Blogging tips that help to make money blogging | blogging for money » Blogging Tips

How to go Viral and get tons of traffic

Sam — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 10:36:10 +0000

Every blogger out there that wants to take this seriously must know which traffic sources are the best.

There are many sources, such as the word of mouth –which is my favorite one because it’s free and because it’s targeted traffic- others as PPC Advertisements, which you need to pay to get that traffic…

But there’s a way to get traffic that seems to be a little “forgotten” though it’s amazingly effective.

I’m talking about Viral Traffic. How to go viral and get tons of visitors to your site?

Going viral is extremely important if you want to make some profits with your blog, selling affiliate products or selling your own one –an ebook, blogging lessons, etc- so it’s vital to know which techniques can be used to achieve it.

Let’s start from the beginning in case we have a newbie reading this

What is going viral?

The thing is very similar to the word of mouth. Let’s explain it using a very simple example.

Let’s say you launch your new ebook. You tell 10 people about it. It’s a very low number of persons, but those 10 people know 10 different guys and they will tell them about your new ebook.

Those last 10 will, again, spread the world, and will tell about your product to 20 other guys each.

Let’s see, your product has been advertised to 2000 bloggers. 10 x 10 x 20 = 2000

And it just started talking with 10 friends.

See the power of it? That’s Viral Marketing.

Things are not so great from now own, as now we will figure out how to go viral, how to get 10 people to advertise something to other 10 guys and so on.

How to ride the Viral Wave and going Viral

This is when the hard part comes. There are tons of websites that promises you to put an affiliate link that will be spread across their users. That sounds great, but the most of them –if not all- will only promote your link if you first promote other links from other members.

That sounds bad. Really.

So, from my point of view and experience, I think that the next three ways are the most useful and easier to go viral.

1) Twitter. Loving contests.

Twitter seems to be made to exploit viral marketing. Each retweet is gold. Getting retweets is going Viral.

A great way is to do promotion and contests or something that requires a retweet to enter the contests or to get a ticket for a draw… Need to be creative, but that’s the main idea.

2) Relationships.

It’s not about how many friends you have, is about how influential they are. If I tell you what would you chose, having 100 friends or to be friend of someone like Shoemoney or Darren Rowse?

I’d choose the second option, definitely.

Does this means you only need to focus on building relationships on probloggers? No, not at all.

You must take every reader you have and build a relationship with him the same way you would act if he / she was a problogger.

3) Useful Stuff.

The obvious one. Couldn’t finish this post without the useful content thing, could I?

If you have something interesting to share, people will do the work for you.

I may be forgetting something –in this case please drop a comment to update the post to make it more accurate and complete-

Always be creative and innovative.

Thanks for reading and see you on next post.

How to give your blog the push it needs

Sam — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:53:48 +0000

There’s a common feeling around sportive people that, despite you to the gym every day and working out harder and harder, it seems like you never goes forward.

That idea can be applied to blogging too.

There’s a moment, when you reach a point that, you feel like you and your blog go nowhere, no forward but no backwards either.

That’s when you’ve to apply something else to give your blog that little push it needs.

I’ve tried the following three techniques and although they’re no secret they work like charm.

1) Buy the traffic: This is a great way to get rid of the “no progress” feeling as you see immediate results on your rankings.

Apart from that, you will feel that although you bought that traffic now you’re writing for an audience and not just for mom or dad or a close friend who won’t ever say “Hmmm, sorry to say but your blog sucks, you should change this, this and this.”

Don’t be afraid to buy traffic, targeted or not –if it’s targeted then better- everyone does it, even professional bloggers.

2) Profit from that traffic: Spend $1 get $1, 50 is the number one rule of a good internet marketer.

If you’re not profiting from the traffic you’re buying then you’re just wasting money.

Release a program at the time you’re buying the traffic to maximize the potential of your new readers.

If you want to go even further, prepare a landing page –read this post about how to make a landing page- where the user will safely land and where you’ll make sure you put everything needed to make the reader come back.

3) Profit from that moment: Once your traffic starts to increase, profit from that to show the world the power of your blog.

What can you get for doing so?

You’ll be more respected on your field than ever, you will get opportunities just for the fact f having traffic because people will have interest in your blog now it reach an audience, people will want to advertise on your site, bloggers will want to write guest posts on your blog…

You will also need to offer yourself. In other words, clearly state that you’re opened to make business with whoever wants to.

I’ve met bloggers who think that buying traffic is not the “legal” way to reach success, and that’s something really stupid.

Its mind blowing to think about the opportunities you will have just by spending some bucks here and there.

Just remember: Profit > Money spent and vice versa

Check for your best traffic builder solution, plan then act. You will see your blog on the next level in no time.

Thanks for reading and see you on next blog post.

Why blogging about personal ramblings won’t work

Sam — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:17:27 +0000

The most important blogger’s decision comes when it’s time to choose what we are going to blog about.

The importance of this decision doubles if you’re thinking about making money blogging.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers lately writing blogs about personal ramblings thinking about monetizing it.

Let me tell you something: It won’t work.

Some of you may have read Jonh Chow’s blog and thought “Hey, the guy’s making hundreds of thousands of dollar every year just by posting what he eats and where he goes on vacation! I’m gonna do it too!”

Well, if you thought that you’re already on the wrong way.

Those few guys you see making a living from a blog talking about personal ramblings are doing so because they did something before blogging about what they do.

As an example, John started to blog about personal ramblings but, let’s be frank, nobody cared except his family.

Once he decided to monetize he’s blog is when he started to get people’s attention.

Now people cares about what he do because he’s already a celebrity on his field.

If you’re not convinced yet, I’ll try to show you why you shouldn’t blog about personal ramblings.

Blogging about personal ramblings won’t work.

1) Who are you?

The most common problem you will face is that one. Who are you?

People just don’t have the time to read what a completely unknown guy is doing and if they had the time to do so, you wouldn’t be the chosen one.

First build yourself a reputation on a particular field. Then you will be able to blog about your life, once people know you and are interested about what you do.

2) How are you going to monetize it?

If monetizing a blog about how to make money blogging is really hard, I won’t tell you about personal ramblings.

You will need a blog full of ads and that’s something people don’t like too much so… You’ve a double problem here.

3) Are you an active guy?

If you don’t travel enough or don’t do things that “normal” people can do you’ve an issue.

You must show to your reader’s things amazing, like other countries, other cultures… If you just show yourself walking on Camden Town… Nobody will care about that, sorry.

One of the best ways to be a blogger which blogs about personal ramblings is to have a news blog. You can focus on a football team or on another sport and just follow all the events related to that sport.

This way you will be both giving people something of interest and talking about your personal ramblings.

You must find the perfect combination so you can run a profitable blog on that subject.

Thank you for reading and see you on next blog post.

Check if you’re running your blog as a business

Sam — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:10:12 +0000

We’re always reading blog posts about “How to know your blog is dying” or “7 signs of a dying blog”.

That’s why I’ve decided to write a post using the opposite technique.

How to know you’re taking your blog seriously, as a business.

Treating your blog as a business is one of the most important steps you need to run a profitable blog.

Running it seriously doesn’t necessary means spending thousands of dollars on it, although you eventually will if you take it as a business.

From my point of view and experience, the first step is to mentally treat your blog seriously, then, you will take action.

How to know you’re already running your blog as a business.

1) You know it because each and every single day you wake up and, even before eating breakfast, you turn on your computer and check your WordPress Dashboard, check new comments, visits counter, emails…

The same can be applied when you go to bed. You do a quick – last check before sleeping.

2) You know it because if you don’t do what’s stated on point number 1, you don’t feel comfortable. Especially when going to bed, you can’t sleep or take more time than usual to fall sleep.

Those are great signs; they mean you CARE about your blog. You really care.

3) You know it because you’re always thinking about future posts or new features to add on your blog.

You’re at work or at school/college/university and you’re 70% focused on what you’re doing –in fact, on what you should be doing- and 30% thinking about your blog and everything that involves it.

4) You know it because you’re already thinking big. Let me explain you this one.

Average people start a blog “just to see what happens”. People who want to be probloggers have plans in mind even before writing the first post.

They have a route and a schedule set and things on mind for the future, new projects to leverage their personal blog…

5) You know it because you’re not afraid to use your real name or phone, to show yourself.

I must say though that this is not always the way it works, as privacy is really important for people, but that should be the reason, privacy and not because of shame.

6) And last but not least, you know it because you’re ready to invest money on it, ready to create a company to pay your taxes, ready to have your phone to pick up or send calls to other people or bloggers.

Every serious business has its original spin, so as your blog should.

And you? Are you running your blog as a business?

Thank you for reading and see you on next blog post.

My true reason about why you can’t make money blogging

Sam — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:22:19 +0000

And yet another blog post named “Why most bloggers can’t make Money blogging”… It’s interesting how many people have tried to look at the problem –can’t make money- to try to get the solution –to make money-

It’s a different way to look at the one million dollar question.

I’ve never gave my opinion on this subject before and I thought I would give it a chance.

This is my truth about “Why people can’t make money blogging”.

I’ll make a short recompilation about the most named reasons out there and tell my opinion –very briefly-

- Reason number one: You’re not passionate.

Ok, I’ve read that a lot of times –thousands? – But it just doesn’t seem enough for me. I mean, it is valid at certain levels or with certain topics. You can –and should- love writing / blogging if you want to make money blogging, but, is it really a MUST to be passionate about your topic?

This point leads me to John Chow. The guy claims to make thousands of dollars because he tells other people how to make money online….

I mean, is John passionate about making money? Ok. Who isn’t anyway? I don’t think someone has a PASSION for making money.

It’s something everyone aims for but, can this be turned onto a passion?

I’d rather say no. I’d say you need a topic people are CURIOUS about. It doesn’t matter your passion level, although passion will make things easier for you.

- Reason number 2: You don’t take your blog seriously, as a business.

Well, to take something as a business, you need to dedicate it hours of work per day. At least when starting. And I’m afraid not everyone can make it.

People have a bunch of things to do, especially if you have kids, a work… You can’t just take blogging as a business and dedicate it the hours it takes to build that business.

I’d say this is a valid reason, but not the main one. It doesn’t fit my needs.

- Reason number 3: You’re not a marketing guy.

I’ll tell you what. Marketing doesn’t exist. Marketing = People. The true marketing comes with the word of mouth technique. Doing a good work will make people share your posts. That’s it. That’s what I consider marketing.

My true reason about why people can’t make money

In fact, I’ve two main reasons.

Reason number one: You’re too late.

Yes. Most of bloggers out there who make money blogging by teaching how to make money blogging can’t just admit it, because their blog would be just useless, but those guys have been riding the blogging wave since the beginning.

Today, there’re just too many blogs and about the same topic.

Their domain worth more than ours so they get better ranking position, they’ve a fixed audience…

It’s not impossible, but almost.

Reason number two: You don’t have a business to leverage your blog work.

That’s the reason most important –and it’s related to number one-

If you don’t have a business that you can use to leverage your blog work, then you’re out of track.

Check it. Every problogger has its own business that they used at some point to leverage their blogs when starting.

I said this reason it’s related to the number one reason. Why? Because there’s a way you can ride the blogging wave with other probloggers, and it’s offering deals where they can win something and setting a quid pro cuo. Unfortunately this can only be achieved if you’ve something powerful. Something that could be helpful to drive traffic or leverage something.

Of course some would agree and some won’t. Some will find my reasons just silly and others not, but that’s the true blogging power.

Some can make money blogging and some not, but every one of us can use our blog to express our thoughts on our little online home.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and see you on next blog post.

Do you want $2,500 in free advertising?

Sam — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:16:16 +0000

And learn from an internet marketing guru?

Then you should read this.

In case you didn’t know, Shoemoney has already released the Shoemoney System. What’s this all about? Check it out.

Shoemoney was a regular guy just like you and me. 5 years ago his life changed and since then he has made more than $10,000,000 online.

Nope, didn’t make any mistake nor add more zeros.

You’ll directly be taught by the guru itself.

If that wasn’t enough, Jeremy made deals with Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Sponsored Tweets, etc and everyone that applies will be rewarded with $2,500 quickly start growing.

To sign up go to Shoemoney System site and follow the instructions. I think it’s a great opportunity, a great chance that you shouldn’t let pass away.

Thanks for reading.

PS. Quick! Limited seats!

List of 80 blogging tips

Sam — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:53:33 +0000

It’s always a good moment to write a blogging tips list.

I’ve elaborated a new list that contains 50 old blogging tips plus 30 new ones.

Here’s the full list.

1. use wordpress

2. get a unique domain

3. if you have the time to learn Search Engine Optimization, don’t hire a SEO

4. get a unique design

5. have a friendly design

6. link your website on an internal way for easier navigation and increasing pageviews and time spent on your site

7. make a design to give away

8. add a link on the design’s footer to get backlinks

9. comment on other blogs

10. join problogger community

11. be funny

12. be kind

13. show proofs about your success when you can

14. add images to your posts

15. make brainstorms

16. read probloggers blogs

17. use social media, but use it on the right way or it can kill you

18. make a big list

19. make interviews with probloggers that are on your niche

20. share your experiences, bad ones too. People read your blog to learn.

21. go to famous events when you can (world blog expo)

22. always give first before you try to get something

23. don’t blog for money

24. blog about whatever you want, having the knowledge or without having it, but just blog about something you’re willing to learn about

25. write your own pdf

26. build an email newsletter

27. build relationships

28. don’t be affraid to give advice to a big blogger

29. read matt cutts blog

30. use google’s webmaster tools

31. stick to a post frequency

32. DON’ T! quit your job to start blogging for money

33. when starting, don’t compare your blog with problogger’s blogs

34. care about alexa ranking if you want to make money blogging

35. use automatic ping services

36. link to older posts

37. use recommended plugins

38. don’t think about doing it, do it

39. don’t blame yourself for your mistakes, learn from them

40. answer to comments

41. be patient

42. don’t use black hat seo

43. never underestimate blog directories

44. don’t get crazy about submiting your sites to search engines. do it if you have time and concentrate on google

45. seo on page optimization

46. seo off page optimization

47. offer a full feed

48. be original

49. bad comments? great, keep blogging you’re on the right way

50. don’t be affraid to link to other blogs

51. Test your blog on every browser

52. Focus on content

53.Organization – one hour for the content, half for social purpose, half for design

54. Put keywords on your domain name

55. Expand your blog

56. Take your blog as a business

57. Take x amount of time per week to build backlinks

58. Use Aweber

59. Use ninja affiliate plugin

60. Make deal with bigger bloggers, make them happy to benefit from their traffic

61. Don’t offer your own sponsors spot as a contest prize

62. Make lists

63. Use top commentators plugin

64. Use CommentLuv plugin

65. Linking won’t hurt, do it

66. Write your own ebook

67. Don’t write your own ebook

68. Participate on other bloggers contests giving cool prizes

69. Hire someone to design a wordpress theme and release it for free with a footer link to your site

70. If possible, post every day or at least as much as you can

71. Make brainstorm

7 2. If you find a big deal don’t keep it to yourself, share it

73. Don’t focus on making money

74. Be weird, weird people use to be original, original bloggers succeed

75. Make some video-tutorials

76. Set up your gps system: trace a plan and follow your way before starting to blog

77. Avoid to change your posts urls / permalinks

78. Take an amount of time per week on finding new traffic sources

79. Do some business that could increase your blog’s popularity

80. Keep blogging

Would you add something?

I’m working on a new list. Would you add something?

You can drop ideas here and I’ll link to your blog with your desired anchor text.

Hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

What can you learn from The Godfather

Sam — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:39:21 +0000

I enjoy and learn reading great blogs.

As we talk about great blogs some domain names start flashing within my mind. One of them is, obviously, Copyblogger.

I was inspired for one of the –recently typical- what [insert famous here] can teach you about [insert whatever you want here] so I decided to write using this method.

I started my research, looking for some famous guy or movie that could teach something that is blogging-related or at least internet related.

It was hard, but just before giving up I thought about a movie that could be used as an example while you blog, and particularly about a character.

I’m talking about The Godfather and Vito Corleone.

What can Vito Corleone teach you about blogging?

This may sound weird but actually a lot so let’s start.

1) One of the things that matters the most to Vito Corleone is relationships, considering them as the key to succeed and the most direct way to have power –social power- and popularity.

We’re always talking about how important relationships are when it comes to have a healthy blog and a profitable business.

Corleone was right; you can’t ignore relationships if you ever want to succeed. Not only with your blog but with every business, both off and online.

2) “[…] because there’s nothing more important for a man than its family” is one of the famous quotes from that great movie.

I think we can change the words “man” and “family” and introducing “blogger” and “community” instead of them and have a great blogging advice.

The blogging community –such as problogger.com- can help you to achieve what’s stated on the first point: relationships and social power, as it’s a great way to introduce yourself and start meeting friends.

3) If you ever have seen the second part of the Godfather, you would have noticed that Corleone, when starting, just focus on give no matter what he could get in return.

The same can be applied on the blogging world.

Some bloggers may feel depressed because they see that despite all their efforts linking to other blogs to get some links in return, or despite their efforts to get a ‘fair’ deal with a famous bloggers they just don’t get nothing positive, it always looks like you are the one that puts the work and the others that gets the profits.

Be patient. You always need to give before trying to get. It works like this with every business.

Work hard and you’ll be rewarded, guaranteed.

4) The Godfather’s known because he exactly knows how to return a favor. Always quid pro quo.

People like to see a favor returned back. I stated on the point number three that, in order to succeed, you need to give before you try to get something, especially when starting.

Returning a favor when someone offers you something is as important as the point above. Returning it without the need to be asked to is what we’re talking about. You’ll be even a better blogger than you already are.

5) When making deals –with other families or where other families participate too- the Don’s always caring about the competition, looking at what other families will get out of the deal and making sure that it’s his family the one that gets the most out of it.

Well, this is a good example about what you need to do because you always need to take a look at your competition, especially from the SEO viewpoint.

Do you have something?

I can’t think now about something more that could be taught by Don Vito Corleone. Have you ever watched the movie? If so, what would you add to the post?

Remember that there’re always new sources to learn from. You only need to see things from a blogger’s perspective. Possibilities are endless.

Thanks for reading.

Why you shouldn’t create a ‘make money blogging’ blog

Sam — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:43:58 +0000

The other day I wrote a post about why you should create a ‘make money blogging’ blog if you feel like doing it.

We saw several reasons to create a blog about that topic as it seems even easy to succeed blogging about ways to make money.

Today, I’ll drop some thoughts about why you shouldn’t create a ‘make money blogging’ blog.

This post isn’t meant to be rude nor negative. It shouldn’t destroy your illusions either.

What’s the point then you ask? To save time and money for newcomer bloggers.

That said, let’s get to work.

You shouldn’t create a make ‘money blogging blog’

The main reason everyone will say is lack of passion and interest. But there are really more reasons:

1) Most of bloggers start a ‘make money blogging’ blog just because it’s a hot topic, without having experience.

What’s the experience required to start such a blog you ask? Well, let’s bring an example.

A math teacher can’t teach others about mathematics if he/she doesn’t have a clue about logarithms, equations, etc; right?

This is the same. Creating a blog on that niche means to teach others, to show them the way to a money making blog. How could you teach others to make money blogging if you didn’t even have a blog or haven’t made money blogging before?

You learn first, you teach second. It doesn’t work the other way around.

2) Unless you add more categories or make some research about topics that are niche-related you have a problem.

This niche can’t really be developed too much. If you’re thinking about just dropping a couple of ideas to make money blogging you better set up a website full of affiliate links and make a great SEO work rather than making a blog.

A blog is different from a website, amongst other reasons, because it gets updated frequently, so a blog without updates is just useless.

You can find several ‘sub-niches’ to blog about. Just make a market-research and check what people need and give it away.

3) The competition here is pretty tough. Plus, it’s too much competition for a small reward. As an example:

My google page shows 172,000,000 results for the term ‘make money blogging’. Looking at the Google Adword Keyword Tool, that keyword gets an estimated traffic –from US- of 22,200 per month.

As you see, this isn’t – in theory- the best niche to blog about, as there are a lot of competition and a very small reward for your hard work trying to overtake that competition.

4) One of the common problems you can face here is that you really don’t have something new or innovative to bring to the community.

We have a feeling that ‘everything has already been said’ and that there’s nothing new to learn.

True or not, you should think about what could you bring –usually experience comes in handy here- to your readers, something they didn’t know… To sum up: something different.

5) It’s not easy to monetize the traffic, to get a high conversion rate.

If you want to get a few bucks from your blog then you better know how to make profit from your visitors. You can find some tips here on keepblogging.

Anyway, if you don’t know how to monetize your traffic, how could you start a ‘make money blogging’ blog? Forget it.

Ok, the war ends here. Enough said.

So, you have reasons to make a money making blog and reasons to avoid creating it. Should you go for it or blogging about a different topic?

That depends on you, but my conclusion will come on the next post.

Thanks for reading.

The other day I wrote a post about why you should create a ‘make money blogging’ blog if you feel like doing it.

We saw several reasons to create a blog about that topic as it seems even easy to succeed blogging about ways to make money.

Today, I’ll drop some thoughts about why you shouldn’t create a ‘make money blogging’ blog.

This post isn’t meant to be rude nor negative. It shouldn’t destroy your illusions either.

What’s the point then you ask? To save time and money for newcomer bloggers.

That said, let’s get to work.

You shouldn’t create a make ‘money blogging blog’ h1