My Blogging Business

Why People Fail To Earn From Blogging

There are over 70 million blogs on the internet right now. This number keep going up as more and more people get the writing and information bug and want to be able to make money from home. While there isn’t a given number on how many of those 70 million plus blogs make money, I would venture to say that more then half of them do not. I would even go as far to say that for every ten blogs that are created today, 1 of them will make money.

What is the reason for so many people failing at making money using their blog? Well there isn’t just one reason there are several. To better understand why people fail you need to understand that building an internet business is not easy. It takes time, effort, energy and consistency. That is only the start.

All of these places promising to make you hundreds of dollars a day in twenty four hours are unrealistic. No one builds a successful business on the internet or elsewhere that quick. So let us now take a look at a few reason people fail.

 

 

 

1. Poor planning and a bad mindset. To many people think that all it takes to make money with a blog is to write one and post products on it. You need to have content, not just any content but good content. Creating good content takes time. You need to build credibility with your viewers, and this is done with good content and if you are going to use affiliate links make sure that they are with good companies for products that deliver what they say they will. You can have great content that promotes a bad product and you will never make a cent.

2. Lack of perseverance. Building a successful money making blog takes time. Face it your first idea may not be a smash hit. It could take reworking. You have to stick with it. You can not write a blog one day, leave it alone and expect it to make you money. It doesn’t work that way, sorry.

3. Bad Market Research. I believe that there is a market for just about anything. Find that niche though takes a little research on your part. If you are going to blog about getting rid of man boobs and other health problems men face, then you need market your blog in that area. Find sites that deal with male health problems, or other blogs that talk about the same issues and link swap. With over 70 million blogs do you honestly think that your idea is all the unique that you can not find someone with similar topics.

4. Lack of content or reluctant to write. I already stated above that you need content. Good content so that you can build a relationship with your reader, preferably a good one. This means you have to write. I highly recommend having your writing proofread. If you don’t like writing or you aren’t any good at it, hire some one to do the writing for you. There are many different sources available if you need a writer. Find one and use them to help you build content.

5. No Mentor, Wrong Tools, No coaching club. As a beginner with blogging it is absolutely vital that you have some one that can teach you how to blog successfully. Having a good mentor or coach can help cut out half of the headaches and most of the frustration associated with building a blog. This may cost you some money, but if it helps you make money and become successful isn’t it worth the investment?

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Now your blog is all set and ready to make some money and how are you going to do it?

Well you need to add contents to your blog, in order for the search engines to index your blog and also to achieve a high ranking on the internet. This can be done by writing related contents with targeted keywords by using search engine optimization, also commonly known as SEO.

You can either write the article yourself or you can outsource your article writing at a very low price of USD$3 at www.scriptlance.com or www.rentacoder.com. When you do outsource your article writing, it is better to have 10-20 articles done at one time, as not many people want to write less than that.

The best way to sell an affiliate product is by writing reviews in your blog post. However, you may not want to do it too obvious especially when your blog is very new.

Here are some tips on writing content for your blog:

1. Use catchy titles: As I subscribe to more and more RSS feed, I tend to flicks through content a lot faster. Short, catchy, tabloid-style titles grab potential readers attention and will ensure that your posts have a better chance of being read.
2. Be unique: One of my favourite blogs is Gaping Void. Hugh MacLeod’s cartoons are great and instantly grab my attention. Try to make some aspect of your blog unique. for example, I now open each post with a quote which tends to reflect the entry. Add some pictures or graphic to get attention.
3. Make sure to credit your sources: Don’t plagerise! Never use someone else’s content without crediting them. You can refer to them in your entry and offer your own opinion on the story rather than be a copycat.
4. Think before you post: Blogging isn’t a race, so take your time . The majority of my posts (including this one!) are prepared at the weekend, giving me plenty of time to think over them before posting. You don’t want to post something that you’ll end up regretting.
5. Stay on topic: Your blog’s content is key. Like Ed says ‘good, interesting blogs get read, boring rants on irrelevant topics don’t’ So if your blog is about Soccer, I don’t expect to be reading about Tennis on it often.
6. Link, it’s polite: If you read something interesting online and tell your readers about it, then post a link to what you’re talking about. It’s annoying to read about something and then have to Google it, instead of simply clicking a link to it.
7. Be conversational in tone: Nobody wants to be bored to death reading your blog and you should also try to attract readers who might not be familiar with the subject you are covering. Some really intelligent people have turned me off with their academic style of writing. You’re supposed to be having a conversation not talking down to people.
8. Respond to comments: It’s great to see that you’re blogging, but if you don’t respond to comments on your blog readers will tend to get annoyed and may unsubscribe. Sometimes it’s even nice to send the person who left the comment an email, IM them or havea real life conversation with them via Skype. When I left a comment on Steve Rubel’s blog congratulating him on his marraige I was surprised to get an email from him saying thanks. What a nice touch! Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be so quick to reply to comments when people criticise him.
9. Be controversial: Don’t be a sheep, stand out and voice your own opinion. Who cares if nobody agrees with you? As long as you believe in what you’re saying then don’t be afraid to disagree. people are always inclined to get two sides of a story. Mind you, don’t push it otherwise you’ll be seen as someone who just likes to brew trouble.
10. Blogging is not email: A blog might be an online journal, but that doesn’t mean you have to start each post with Dear Diary. The same applies for Hi, Hello World, etc. There’s no need to sign off either, your name will be listed at the bottom of your post anyway.
11. Assuming makes an ass out of u and me: Don’t assume readers are familiar with your product/service/pastime. I had to delete my subscription to a PR blog the other day because the author insists on referring to some model that I am completely unfamiliar with. I got the sense that he was trying to sell me something I wasn’t going to buy into.

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How To DIY Setup Wordpress.org Self Host Blog

To install a wordpress.org self host blog, you need to go through 4 general steps
Step 1: Buy your personal domain name
Step 2: Get Your Personal Web Hosting
Step 3: Do a DNS to link both your hosting and domain together
Step 4: Use Fantastico to install WordPress

Step 1
Getting your own domain is very important, you will not want to build a successful blog under a domain name dot BLOGSPOT or name dot wordpress right.

Domain name is very cheap nowadays ranging from $10.90 to $19.90 per year. To get the cheapest and most reliable domain you can purchase it at http://www.moneyfromblog.com/godaddy/ to enjoy exclusive offer for our newsletter reader.

Step 2:
Hosting is the most important inventory in all online business which include blogging. Hosting is just like renting an office place for your traditional business. Too cheap nor too expensive do no good to the business in long run. You need a reliable and sound server which have the best customer support whenever you need, most importantly the speed of the server must be excellent so that loading time of your blog is seamlessly fast. Of course MFB has done the research for you and we recommend Hostgator as your hosting partner. To access special privileges, access Hostgator at http://www.moneyfromblog.com/hostgator/

Step 3:
The third step DNS setting is actually very simple but only if you have done it before. MFB members can access our short 6 minute DNS video tutorial 5 to follow the instruction and get it done in instantly. If you want to save the trouble, you can purchase both domain and hosting from HostGator to skip this step.
Once you have successfully setup your domain and hosting, you can continue to install your wordpress blog.

Step 4:

Using Fantastico to install WordPress
Using Fantastico to install your WordPress Blog is one of the easiest methods and probably the quickest ways of setting up a blog. Fantastico will install the WordPress software and create the database and the configuration file for you.
How to use Fantastico to install WordPress?
Login to your web hosting control panel, and in this tutorial we’ll assume your using cPanel.
It can usually be accessed by the default method.
http://your-domain.com/cpanel
1) Login to your control panel “cPanel” (usually hosting admin userid and password)
2) Click on the Fantastico icon or look for the Blue or Yellow Smiley Face icon.
3) Select WordPress from the list on the right.
4) Click New Installation.
5) Select the domain name you want WordPress installed on.
If you have more than one domain hosted on your account, be sure to select the domain you want your WordPress Blog installed in.
6) Decide if you want WordPress installed in the root or a sub-directory.
Example: if you want it in the root directory leave it blank. If you wish to install it in a sub-directory make up the directory name you want it installed in like “blog or wordpress”.
7) Next enter an Admin username and password, but be sure to write them down as you will use this information to enter your WordPress Admin Panel.
Now enter your Admin nickname that you will go by when posting articles.
9) Enter your admin email address that you wish to use to be notified of comments etc.
10) Enter your Site name
11) Enter your Blog Description
12) You can also set up your email configuration; usually the default settings are ok as most host support PHP Mail or SMTP support throuth the PHP.INI Settings.
13) Click Install WordPress.
Once installed, you can choose to have the details of the setup mailed to your email address for safe keeping. This is highly recommended in case you forget your admin login and password.
You’re done! You now have WordPress installed on your domain.
To access your blog if you installed it in a sub-directory.
http://www.your-domain.com/sub-directory-name
To manage your WordPress Blog you would login using the following.
http://www.your-domain.com/sub-directory name/wp-admin/
If you installed it in the root directory you would use the default method of accessing your WordPress Blog.
http://www.your-domain.com
And you’re WordPress Admin Panel
http://www.your-domain.com/wp-admin/
Enjoy your new WordPress Blog!
If the above description still sound complicated to you, access our MFB coaching club to view our video tutorial. More details at http://www.MoneyFromBlog.com

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Different Between Wordpress.com & Wordpress.org 

WordPress is one of the leading blog platforms in the Internet today, and based on a search on Google trends, the number of searches with the word WordPress has at least tripled today, since the end of the year 2004.

 

Having really tried and fiddled around with WordPress system, I must say that WordPress is indeed a very powerful system to put your blog on. Unfortunately however, the system does take time to get used to. Personally I took 2 months to understand it eventhough I am previously a web programmer.

 

WordPress comes in 2 versions. The first one is provided by WordPress.com, which is the hosted version. The second version provided by WordPress.org, and usually in order to use this version of WordPress, you will need to have your own domain name, and web hosting space.

 

Blogging at WordPress.com

 

Using the version provided by WordPress.com, you will be given a subdomain URL, like http://moneyfromblog.wordpress.com just like blogger.com using blogspot domain. While this still sounds nice, it is definitely more professional and stylish to tell people that your blog is at “moneyfromblog.com” rather than “ moneyfromblog.blogspot.com ”. WordPress.com does, however, provide domain mapping services, meaning you can go and grab a domain and the redirect it to the WordPress blog. This comes with a fee, of USD$10. Personally don’t recommend this as the USD$10 can be better spend.

 

The default and free configuration of the blog at Wordpress.com comes with 50 megabytes of space, and allows you to select a template from the list provided. For some templates, you can further customize them using your own header images and colors. However, in order for you to take control over the CSS that goes behind the blog, of get more webspace, you will need to pay a fee. Again it is not worth it.

 

Blogging using WordPress.org

 

The version of WordPress provided at WordPress.org is the most powerful version, and is the platform used by many A-List bloggers in the blogosphere today.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.

 

To set up this version of WordPress, you will need to download the system from http://wordpress.org/download/, extract the file contents, upload, and install it on your own domain and hosting (http://www.moneyfromblog.com/hostgator/). For total Internet starters, this process may prove to be quite a roadblock, but as you get used to our MFB wordpress setup coaching video and follow closely every steps, setting up a WordPress.org blog is a five minute job.

 

As mentioned, current version of WordPress is extremely powerful.

 

Firstly it allows you to have full control over your templates - from the CSS to the individual pages that make up your blog. You can even have a different page look and feel for each category you use!

 

 

 

Secondly, it allows you add on functionality to the system by using WordPress plugins! With a simple search on Google for “WordPress Plugins”, you will realize that there are millions of plugins available for free for you to use. Plugins are extremely powerful - allowing you to add functionality to your blog like social bookmarking icons, subscription to your blog comments, and specifying a different front page for the blog. In MFB coaching tutorial, we have already downloaded the best and most useful plugins which all successful bloggers must have. You can just access our member areas to download them in a single file.

With 70 million blogs as reported by the Technorati state of the blogosphere report in April 2007, every Internet entrepreneur must learn how to blog, and if you want to blog, you simply have to use a powerful blogging system with unlimited functionality - WordPress! With MFB Wordpress Blog Coaching club, building a successful income generating blog using wordpress is almost guaranteed.

To know more access at http://www.MoneyFromBlog.com

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What are the Blogging Elements & Tools Needed

The first step to creating a successful blog is to choose the best blogging platform for your needs. A blogging platform is simply the blogging application you choose to use. There are a number of popular blogging platforms available on the internet, both free and paid.

Popular blogging platforms include Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and Yahoo360. The two most popular of these are Wordpress.com and Blogger.com which both offer free blog hosting.

Blogger is generally considered easier to set up and use for new bloggers, however for serious bloggers Wordpress.org is the preferred choice. This is because Wordpress offers upgrades that allow you to host your blog on your own domain and to access a significant range of plug-ins and tools that are not available on their free service or at Blogger. However, even the free service at Wordpress.com provides more service, templates and plug-ins than Blogger does.

An additional benefit offered by Wordpress.org is that you own the blog and can transfer it wherever and whenever you want. This is because Wordpress.org is a complete program which you can upload onto your own server and domain name. By contrast even if you host a blogger blog on your own domain, only the data is actually stored on the server. Everything else is still controlled by Blogger which means less flexibility than offered by Wordpress.org where you really own everything.

There are many advantages of using Wordpress over Blogger. Here are five of them:

1. An extensive choice of thematic blog templates.

2. Wordpress allows for automatic tag and category creation.

3. It provides the ability to use PHP coding

4. It offers social networking plugins and most important have build in feature that is extremely useful for SEO, search engine love wordpress blog

5. It offers spamming protection and contact form plugins

If you are serious about building a professional blog, it is important that you host your blog on your own domain and own it. This way as you optimize and monetize your blog and generate blog traffic, you will own your own work and the page rank you will earn will be yours. Basically, you will have a business to sell should you wish to do so. The inability for you to do this is a serious downside of Blogger.

Planning and Stay Focus

Once you have chosen your blog platform, you need to spend some time planning the blog itself. The most effective and successful blogs tend to have a single main theme which allows them to target a particular niche audience. Focusing on one main topic area also means your blog will be easier to locate social bookmarking and blog directories. This theme should also influence the design and layout of your site. What is the impression you want to give visitors to your blog? For example, a corporate blog will look different to an artist’s blog. The color, style and layout of your blog needs to support the theme of your site.

 

Organize and Optimize

After you have decided on the theme and design of the site, it is important to organize your blog page for easy navigation. Unless you make it as easy as possible for readers to find information they are seeking, they will move on quickly. An effective way to keep a visitor engaged on your blog is to provide links to related posts at the end of every blog post. An equally successful strategy is to provide links to your most popular posts on the sidebar. According to experts, these articles are by far the most read on many websites. Another helpful decision would be to put a Google search bar on your blog page so that visitors can search for information on your site. You can also provide additional value to your visitors by linking to other blogs and websites in a blogroll (permanent sidebar).

Search Engine Optimization

The titles or headlines of your individual posts (as well as your overall blog) need to be carefully considered. It is not only important that they appeal to readers, it is also necessary that they are written to appeal to search engines since you will be largely dependent on search engine traffic for the success of your blog. Furthermore, different blogging platforms use your blog title as a part of the filename in which they store the post. Search engines take file names into consideration when they calculate page ranks making blog titles even more important than otherwise.

Blogging System and Coaching Community

As well as the choice of blog platform, theme and layout, a very important element of any blog’s success is the knowledge and skills required to maximize its potential. A coaching club or mentor can be extremely beneficial for people desiring to learn how to create a successful business blog. Of course, all due care should be taken to select a reliable support system at an affordable price. However, as anyone who has spent countless hours trawling through the internet looking for information on how to successfully market and monetize a blog will tell you, the right advice at the right time is priceless.

Having the Right Information and Mentor

Many people are profiting from cleverly using blogs to market products and services. Far more are failing. The difference between success and failure lies in making the right choices and decisions which in turn are the result of having the right information. You now have information that can set you on the path to blog success. Choose a good mentor and your pathway will be all the smoother.

For more information about a proven blogging business system for all level. Click Here! 

 

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Why Blog & Blogging?

A blog is a website made up of short, frequently updated posts written by the website owner. The person is known as blogger.

“Blogging” is the act of writing and publishing blog posts. These actions had a huge impact on the way information is presented, published and consumed on the internet. Unlike many online developments that turn out to be just fads, blogs are most definitely here to stay.

Bloggers and their readers love to read blogs, for a number of reasons.

One of the key reasons is that there are a lot of very good blog writers out there; all sharing their opinions, knowledge and advice on topics people are interested in reading about.

It is the human aspect of blogs that draws many people to them. Bloggers tend to write in a very personal and informal style, which is in contrast to the many more corporate and faceless websites out there.

Another very popular feature of blogging is its conversational aspect. Many blogs allow visitors to leave comments on what they had read and other readers can then reply to these comments and continue the discussion. Popular blogs often create a sense of community because the same people return again and again to post comments and connect with other people interested in the same topics.

Blogs also offer people with new fresh opinions, a change from the main stream media and online news websites. Since blog posts are usually brief, regularly updated and easy to read, many people now read their favourite blogs everyday as much as they could just like an online newspaper or magazine.

The services or providers like blogger, typepad, wordpress and Yahoo 360 make blogging easy to use, quick and inexpensive or even free, which resulted in blogging now plays a major role in today’s online communication today.

That is why if you have an online or offline business or even no business at all. Blogs are one online development that you simply cannot ignore.

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Blogging Marketing ABC Bible

No matter how attractive and interesting your blog is, if you don’t market it and attract readers to it, you won’t make any money.

Basically, blog marketing is any activity that publicizes or advertises products, services, a website or business through the use of blogs. However, before you can market on a blog, you have to successfully market the blog itself. If you can’t generate a healthy number of visitors to your blog, you won’t be able to directly or indirectly market to them.

The key to marketing your blog successfully is consistency and effectiveness. This means that you have to consistently post new, interesting articles to your blog that are relevant to your targeted audience as well as consistently engaging in activities designed to drive traffic to your blog. However, there is a caveat on this last suggestion.

Your traffic generation activities have to be effective. To ensure the effectiveness of your blog marketing strategies you need to become well informed about the types of strategies that typically get the best results, consistently apply them and consistently monitor them. You must be willing to drop strategies that do not work and replace them with hopefully more effective ones. It is important that you are not attached to your strategies but to your outcomes. If it doesn’t work, change it. Flexibility is an essential element to blogging success.

Once you have created your blog and have submitted some interesting and unique posts that are designed to pique interest and engage your reader in conversation through the comments facility, you need to get your blog pages indexed in the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This process is not automatic and if you don’t take the necessary steps you will have little chance of benefiting from search engine traffic.

Generally speaking search engines require you to submit a sitemap, however if your blog is hosted by a service like Blogger you won’t be able to access the root directory to obtain the information. Instead you will need to submit code in a meta-tag. Your blog provider will direct you on how to do this.

Once you have submitted your blog for indexing with the search engines, the next most important step you can take to generate traffic to your blog is to submit it to as many relevant blog directories as possible. This can be a time consuming process so if you can afford it you may find it beneficial to pay a service to manually submit the blog for you. Automatic submission services should be avoided as they do not make allowances for the visual confirmation that is usually needed when submitting a blog to a directory.

Blog directories can really pay of in terms of attracting visitors to your blog as long as you list your blog in the correct category and you take care to write a description that accurately describes your blog and appeals to your targeted niche.
These steps may generate one time visitors but it is up to you to keep them. If your blog is not updated regularly with new material it will stagnate.

Regular posting is not only important in terms of attracting a loyal readership, it is essential if you want to improve your search engine page rank. The best search engine results tend to go to blogs that are tightly focused on a single niche and give their readers unique information and excellent value.
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