Use Your Blog To Promote Yourself

Filed Under (Blogging) by Jon Hook on 08-08-2008

Each one of us is special in our own little ways and often we don’t realize it. Most of us spend our entire lives doing something that we don’t want to do but have to so that we make two ends meet. But it does not have to be like this anymore. In this age of internet and blogs you can now do what you really want to and make money too. Wondering how? Keep reading to find out how.Well, consulting is a big business and it is all about giving people ideas, tips, suggestions and solutions when they have a problem. People blog because they want to talk about something and at times just about themselves. But often such people end up rediscovering what they have always wanted to do in life or what they are good at.

But if you already know that then you are a few steps ahead of them and already on your way to making money online. And believe me when I say that, if you are really good at it then you might as well end up earning a fortune for yourself. Want to know more? Keep reading.

There are people who have worked all their lives amongst various kinds of people, people of different temperaments, people of different colors, people from different backgrounds and parts of the world etc. I know one of them who quit his job because he was way too much frustrated because of the constant tension and running around and trying to adjust with all different kinds of people to get the job done. He started blogging to pass his post retirement time. Do you what happened? While telling people all about his work life he discovered what was wrong with him and why people were behaving in such a difficult manner all the time. He started telling people how they too could change for better and helped hundreds of people transform before a publishing house found him and offered him a chance to write a book about self improvement and how to transform self so as to fit better in the social and professional circle. He is now paid hundreds of dollars every hour to share his knowledge and help transform employees of some of the biggest corporate in the world. He gives all the credit to blogging.

There are hundreds of other such examples where people started showing and doing on blogs what they have been really good at. People have been writing poems on their blogs which have fetched them hundreds of dollars and contracts from publishers.

You might be passionate about reading and people are willing to pay you the price of a book to find out if it’s worth reading and their time. So while you get to read a lot of books, which you obviously like to, you also get a chance to make some money.

What I am trying to tell you here is that blogs are a great marketing tool if used properly. It’s like you have a skill and you want people to know about it. But then most of us don’t have enough resources to advertise the same. Blogs are a great way to do marketing while spending just about nothing. You can start blogging and then invite friends, family, peers and professionals, companies to take a look at your blog and leave their feedback and who knows? And who knows if they like your work you might well be on your way to a great future doing what you’ve always wanted to do.

And in the meantime make money by posting some ads on pay per click basis or by allowing companies like Google AdSense to place them and pay you for whosoever checks out that ad through your website.

Blogging - An Easy Way To Make Money Online

Filed Under (Blogging, Make Money With Your Blog) by Jon Hook on 04-08-2008

Blogging is the latest and the hippest thing in the virtual world of internet these days. Almost everyone’s blogging, be it a sit at home mom who is doing it to pass her time constructively or be it a superstar who is doing it to reach out to his fans. But why should you do it?

Well, blogging has its own advantages. Not only does it provide you with a place to express yourself and your thoughts, it also acts as a great place for people to interact with each other, share their thoughts and participate in a debate or a discussion.

Blogs and blogging have come a long way since their early days. But what lead to the exponential increase in their popularity was the fact that they had become one of the most popular online marketing tools. How? Well, We’ll tell you here how and also how it can also fill your pockets with a few hundreds if not thousands of extra $$$ each month.

People blog only when they feel strongly about a certain issue or when they want to share something with others. Well, this is the general perception of most of the people you’ll come across. But blogging can also be done to discuss about a certain product or a certain service or anything else that can be sold or bought on internet or the real world.

Today a lot of people are making a living through affiliate marketing. But most of the netizens don’t even know what affiliate marketing is. Well, we’ll discuss about it in just a while but before that it is important to know how a search engine works. A search engine locates your website or blog on the internet when someone types a keyword relevant to it. For example if you have a blog where you write about health and fitness products and somebody does a Google search with keyword ‘health and fitness’, then your blog should appear in the search results. But there are hundreds of such blogs and websites then how do you make sure that your site appears in the top few searches? Well that gets done by constantly updating and replacing the content on your blog and writing SEO content.

So if you consistently have a good ranking in the search engine then it makes good sense to tie up with a company like Google AdSense and make some money through advertising, isn’t it? It is not so easy to find advertisers and then convince them about the fact that you’ll certainly help in driving their sales figure northwards and that is why tying up with an affiliate marketing company is really convenient.

Affiliate marketing is a form of advertising where the advertiser pays only if somebody either buys a product or visits their website through your blog or website. It is highly advantageous for the advertisers since it makes sure that they don’t have to pay anything upfront. But it is also a boon for you if you have a lot of visitors.

So how do you go about getting affiliate marketing onto your blog? Well there are many really easy ways and many companies that would happily do it for you. The biggest of all the affiliate marketing companies on the planet is Google Adsense. Google places ads relevant to the content that you have posted on your blog and you get paid for the number of times somebody clicks on those ads to visit a website.

Another slightly different affiliate marketing company is Clickbank. Clickbank is a little different from Adsense in the way that it has limited the products that are to be advertised. They sell products that are transferable online and every time somebody visits and buys these products through your blog or website, you get a commission on the sale done.

Blogging is a great way to make a lot of extra cash online and all that it takes is just 2-3 hours of your time every day.

Different Ways Of Making Money Through Blogging

Filed Under (Blog Lessons) by Jon Hook on 31-07-2008

Internet offers more than just one way of making money these days. You don’t have to particularly be a manufacturer to sell something online. You just have to be really inclined towards marketing a product or a thought or a belief and have good knowledge about it. And that’s it. So what are all these ways of making money on internet? Well, the most popular and the most practiced way is affiliate marketing. We’ll tell you a little bit about it and the many other ways that you can use to make money on internet. There are many people who retired from their professional lives early to get out of the rat race and became full time consultants to the biggest companies just because of their blogs.

The most important thing when you want to make money from blogging is content. Quality content comes from knowledge. So whatever you want to blog about, make sure that you everything about it, make sure that you share as much as you can with the visitors so that those who visit your blog find value. Apart from that you must also keep updating the content regularly because no one likes stale content.

You must be wondering that this guy is just talking all about blogging and nothing about making money. Wait that is next, I am not being rude but you have to learn the alphabets before writing words on paper. The next step after you have started your blog and found a topic you want to talk about and share with people is advertising. Sign up with Google Adsense or any other similar service which places ads on your website and shares the money earned through advertising with you.

So every time somebody visits your blog or webpage and clicks on the advertisements placed by Google AdSense, you get a small amount. So if you get 5 cents for every click and hundred visitors click on the ad, you make a cool $5. And to keep these people coming back again and again and thereby bringing in more money you need to keep the content updated and relevant.

That was all about making money online by blogging and getting paid on Pay Per Click (ppc) basis. We will now talk about what are the other ways that you can make money online.

There are many people who have quit their well paying jobs to help and support certain causes like improving the condition of people in Africa or Asia; you can ask people to donate funds for that cause while letting them know that it will also cover a part of your expenses. If you are really doing something good, be assured that donors would be there sooner than later.

If you have a passion for drawing, you can put up some nice eCards or paintings on your blog or website and then request people to pay if they like your work which is free to download anyways. You can also start a blog through which you share audios or videos with people in downloadable format and ask them to make a donation if they like what you are doing.

There are many people who also offer advice regarding self help and people who find it helpful in improving their personal life give back to the blogger a gift in cash to show their gratitude. There are even such property consultants who offer free of cost advice.

We all have something that we can offer to people and if it’s good, there’s definitely a lot of money to be made.

Blogs – Make Money Out Of Thin Air

Filed Under (Blogging, Content, Make Money With Your Blog) by Jon Hook on 28-07-2008

Often most people around us don’t understand why there is such huge fuss about this thing called Blogs. In fact most of who have even heard of blogs don’t realize its full potential. Blogs are great money making machines and even you can make a lot of money by blogging. Don’t believe me? Well you’ll believe what I am going to tell you here below.

A blog is just like a website but with a few limitations. There is a limit on the size of the material you can upload, there are fewer fancy things that you can do to your blog etc. But all this is simply immaterial. A blog is basically something where you can showcase your talent, discuss an issue with people or just express yourself.

You must have seen advertisements on various websites and also on the various sites like msn.com, yahoo.com and just about every popular site. But why? I know it might sound foolish to a few when I ask why, but it is very important to understand why somebody chose to promote his or her product through a website. It is not just because they want to promote their product but also because the website through which they are promoting their product has a huge visitor base and a good name amongst netizens.

All these websites are no longer sticking to the pay per click advertising model but have adopted a fixed fee model. So if you are popular in your community, professional or social circle, even you can start blogging and make money through advertising.

But don’t start dreaming of a million dollar mansion right now. There’s much more left to do. A blog is popular only as long as you keep it alive and abuzz with activity. You need to keep updating the content every now and then, answer the questions that people put forward, participate in debates and/or start new ones. You must be able to deliver some value to the reader who takes time to visit your blog and make sure that they return back to keep your blog making money for you.

Most of the advertisers will be reluctant initially because they want to be sure if you really have a loyal visitor base. But over a period of time if you can manage to keep your visitor base strong and loyal, you’ll win over the confidence of the advertisers and then you can directly get in touch with them and ask them to advertise on your site for a weekly or a monthly fee. But it does not mean that you cannot make money in the meantime.

While your blog is still in the nascent stage you can get in touch with Google Adsense and ask them place ads on your blog. These ads will bring income on pay per click (ppc) basis. So whenever somebody will click on the advertisement on your blog Google will get some money for it. In turn because the revenue has come through your blog and efforts Google will pay you a part of it.

One thing that you must always take care of while blogging is that you must know your subject well because just one wrong or misinformed comment can often be all that it’ll take to shoo away all your readers and followers. Also make sure that your readers can always freely ask you questions about the subject that you are blogging about. And when you are trying to find advertisers for your blog the best ones would be those who will derive some value out of it. So if you are talking about some topic related to pest prevention at home, a pest control company would most easily pay you for advertisement.

Get The Most Out Of Your Blog

Filed Under (Blog Lessons, Content) by Jon Hook on 25-07-2008

Blogging is the day’s buzzword and you really need to get on the blogging train if you want to make some cool cash in a small time. Are you interested in finding out how you can make the most out of your blog? Keep reading then.

A blog is basically a space where you can write and post whatever you like. You can pick up a social issue like the condition of people in Africa or environmental issues like global warming. You can also share some recipes with people or just write about your personal life or some experiences. A blog is a place with literally thousands of possibilities. You just have to take a step ahead and create your own possibility.

If you are really passionate about something then your first hurdle towards effective blogging has been eliminated. Now all that you have to do is to register yourself on any of the blogging websites like wordpress etc., find a name that is available and relevant to your topic of discussion and start writing about it.

But what you write must be quality matter and not gibberish; it should attract the reader, give him or her some valuable insights into the topic being discussed and make them come back to you for again with even more visitors. Easier said than done, wouldn’t you say? Well, I totally agree but then this is how it is done. There are a certain things that you can do here and there to make this task a bit easier and get better results and return for the time that you have invested.

The first step is that your blog’s name should reflect the topic that you are blogging about. So if you are discussing about paintings, then don’t name it ‘Paula’s blog’ or ‘Scott’s blog’ etc. keep the name relevant like ‘paintingsworld’ or ‘paintingbazaar’ etc. These names will give an interested reader the first glimpse into what your blog is about.

The second thing that you must do is to pen down a few points. These should be about what all topics that you’ll discuss about paintings and what all you will avoid touching on. Once you have done that it is time to start writing a few articles. Write something about yourself, a little bio of sorts. Write about your experience in the field etc. Now once you have a short intro of yourself and a few articles ready, it is time to start posting articles. Post two or three articles everyday for a few days.

Now if you have a few people reading your material and posting comments it is time to sign up with Google AdSense. They will then place ads on your blog and every time a visitor clicks on these ads you get paid a commission. These commissions are then paid out on a weekly or a monthly basis.

Also you must ensure that the content that you have uploaded is Search Engine Optimized (SEO). You can always take the help of a professional in this regard so that your blog gets a higher ranking in the Google search engine. Also, when you setup your blog on Wordpress, you get a major advantage which is not available  on most of the other blogging sites.

At Wordpress you have the option of uploading or rather to say saving many articles at a time while publishing just a few every day. This way you don’t have to login and post new content every day. It also keeps the content on your blog from becoming stale thus keeping your visitor base loyal. It also helps in saving time because you have to write all the articles just at once and then they’ll automatically keep getting posted.

Blogging To Increase Sales

Filed Under (Make Money With Your Blog) by Jon Hook on 22-07-2008

Blogs – The Most Important Tool to Send your Sales Spiraling high

Well for some of us blogging is just about passing time and writing something on a webpage that is of interest to us. Most of us use blogs as a tool for self expression, to make new friends or discuss any issue. But is this all that blogging is about? Well there’s much more that a blog can do for you. A blog can help to increase your sales and improve your relationship with your clients tremendously, which ultimately again leads to massive increase in sales and profits.

So how does it help in improving your brand value, sales, product quality and client-company relationship? Well we’ll share it with you here. Blogs are great marketing tools and when used effectively can attract a lot of potential customers.

Imagine you are running a small fashion house and you have developed some new designs that you are not sure whether people are going to like them or not. What do you do? You’ll go and show them to some of your closest friends but not many people for the fear of word spreading out that you have produced such and such designs. But with blogs there’s a way out. You can put snaps of some of those designs on a blog and then invite people from different walks of life to check them out and give feedbacks on the designs. Such people can be easily found at the various fashion and clothing related online forums. You don’t even have to reveal your name or company’s name till you feel comfortable. This is one of the best ways to get the most genuine feedbacks about your products.

Blogs also offer a great way to improve your product quality. A certain Swiss lock-maker found that their sales were on a constant decline despite increasing demand and was desperate to know what was wrong with his latest designs. The lock-maker started a blog where he informed people about the high quality of metal used and the latest technology that he was using in manufacturing the locks. People accepted everything but everyone on the blog left a feedback which shocked the lock-maker and brought to light real cause of plummeting sales, the key to the lock. The key being supplied with the new locks way too small for comfort and often got bent after a few months of regular use. The company immediately changed the key specs and all the faulty locks and ensured that its reputation was kept intact.

Blogs are a great way to also improve relationship with your clients and also to make sure that they remain loyal to your brand. Blogs are a great way to also tell people what all they can do with your product. Several small software firms do that because often people don’t realize what all functionalities that they offer with their products. A lot of mobile phone companies blog to inform people about what all their mobile phones can do and what all features people are looking forward to.

Most of the products that are designed in today’s world are designed based on client requirement or based on what a group of people in the society need. So it is imperative to know what they want if you want your company to make handsome profits.

Blogs can also be used for advertising too and therefore you can earn money or promote some other business of yours or a relative’s or a friend’s through your own blog. Blogging has truly come a long way since its inception and has become more than just a bare necessity for individuals and business.