Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Posts Tagged blogging for money

Blog Income Life: The Next Step

Oct 20

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money, Plan Development | 1 Comment

What should your next step be in developing your blog income life? If you have been following along with me then you have the basics of your blog set up and running well.  As a refresher here is what we have covered so far:

  1. Topic/Niche Selection
  2. Domain Name
  3. Selecting the right platform for your blog
  4. Posting on your blog
  5. Monetizing your blog
  6. Repurposing your posts into articles & submitting to article directories
  7. Link Building

It is time to decide on your next step.  As you have been learning how to blog for money you have also been learning about internet marketing … sneaky huh!  That is why I believe that blogging is the best introduction to internet marketing.  Its user friendly so that anyone can do it yet presents enough of a challenge so that you are learning new skill sets.  I like that part.  I find that my brain is quite happy to be exercised and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I overcome a challenge in my quest to master the art of blogging for money.

But now you have arrived at the fork in the road.

Here are your two choices right now:

1.  Continue applying what you have learned so far.  Keep polishing your skills.  You will find that with continued practice your skill level improves and your confidence level goes up.  You will find that it will take less  time to create a new post,  to re-purpose the post into articles, and to submit to article directories.  You will develop a system.

2. Add a new dimension.  This means learning a new application, or “task” which will take you further along the road to becoming an internet marketing master.  It means leaving your comfort zone and taking on a new challenge.   This is the option I recommend – but only if you are relatively comfortable with option one, and have set up a “system”  no matter how rudimentary, that you can follow.  This is the way to develop an awesome blog income life.

Tomorrow more on new dimensions

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Living a Blog Income Life
… going for the big cheese


Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , , , ,

Tags: , , , , ,

New Address – New Domain Name & September Statistics!

Oct 1

Posted by Valentina in Starting a Blog | 5 Comments

Can you believe it?  We’re in to the last quarter of the year!  The next two months are traditionally the most productive make it or break it months of the year and statistically bring in more new business than at any other time of the year.  Back in the days when I was with Corporate America these were the big bonus months for those of us who were in sales.  How it generally works is that your quota is based on a calendar year and the big bonus paychecks don’t kick in unless your quota has been reached and then watchit baby!  The more over quota, the bigger and fatter the bonus check at Christmas!

Staying on that theme, I would have fired me from this blog by now.  The showing has been abysmal.  My target was to reach a four figure income by year end from this blog alone.  It just ainta gonna happen!

Before the stats get published … stay with me:

As detailed in Monday’s posting, I uncovered many areas that needed adjusting – this is something that typically one does on a quarterly basis, but I was still testing the waters at the end of QI.  By the end of QII I knew I had to do something.  I took the 30 Day Challenge and uncovered some whopper type errors!

1.  From the name Blog Along with Me, the keyword was blog in the domain name yet for me to get Google’s or any other engines attention would prove to be extremely difficult.  With over 2 million searches daily, and almost 2.5 billion blogs or sites with that word in them, it would be a very long time before my position would deliver much traffic to my blog.  That is why my search engine results were anemic – heck, lets be honest, they were on a lifeline!

2.  OK … the bulb went on early.  I decided to start fighting for blogging for money keyword phrase which is once again crowded but at least it seemed that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel — one day.  But then the keyword phrase was not part of the domain name. Its not mandatory but it helps and when you are still green behind the ears like I am, its best to stay within the rules.  Yes.  You can break the rules AFTER you understand them, know them and know how to break them in your favor.  I am a long way away from that yet.

3. Blogger gadgets just simply do not compare with all the bells and whistles of WordPress Direct plugins.

4.  With my new domain name, Blog Income Life, my keyword phrase is blog income, which is still a very competitive field, but looking at the top 10 in Google, there is room for some  muscle flexing.  Not saying that this blog will up there terribly soon.  As I have only just moved it over, there are still no new stats.  But I’ll be watching them daily.

Now the Stats:

screenshot - analytics september 09

I stopped posting on this blog on September 09.  Typically fresh content brings in visitors.   So, anemic and pathetic as it was, search engines were still directing some traffic to the blog.screenshot - analytics september 09 traffic sources

Those that visited and stayed spent an average of 4.38  minutes each.  that warms the soul.  I hope its because that those who choose to stay and read find the information valuable.    I have to tell you that none of my other blogs have the visitors spending that much time on the site.

Earnings:

Adsense           $ 4.78
Clickbank           14.00
Hostgator          50.00

Total                   $68.78

I am also happy that my e.book ABC’s of Blogging for Money is being downloaded at an average rate of 15 – 20 per month.

There is a lot of work to do with this blog before it is up to scratch.  For one thing I need to figure out how to keep the two sidebars from duplicating each other, for another – I have to monetize it quick or there will be no sales at all to report for October!  And put up that ABC’s of Blogging Banner!  I had “followers” on Blogger – that part did not transfer.  Don’t know how it will affect those who had me on their Google Reader, maybe it has to be re-subscribed.  So some of what I have to do is starting from ground zero.  From that point of view, I’ll be happy if I can at least stay even for the month of October.  Many questions I have, the answers will soon appear.

Thank you to everyone who visits and reads.  I hope that you find this helpful.  If you find value here, send it over to a friend or colleague and please do comment, what you like, don’t like, improvements you think I could implement, suggestions … hey, tell me what you want to know, all will be welcome.

Now stay for the ride.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogger for Money – living the good life!

PS: Living the good life IS the big cheese!

Quick Links:

Free PDF download of ABC’s of Blogging for Money

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , ,

Tags: , , ,

Blogger to WordPress Direct – done!

Sep 28

Posted by Valentina in Starting a Blog | 4 Comments

WooHoo!  Finally did it!  Moved this blog from Blogger to WordPress Direct!

First things first – I have changed the title of the blog from Blog Along With Me to Blog Income Life. This is the third reincarnation of this blog, and here are the reasons for the change of title, and for that matter, the domain name.

Now that I have Market Samurai software and increasing familiarity with its use and application, it is so easy to do research.  Ideally the research is done BEFORE setting up the blog but it can also be of benefit after the fact as you can then fine tune or, for that matter, drop your site/niche if it is neither profitable nor likely to be.

Its all about keywords.  Having gone through the Thirty Day Challenge this summer I have developed a whole new level of respect for these little tidbits.  Keywords is what the internet spiders or “bots” dine out on and they are eventually what drives traffic to your site.  I have learned that these little critters like it when the main keyword shows up in your domain name – and be sure to sprinkle the word(s) liberally in the introduction section of your blog. You get points for these little details and the reward is a higher position in the search engine’s rankings.

The keywords we choose to fight for should have a combination of daily searches, traffic to sites, competition and an estimated dollar value according to Google adwords/adsense.  If the daily searches are high and there is a lot of competition, then it will be a long time before your site earns a top spot in the search engines’ rankings.  This is cause for frustration at the least and no earnings at the worst.

So lets take a look at my previous title:

Blog Along With Me.

What attracted me to the title in the first place was the invitation for visitors to, well, blog along with me, do what I do, build a blog and make a dollar or two and hopefully more.  It was an experiment in putting to use that which I had learned up to then.  I had a secondary agenda and that was to organize what I had learned and to fill in the holes along the way.  It did that.  It also prompted me to publish my first e.book, ABC’s of Blogging for Money.

Parsing the phrase, “Blog” is the main keyword.  According to the statistics that Market Samurai dug up for me there are more than two million daily searches for the word, and over two billion web pages globally that mention the word.  Top spots are held by Blogger, WordPress and other entrenched sites.  No hope of ever getting top billing for that word.

screenshot - MS blog

The phrase itself referred to in IM language as the “long tail” was at polar opposites, in other words abysmal.  Most searches had to do with sing along with me.

screenshot - MS blog along with me

screenshot - MS blog along with me 1

Now lets compare some of the options I was looking at:

I could have gone with ABC’s of Blogging for Money, or just plain ABC’s of Blogging as I own both domains but I already have these for my e.book for which I have a second career in mind.

Here are some numbers for Blog Income:

screenshot - MS blog income

Blog Income is already a crowded playing field as I expected it to be.  Needless to say Blog Income was not available as a domain so I added the word “life”.  The profitability from an Adsense point of view is nothing to write home about.  I think I will experiment and see if the results will be any better than they have been in the past – if not, Adsense will be removed from this blog.

The numbers go against the grain of what I have been taught:  start as a big fish in a small pond and you stand a better chance of a healthy krill diet – read that as dollars or income.  I knew from the outset that I was up against some giants in the game, but that is the game I want to play, so be that as it may.  I visit with the giants and pick up from them.  They are my role models.

After crunching numbers, keywords and using some of the other features of Market Samurai I realize why it has been such an uphill battle to grow the traffic to my blog.  Look at the former site as if it was straddling two bodies of water – one was the Atlantic Ocean and I but a minnow, the other was a mere puddle in the road searched for by no one!

Armed with research the following steps have been taken or are in progress:

1. Decided to fight for top billing with search engines for the keywords Blog Income
2.  Found a domain name that has the keywords at the front end
3.  I will continue to inject other important keywords, such as blogging for money in my postings with the thought that eventually I will receive a ranking for both.

Will I lose the traffic that is currently going to Blog Along with Me? NO.  I will redirect that domain to point to the new one so that anyone looking for my old site will be redirected here.  Stats will continue.  Everything will go along as before.

It is a good life!

Happy Blogging!

Valentina

PS… yes, the cheese rolls on!

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,

At the Crossroads of Crisis and Desperation Entrepreneurs are Born.

Sep 9

Posted by Valentina in Making Money | 2 Comments

At the crossroads of Crisis and Desperation entrepreneurs are born. It’s true. Tough times bring out the latent entrepreneurial spirit in all of us. Whether that spirit moves us to successful entrepreneurship is up to you. It’s akin to leading a horse to water.

I believe there are two types of entrepreneurs. There is the A type of entrepreneur, the individual who may have tried the nine to five but couldn’t stomach the stifling atmosphere. Typically this type of person has an innate restlessness, an impatience for something bigger and better and quite honestly, does not make for a good employee. Such a person has a different agenda. You see such a person in the faces of Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and Phillip Knight.

Lesser known and flying under the radar of visibility is the entrepreneur who becomes one out of necessity, or, for want of a better term, the B type of entrepreneur. These are legion and account for a significant portion of multi-millionaires – not a bad place to be financially. Faced with economic uncertainty they actively cast about for opportunities and finding them take action. Today that opportunity is writ large on the internet and the entrepreneur born is often a blogger.

Blogging for money is the easiest introduction to making money online. Everyone can write, the cost is negligible and it is a user friendly introduction to cutting your teeth in the field of Internet Marketing. In fact knowing what I now know, after having taken several internet marketing courses, were I starting in Internet Marketing today, I would definitely start with blogging.

A word of caution though, you need to do more than just publish posts on your blog. If you want to make money blogging you need to treat it as a business. There are some basics that need considering:

1. Select a niche
2. Select the blogging platform
3. Monetize your site
4. Market, market, market.

Each of these basic to the bones steps form the foundation upon which you will build your business. That is why I wrote the e.book ABC’s of Blogging for Money which you can download in PDF format for free.

Once you get the basics down pat you can expand, bit by bit and eventually become a super blogger pulling in at the very least a mid-six figure annual income.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina Bellicova
Blogger for Money

Blogging is all about getting your own cheese.

Quick Lins:
ABC’s of Blogging for Money

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,

Yes Virginia – there is money in blogging

Aug 9

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Making Money | 2 Comments

I just read a post by a blogger colleague and I am super disappointed … in essence this blogger is saying that you should first and foremost blog because you have a passion for blogging and to forget about blogging for the purpose of money. That most bloggers blog from the crack of dawn and deep into the night. This person obviously subscribes to that group that believes in living your passion and the money will follow!!! Or another way they put it “do what you love and the money will come.”

Bull Dung!

I am getting tired of hearing this refrain. It gets me angry. It does a disservice to those who are serious about making money online. Blogging for money is a business and should be treated as such. If you are going to spend your waking hours blogging then why not make money? I have yet to meet anyone who was able to walk into a bank and deposit a whole bunch passion. Try paying your rent or buying groceries with love. Lets get serious.

First, if you want to make money at blogging you have to treat it like a business. That is why I wrote my ABC’s of Blogging for Money so that people can follow a system to lay down a foundation for success.

Yes, you also have to work at it. Nothing for nothing. But from crack of dawn into the dead of night??? I know several bloggers that are making money that CEOs of companies would eye with envy. You do need to put in consistent effort but I can guarantee you that these successful bloggers are not not up at the crack of dawn and working into the dead of night blogging.

You also need to be an ongoing student. Even my ABC’s of Blogging for Money is just the start. You need to be continuously learning about how to be a better internet marketer – that’s how you become a successful blogger. That’s how you start making a bit of money which with effort becomes some money and then one day you wake up to lots of money.

It helps if you blog about something that you are knowledgeable on, and if it happens to be a passion, great! If you want to make money blogging about it, you need to make sure that there is a market out there that actually wants to know more about your subject (covered in my ABC’s of Blogging for Money). No market, no money honey.

As I mentioned earlier, blogging for money is a business. Apply business principles and through diligent effort the money will indeed come. There is an excellent online course right now, the 30 Day Challenge that I encourage everyone to register for and apply. It is free. You learn how to select a profitable niche, install a blog with WordPress Direct and most importantly you learn how to market. If you have not signed up for it yet it is not too late. What is great about this is that you can work on it at your own pace.

Happy Blogging

Valentina
Blogger for Money

PS… oooh! It gets me angry when someone tries to tell me there is no cheese!

Quick Links:
Fee PDF Download of ABC’s of Blogging for Money
Register for 30 Day Challenge

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,

"Tweak" along with me

Aug 3

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, Starting a Blog | No Comments

For my 30 Day Challenge I am researching a new niche and as I do so I am learning things that I can apply immediately to this blog and I made such a change today.

When you first open this blog, the first thing you read is a blurb about the blog. As mentioned several times in my postings, I am fighting for the keyword phrase “blogging for money” yet this phrase

1. is not in my URL
2. is not part of my domain name
3. is not part of the title
4. is not in the header
5. was not used in the description or “blurb” of the blog.

The first four items I cannot do much about right now – or at least I choose to leave till later, but I tackled item no. 5 right away and “tweaked” the description. I changed the wording and used several keywords that are good in this niche, but which I had omitted and I made sure that “blogging for money” was front and center.

Why is this important?

These are all factors that are taken into account by Google and other search engines. When compared to other blogs in the “blogging for money” keyword phrase this blog did very well in a number of areas, those that are known as “on page”, in fact it outperformed some that were in the top 10 list, but I failed miserably in the “off page” criteria which are the 5 mentioned above.

Its a small “tweak” but it will be interesting to see what, if any, difference it will make in traffic.

So here is what you need to keep top of mind when finding a domain name and setting up your blog site:

1. keyword in the domain name
2. keyword in the URL (usually one follows the other)
3. keyword in the header
4. keyword in the Title
5. keyword in the description.

If you incorporate these five strategies you’ll be way ahead over those who don’t and have a leg up on the blogging for money game.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogger for Money

can you say cheese?

Quick Links
30 Day Challenge

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,