10 Lessons from the Guest Blogging School of Hard Knocks

In this post-Panda and Penguin search landscape, one much talked-about topic when SEO specialists gather together for a virtual drink is guest blogging.

Guest blogging, as you may already have read from several different sources, is perceived as a way to rank high in the search engines, mainly because guest blogging is all about content. And with compelling content, social media sharing comes into play.

Given the many algorithm changes that have been happening of late, social media, as some blogging and SEO experts claim, is the new SEO.

I do content marketing for small businesses through guest blogging. While some say “guest blogging” is so 2011 and that the new norm is now “contributing,” to me, that’s nothing but a technicality.

Writing a guest blog post can be referred to by several different names, but the basics of success remain the same – content, relevance, value.

I’ve been doing this for over a year now and have already gotten a good number of guest articles published in relatively big and small blogs.

It’s a rocky ride, just like any online venture. But along the way, aside from the usual and not-so-usual pointers we read regarding the principles of successful guest blogging, including what to do to turn a guest blogging pitch into an absolute disaster, I’ve picked up a few invaluable blogging lessons that somehow make the ride less strenuous.

I’ll be highlighting ten of them, so if you’re ready and comfortable, let’s begin:

1. Do not venture into territory you know nothing about, unless you’ve done a good amount of research and are confident you can tackle the subject high and low.

2. Do not write about subjects that have been beaten to death a thousand times. If you must, make sure to inject a fresh perspective, like your personal experience, a case study and so on. Creativity can go a long way.

3. Lengthy posts are not always in. Despite what everyone else is saying, sometimes, short, concise posts that pack a punch are better. Just remember to review the blog’s requirement on minimum number of words or look for guest blogging opportunities with fewer restrictions if necessary.

4. Humor sells. While snarky stirs the pot, if you can’t handle the heat it might generate in the comments section, stay away from it.

5. Do not take rejections negatively. The editor always has a reason for not publishing your article. If you want to know why, politely ask. In spite of the explanation and you still disagree, calm down. Never walk away in rage. Burning bridges is not going to address the problem. Besides, it’s not your blog. It’s their blog.

6. What others perceive as mistakes, consider as “room for improvement”. If you’ve been given the chance to edit your article, follow instructions to the letter. Otherwise, maintain an open dialogue with the editor if the changes requested don’t necessarily suit your taste.

7. Don’t get too cocky. Even when several of your articles have already been published in the same blog, there’s no guarantee that article you just submitted for review is going to get published as well.

8. Find a critic. This person can be anybody you trust, like a blogging partner or a friend who reads your stuff. Just make sure she’s not your mom, particularly if she’s the doting kind. No matter how skilled you think you already are, there are things you don’t see through your own eyes.

9. Read a lot, especially about breakthrough trends. Editors, bloggers and readers appreciate cutting edge more than period pieces, unless you’re writing for a history blog.

10. Keep the lights in your blog’s porch open. If all else fails, your guest article should always find a home.

This, of course, is only applicable if you follow the first and ultimate guest blogging golden rule: Write and pitch articles you would be willing to publish in your own blog.

Bonus video: 

11. Find a mentor. It doesn’t have to be somebody you communicate with on a regular basis. This can be somebody who runs a blog that gives sound advice on guest blogging. One VERY obvious candidate: Ms. Ileane of Basic Blog Tips.

12. Last but definitely not least, keep believing in yourself even when no one seems to believe your content is compelling enough, or relevant enough, or valuable enough.

Strive to better your craft every opportunity you get. Do not give up at the first sign of difficulty. Instead, persevere. Soon, you’ll prove the unbelievers wrong.

What about you, have you already started your guest blogging journey? If so, what guest blogging lessons have you learned so far?

Tagged as: Guest Blogging

View the original article here

The Secret of How to Make Money Blogging

Those days are gone when blogging is only considered as an avenue for people to express their opinions; these days, it is known for being a profitable avenue.

The best part of it is that you only need to pay a minimal amount for start-up costs, and you get hundreds, even thousands each month in return.

You can definitely earn a lot of income through this, and people who only started blogging to get an extra bit of cash have found themselves shifting from part-time to full-time because they want to make money quick from blogging.

If you’re one of the people who want to know the secrets of how to make money blogging, read on and find out.

There are things you need to do to know how to make money blogging. To get started, you will first need to choose what niche you want to be in. Ideally, this will be a combination of what your interests are and what fields are popular at the moment.

Try to do your research on what topics are most talked about or little-discussed about, and choose which of these you want to talk about in your blog.

Next, you will need to buy the domain name, which will then be your website or blog, and then find someone to host it for you. The next step will be to set up your blog and install it. You will then need to provide content to the blog, and then promote your site on the Internet.

Now on to the meat of the matter: how to make money blogging. There are several ways that can make you generate your income using your blog.

1. Advertisements. Some online providers are on the constant lookout for sites that will support advertisements, and will pay either according to how many visitors the site gets or how many clicked on the ad. There is also a possibility for the site owner to earn a commission from the sales made by the manufacturer as a result of the customer clicking on the ad.

2. Products. Some companies offer bloggers to review their products for a certain fee. You can choose to sell or promote products on your website that are related to your niche. Posting video reviews of products on YouTube can also be a very profitable venture.

3. Affiliate programs. While not as high-earning as the other strategies, adding links to relevant affiliate products on your own blog can generate income as well. Join popular networks like ClickBank and JVZoo to find items of interest to your audience.

4. E-book selling. Even if you sell your e-book for less than $20 per copy, the net profit you get will pile up, and you can get a steady income from this alone. You can make your book available on Amazon as a hard-copy or Kindle version. Pull together a collection of your most popular blog posts or create a Blogging 101 guide that you can use to profit from your blogging efforts. There are several tools available for example; you can use Google Docs for free or you can check out a paid service called Zinepal.

If you’re one of the people who find themselves overwhelmed by what has been said so far, don’t worry, you’re not alone. People who tried to find out how to make money blogging feel intimidated by how much work is actually needed to earn money through blogs. You need to worry about content, advertisements, promotions, and networking.

The good news is, you don’t have to do it alone. The secret of how to make money blogging is to get experts from top websites to do all the work for you.

Blogging to the Bank, offers to do just about anything and everything that needs to be done to make money online, and all you have to do is sit back and watch the dough roll in!

They will handle everything, from building your website from the ground-up, to making all the necessary arrangements for the site to generate income.

Have you started to make money from blogging? Please share your best tips with us in the comments.

Tagged as: 51, Blogger, blogging tips, Make Money Online, Online business

View the original article here

Guest Blogging

As for those people who are asking permission to guest blog on your site, you can gain advantage from that.

In fact, a lot of webmasters that has established their website earning from adsense relies now on guest bloggers.

In guest blogging, you provide a dofollow link back to your own blog in exchange for writing a related quality content to the webmaster you're asking permission with.

So you'll have to review those asking permission to guest blog on your site first because you'd be sharing their page rank too or they're content may not really be that related to yours at all.

View the original article here

6 AMAZING SEO Strategies For Effective Guest Blogging Posts!

Hey All,

I originally started this as a reply to anoter related post, but then figured I'd just start a new thread! Hope this helps!

Original Post:
Is Guest Blogging Effective For SEO

My Answer:
HECK YES!!

Here are some things to go after if you want to really see a JUMP IN YOUR WEBSITE RANK using guest blogging as your backlink source.

1.) Relevant Content
Make sure the THEME content of the blog you are posting on is RELEVANT! If your blog is about music, get guest posts on music sites, not gardening sites! DUH!

2.) Page Rank.
One particularly important thing to note, is that just because a website has a PR7, doesn't mean the link juice will translate through your link.

PR is short form for PAGE Rank, the rank of the page. Not Site Rank! So a new page will have a PR of 0.

On blogs, you will only take the maximum PR if your post appears on the main page of the domain. This would be in the form of the RECENT POSTS in the side bar, and the POST SUMMARIES or RECENT POSTS on the main page. Many WP Blogs will show the most recent 5-10 posts. That's when your link juice will really count. You can always ask for a 'Sticky Post' for an extra boost!

Obviously the higher the PR, the better. I'd personally aim for PR of 3+.

3.) Backlink Profile Of Blog
It's also really helpful to use Majestic SEO (Free tool!)to get a good look at the backlink profile of the Blog you will be guest-posting on. Try to keep Trust and Citation Flow above 10. A good amount of backlinks is well over 100. If you find something with over 1000, even better! Over 10,000 UNREAL!

Here's a screen shot of a decent looking site in Majestic SEO. Over 100 backlinks from 40 domains, and Citation and Trust Flow's of over 10.

4.) Link Placement in Post
Contextual links (links inside the post itself) are by far the greatest type of link when the first 4 criteria are met. Now if you can get your contextual link into the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH of your post, that's even better!

5.) Page Rank ValidityThis one's fairly simple. Just make sure the Page Rank of the blog you are going to guest post on is valid. Do this by checking at CheckPageRank.net

6.) Low Outbound Links(OBL)
Obviously you don't really have control over this, but if you happen to find a good blog that matches all the above criteria, then it's just a really great bonus if you have a low OBL count. Less than 100 is nice, less than 50 is nicer, less than 10 is awesome!

Ok, so if you put it all together:
This is an ad that I inserted!
If you find a PR4 blog, with 350 backlinks in Majestic SEO and Citation/Trust Flow's of 15, and it matches the category/subject your link is pointing to; you have yourself a GREAT blog to submit a guest post to!

Hope that helps!

Herc

View the original article here

What Are The Best Guest Blogging Marketplaces?

Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

View the original article here

How many keywords ideal for blogging site?

Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

View the original article here

How to Get the Most SEO & Website Traffic Benefits From Blogging

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

How to do Blogging for Better Ranking

I have Questions, i will not teach someone how to blog for better ranking,

Does anyone knows, if for example i have 5 blogs and i have unique articles posted related to my "money site" every week, with different Anchor Text and links to "money site" ( within those articles, no side links ) does it good or bad for Ranking of "money site" , what happen, if i will continue same path, i will have many backlinks from those blogs to same website with many anchor texts( for main page and inner pages )

What do we need to better rank? and whats better? Just have one post per blog with one backlink? Many posts with different anchor text backlinks? maybe something else?
any help, or your ideas ,
This is an ad that I inserted!
thansk All.

View the original article here

The Secret of How to Make Money Blogging

Those days are gone when blogging is only considered as an avenue for people to express their opinions; these days, it is known for being a profitable avenue.

The best part of it is that you only need to pay a minimal amount for start-up costs, and you get hundreds, even thousands each month in return.

You can definitely earn a lot of money through this, and people who only started blogging to get an extra bit of income have found themselves shifting from part-time to full-time because they want to make money quick from blogging.

If you’re one of the people who want to know the secrets of how to make money blogging, read on and find out.

There are things you need to do to know how to make money blogging. To get started, you will first need to choose what niche you want to be in. Ideally, this will be a combination of what your interests are and what fields are popular at the moment.

Try to do your research on what topics are most talked about or little-discussed about, and choose which of these you want to talk about in your blog.

Next, you will need to buy the domain name, which will then be your website or blog, and then find someone to host it for you. The next step will be to set up your blog and install it. You will then need to provide content to the blog, and then promote your site on the Internet.

Now on to the meat of the matter: how to make money blogging. There are several ways that can make you generate your income using your blog.

1. Advertisements. Some online providers are on the constant lookout for sites that will support advertisements, and will pay either according to how many visitors the site gets or how many clicked on the ad. There is also a possibility for the site owner to earn a commission from the sales made by the manufacturer as a result of the customer clicking on the ad.

2. Products. Some companies offer bloggers to review their products for a certain fee. You can choose to sell or promote products on your website that are related to your niche. Posting video reviews of products on YouTube can also be a very profitable venture.

3. Affiliate programs. While not as high-earning as the other strategies, adding links to relevant affiliate products on your own blog can generate income as well. Join popular networks like ClickBank and JVZoo to find items of interest to your audience.

4. E-book selling. Even if you sell your e-book for less than $20 per copy, the net profit you get will pile up, and you can get a steady income from this alone.

If you’re one of the people who find themselves overwhelmed by what has been said so far, don’t worry, you’re not alone. People who tried to find out how to make money blogging feel intimidated by how much work is actually needed to earn money through blogs. You need to worry about content, advertisements, promotions, and networking.

The good news is, you don’t have to do it alone. The secret of how to make money blogging is to get experts to do all the work for you.

Blogging to the Bank, offers to do just about anything and everything that needs to be done to make money online, and all you have to do is sit back and watch the dough roll in!

They will handle everything, from building your website from the ground-up, to making all the necessary arrangements for the site to generate income.

Have you started to make money from blogging? Please share your best tips with us in the comments.

Tagged as: blogging tips, Make Money Online, Online business

View the original article here

How to Have Your Best Blogging Year Ever!

Congratulations! You have a blog with content and a nice design… however that isn’t enough!

How are you going to make 2013 your best blogging year yet?

With a new year just starting, right now may be the best time for you to take a look at your blog and see where you can find room for improvement and get creative.

This is exactly what I have been going through with my blog at BloggingTips.com.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t been able to give the site the dedication and attention it deserves, but that is going to change in 2013!

I’ve already made plenty of changes to the site to improve navigation, remove excess advertising, bring in a new team of writers and I have a personal goal to bring the site into the top 10,000 ranking on Alexa and to at least double the traffic.

So how can all of these big goals be accomplished?

One of the best ways to do this is to put yourself in the spotlight and gain the attention of others.

This is exactly what I am doing with my blog case study, which not only highlights the changes I’ve made to the site, but it also puts me out there in front of everyone to make good on my mission to create an authority niche blog from scratch, and share the process with all of my readers at the same time. If I fail… I fail in front of everyone!

If that isn’t motivation enough, then I don’t know what is!

Now getting back to some areas that you can improve your blog for the new year, here are some areas that you can quickly improve your blog and increase your overall brand value, social sharing and readership.

First thing… if you don’t have a logo then you definitely need to get one.

It’s one of the first things people see and it also gets branded in their minds every time they see your content and visit your site.

Another important thing to remember is that you can get a really great logo design in the $50-$200 range. You don’t need to spend big money to have a big identity!

Google is now killing web sites that are using old and unethical backlink methods and are rewarding sites for being more social.

This means that you need to not only create killer content that people share, but also to make sure your content can easily be shared!

Focus on adding sharing buttons to all of your content for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Don’t waste loading time and space on adding a bunch of buttons for social networks that people don’t use.

You probably have a lot of people coming to your site for the first time. What are they doing when they get there for the first time?

Once someone gets to your site they are going to leave right away or stay for the content.

Keep visitors on your site longer by giving them exactly what they want, and telling them exactly where to go.

Clean up your site navigation and create a “Start Here” page for your first time visitors.

There are plenty of  WordPress plugins that will also help with the overall navigation and ease of use of your site.

If you currently have a blog that requires a lot of content and updating, you may want to explore your options for bringing in new writers.

For example, on BloggingTips.com the focus is everything blogging, which can range from writing, social aspects, WordPress and so on… This means there is a ton of content and way too much for just a couple people to handle and keep up with.

With the new year here I decided to bring in a whole new set of writers who know what they are doing.

You can find writers all over the place, whether they are people you know online of if you post a blogger job on other job related web sites.

The important thing is to check quality and only bring in the best writers that will contribute to your overall brand and site experience.

If you don’t have the funds to pay for more writers on your site, you also have the option to bring in guest post bloggers at no cost.

I’ve been making money online for over 15 years now and blogging for over 6 years now!

One thing I’ve learned is that you never know what is around the corner, but you always have to keep working towards whatever your goals are and be ready for what’s next.

The best way to make 2013 your best year yet, is to set yourself and your blog up for success!

Follow these steps for blog improvement and find where you are currently falling behind or not achieving your goals.

Write a list. Take action. Do better every day!

Tagged as: blogging goals, blogging tips, Logo, navigation, Social Sharing

View the original article here

HOW TO: Build Influential Contacts Through Guest Blogging

Every blogger knows the benefit of guest blogging. If they don’t they most certainly should. It is one of the most effective ways that you can increase your visibility, reach a wider audience and build lasting relationships with other bloggers so you can assist one another in the future. It is the reason so many do regular crossovers, despite not being official affiliates.

Here’s a quick PowerPoint presentation Ann Smarty of My Blog Guest did on the value of contacts:

Ann’s presentation as well as the community she founded inspired me to elaborate further on this. So how do you really build influential contacts by guest blogging?

But how do you make the most of every single guest blogging contact you make? Sure, the bulk of that effort rests on your writing quality posts and remaining friendly with the site owners and staff while doing it. Is that all of it, though?

Actually, there are several things you can do to improve those nifty positives of guest blogging. Just follow these simple tips.

This is obvious: Find the blog owner hosting your guest article across various social media sites he/she participates in and follow everywhere.

Tip: Create a separate Twitter list, Facebook interest list and Google Plus circle for all bloggers you guest contribute for (e.g. “Guest blogging”) and add them there. This way you’ll:

Categorize them more effectively (in case you need another guest post placed, for example)Follow them closer (retweet and re-share) to make sure they remember you!

There is no reason to run off the second your post launches. Instead, you should stick around so you can see the responses you get. Answering questions, replying to observations or just saying ‘thanks’ to the readers further exposes you to them. All while showing that you are friendly and approachable.

You may also manage to score a few more readers on your own blog this way. Everyone loves a blogger who is engaging, and if you strike up a conversation that interests readers, they will probably want to check you out more thoroughly.

Besides, it will keep your post from becoming a dead zone after the first few weeks.

Tip: If there are no comments yet, feel free to jump in to be the first. Make a comment thanking the blog owner for having you and ask his/her opinion on the topic discussed in your article. Invite people to comment in your tweets and likes.

How will your readers know that you are guest posting if you don’t let them know? Chances are a fair amount won’t be following the blog you choose to write for. Which would be a shame, because it keeps you from targeting what is already a perfect viewer base…people who already read you. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that?

Social networking sites and even email newsletters are a great way to get the word out. This is also a highly shareable method of putting your guest blogging efforts out of there. Just a ‘like’ on your status update or link about it will show up on their friend’s Facebook feed, after all.

Tip: Always tag the blog owner in your tweet to make sure he/she notices your effort!

If you have a WordPress blog (who doesn’t?), you can use it to share links to your posts in a professional looking way from your own site. Just use the handy External Permalinks plugin. It will allow you to post a short intro about it, and then refer them to the original site the guest post is hosted on.

Of course, you can always go the more creative route and create a secondary post about it in a different format. For example, make an Infographic containing the data, and then link it to the original guest post where that data came from. Or do it in a YouTube video, which I have seen a lot lately thanks to the ease of embedding clips in WordPress posts.

Probably the best way to get the most out of a guest blogging gig is to become a regular contributor. It means you will be familiar and known, and have a certain amount of credibility as a member of that site. Plus, regular exposure through your posts, which can be frequently exploited using the tips above.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to post all the time. Just maybe once or twice a month, or whatever you work out with the blog owner.

If you aren’t guest posting yet, you are severely misinformed about the use of such a tool. It is an easy way to increase exposure and visibility on a month by month basis, with very little effort. Not to mention, it is a fantastic link building tool.

Use the tips above, and it becomes an even bigger powerhouse for writers.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Tagged as: Ann Smarty, Guest Blogging, Influencers

View the original article here

5 Blogging Lessons From DragonBlogger

Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Justin Germino (a.k.a. DragonBlogger). Now, I don’t know Justin personally, but I had always found him to be helpful and courteous when crossing paths with him in blogging communities (like Blog Engage), as well as Facebook, and Twitter (Don’t miss the #SocialCafe Twitter Chat with Justin Wed, 1/16 at 3p EST).

In a world where image is important, almost essential to some, it was refreshing to “meet” Justin via the video interview and find that Justin is not just an image, but he is truly genuine. I know, you may be thinking, “Yeah, right. You can tell that from an interview?” My response? “Yes, I think I can.” But, don’t take my word for it, watch the video interview and see for yourself!

Not only was I impressed by how authentic Justin was, but I found that he has so much to offer, as lessons for other bloggers, even in his own example and his personality, which is a personality that exudes “sharing” and helping others. Justin is not the type to discover successful techniques and horde these discoveries as heavily guarded secrets just for himself and for his team. No, this blogger shares what he learns, positive and negative, helping other bloggers to find that path of positive progress and success and warning them against techniques that may have detrimental effects on their efforts. He challenges his audience to try it for themselves, and even improve on it if they can.

 Interview with Justin Germino DragonBlogger

Justin is the real deal. He does not shy, or reel in fear, from being real. That takes courage, but it also causes people to be drawn to that authenticity and find a camaraderie in the “realness” or scratch their heads and say, “What makes that guy tick.” Either way, it is a non-threatening approach that draws people into the community. Interestingly, it is actually very effective as a business tool, but the irony is that it doesn’t work if it is a tool, because it would lack authenticity. Authenticity starts with looking in the mirror, understanding oneself, understanding where there is room for improvement, and saying, “That’s ok.” Or, more simply put, discarding the “fake,” put-on, and allowing your true self to shine. That is what Justin has figured out and it is working for him!

Action Step: Don’t fear being “real” with your audience. (It is actually fun!)

Videos clips:

“Key To Success” in full video.
“Sharing and Transparency” in full video.

It has already been said, but one of the things that Justin does is to share what he has learned and what works and what doesn’t work with his efforts. He also follows through on his commitments and does his own analysis, and then shares that with his readers so that they can take his experience and improve on it with their own efforts (hopefully sharing, again, with the blogging community).

Action Step: Share with your audience. Share a bit of yourself, and also, share some tips, and lend a helping hand.

Videos clip:

“Finding What Works and Doesn’t Work” in full video.

A subtitle that came to mind for this section was, “Own Your Efforts / Take Responsibility.” I really appreciate how Justin is candid about the Google Page Rank loss that he experienced. He doesn’t make excuses. He calls it what it is and he explains how he lost the page rank and also shares how he regained the page rank. Just like the first lesson, he was authentic, and as with the second lesson, he shared what “didn’t work” in this case. He also continued to support his community and showed that the loss did not impact his traffic. Oh, page rank may be important, but part of the reason that Justin did not suffer the loss to the extent that others may feel they would experience is because he didn’t let it get him down. He picked up right where he was at and continued to do what works. And, he showed us that picking yourself up and walking forward IS successful.

Action Step: Hit a roadblock or a bump? Don’t let it stop you. Move through and past it. Don’t waste time with complaining about the mishap, take your last look in the rear-view mirror and move forward.

Videos clip:

“Justin Talks About Google” in full video.

Join us on Wednesday, January 16, 2013, as Justin is the featured guest at the #SocialCafe Twitter Chat at 3pm EST. Recommended tool: TweetChat.

You have a personality. Your blog has a personality. Sometimes it is the same personality. Sometimes it is not. Many people, including me, including Justin, started with some vague lines of what “fits” within a particular blog, but as we grow as bloggers, the blog personality started to emerge (if we let it). Beyond determining the niche and core pillars of his dragonblogger.com blog, Justin also defines the personality of his approach to reviews. He chooses to approach it as positive as possible, with an analysis of ROI (return on investment), but taking into consideration that if the investment is low, the feature set is understandably low, as well. This is an example of how Justin has not only defined the niche (which includes offering reviews on his blog), but how he approaches his reviews (personality of the blog). He does not strip his dragon blogger team of their personalities, but rather has a clear sight of what dragonblogger.com is and what it is not so that the diversity of the team highlights that niche and personality of the blog.

Action Step: Take some time to determine what your blog(s) would define as its niche and personality.

Videos clip:

Justin’s “Philosophy on Reviews” in full video.

Keeping with the personality of sharing, Justin does not horde credit. As an example, in his contests, he finds ways to share and to highlight those bloggers who help him out with the contest, featuring them on his blog home page and “giving back.” Even the other day, I “overheard” Justin saying some nice things about me on Facebook. Hey, you know what? That feels good! And, it is an honor that Justin allowed me the privilege to be the first one to interview him via video.

Action Step: Don’t fear sharing the credit. It doesn’t always have to be about us. Share… it usually comes back. And, what would the world become if we tried to out-share each other?

Videos clip:

“Dragon Blogger Contests” in full video.

That said, is it any small wonder that talking to Justin inspired me to do the same and give credit, with this article? To learn more about Justin and his team, visit dragonblogger.com.

Tagged as: DragonBlogger, Justin Germino

View the original article here

7 Reasons Why Unemployed People Should Start Blogging

Are you unemployed and are looking for work?  If so, start blogging today! Read on to find out why… Blogging has exploded into the mainstream web over the recent years, with more and more people turning to blogging for a variety of reasons.

The beauty of blogging is that you don’t need a degree or a scholarship to start doing it, you don’t need a huge amount of money either, and more over being unemployed means you have all the time in the world to work on your blog, to some degree.

I certainly wished that I had made the decision to start blogging when I was unemployed for a solid 4 years, back almost 20 years ago, but to be honest the internet had only just started coming to life…

Today, blogging is no longer considered as a pastime online activity, in fact these days blogging is considered to have huge potential in becoming an extremely profitable business venture for many people, and for you too if you know how to do it right, and are prepared to work at it.

Many university and college students that I know have decided to start blogging to help them make some extra money, and even at the end of their studies some are able to sell their blogs for a considerable amount.

So I also think that people that are unemployed and are receiving some kind of allowance for being jobless should also take the opportunity to start a blog.

Blogging whilst being unemployed is a great way to expand your horizons and connect with a whole new community of like minded people online.  In this article I’d like to outline 7 good reasons why blogging could benefit you whilst you’re looking for work.  Who knows it might even become your full-time work…

1. If you have a blog, you’re able to create a compelling ‘about me’ page, as most bloggers use this page to provide their visitors with an insight into their professional background.  Your ‘about me’ page will usually outline your experiences, qualifications, skills, ambitions and goals.

You can use your about page as your online resume.  You can even link this page to your professional social network profiles such as your LinkedIn and eCademy profiles, should you have one of course.

2. Blogging can help you stay productive whilst building your online portfolio.

Being unemployed can sometimes be pretty boring, I mean you can only search for work for a few hours each day right? The rest of the time you’re playing the waiting game…  So blogging can certainly help you remain productive.

3. Blogging can help improve your writing and grammar skills, essential in any line of work, and perfect when writing your letter of application to potential employers.

4. Blogging can help you build new connections and engage with other professional individuals in your industry.

5. Blogging can help you make money through various monetization methods, i.e. AdSense, promoting affiliate products etc.

6. Blogging can help you keep your morals up when feeling distressed and anxious, ensuring that you stay positive and have something to work for, even if you’re not getting paid much initially.

7. You don’t need any qualifications, a scholarship or even much, if any money at all to start blogging.

Being unemployed and searching for work can be a stressful time, I know too well what the feeling is like.  You might feel as if that your family and friends look down upon you as if you’ve somehow let them down.

Blogging can be your ultimate road out of being unemployed, but even if it doesn’t  it will certainly help you build an awesome online portfolio that might land you that dream job.

So just to recap, here are 7 reasons why being unemployed is the perfect opportunity to start blogging.

Your ‘About’ page is your resumeBlogging will help you stay productiveBlogging will help you hone in on your writing skillsBlogging helps you to connect with other professionals in your industryBlogging can earn you moneyBlogging can help you stay positiveYou don’t need any qualifications or previous experience to start blogging

So if you’re unemployed, start blogging today and start reaping the benefits.

Over to you!

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the points I made above.  Perhaps you were once unemployed and turned to blogging to help you build credibility and to stay positive, perhaps blogging paved the way to a full-time career for you. Regardless, do share your reactions and comments below as always.

Tagged as: How To Blog, Unemployed people

View the original article here

3 Reasons Why You Don’t Deserve To Make Money Blogging

Make Money Blogging – Is that your primary goal?

It seems that sooner or later, every blogger wants to make this phrase a part of their blogging story. There are many bloggers who claim that their only passion is to blog their brains out without having the desire to make money from it, but yet they somehow manage to make a good chunk of income from their blogs. The reason why they make money blogging is because they’ve NOT followed the below mentioned practices as a part of their blogging career.

Even those bloggers who struggled during the earlier times of their blog, but yet they came out to be winners. Hence, here are a few reasons why you don’t really deserve to make money blogging -

By ‘last priority’, I mean the part when your blog starts generating enough revenue. Most bloggers start blogging after reading “How I Made $1000 in a day” like articles where they forget to read the part that the person who made a thousand bucks in a day had been a blogger for years, and that finally resulted as a boost for him to make money blogging.

Blogging is something where you need to start off with the word ‘quality’ in your mind, maintain the same word no matter how successful you become, and then the opportunity to make money will automatically follow.

But as you can see that nowadays, all new bloggers just keep on hoping to make money blogging without giving their best. They forget that even hopes need some part to be fulfilled on the other side – the side the bloggers themselves.

Another thing that can happen is this: bloggers often stray from their niche and start writing about stuff that is totally irrelevant to the topic they started in. This leads to the loss of consistent readership and traffic to your blog which is a big problem!

You must be wondering – “I do want clients, but they don’t want me!”. First of all a client, when it comes to blogging, is any person who wants to advertise on your blog in one or the other way. There are several ways through which you can offer advertisement on your blog through the use of plugins such as OIO Publisher, Adpress Ad Manager etc. A few of them are -

BannersText-Link Ads Throughout The BlogSponsored ReviewsIn-Content Backlinks and much more.

Always remember one thing that a client is as much satisfied as you make him. If a frequent advertiser loves your blog but doesn’t really know what all you could offer as advertisements, then it’s you who is at fault and loss, of course.

In short – let the world know all of the advertisement options you offer on your blog, most probably by having an ‘Advertise’ page. Also, use services such as BuySellAds to make it easier for advertisers to find your listing, and for you, to reach the eyes of a wider audience of potential advertisers.

That’s what many bloggers want. All they want is pure money, and no investment at all. If you’re taking blogging as a business, then be prepared to invest in it as well and it is not a PLC (Public Limited Company) where you can raise your capital by getting on the stock exchange! Invest in themes, invest in WP Plugins, invest in services such as Blog Engage, and research tools such as Market Samurai etc.

Many bloggers aren’t confident enough to spend money to invest in premium tools for their blog, believing that their blogs are not worth it.

They believe that blogging is tree where fruits (money) just grows after you plant the seed, but that’s not true! One has to provide water (quality content), pesticides, manure (investments) etc in order to get those fresh ripe fruits!

The possibilities are endless depending upon your requirements, hence choose wisely and have faith in your dedication – money will not come to you, it will fly.

Now over to you, what are your plans to make money from your blog?

Tagged as: advertisements, Blog Monetization, make money, Make Money Blogging

View the original article here

Facts To Know Before You Start Blogging To Make Money

Who doesn’t want to make money blogging? After all, if we put a good amount of time and hard work to establish and market our blogs, then this has to have a purpose.

Of course some blogs are started for fun – kind of like an online journal. Some start blogs to keep a journal of their life and happenings  They enjoy writing about their family. Some start blogs to share fun, informative or other kind of stuff to a close circle – friends and family.

Neither of these kinds of bloggers are very serious about generating income from their blogs, because they do it for fun or as a hobby. Nothing wrong with that.

But I am speaking to those bloggers who want to set up an online business and those who want to use blogging as a source of income for them. So am I talking to you? I hope so!

If yes, in this post I am going to share some facts you should know before you expect your blogging efforts to produce an income. Some will be hard to accept and even bitter. But they’re facts (at least from my experience). Let me start.

Don’t get me wrong here! I’m not discouraging you to go do some other business. The point is this: Your blog is your marketing tool.

You should have a business. And then you use your blog to “market” your business. You can use content marketing, or any other marketing approach to funnel your prospects through your blog to your actual business.

Your actual business can be anything that you have expertise in – web designing service, SEO service, freelancing, your products, whatever. And your blog should serve as a sales person who markets your services/products to your prospects and customers.

So where does this business model go? You should have “something” to sell in the first place. If you don’t have anything to sell, blogging will simply create a collection of pointless posts that don’t serve any purpose for your business.

Of course you can earn with services like Adsense, but you can’t make a decent income.

I ask this because many don’t. I mean, have you decided on a niche? Have you decided on a name for your blog? Or is it “just another WordPress blog”? Have you bought a domain name for your blog? Do you have a clean and professionally looking theme?

Most important of all, does your blog *help* your readers?

Oh wait, do you have any target audience? I mean, if I ask you now: “To whom you are writing your blog posts?”, can you give me a specific answer?

Specific – don’t tell me I write blog posts for people who read blogs!

I hope you get my point.

Any business needs some kind of investment – a start up cost. This applies to both online and offline business.

Blogging is no different.

When you think about starting a blog and settle down with a decent income, you must be prepared to invest! Yes that’s the start up cost. You should buy a domain name, get a good hosting, get a good design (or a ready-made theme/skin). In addition to this, you might want to invest on premium plugins, SEO tools, software that could help you with your business and so on.

Not just that, you should be prepared to invest something more valuable: your time and effort.

Yes, you would have heard this already many times. But let me repeat: Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. There is no silver bullet. There is no push button.

So be prepared to spend, I mean, invest some time and money in your blog.

Build your list from day one or you will be banging your head against a brick wall as I did. May be if you’re starting out, you won’t realize the importance of building a list right away.

I didn’t realize that as well, when I started out.

But back those days, no one told me I should. May be if someone had insisted, I would have listened.

Anyway – now I am here telling you this: Start building your list TODAY. Not just me; but you would have noticed a lot of experienced, successful bloggers insisting on this.

I’ve highlighted some of the very simple facts you should be knowing if you are either planning to start a blog and make money or if you’ve already started.

I hope you would have got a sneak peek of what it looks like on the other side of the “make money blogging” wall.

If you want an inside scoop, and stop wondering how to make money blogging, get your hands on my special report: Can I Really Make Money Blogging?

Tagged as: blogging for business, blogging to make money

View the original article here

Blogging with Jokes is a Perfect Recipe for Success

Blogging with jokes, huh. You might be thinking that it is something new or something idiotic but let me correct you it is not as idiotic as you might think.

Whenever you start writing a post, what do you do at the very beginning ? The first thing you will do is research the topic you are going to blog about. After getting all the required material, you start writing a post and complete it. But do you include one thing in your post that each and every person likes?

Here I am talking about adding some jokes. By jokes, I don’t mean you add Santa-Banta jokes; I mean that adding a little humor in your post will make it more worthwhile and your readers will find it more enjoyable to read.

But the biggest question here is what’s the need of adding humor in the blog post? Why is it necessary to add a comic sarcasm to your post?

Successful bloggers always emphasize how important it is for us to connect with our readers. And I agree, this is one of the most important things a blogger should take care of.

What better way to connect with your audience than to make them smile?

If you are blogging with jokes, then your readers will love reading your posts. They will feel that the post is written for humans not for search engines and by human not a robot.

Don’t just write a post, but really get into it and let it flow out of you. Forget about SEO or search engines, just let your fingers work on the keyboard and everything will be taken care of.

This is one of those things that can eliminate the human feeling from your blog. While you’re writing a post, if you constantly keep worrying about the SEOPressor score, your writing might not sound natural. So how can you make your writing sound more natural – more human?

For a while, forget about optimizing your blog posts and write the way you talk. Add a joke or two to lighten the mood, add a sarcastic note, or some interesting quotes etc. and you’ll begin to see the magic.

This is one another great benefit when you are blogging with jokes. If you are not happy with a service and while writing a review about it, you feel like taking out all the frustration, then you can do that without even hurting the other party.

If you point out some weakness of their’s in a joking manner, then that will be taken as a positive response and the owners of the  service might work to improve on it. Similar is the case with other bloggers. Blogging is such a world where you must help out others but it’s not devoid of some iconic personalities who think they know everything.

So it is natural that you might get bored when they interfere in your work. When taking a dig at such bloggers, you can serve your frustration with proper presentation so that he doesn’t feel bad but understands your meaning at the same time.

That’s the power of blogging with jokes.

Whenever you are writing a negative review about some service or some blogger, you present it in a funny way to avoid future collisions. But that can even help you if the other party doesn’t take it lightly.

Maybe he too can start criticizing you among others, try to bring down your reputation, blah blah blah. But that can prove beneficial because the people or bloggers that know you will always stand by your side no matter what.

The true bloggers will always support you because they love the way you are blogging with jokes. Your readers will never stop visiting your blog because they love your honest reviews. They will love your sarcastic tones and they might even appreciate your snarky point of view.

I bet you’ll get more comments that will motivate you to keep the jokes coming and give your blog a well balanced personality.

Do you think that blogging with jokes helps us convey our feelings better without any risk of hurting anyone’s feelings? Do you think that every blogger should add humor to his posts to add a human feeling? Do let me know of what you think about it.

Tagged as: blogging with jokes, Writing Tips

View the original article here

How To Be A Guest Blogging Genius With Targeted Posts

Guest blogging has become the latest buzz word. Ever since Google officially banned every black hat SEO method people have been trying to blacklist guest blogging too. Small business owners, new born bloggers, everyone wants to be seen with a link from all those blogs that are doing well. You might have seen several guest posts here and if you are a blogger you might be summoning up the courage to forward a guest posting request. But if guest blogging is only for backlinks then I should warn you that, that you are missing the fun in the game.

Michael Chibuzor is a person who did 600 posts in 1 year for promoting his blog.

On the way what happened was that he created a 5 figure freelancing income, added hundreds of new subscribers to his list, got free targeted traffic from search engines despite Google’s heartless monsters romping the way etc etc. But it was not so in the beginning. After 60 or so posts he began wondering. I get traffic, I get comments, I get appreciation, maybe I make some money too.
But is it enough?

I will tell you how you can make your guest posts targeted so that you achieve results from them.
In the above example Michael just guest posted and did nothing to capture the visitors borrowed from an A list blogger. He did not have an optin form set up. That is only one of the biggest mistakes people do.

If you have visitors then you should be converting them to your email list too. In that way you will always have them with you.
What did he do to make the most out of guest blogging?

He asked someone to design a custom theme so that he can capture most of the visitors who come to his blog. The very first thing that you can see is the opt in form on his blog these days.

The second mistake which became obvious was when I read a post by blog tyrant at copy blogger on guest blogging. He said that guest posts should be targeted at something. If its a free ebook you are promoting, then your post should also be around it too. A few months ago when Zac Johnson was promoting his new e book he did several guest posts on related topics like-“ If your blog were a book would you read it?”. If its a post that needs recognition then while guest blogging, write something related to it.
Here is a post on Problogger which does exactly what it sets out to do. The post is titled- How to Make More Money Blogging, Stop Worrying About Advertising, and Get Back to Writing What You Love.

Here Sophie Lizard is showing her understanding of the difficulty in making an income online with affiliate marketing alone. See how Sophie is promoting freelancing as an income option amongst bloggers and in the end giving away an e book titled –“ The ultimate list of paid blogging gigs” which is just apt. I am sure that the opt in rates would have surpassed all expectations that day.

Here is another post by Mitz Pantic who’s also a contributor here at Basic Blog Tips, telling us how she earns $100 plus for every guest post that she contributes at the ComLuv blog.
What she does is write a good post a comluv and link it up with one of her posts which also sells an SEO product. The posts which she links up would be extraordinarily detailed and dripping with all the knowledge that she has acquired as a blogger.
Its a very intelligent technique.
So what are your guest posts targeted at?

A completely Google Penguin friendly trick to gain backlinks and traffic is guest posting. But it can also be done for SEO purposes too.
Most of the big blogs do not allow links in the body of the post but the smaller ones would allow that. Oni Balusi of YoungPrePro wrote 31 guest posts in one week to the same effect. He wrote a post on his blog and linked it up with guest posts he did elsewhere with matching anchor texts.

What happened was an improvement in the organic traffic, he jumped several places ahead of competition with this technique for the keywords like “writing tips”.

To be exact Google started sending his man 134 additional visitors everyday.

He too makes a 5 figure income now and he is barely 16…

Another way to show off your guest blogging genius is to invite guests to write on your blog. Here’s how:

BONUS VIDEO: Invite Guest Bloggers to Write Posts In Your WordPress Dashboard

Let’s hear from you. What are your tips for becoming a guest blogging genius?

image credit: www.istockphoto.com

Tagged as: Guest Blogging, Michael Chibuzor, Mitz Pantic, Oni Balusi, Sophie Lizard

View the original article here

Take Baby Steps Towards Your Blogging Goals For Success

A baby takes their first step any day after 12 months of watching his mum and dad running around to care for them, and the desire to be up and running like their parents shows in baby’s eye.

It isn’t a fast process and you can’t expect him/her to be running around the house soon.

Blogging is the same process which also takes a lot of time to be up and running at full speed. Many bloggers start blogs these days with grandiose dreams of making lots of money and getting thousands of readers.

While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, because it is absolutely possible to build blogs that are widely successful and profitable, but the reality is that It takes a lot of time and hard work to achieve it.

Babies can’t dream of running overnight; they take the first steps and learn to walk slowly. So new bloggers can also do well If they spend more time thinking about the first steps and setting proper blogging goals that will bring them closer and closer to the bigger dreams they have.

I had a chat with a brand new blogger sometime back who had some very big dreams and blogging goals, I reflected back to him that  instead of the big dreams he could benefit more by setting some realistic, short term goals. By short term I mean something where he could see results over a period of “3 weeks” or “2 months”.

Here are some examples of short term blogging goals that I would suggest every upcoming blogger set during their first steps:

Publish 20 quality blog postsWork on the design of your blog to make it stand out and easy to navigateLeave a 20 awesome comments on other CommentLuv enabled blogs in your niche for engagementGet your first comment from someone you don’t knowGet your blog indexed by Google and other search engines like BingBuild a readership with more than 20 readers a dayHit a level of 200 unique visitors a dayDo your first guest post on another blogHit the level of 100 RSS or email list subscribersGet your blog earning $100 a month

For new bloggers these blogging goals can be really helpful to take their blog to new level quickly. These short term achievements will boost your confidence and give you the encouragement you need to keep growing.

Now you might think those are great goals and all, but how exactly one would accomplish them? How does one get people to visit a blog that is completely isolated on the web? How exactly is it the few random visitors I get would like my blog and my content? Plus I know that the readers of the blog should be the main source of promoting it, but how do I get the first readers?

Well, spend some time reading the information here on Basic Blog Tips, this is where you can find answers to all of those questions and more.

When babies achieve the first step, they work towards the next steps to be able to walk or run, maybe with the help of parents, but the babies also work hard and sometimes they even fall down too.

So, now If you’ve hit the target of your first step goals, start to increase them and double the numbers for your next step.

For newborns to blogging setting realistic blogging goals can be the key to keep your sanity. It’s really great to have lofty ambitions and to keep them in mind daily. It might be a small accomplishment that will keep you going everyday, and then it starts to get easier to keep the momentum moving forward for your blog.

In today’s world we are thinking about instant gratification as a way of getting things done. We sometimes forget that it’s a journey to get anywhere in life and too often we think that the end result is what which matters the most. In fact It’s a process of getting there which matters the most and which is meaningful.

Being able to build a blog as well as following requires you to be honest with yourself like a baby and learn the idea of taking it one step at a time.

Do you agree with me on this? What do you think of those short term and first step blogging goals?

Tagged as: blogging goals

View the original article here