(sexy titles, blog posts that people actually read, guest posting etc.)
- Using social media
(Facebook, Twitter and all the reasons you need them, etc.)
- Growing your blog’s traffic
(SEO, keywords, going viral, analytics etc.)
- Making money from your blog
(Adsense, Ebay, affiliates and how to make good money from home)
As always I want to see lots of comments with things I’ve missed. I will always answer your questions and angry criticisms as best as I can and I love seeing what other bloggers have to offer.
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photo credit: karina y
If you are serious about blogging you are probably also pretty serious about statistics. In fact, there are a lot of bloggers out there who spend more time looking at their stats than they do working on their blog. In this post I am going to talk about the five most important blogging statistics that you must know. Knowing (and understanding) these big five will help you in some significant ways.
Why do I need to know these? Can’t I just blog?
Well, yes, you can just blog and ignore the stats. In the same way as you can just drive a car and not know where you are going. You’d better be pretty sure that you love driving though because you might not ever end up anywhere good. Statistics are important for a couple of reasons:
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In the blogging world there are three names that everyone knows. Darren Rowse the Problogger, Jeremy Schoemaker from Shoemoney and Brian Clark the Copyblogger. These names are synonymous with blogging success, influence and, yes, making good money.
In this post I want to show you the three reasons why these guys are rich. Hopefully we can learn something from their example.
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photo credit: sylvanv
So you’ve got a blog. You’ve read a few of Darren’s posts and now you are inspired to make a living from it. Well there are a few things you need to know first. A couple of harsh realities that, if you learn them soon, might just save your skin. In this post I am going to show you 6 real reasons your blog won’t last the year. Read carefully.
My 100 failed blogs
At the moment I probably have around 100 websites and blogs that sit there and do nothing except cost me fees and take up server space. They are the sites that I have failed at, forgotten about or just plain lost interest in. These blogs are an amazing lesson for me, however, as they give me valuable practice ground. They give me a place to try out new strategies and methods. And for every failure there seems to be a success that evolves from it. This post is all about passing the lessons from those failures on to you.
6 real reasons your blog won’t last the year
Not all of these will apply to you if you are doing something right. But if you read through this list and find that some of them fit your MO then I hope you will try to fix them as soon as you can. If you don’t I am quite certain your blog will not last very long.
1. You don’t have a goal
The most important thing that any blog needs is a goal. If you don’t have a set goal that you have planned and established then you will have no direction. Your goal is like your destination on a car trip; without one you have a nice drive but you don’t get anywhere. You might end up somewhere nice, or you might end up in Arizona. Some goals that you might have are:
- to build a following in order to launch a product
- to personalize your company’s website
- to make money through advertising and affiliates
- to help a cause by making money and donating or developing awareness
- etc
Your goal is extremely important because it sets the tone for the rest of your activities. You need to make certain that your goal is fixed, planned and clear. Without one I think you will run into big troubles when success doesn’t come as fast as you’d like.
2. Your voice is uninspiring, boring or confusing
Who are you? Why are you blogging? What can I learn from your blog? What problems are you going to help me solve? These are all questions that come back to your voice – the way you speak on your blog. You need to go back and read your previous blog posts and take a look at what you sound like to the rest of the world. Do you have something to offer? That is the main question that you need to find out. If you don’t have anything to offer the world then no one is going to read your posts. No one is going to subscribe and visitors that arrive by Google are going to leave pretty quickly.
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In my first year of University I sold a blog for $20,000 USD after only eight months. It was then that I realized that making money online was something I really wanted to give a shot. Since that time I have sold several other blogs for similar price tags. In this post I am going to show you what I did in those eight months and how you can create a blog that someone might just want to pay big money for.
I am going to divide this post into three sections:
- The pre-blogging stage
- Building a blog worth some money
- Selling your blog
Nothing in this post is particularly insightful or new, if you know where to look. What I wanted to do though was write a post that lays out the whole process so that everything is in one place and you can continue to come back and reference it as you move forward.
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photo credit: Mr. T in DC
Working from home has always been a dream of mine. As soon as I had a taste of office life I wanted out – the gossip, competitiveness, back stabbing and showing off was really not my scene. On the other hand, growing my own business, spending time with my family, working my own hours and playing video games at lunch time – that is something I have always wanted. And something I’ve got.
In this post I am going to talk you through a few strategies that will one day allow you to work from home and play video games at lunch time. Why is there a picture of a pie above? You’ll find out later.
Setting a good motivation
The first thing you need to do is set a good motivation for doing it. Why is this important? Because working for yourself is hard work. It takes time, patience and a lot of discipline. If you don’t have a good motivation for working for yourself then it will be extremely hard to stay focused. Here are some reasons that I wanted to work for myself:
- Avoiding bad company
When you work in an office you can’t choose who you are around. I found myself becoming a bitter and angry person and as such decided that I needed to get out before my character became too corrupted. Working for yourself is really the only way to do this.
- Growing my own assets
When you work at a company you grow some other guy’s business. When you work for yourself you are putting time and effort into your own asset. Every drop of sweat that you put in belongs to you and your company. It is very rewarding.
- Helping people
My main goal in life is to spend as much time helping people as possible. Whatever money I make I want to use it in a way that benefits others, not myself. I’m not interested in big houses or vacations or fancy cars (although I do like the Audi R8!). I am interested in doing something that makes a difference. Owning my own business lets me do this.
Sit down and figure out why you want to work for yourself. What is going to get you through those weeks where no money comes in? What is going to get you through those late nights working on a deadline? What is going to stop you slacking off when no one is watching you? Without a good motivation you are sunk.
A short term, two medium term and one long term project
photo credit: loop_oh
Okay so here it is. This is the strategy that allows me to work from home and play video games at lunch time. It is also what allowed me to weather the financial crisis without any real problems. You must always have one short term, two medium term and one long term project. (more…)
