2 Million Dollar Bills

A blog is an incredible tool, the kind that only the second generation of Internet technology can offer. Since the technology arrived in the early 2000s that allowed blogging to become a household activity, the opportunities offered by the medium have only continued to expand.

One of the most incredible and underused opportunities present in blogging is the ability to make a profit. Of the 85 million blogs currently in circulation, only asmall handful earn money for the author, yet the opportunities are everywhere to do so. After all, with millions of readers across the globe, a new businesses need only take a few simple steps to tap a potential gold mine.

Sell Advertising When Google purchased Blogger a few years ago, the opportunities immediately made available to millions of existing and potential Blogger users multiplied tenfold. Using Google AdSense, users can quickly and easily integrate advertising into their blogs. These pay per click ads operate the same as they do on any other major website or search engine. Google targets the ads to match the content of your blog, so if you decide to devote your blog to short articles about cycling opportunities in the North Carolina area, AdSense will display ads related to cycling and North Carolina.

When a visitor reads your blog, they will see these ads alongside your article. If they choose to click on an ad, you receive a percentage of the money that Google makes from that click. The actual amount varies significantly, but if you can create a large enough reader base, you can earn hundreds of dollars each month from your advertising efforts alone.

Sell Products What better way to make a little extra money than by selling someone else’s products and earning a commission. Nearly every business on the Internet has an affiliate program of some sort. Amazon for example has an Associates program. Bloggers can sign up for Amazon’s associate program and then create specialized links and images to place on their blogs. These links feature products from Amazon and when a visitor to your blog clicks on the link, you receive a commission for any sales made to that visitor within 24 hours, even items other than the one featured on your blog. If you write about film, books, electronics or any other products, sign up for an affiliate program and try to sell those products through your blog.

Donations Bloggers with devoted readership are Internet celebrities. If you create a substantial niche for yourself and a devoted legion of fans, your blogging may begin to earn the financial accolades of those fans. While it is not a good idea to demand money in return for your daily writing, you can place a small “Donation” box somewhere on your blog. Think of it this way, if someone on the street corner plays a beautiful song on their guitar, passers by will donate spare change to their endeavor. If you can wow your readers, why not make it possible for them to do the same for you?

Sell Services The Internet is not all products and advertising (as much as it may seem to be the case). A blog is a great opportunity to write about and promote services you may provide both online and offline. Say for example you work for a copywriting company. Your blogging is a great showcase of those talents. Even if you do not work as a writer, you can write about what you do offer, whether it is a motorcycle parts company or a floral arrangement business.

Grow an Existing Business For many businesses, blogging has become the next frontier of advertising and interaction with potential customers. A blog allows a business to appear both genial and spontaneous while offering an array of new information for potential customers. Whether you own a small business or work for a large one, blogging can be a great way to connect with existing and future customers alike.

Paid Blogging Recently, there has been a growth in the industry of paid blogging. Companies such as Pay Per Post or Blogitive hire on bloggers with existing blogs and pay them a set fee for writing about a company, service, or keyword on their blog. You can sign up for a paid blogging job with your free Blogger account and make money with no investment. The general minimum for paid blog posts is $5. However, if you can raise your Page Rank by growing your search rankings and being linked to by other bloggers, you can receive as much as $100 for a paid blog post.

Merchandising Why not make a little money with your natural creative talents? Bloggers have turned to companies like Cafe Press in recent years to create t-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers that allow blog readers to show off the name and image of their favorite blog. When you build your loyally devoted fan base, selling a few items with your blog’s name on them can be a fun way to make a little money on the side.

There are seemingly limitless opportunities for bloggers who have the inventiveness and entrepreneurial spirit necessary to take advantage of them. The best part is that in less than 15 minutes you can sign up for Blogger, create your first posts and start making money from advertising or affiliate programs.

This article was written by RAMAN KUMAR SHARMA

About the Author:

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website:- www.atoz-about-rss.com www.blogging.infozabout.com

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When you start writing your first blog on a site like Blogger or any of the dozen other free blogging platforms available, your first thought will likely be, “How do I get people to notice my blog?” It is a perfectly good question and one that millions of bloggers ask themselves every day. After all, with more than 85 million active blogs online at any given time and more than 100,000 new blogs created every day, how do you stand out as worthy of attention.

There are a number of different ways you can make yourself stand out from the pack. Blogging is a unique form of expression because it allows every individual to approach it from their own angle. Combining quality writing with a handful of technical tasks that will increase your visibility, you can start reaching the millions of daily blog readers that are online every day.

Be Unique Your angle will undoubtedly be different from almost everyone else’s. Allow that unique perspective to bleed through your writing and your blog can be very successful. Even with half of the computer owning population reading blogs on a daily basis, there is only so much time to spend reading new blogs. For that reason alone, you need to stand out from the other writers in more than one way. If you write about Formula 1 racing and copy the topics from existing, larger blogs, why would anyone want to read your blog? Think of a new angle and draw in new readers with that perspective.

Consistency You must write on a consistent basis to attract attention and keep it. It does you no good to attract a dozen new readers with one blog post and then leave them wondering where you went because you fail to write your next post for more than a week. Consistency helps in other ways as well. If you post new content on a daily basis, Google will index your site more often and you will appear higher in search rankings. Blogger lists recent posts in its own search listings which you will then appear at the top of more often. Write more often and you will be seen.

Controversial Content This is a tricky topic, especially for some individuals. However, you can count on getting more readership and being noticed by more online outlets if you are controversial with what you have to say. This does not mean you should be rude or openly hostile. Speak your mind and say what you believe unapologetically but do not be a jerk.

Comment on Other Blogs Everyone wants to receive comments on their posts. After you complete your first blog post, you will probably sit and stare at the comments section wondering where your first comment is; and when it arrives, you will no doubt visit the website of whoever leaves it. The same is true for your fellow bloggers. They are not your competition so much as your peers. If you read their work, they will read yours. And if they like your content, they will link to it and share it with their readers. It’s an online domino effect, but you have to start the process.

Discuss Topics with Your Readers Be engaged with your readers and you will keep them coming back for more. If a reader leaves a comment on your page, visit their blog, respond to their comment and try to think of a way to write about their site in one of your own posts. By integrating your readers into your posts, your blog becomes a collaborative effort rather than a singular endeavor. Your readers feel involved and other blog owners take notice.

Integrate New Ideas and Technologies The more new ideas you can squeeze into your posts, the better. This means that when a new add-on or widget becomes available that suits your site, take advantage of it. Talk about new technologies, email other site owners and use their new additions to the fullest. Blogger and most other services allow you to add on features to your blog quickly and easily. Use this feature and you will start to see increased interaction with your site by your visitors.

Take Advantage of Every Tool at Your Disposal There are dozens of websites and directories online that list blogs like yours. These websites index topics, tags, and recent posts for searchers and visitors to sort through and can get you a fair share of high volume traffic if you use them properly. Ping your blog to the major blog directories such as Technorati and Pingoat. These services will list your blog in their directories, include your categories and tags for searching and when you sign up for an account, list your profile for readers to see. There are dozens of websites that offer these services.

To be noticed online, you need only expend the extra bit of effort necessary to gain the momentum needed for new readers and blog owner attention to shift to you. Use these methods and you can guarantee a flock of new readers coming your way

This article was written by RAMAN KUMAR SHARMA

About the Author:-

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website:- www.atoz-about-rss.com www.blogging.infozabout.com

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I am concerned, the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity. The other day I decided to do some research on the Web and try to connect to some blog writers out there that interested me. Let me tell you it was not an enjoyable task as I had envisioned. I spent four painful hours surfing through around a thousand on-line journals, and I found only a few that interested me. What are we doing out there, people?

First, just getting to a blog can be a pain in the neck. For example, you type in the words ‘Philosophy blogs’ and a whole bunch of sites come up. Some are conglomerate sites with thousands of journals, but the area you are searching for may have only one blog in it! This is because they separate the blogs into a million different categories, like love’, ‘lovers’, ‘lovable’ etc. Why not have just a few main categories to choose from?

The next problem is the content. People with ‘philosophical’ blogs are having personal chats with their mates about the local dance competition on Tuesday! Why not go to a chat room if you just want to talk to your friends? Blogs are supposed to be a personal viewpoint expressed to the whole Web community. Would not you actually like to meet more people like yourself? How is this going to happen if you talk in strange uncommon slang and acronyms that only you and your friends can understand? Please stick to the subject at hand, and take it at least half seriously.

Another major problem is the fact that you can find a cool blog that sparks an interest, but then find that the writer has not added an entry in over a year! What is it doing on the Net? Have these people passed away? I seriously doubt it, as there are so many blogs in this ‘lost’ state. Having a blog is a responsibility; it is a shared diary for the whole community. How can someone form a relationship if you only write in your blog once a millennium?

Back to the subject of content: These on-line journals are a real chance to communicate regularly with others with similar views to yourself. We can learn a lot from each other, as each human is an individual with special traits and skills that only they have. So why do we see so many blogs just talking about trivial nonsense like ‘Who the coolest movie actor is.’ Humanity is an intelligent species evolving everyday towards a higher consciousness. So where are all the thinkers out there, the people who have taken us to the next levels of spirituality and scientific exploration? I would really like to hear what you have got to say, but all I can find are philosophical beliefs on why dyed pink jeans express one’s true inner self.

The issue of making comments on someone’s blog is also a controversial one. Why have comments sections if you are not going to reply to people who have expressed an interest in what you have had to say? How is this community going to function if all the conversation is one-way! Come on people, wake up and smell the coffee! Let us change the blogging community into the awesome structure of shared knowledge that it was intended for. Please do not let it turn into the small-talk world of chat rooms.

About the Author

For more useful tips and hints, please browse for more information at our website:- http://www.blog-and-ping.com, http://www.blogging.reprintarticlesite.com

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

My Second full month as a blogger has now been completed and I’m now in elite company! A high percentage of bloggers seemingly quit within the first two months of start up a blog, thinking it is going to be an easy route to giving up the day job and making their fortune.

For me my blog is a long-term plan and I don’t expect to be making any serious money out of blogging until 18-24 months time. My goal at the moment is to develop 2milliondollarbills.com into a blog that provides interesting, unique and well-written content, I know, I still have a long way to go to achieve this, but I’m getting there.

2milliondollarbill.com is slowly increasing its readership and subscribers, at a moderate rate, which has exceeded my expectations. My figures for the month of May are well above my expectations. This months figures also take into account the fact, that for 7 days due to moving to London and the hassles involved in that, I couldn’t do very much blog related work and as a result my blog expectedly never gained many new readers during this period.

I also started a second blog in May called travelersstories.com , which was probably a slightly crazy thing to do considering how busy my schedule was in May. I also built and launched a web site for a company in Barbados that I’m a director of.

If I want to achieve my goal of making 2 million dollars, I have to work hard and stay focussed; no one is going to do it for me.

2milliondollarbills.com Results for May 2008

Unique Visitors: 1473
Number of Visits: 4444
Pages viewed: 28990
Subscribers: 21 (average for the month)

Alexa Rank:
3-Month Average: 2,408,826
1-Week Average: 1,660,461

Technoati Rank:  492,178

Google Adsense: $43.35
Playing Poker: $, I never played poker the whole month, but this will change!
Donations: $20

Total: $63.35

The earnings that I make from blogging at the present time are immaterial, they do not even come into the equation, I know that at some point in the future my blog will be earning a considerable amount of money, I have made  enough in my first two months of blogging to cover my hosting charges for the next year. I realise that to make serious money from Google Adsense you have to have massive levels of traffic and your blog has to be suited to actually making money from ppc advertising.

My main goal for the future is to keep on building up my blogs traffic to the level where I can go and sell advertising space directly, the is the future of blogging!

The  results of my first month as a blogger can be viewed here My First Month As A Future Blogging Icon, 2 Million Dollar Bills

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

There are many different reasons as to why people become bloggers, everyone has their own path, which they are attempting to follow. Including the following.

1. To become famous.
2. To make little bit of extra money or in some cases to become wealthy.
3. To promote a business.
4. To sell services or in some cases themselves!
5. To stay in touch with friends and family.
6. To increase job prospects.
7. To express a personal opinion.
8. Purely for fun

My own personal reasons for starting a blog are to eventually make a reasonable good income from it and to periodically promote my business interests when I have the opportunity. What I’m trying to do isn’t rocket science or particularly difficult. All I have to do is write interesting articles, keep on improving as a writer, stay motivated and put the time and effort into the task at hand.

My first two months as a blogger have been a fantastic challenge, which I have found to be truly inspiring. I view my blog as a long-term goal, which will take a huge amount of time and effort for it to reach the level of success that I plan on achieving.

Everyone single person that starts a blog has the chance to make his or her mark on the world. How successful you are is entirely dependant upon yourself!

Whatever the reason you have decided to become a blogger, a very interesting point regarding the manner of how you conduct yourself, has been raised at pure blogging Become A Blogger To Look Up To

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The correct answer as to why you should leave comments on a blog, is obviously because you have an intelligent answer that you would live to give relating to the article you have just read. It is also helps the blog site owner where the article appears, to judge the success and public opinion towards what they have published. For me these should be the primary reasons as to why you leave comments on someone else’s blog. Well for me they are!

As a relatively new blogger its, coming up for my second full month of my journey towards becoming a successful and profitable blogger. It has become obvious to me, that you get plenty of people out there that leave comments on blogs for the sole purpose of kissing the ass of the superstar blogger. They leave second-rate comments or they can only agree with every word written by the well-known bloggers.

I suppose people that don’t have a mind of their own and are spending every waking minute wishing they could be just like their hero, will never become successful. I think the reason why people like Yaro Starak , Darren Rowse, Shoemoney have become so successful is because they are original, they never had anybody to copy to mould themselves upon, to look too for ideas.

The only way we can become successful is to carve our own path, and for me that means I have drastically reduced the amount of time I spend reading the big blogs. I don’t want to subconsciously or purposely, for that matter copy them. There is so many good new up and coming blogs out there in blog land which I feel will one day surpass the great well known bloggers of today.

The number 1 reason I feel why comments are left on blogs is link building and building traffic. Nothing wrong with that, but when it is obvious that the person hasn’t even read the dam article and is leaving their mindless comments for the sole purpose or I should say vain hope that someone visits their own site. Why the heck am I going to visit your site when you leave a comment such as, “well written article, great stuff, keep up the good work”. I feel that any blog owner should be proactive and delete such comments that are clearly a waste of time.

Why do you leave comments on blogs, be honest, do you even bother to read the article? Or are you one of those, who is petrified to leave constructive criticism on a well know bloggers blog.

 Here is another well written article discussing, adding keywords to the name field, again feel this is something that no serious blogger should be part of  Should you add keywords to the name field when you leave comments on a blog?

For another well-written article on why people leave comments on blogs can be found at blog oh blog Why Leave Comments?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

After many months of thinking about starting up a blog I finally took the plunge and on the 15th of March 2008 I purchased a domain name, bought myself some hosting and signed up with Wordpress. Was it really as simple as that, well there were a few teething problems, which you would expect when you’re participating in something completely new. But there wasn’t anything that I couldn’t overcome, the beauty of life in the 21st century, is if you ever need answers, Google is always there to lend a helping hand.

My goal with my blog was to post at least one article a day, which can take anything between 45 to 90 minutes depending on how focussed I am, on that particular day. I know I aint going to win any awards for the quality of my writing, grammar or spelling! But I feel my blog is reasonable entertaining and informative, which is what it is meant to be. I’m not pretending to be the next Ernest Hemmingway like some other bloggers out there. I’m doing the best I can and gradually improving as a blogger.

My goal like any other blogger out there is to get as many people reading my blog as possible, what’s the point if know one reads it? It goes without saying, I hope to make some money out of my blog, and I’m not really looking for fame, unless the fame involves lots of pretty girls drooling over me. I can look but cant touch, buts its still a prospect that appeals to me!

My results so far as a new blogger are as follows, I have summarised my first full month of Blogging which was April. I will not be including March because quite simply, that month was basically about setting the blog up and finding out how everything worked. My readership figures are not based upon 100’s of family and friends. I haven’t told a living soul that I personally know about my blog apart from my wife, why did I do this? I wanted to know how many people are really reading my blog because they want too, not because they feel obligated too!

The Results For April 2008

Unique Visitors:      993
Number of Visits:   3213
Pages viewed:       21797
Subscribers:          5

Earnings:

Google Adsense:  $35.69
Playing Poker:      $98.35 (I have added this because poker is a big  part of my blog)
Donations:           $15.00

Total:                   $149.04

I’m reasonable happy with these figures and will try to write better and more cutting edge articles. I plan on working hard to increase my readership and will be adding some more moneymaking opportunities to my blog during May. I appreciate everyone that has read my articles and has added to the revenue of my blog.

I started out this blog well aware that it takes a fair amount of time and effort for things to move forward; I’m in it for the long term. There is so much to learn to make a blog a success, but if we never had new things to learn and challenges to meet, I suppose life would become kinda dull.

 ”Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations”.          Oliver Goldsmith

Bookmark It