Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Posts Tagged blogging

Those Doggone Blogging Blues – Having Nothing More To Say

Jun 11

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Internet Marketing | 7 Comments

blue dog

dogging the blues

What can you do about it?

Question.  As you have been writing on your subject have you at the same time continued to increase your own knowledge base on it?  If not, this is a good time to do so.  Here are some good ways to broaden your scope on any given subject/topic:

  1. Visit your colleague’s blogs.  Guaranteed you will find something that will get your attention.  A new slant, a new resource, a fresh approach, perhaps even the appearance of your colleague’s blog may give you some ideas.

    2. You may want to visit blogs that have a commonality but not necessarily the same niche as yours.  For example while Blog Income is a blog on blogging I find visiting sights on personal development and personal finance to be both inspirational and broadening.   I apply some of what I learn at those blogs to some of the other areas of my internet marketing – and to my personal life.

    2. Review a colleague’s blog – or a post – on your blog.  Why you like the blog.  What attracted you to it. What keeps you coming back.  Is there a suggestion you can make that would enhance that blogger’s results.This is a tactic I should follow myself.   Now that I have established a list of blogs that are on my  follow list, a review of each of them would introduce my readers to some really good (and sometimes irreverent) bloggers,  content and diversity of style.  A funny thing happens when you begin to review something – precious gems are unearthed, gems you can pocket and apply to your own efforts.

    3.  Interview a blogger: This is a natural gimme.  It’s fun to come up with questions.  I like interviews where the blogger answers questions that are yes, helpful, but also that may be off topic and put the blogger in the hot seat.  It’s a way to break through the din of what is expected and perks your reader’s interest.

    4. Invite a colleague to be a guest on your blog.  Pick a favorite blogger:  one whose sun is rising.  In the make money online grouping you are more likely to have such a blogger accept your invite than if you invited a big name guru.   Moreover I like the guts and nerve that the newbies display – they have to do something to rise above the noise and they have to differentiate themselves from the pioneers while basically still writing the same stuff as others who have gone before them.


    6. Republish     some of your earlier posts.  Some of your best writing may have been done when you first began.  Lets face it that was when you were pumped and bent on showing the blogosphere that you knew whereof you wrote, and you took time to polish the prose so that it came across as being professional.  The thing is that was early on in your blog income career when hardly anyone was aware of your blog let alone visiting it.  New traffic typically reads the current post yet some valuable stuff may be buried in your archives.

    7. Last but not least – hit the internet for information on your subject, go to article directories and simply bone up.

These are simple steps which if followed will remind you why you decided to blog, why you chose the topic you did and guaranteed invigorate you to continue.

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Have You Got the Blogging Blues?

Jun 3

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Making Money | 8 Comments

Tof of World

Blogging blues!   We all get them.

You know, you’ve been blogging for a while happy as lark, topic after topic tripping off the keyboard like there was no tomorrow.  Traffic is growing and even some comments are being left by your appreciative  readers when BAM!  Just like that when you should be feeling like you’re sitting on top of the world, the blogging blues take hold.

Suddenly:

-          You have nothing more to say

-          A commenter challenged your content and therefore (you think) your authority is being questioned.

-          Traffic has stalled

-          Alexa no longer loves you

-          You are not making any money

-          Doubt sets in – is this the right niche?

-          The topics on other blogs are always more enticing

-          You begin to flirt with the idea of a hmmmm… an online affair of a different kind

-          Your blog no longer appears attractive to you

-          Posting becomes a chore

-          Google has banished you to the sandbox

If you have ever experienced any of the above – or, all of them at once – you’re in good company.  There isn’t a top blogger around who at some point or another didn’t come up against the same challenges.   It’s as if you turn a corner and the road ahead is nothing but one speed bump after another.

You feel as if all your hard work is for naught, that the universe is set against you and you sink into a real funk – you get the blues and you get them bad.

If there is anything I can say to you at this point  it is that you do not give in – don’t succumb .  Simply add the experience as one of the rites of passage in your blog income career.  There are ways to deal with each of these speed bumps.   Check in tomorrow and the day after and then again … all of the above will be tackled one by one until once again you feel like you are standing on top of the world – a champion blogger!

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What Do Citizen Journalism and Blogging Have In Common?

May 4

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Miscellaneous | 3 Comments

What is Citizen Journalism and what does it have in common with blogging?


Everything!


Citizen journalism IS blogging.


I was reading an article on the success of an early stage company , NowPublic. After four years in the making it sold for a reported $25M to media chain, Media Clarity.

What does NowPublic do and how did it command that kind of coin?


NowPublic is a news aggregator.


When you log on to its home page, NowPublic  appears no different than any other news aggregator:  MSN, Yahoo, AOL and the list goes on.   Its masthead says that it is crowd powered media.  But as you begin to read you notice a difference and that is that some of the articles are well …  rather amateurish.  Content is good but it sometimes comes with all the warts and blemishes of a teenager and has about as much polish.


NowPublic is the brainchild of Leonard Brody.  What caught his attention was the way that self-published blogs were overturning traditional media.  He and his partners saw the opportunity to funnel the eyes and ears of the average Joes and Janes, people who happened to be at the right place at the right time and witnessed a happening worth writing about and did -  on their blogs.  He saw this as the next generation in news publishing.


The term citizen journalism took hold.


The very successful and popular Mashable is an example of a similar idea – it is an aggregator of news in the world of the internet – a little more specific and niched than NowPublic which covers pretty much everything under the sun.


I recently met with the CEO of a company that seems to be running on parallel lines with NowPublic but instead of text content it is latching on to video content in much the same way.  Citizen videographers … ground breaking news caught on phone video and flashed around the world.  Think about the Mumbai bombing incident when the first videos out were from amateurs who were on the scene, pointing, clicking and submitting to You Tube.


Add crowd sourcing to your list of new terms.


So what does all of this have to do with you?  Read on.


The article is title The Prime of Mister Brody Its a good piece of writing and an interesting read.


Tony Wanless, the author of the piece interviewed experts in the field of journalism and media for this article … to quote

“  … crowd sourced news movement has supplemented traditional newsgathering …  so down the road we may see a ‘pro-am’ model where professionals work with amateur journalists…”
attributed to: Kirk LaPointe, UBC Graduate School of Journalism & Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun


“… media outlets that are prepared to adjust to change will likely partner in the future with citizen journalism sites and other online content delivery systems …”
attributed to SFU communications professor Richard Smith, who concentrates on online communities and technology.


I have visited many a blog that was well written, interesting and worthy in my view of publishing in print media.  Now it may be an easier, you can be a citizen journalist and  have your piece in an online publications, such as an aggretator of your topic, or, you just might get featured in NowPublic.


Welcome to the world of citizen journalism!

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Banish the Blands

Apr 28

Posted by Valentina in Making Money | 4 Comments

No, no, no.  Not the Blaaahs – yes, those should be banished too, but the “blands.” What are blands? Oh, I think I just made that up as a noun – you know, when something is bland? Well the blands are just a lot of bland.


While blog hopping earlier this week I ended up at Mars Dorian’s where he writes a thought provoking blog and shoots an equally wicked vidlog … all in one.


Just as someone tells you that the blogosphere is saturated and that it’s going to be a long slog to just get traffic and get noticed and have visitors leave comments and never mind about the money because those that are making it aren’t going to tell you how and how the hell do you think you’ll be different from the millions and millions of other blogs out there ….???


Along comes  like Mars.


I chanced on his post on setting yourself apart. .  It was a good intro and the video was an excellent watch.  Hop on over there and watch it, it’s worth it, then, if you like please come back here.  Mars talks about being yourself when you write and how if you are just part of the noise, no one will hear you.  In other words, put some spice and don’t be bland.


I can tell you there is nothing bland about Mars.


That’s when I got the idea of banishing the blands.  Like there ought to be a place in cyberspace where anything bland on the internet is banished to, sort of like living in exile in the sphere of Blandistan – sorry Dave,  borrowing from your Blogistan.  Those in exile will need to work on their unique and true self and present themselves in that way and not try to be like someone else.


Of course bland is very subjective.  It’s like the color beige, no one – at least no one I know – gushes and coos about how they “… just love beige, I mean don’t you?”  Beige on the other hand can exude elegance and class if styled “just so” whether it is a coat or a couch, and it is not just in the eye of the beholder, when something is done right, you just know it.


So who is going to be the judge of bland and how is that going to be handled? Who else?  Surely Google would be the obvious arbiter of whether a piece of work is bland or not.  The spyder bots can be trained to recognize bland when they crawl and quickly, just like that, a bland  piece is banished to Blandistan.


Hmmmm….. there are holes in this thought, but it’s got merit, it can be worked out,. Stay with me.  What do you think?

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This Too Shall Pass

Apr 8

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Valentina Recommends | No Comments

Today I got this in my inbox.  Its a link to a You Tube video.  It’s hilarious!   Takes the domino effect olympians to a whole new level.   You can watch it here (for some reason I was unable to download/embed correctly – just click the YouTube option and it will play.

As I was watching the video I could not help but draw parallels to blogging and internet marketing.   Lets take a look at what we can learn from this video:

1. UNIQUE

What first caught my attention is that this is a departure from your standard domino effect videos.  Clever as those are they are from today onwards – at least in my eyes -  just thematic variations on dominos falling in rapid succession.  In this video the dudes devised a clever use of mixed objects  to move inertia to action

How does this apply to blogging?

In yesterday’s post I talked about your blog’s USP and how  differentiating your blog from others was important.  In this video we see imagination taking over and the result is a uniquely creative domino effect.

2.  FIRST STEP

The simple act of pushing the truck sets off a succession of movements that impact some domino style blocks.  I like the use of these blocks as it tells us from the outset that this is another one of those domino wonder videos, then it changes tack as  a string is toggled, then a marble then a series of half pipes and the whole thing goes down a wild rabbit trail. It had me glued to my screen.   I watched it several times to see the point of connection at each new article in motion.

How does this apply to blogging?

The first physical step that a blogger takes is to buy a domain.  From there on the ball starts rolling.  In this video there were 89 mechanisms involved.  As you progress in your blog you learn how to optimize your keywords,  how to appeal to the search engines, to drive traffic, to develop a community, to attract stark raving fans, to have conversions.  Ultimately to make money.

3.  CONTENT

Did you notice that all the items are ordinary, every day things?  Same with what you write in your blog.  Unless you’re writing to a very small niche of rocket scientists – well, this is not rocket science.   Content for your blog is all around you.  Some seemingly  non related items can be worked into your post, no matter what your topic is.  Think about how strong March winds, or April flowers, or fashion shopping baskets might fit in to what you write about.  My friend Cheryll just started a site on her collapsible shopping baskets (its a work in progress just wanted to show you an example) … if yours is a greening the planet type of blog, would these not fit in nicely as a post.

    Most importantly, keep it simple.

    4.  ENGAGEMENT

    Make it fun.  OK.  This is a tough one.  Not all of us are blessed with clever witticism, thigh slapping humour or the ability to string a bunch     of words in such a way that they will entertain your audience.  Ok … the least that you can do is lighten up – yes, I am working on it!

    5.  LEVERAGE

    Excellent example of the leverage of the power of kinetics.  How can you leverage your blog for traffic, conversions, links, list building,           making money

    6. TENACITY

    This took a lot of planning.  Do you think that it was perfect from the get go?  How many “takes” did it take?  It took months to perfect the concept and get this – there are 89 points of connection and it took 85 takes!  Aaah.  Tenacity, thy name is success!

    If you get the time watch the other videos on the behind the scenes of the making of this video, do.  It is both inspirational and informative.  I was so taken by the video it took me a second or two to clue in to the fact that this was a band!  OK GO!  The creators?  Oh I dunno, gotta be engineers or just dudes with too much time on their hands and bent imaginations living in their heads!

    BUT DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT?

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    Sunday Morn Musings – On Books and Bookshelves & More Reading Stuff

    Jan 24

    Posted by Valentina in Sunday Morn Musings | 5 Comments

    Welcome to Sunday Morn Musings.  This is my weekly free fall – writing about whatever it is that occupies the mind on a Sunday Morn.  The idea of a “no topic” posting is the stepchild to a blog I used to write:  Four O’Clock Thursdays which is still up there if you want to check it out – more likely, I will republish some of those posts here over time.  On Sunday Morn Musings the topic may be about blogging but  probably not.


    Welcome to the first edition of Sunday Morn Musings.  A weekly post without a niche, continuity of topic or an agenda of any sort… well, that last one is not true.  There is an agenda.  It is to share, to tickle, to even provoke – the main thing is, I hope that my Sunday Morn Musings will get you to thinking, and hey, maybe I’ll be able to throw in a bit of humor here and there, or at least some witticism –  that would be a major for me, I’m not known to be a ha ha type of person, it is one of those things I try to work on as I keep entering the annual humorous contest at my Toastmaster club year after year and have  yet to win the top spot and to move on to the next level of competition … I just think that the club I belong to has a lot of “ringers”, at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

    It’s a grey sort of Sunday morning.  The kind that makes you want to sit curled up on your sofa with a good book in one hand and  a cuppa still steaming coffee and indulge in some good reading.  I like reading.  I love books.  My spare bedroom is both my office and  a “library” a wall lined with shelves and shelves of books.  I have always wanted to have a real library in my home, you know, the kind where the books go from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall and of course there would be one of  those ladders that moves on a track so that you can reach the top shelves of your library.  Hmmm…. how would I categorize them, organize them?

    As it is my books are currently organized in my own higgledy piggledy way.  Books I buy and read for pure pleasure: the best sellers, the authors that I like, the autobiographies and historical novels, the literary prize winners  - they are all at one end of the wall slid onto the shelves alphabetically by author.  I try to leave wiggle room at the end of each shelf so that I don’t have to go rearranging the books when yet another is added and needs to be slid into the proper alphabet slot.  It’s getting tighter and tighter.  I think I am going to have to buy another bookshelf and start on another wall … and that would mean a lot of rearranging!

    At the other end I have the books that will make me grow – personal development, financial savvy type stuff, internet marketing.  I have made room at the bottom of one of the bookshelves for the internet marketing courses that I have bought, and the myriad of CD’s  - takes up 3 cram filled shelves if you must know (and then there are those that reside on my computer). This second grouping of books is relatively new in my life.  I have always been an avid reader of mysteries, romance, history and intrigue and even a bit of sci fi but the books on personal growth, on getting ahead in life were introduced to me well into my adulthood.

    How did I get introduced to this genre of writing and what is it about these books that keeps me  going to the bookstore for more?  Certainly they are not particularly well written – at least most are not, no Pulitzer Prize winners amongst this lot, even if they have hit the bestseller list. Years and years ago, my personal trainer Nina casually mentioned that she was reading The Artist’s Way and recommended that I read it too. Now Nina – you’ll come to know her here – is one of the most gentlest of people that I know, yet, there is nothing ambivalent about her.  She has a quiet way about her that means business. Of course I went and bought the book.  Of course I immersed myself into it.  Of course I did the exercises.

    Thus began my addiction with the  self improvement industry. If you haven’t read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron yet I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a great excursion into self re-discovery.   Get your own copy.  You’ll want to write in it and as the years pass, periodically you’ll want to pull it off the shelf and do the whole dang thing all over again!

    What about you?  Do you have a bookshelf?  What books have you got there?  Do you have a favorite?  Or is it a CDshelf (my husband has one of those).  Is it mostly music?  Of course, why bother with a cdshelf anymore – there are mp3 players and ipods and all sorts of gadgets.  Share your thoughts on books and authors and music and artists. Best………………Valentina

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    Affiliate Marketing – Get The Fundamentals Right

    Jan 8

    Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Making Money | 4 Comments

    The three main stages for earning an online income are:

    1. Blogging is the best introduction to internet marketing.
    2. Affiliate Marketing is the best introduction to making serious money.
    3. Developing your own product is THE best entry to online riches

    Last year my focus was blogging – this year it will be on affiliate marketing. Stage three will be another year.

    Just as with blogging there are fundamentals that you need to understand and implement if you want to be successful in promoting your selected affiliate products. There are people making serious income from affiliate marketing and you can too.

    Blogging gives you a strong foundation and a basic understanding of how the world of the internet works.  As a recap, in the year that this blog has been up we have covered how to

    - pick a niche topic for your blog
    - choose a domain name
    - select a platform for your blog
    - set up set up hosting
    - start posting
    - submit articles to article directories
    - get affiliates for your niche market
    - set goals
    ….. more.  Those are just the main items.

    Affiliate Marketing is one of those “disciplines” that internet marketers choose to specialize in and can be integrated with your blog – in fact blogging is often used as a marketing tool for affiliate marketing. In my view it is the natural progression as the next step in your online marketing career.

    For a quick review on affiliate marketing please reference these posts:

    Pump Up Your Blog Income with Affiliate Marketing – 04/11/09

    How to Find Affiliate Programs for Physical Products- 12/11/09

    Residual Income – The Holy Grail of Affiliate Marketing 13/11/09


    You will notice that on this blog I have several banner ads – except for ABCs of Blogging (which is my own ebook), all the others are affiliates. What that means is that if anyone visiting this blog clicks on one of those ads and buys the product I will be paid a commission and that might happen from time to time, but to really maximize the potential income that these products offer, I will need to do more than just have them on this site.  I will need to market them.

    The above articles should give you a basic understanding of why affiliate marketing is an excellent source of income.   If you have not read them yet I encourage you to hop on over and read them now.

    The next post will cover five critical steps to successful affiliate marketing.

    To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

    Valentina

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    Tackle Bills With A Blog Income

    Jan 6

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

    Increasingly people are turning to blogging as a means of earning an additional income.  The reasons vary but I venture that the economic meltdown of 2009 was a major motivator. Sadly many jump on the bandwagon expecting instant results – and who can blame them, what with all the ads promising the money truck to roll in overnight!

    I was speaking with a retired gentleman a few days ago.  He took early retirement because he could.  His income was almost entirely based on his stock portfolio.  With last year’s debacle he finds that he now has to look for a job, not exactly a promising prospect.  He knows I blog and asked if this might be a good direction for him.

    It might be.  He brings a wealth of knowledge from the corporate world.  He could launch a business to business blog, start a paid subscription newsletter, build up traffic and subscribers and sell ad space on his blog and newsletter.  He’s a quick study and I have no doubt that with laser like focus, consistent effort and bulldog tenacity he would succeed.  But it wouldn’t be overnight.

    When speaking with would be bloggers who want to earn an online income, my advice to them is to keep the big picture in the background, and work towards small achievements that are part of the picture.  Yesterday’s post was on 5 milestones that are easy to achieve and a good starting point for any blogging career.  One of those milestones was to eliminate one bill.

    Intuitively the mind jumps to the biggest bill – the mortgage, or car payment.  But what if instead of the big bill, you decide to tackle the smallest one first?  Here is what you do:

    1. Make a list of all your standing order bills along with the monthly amount
    2. Pick the smallest bill and make that your first target
    3. When you eliminate that bill, take the next smallest one and add it to your blog income goal.
    4. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

    I’d like to take credit for this process but I believe I first heard it from Kevin Wilke of Nitro Marketing Its brilliant and here is why I think it is so:

    1. It’s doable.  You are not starting out to conquer Mt. Everest, just a local hill.  You can relate to it.
    2. It’s friendly:  you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment to scale this little incline in your neighborhood – just the will to step out and walk it.  Maybe you haven’t done any exercise for a long time and the top of the hill is a ways off.  Never mind, daily effort eventually brings you to the top of the hill.
    3. Success:  When you look at your standing order of services/payments, I bet you’ll find something that is less than $10.  Mine is $1.96 for a membership to Problogger’s Forum (I got in at the first offer – even at $5.95 it’s a good value).  Well, that was easy.  I have several recurring monthly fees that are in the $9.95 bracket – bet you do to.  Decide which one you want to topple first.
    4. Success builds on success.  A funny thing happens when you first experience success – your personal energy changes and that changes you forever.  It may be just $1.96, but that is one bill that your blog income is paying for and suddenly your backbone strengthens, suddenly there is a new will and resolve that keeps you moving to the next post and then the next.

    Soon the process becomes a new habit – it’s now deeply embedded in your DNA, trust me.  The car payment and the mortgage?  They too will topple.  The debt?   That too will be erased as your blog income grows.

    To An Awesome Blog Income Life!

    Valentina

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    Five Easy Blogging Milestones To Reach

    Jan 5

    Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Plan Development | 7 Comments

    A strong blog income does not happen overnight – for that matter what is a “strong” blog income?  For some a thousand dollars a month is manna from heaven, for others it is just a drop in the bucket.  The difference between the first and the second is where you are in your blogging career and how many milestones you have passed.

    What does a blogging career look like?

    If you are not currently employed, at some point or another in your life you have been.  When you got your first job you needed to present some credentials:  a diploma, a degree, or some experience at the very least, preferably a combination of the lot. Indeed, acquiring each credential was in itself a major milestone in your professional career.  The same applies to blogging.

    While it is easy to start a blog, developing a blog income is an entirely different matter.  For serious newbies who want to become professional bloggers it is important to learn the most essential of the basics involved, just like you had to learn your alphabet, so too do you need to learn the ABC’s of  Blogging for Money.  After getting through the basics you need to keep your eye on the next step, or milestone.  It is a way of monitoring your success and keeping yourself on target.

    Your success path will have many, many milestones but you have to get started somewhere.  Here are five easy ones to begin with:

    1.  First 30 posts:
    This is your entry into the world of blogging.  It tells the internet that you are serious.  Do you know that up to 90% of all blogs ever started have been abandoned after only a few posts?

    Thirty posts also sets the tone for your blog, a culture of your own begins to emerge.  Now it will have an appeal to a certain audience. You begin to develop a style.  Blogging will always be a work in progress but this is your beginning, one to build on.

    Hint:  post the30 as quickly as possible – one a day if you can, three a week at the very least.

    next step:  100 posts.

    2.  First 50 visitors

    When you first begin to blog you will feel like the Lone Ranger.  No one knows who you are, no one drops by, even the spiders and bots are ignoring your efforts.  But lo!  One day the stats show that your site had a visitor, and the next day there are two.  For some the cumulative 50 visitors will be quick, for others it may take a month or even more.  Nevertheless, it is an important notch in your belt.

    Next step:  first 50 visitors day

    3.  First comment

    This can happen before the 50 visitors, especially if you have promoted your blog amongst family and friends.  More than likely if you, like most bloggers, have decided to keep your newly embraced blogging career as your best kept secret from friends and family, the first comment will take a little bit longer (or a lot longer).

    Getting comments on your posts is important.  It is a vote of confidence by your readers and a signal to the search engines that your readers like what you write and are willing to take the time to interact with you.  This is big in the eyes of the bots and spiders that come crawling through your posts.

    There are strategies that you can employ to help this along.  Gabe Young over at Free Blog Help has posted an impressive lists of things to do to encourage comments on your blog.  I certainly found it helpful and rather than writing the list here, I encourage you to hop on over directly to his post for the whole meal deal.   “How I Get More Comments Than Blogs That Have 10 Times More Traffic”

    Next Step:  Implement Gabe’s list, rinse and repeat.

    4.  First Dollar Earned

    Earning your first dollar on the internet is a validation that you can earn more.  It is so important that Ed Dale who hosts the annual 30 Day Challenge makes that the foremost goal of that free course.  If you have not participated in the 30 Day Challenge I encourage you to do so.  Every year in August Ed Dale puts up his 30-Day Challenge. The good thing is you don’t have to wait till August, he leaves it up for the entire year and you can go through it in your own sweet time, take months if you want to.

    Next Step:  Eliminate one monthly bill with your blog income

    5.  PR1 – Google Page Rank 1

    While there may be  life without Google it is a difficult one.  Google is the world’s largest search engine and confers page ranks on blogs and sites from 0 to 10 -  the higher the better.  Yes, you can be below 0, it just shows up as “-“ when you look at your stats.  Page Rank, PR of 1 is a good starting point.  Google only updates a few times a year, so if you have been blogging for months and still nothing from Google, don’t despair.  Your tenacity will eventually be rewarded.

    Next step:  PR2 and upwards.

    There are other milestones that you will aspire to, but these are  good building blocks and should be included in the goals section when developing your blog income business plan.

    To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

    Valentina


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    Blog Income Life December Review

    Jan 2

    Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Month in Review | No Comments

    December they say is a dead zone for blogging, and particularly so the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  With that in mind I am quite pleased that on review Blog Income met its main goal for the month.

    The goal for December was 200 visitors – DONE and bettered by 8.   What was interesting about December is that the traffic by and large was very even.  The search engine percentage however plummeted to an embarrassing 2%.  I had previously noticed a month over month decline in search engine results and mentioned it in my reviews.    Earlier this week I posted on bad links. My friend who found the bad links in the categories section thinks that this may have a strong bearing on the downward search engine results.  Now it seems I also have some dead Contact Us, TOS and Privacy pages so those need to addressed.  I’m thinking that this may have happened when I changed templates.  Hopefully once all the links are live and pages are up, this statistic will improve.

    Staying on the conservative Darren Rowse plan of 10% – 20% traffic growth per month the goal for January is 250.  I’m going to stretch it to 300.

    I did have a bit of an income in December – even Adsense delivered a smidgeon and an affiliate sale.  As mentioned in my last review however, I have decided for the time being to put the earnings aside and concentrate on traffic.  One thing at a time.  When that gets good, then the next one.

    A reader who had downloaded my ABC’s of Blogging for Money wrote way back in September

    “Absolutely Great !!!!!
    I have just finished reading your ABC's..........
    I believe your book is the best and easiest to understand of all the info
books on this subject that I have ever read over the past couple of years
or so.”  RD, Kitchener ON. 
     

    That same reader was very disappointed when the results for September were posted a few days later.  Blogging is simple, but it is not easy.  When I started this blog I had no idea where it would take me.  I am not a guru, not even an expert (yet); what I am is an apprentice.  My ABC’s e.book was borne of information gleaned from taking courses, this blog is borne of experience and gained knowledge and the desire to share and to learn.

    Let’s grow and live an Awesome Blog Income Life!

    Valentina


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