Welcome back! Last time, we discussed how to make the money work for you, and the best placement, color schemes, and keywords to use. This time, we’re coming to the end of the series, and this is the conclusion article. Fear not, my friends, it doesn’t mean I’m through writing about amateur blogging, just that this particular series has come to and end. Once again, let’s get started.
The Conclusion
Hello, my friends. For the final time, I welcome you to our discussion on amateur blogging. Throughout this discussion, I’ve given you tips, tricks, and techniques from my store of knowledge, as well as others’ research and posts. I’ve walked you through selecting and setting up your blog, to writing your first posts, to analyzing your traffic patterns, to monetizing your blog. Where does it end? Well, in actuality, it doesn’t end. Blogging is a never-ending quest for knowledge. The longer you blog, the more you will learn about what makes a good blog, and what brings in money. Once again, I’ll use one of my favourite phrases: Make no bones about it, I have no wish to be an amateur blogger, forever. I got started in blogging because I enjoyed it. Way back in the late 1990’s, I started keeping an online journal. I had webspace through my internet service provider (ISP), and kept a website through them. I used to update my journal by uploading a static HTML page for each and every entry. In May of 2000, I found LiveJournal, and began to use their service. To this day, I still keep a personal journal at LiveJournal. In fact, I’m fairly active in the support and maintenance of LiveJournal (general support, and the user documentation maintenance). Somewhere in 2002, I discovered Moveable Type, and started my first blog. That didn’t last too long, as I found MT to be a little hinky, and a little unwiedly. To be honest, it probably was. MT was in its infancy, then. Since that time, it’s come a very long way.
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Welcome back! Last time, we discussed the different ad systems availible for your blog. This time, we’ll discuss making the money work. In other words, how to maximize your click-through rate. Keep in mind when you participate in this conversation that I’m not a professional at this. I’m still learning as I go. The information I’ll be imparting to you comes from my experiences online, and my own learning and knowledge. As usual, take everything with a grain of salt, and do your own research.
Placement of Ad Units
The placement of your ad units is absolutely crucial in monetizing your blog. First and foremost, you must figure out how to place your units without overriding the blog, itsself. Your ad units should call some attention to themselves, yet they should also attempt to flow within the page. Secondly, you should attempt to maximize the visuality of the units. In other words, place them where people will most often be looking. In this particular case, you should place most of your ad units, whenever possible, above the fold. That is, in the portion of the page that displays without any scrolling. Sometimes, with a large header/header graphic, this simply isn’t possible. That’s fine, but you need to put some of your ads (I suggest Google/YPN) as high up on the page as possible.
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Welcome back!! Last time, I gave you a teaser on monetizing, and told you why you might want to. I also included some specific rules of thumb for any program. This time, we’ll discuss specific programs, and I’ll spend time explaining what I use. Before we get started, I need to tell you that a majority of links in this post are affiliate links. That means that if you sign up for the ad/affiliate programs, I will make a little bit of money. What you earn will not change, it’s just a way of the individual companies rewarding people for bringing in new business. Think of it as a customer loyalty type thing. Okay, let’s get started.
Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN)
Google Adsense and Yahoo’s YPN are essentially the same. They are both contextually driven text and image-based ad systems. Essentially, this means that they display ads based on the content of your blog/entries. The ads change, depending on the content of your site. On a blog, you’ll usually find most of the main page ads related to blogging. On the individual entry page, you’ll find the ads more tailored to the topic(s) of the post.
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Welcome back! Last time, we talked about knowing what people are reading, keeping them coming back, and promoting your blog within your blog. This time, we’ll spend a brief period of time explaining what monetizing is, and why you might want to do it. Let’s get started.
Mon - uh - tie - zing?
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Welcome back! Last time, we talked about specific methods for bringing traffic into your blog (including getting dugg and slashdotted). This time, we’ll discuss getting traffic from search engines. Let’s get started.
Search engines are the easiest method for drawing in traffic. Eventually, you’ll get picked up by search engines, even if you don’t submit to them. It’s a good idea, though, to submit early.
Submitting to Engines
Every major search engine out there has a way for you to submit your website to it. First are foremost, you should list in the one major directory, and the three major search engines. Those are dmoz.org, Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
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Welcome back! Last time, we discussed the generalities of bringing in traffic, and how to tailor your blog to the audience you desire. This time, we’ll dive into some specific methods of bringing in traffic.
Before we begin, I need to tell you that each of the methods I’ll discuss have their good and bad points. I also need to point out (and listen, here, this is important), no method is sure-fire. Especially for a new blog, traffic will be very light. It takes time to bring in steady traffic. It takes even longer to bring in regular readers. Even after a year, only about 24% of my readers are repeat visitors (based off of weekly stats). Don’t get discouraged, just know that it takes time. If you’re just starting a blog, you’re getting in on the explosion of the blogosphere, and the web 2.0 hype that includes blogs. As more and more people discover and turn to blogs for information, your readership will rise. You may be at my level in only six months, perhaps even less. It’s just the timing, sometimes. Okay, with that out of the way, Let’s get started.
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Welcome back! Last time, we discussed battling bloggers block. This time, we’ll start talking about bringing readers in to your blog. This conversation will be a bit shorter than others, as we’ll only be discussing the generalities of bringing in traffic. Next time, we’ll get into the details. Let’s get started…
Who do You Want to Read Your Blog?
The obvious answer is, everyone. Unfortunately, not everyone will be interested in your blog. Sit down and thing for a bit about the groups of people who would be most interested in your blog. Those will be the ones you want to target. While pro bloggers automatically have groups of people, by niche, you don’t. You need to spend some time make sure your website is out there, and gets well known. It’ll take time - sometimes a long time - to draw in traffic. I started writing in this blog a year ago, and I’m just now getting to - what I consider - a good level of traffic. It’s important to keep apprised of what people are reading, too. We’ll talk more about these things, later.
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Welcome back! In our last conversation, we talked about finding new things to blog about, and how to properly cite your sources. This time, we’ll discuss how to battle blogger’s block. Let’s get started.
What is Blogger’s Block
Blogger’s block is just like writer’s block. It’s the state you occasionally get into when you just can’t find anything to blog about, or the words just won’t come. We all go through it, and if not overcome within a decent amount of time, it can kill your site, as people flee when you stop posting. Now, I’m not going to talk about every different way to battle blogger’s block, as there’s just too many. Darren Rowse (gee, how many links do I give this guy, heh) over at problogger.net has written a great series of articles on battling bloggers block. He’s even condensed them into one single page. Give it a read… after our discussion.
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Welcome back! Last time, we discussed the types of posts you can write, and how long to make your posts. This time, we’ll discuss where to find topics to blog about. I won’t cover everything, as there are literally thousands of places to look for information, online. I will, however, cover some of the most well-known places. Let’s get started.
Finding Things to Write About
The Internet is a huge place. There are billions of websites, online. Everywhere you look, there’s blog fodder. Yep, it’s buzz-word time. “Blog fodder” is, essentially, stuff that you consider blog-worthy.
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Welcome back! Last time, we talked about initial posts, blogging schedules, and what to do if you couldn’t blog for a while. This time we’ll discuss what types of posts you can write, and the length of posts. Let’s get started!
Types of Posts
There are many, many types of posts. In fact, Darren Rowse, at problogger.net has identified 20 specific types. We won’t touch on all of them, but I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with them all. I’ll touch on some of my favourites.
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