“Are you qualified to make money blogging?”

Blogs are frequently updated. If you’re not willing to update your blog frequently, you’re not going to make any money from it. It’s as simple as that. If you’re looking for a way to make money without doing any work, blogging isn’t for you.

Blogging is also about social interaction, though that aspect of it is a bit different from what most people consider social networking to be these days. The social functions on blogs can oftentimes be integrated with social media sites, however, something that will be discussed in greater detail later on.

For the moment, suffice it to say, blogging is about publishing good information on a regular basis. It’s also something that you can make money at, provided you understand how to go about it.

Making money with blogs is a popular way to make money online because the investment required to get one started is very small. It’s very similar to building an authority site. Particularly compared to the investment required to start most other types of businesses, blogging is very affordable.

There are resources you can utilize to expand your blog a great deal, to get information and perform other tasks that come at a price but, when you’re just getting started, you won’t have to worry about that right away. The costs of starting a blog are mostly those required to get a domain name and to get a web hosting account. These are very small investments; probably less than you pay for your Internet subscription every month.

1. Find A Specific Topic To Write About

Finding a niche is one of the most basic elements of most successful Internet marketing. Remember that you’re marketing your blog, so your niche is going to be a group of people who enjoy consuming a certain type of information. That information will likely be relative to an activity that they engage in or an aspect of their lifestyle that further defines them as being a member of that niche. For example, mothers of elementary school children who attend private schools are a marketing niche.

Identifying a niche can be hard. One of the things you have to take into account is how much competition there is for that particular group of people. You may not want to try to compete for the niche of people who enjoy golfing in Florida, for example, simply because that is such a huge niche to go after, which means that a lot of other sites will be competing for that demographic. Scale it down a bit. Consider, for example, people who enjoy golfing in Florida but who are allergic to regular mosquito repellent. That’s a very specific— and likely very small—group of people to whom you could direct blog content. Obviously, this is only an example, but you’ll need to choose a niche that you can realistically reach better than your competition and that you can speak to with at least some authority.

Read the news, pay attention to trends and it won’t be long before you will be able to identify many different niches. If you have somebody you work with in your business, or just a good friend with whom you like tossing around ideas, try brainstorming.

2. Get A Domain Name & A Web Host

A domain name is what you type in your browser when you want to go to a website. For example, Google’s domain name is “www.google.com”. Technically, because you are putting up a site that is intended to make money, you should choose a .com domain name. If it suits your target demographic, however, you may want to consider getting a different top level domain. Top level domain (TLD) is the technical term for the letters that follow the “.” in your domain name. Some other domains – such as biz and .us – might make good choices, as well. It’s not a bad idea to consider purchasing the .net and .org variations of your domain name for future campaigns.

Now, a web hosting account is what provides you with the server where your website lives on the Internet. It is where the files of your website or blog are stored. Hosting plans are extremely affordable these days. You may have to accommodate site growth at some point but, generally speaking, the best hosts out there offer you unlimited bandwidth, even at their lowest levels of service, so you should be able to stay with a simple web hosting plan for quite a while, even if you’re getting a lot of traffic and a lot of money out of your blog.

You can get a domain name and a web host at HostGator. Their web hosting packages come at very low prices. Starting out, you should be able to get by with the most basic hosting plan, which is usually available for around $9 per month. The basic HostGator plan comes with unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth for less than $9 per month, making it one of the better deals available.

When you go to HostGator, click the “View Web Hosting Plans” button:

Choose your web hosting plan. I recommend getting the Baby plan so you have the option to add more domain names in the future.

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After choosing your plan, select a domain name. Enter the coupon code “carlocabdotcom” and get 25% OFF on any hosting package. If you prefer to get $9.94 OFF, use the coupon code “carlocabdotcom2” making your first month on the Hatchling or Baby plan free!

After you sign up for HostGator, you will have a domain name and a web host. This means you have all of the basic tools you need to start a blog, assuming you have a computer, of course. The next step will provide you with the single most important tool you have for running your blog but won’t cost you a dime.

3. Install WordPress

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world. It’s also a powerful content management system: a backend control panel and series of menus that allow for the very efficient administration of websites. With WordPress, you don’t have to worry about programming. You can post articles, change templates and do almost anything you can think of to manage your blog without touching any code.

If you’re new to installing content management systems, installing WordPress can be confusing but on your HostGator account, WordPress is included as an option on your hosting package. All you have to do is log into your administration panel and click on the option to install blogging software. WordPress will be one of the options. From there, it’s only a matter of filling in options – the title of your blog and so forth – and clicking through to the next step.

4. Make Money With Your Blog

Monetizing or making money with your website means adding advertisements, for the most part. Adding affiliate links and tools that allow you to capture e-mails are other parts of monetizing a blog. Monetizing a blog can be a bit complex. Some of the results won’t come right away, or even easily, for that matter. You’ll want to make certain you give each of your programs time to work, but you also need to know when to back out of a program if it isn’t working for you.

Here are some of the most common ways that people monetize blogs:

AdSense

AdSense is a program run by Google and it’s the most popular pay per click advertising service in the world. The way it works is simple. People bid to have their advertisements published on websites that are within the AdSense network. They only pay the amount that they bid for the advertisement if somebody actually clicks on the advertisement. This is called pay per click advertising.

You can customize the advertisements that show up on your site and you’re given plenty of options as far as tools to track the success or failure of your campaigns. The advertisements displayed are chosen based on how appropriate they are for your site. You can filter out certain types of ads, if you wish.

There is no set up fee involved with this program, it’s extremely easy to set up and Google takes care of everything for you. This is absolutely the first thing you should do to monetize your blog. It’s too easy to pass up.

ClickBank

ClickBank provides affiliate links that you can use to monetize your blog, as well. This is a very large affiliate network that processes over 30,000 transactions per day. If you sign up for an account with ClickBank, you can get affiliate links to sell items on their site. This is one of the easiest ways to make money off your blog.

Generally, the strategy with ClickBank links is to get links that relate very closely to the type of content you publish on your blog. This gives you a legitimate reason to promote the link as something that might be useful to your visitors. If you just fill your blog up with affiliate links, nobody’s going to visit it and nobody’s going to take it seriously. Using ClickBank links strategically, however, can bring revenue into your blog. ClickBank is very well established and very trustworthy, making them one of the best choices for affiliate marketing programs for new bloggers. The ClickBank product line includes over 45,000 different products: which should certainly be enough to provide for your blog.

Private Advertising Banner Sales

Selling private banners on your website is generally considered one of the most profitable ways to make money off your web real estate. It’s also one of the most difficult ways to make money off your web real estate, at least at first. If your site is well established and you have good traffic numbers, you can start asking for a decent sum of money to run a banner on your websit. You can then upsell a sponsored review. Until that time, however, people are probably not going to be willing to pay you much to run a banner on a website that doesn’t get any traffic.

As your website becomes very popular, you have to start incorporating technologies that allow you to rotate banners so that you can sell the same space to different clients. Banner advertisements, if you are very successful blogger, will likely start to constitute a rather large chunk of the money you make off your website. It might take you a while to get there, however.

Keep in mind, you’re most likely going to need a PayPal account for this. If you’re having doubts about it, read our post about PayPal’s advantages & disadvantages.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is probably the best way to monetize your blog because it is not a one time thing – you capture your visitors. When you’ve captured your visitors, when you have their email. You can send them right back to your website or you can email them ClickBank products that you recommend.

Although e-mail marketing is oftentimes instantly associated with spam in people’s minds, there’s actually a lot of legitimate and very effective e-mail marketing that goes on. If you think about it, popular shopping sites, information sites, news sites and other venues do very well getting people to sign up to receive information in their e-mail boxes. You need to do this right if you’re going to do it at all, because you can get yourself in trouble for sending spam if you don’t provide certain options to your e-mail address list members.

AWeber is a very well known e-mail marketing software that you can use to manage your mailing lists. There are over 100,000 businesses that currently use the software for e-mail marketing campaigns. It allows you to take care of things like creating sophisticated HTML e-mails for marketing, to set up an autoresponder so people never send you an e-mail that doesn’t get at least some sort of a reply, to set up your RSS feeds so that they can be e-mailed automatically and many other functions. It also allows you to manage subscribers. One of the functions it provides is the ability for subscribers to get off your e-mail list. This is something you have to provide for them if you want to do e-mail marketing the right way.

You will also get e-mail analytics that help you to analyze how well your campaigns do, which will be an important tool if you start using e-mail lists heavily. People actually do sign up for interesting blog websites with their real e-mail addresses. E-mail marketing can be done legitimately and in a way that really serves customers well, so don’t discount it as something that sounds too much like spam. AWeber will give you all the tools you need to get people to sign up for an opt in e-mail distribution list that is totally above the board, completely honest and, if you use it right, something that your readers will appreciate.

5. Post Articles To Your Blog

Blog posting is very easy on WordPress. Aside from the technical aspects, however, there are some definite tips and tricks that you should be aware of.

First, make certain that your blog posts are always on topic. Remember that a blog that’s trying to make a profit isn’t a personal blog. Don’t get overly personal and make sure that everything you write about will be interesting to your niche.

Second, make certain that you include keywords that you’re interested in being indexed for by the search engines. Don’t stuff them but, for example, if you were going after the golfers in Florida with the allergy problem, you would want to include keywords and keyword phrases such as “golfing in Florida”, “mosquito repellent allergy”, “mosquito’s golfing”, and so forth.

When you post a blog, you have an option to allow commenting. On a monetized blog, it’s never a good idea to allow people to post comments before they are approved. Comments are a good thing because they engage your audience. Unfiltered, non-moderated comments are bad things because people can use them to spam your blog or to say inappropriate things.

6. Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Your blog isn’t going to make any money if nobody’s reading it. This is why you need to get visitors or drive traffic to your blog. Here are some basics on how you go about getting people to find your website and to read your content:

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of optimizing your site to get higher rankings on search engines. There are two aspects in SEO, on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization is what you do to your website and the content you publish. Off-page optimization is all about the other websites that link back to you.

The most important things to remember about doing this are that you need to post regularly, your content needs to be of a high quality, your keywords need to be included in the content and your content needs to be original and not recycled. You can also engage in article marketing campaigns and other activities for search engine optimization or, when you have your site ready to go, you could get a professional to handle this for you.

Social Media Marketing

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be tightly integrated with your WordPress site. Look for widgets that allow you to integrate your Twitter feed into your site. You can also find buttons that allow people to “Like” your site on Facebook and to share it with other social media sites. Sharing buttons are usually sold in packages—look for the term “social media icons”—and are easy to install. There is a huge variety of widgets available that you can choose from to add more social media elements to your WordPress site.

You should have a social media account at all of the major sites and you should have a link to your blog on all of them. Make certain that search engines are allowed to index your profile on your privacy settings on your social media account.

Guest Posting

Guest posting is one of the most underrated technique on driving traffic to a blog. The idea is simple, you write an article with a short bio about you and your blog at the end. You then submit that article as a guest poster to a top blog in your niche. When they decide to post it, you get traffic. The reason why they would accept your article is because these top bloggers are often times busy so when they don’t have the time to post on their blog, they accept articles from guest posters.

Commenting

Go ahead and comment on other blogs that fit within the same niche. Some blogs allow you to have a text link to your own website on your signature line on your posts. Make sure you fill this out, if it’s available.

The key thing that you need to keep in mind when you’re commenting on other people’s blogs is to make sure you’re not spamming their blog. Only comment when you have something to offer and only offer a link to your blog when it really will do the reader some good. If it adds to the conversation, it’s legitimate. If you’re shoehorning something irrelevant into the conversation just to advertise your own blog, the owner of the blog you’re commenting on is probably just going to delete your comment and maybe your account, too.

7. Take Action Today

Blogging is a great way to start making money online. If you prove to be very good at it, you may end up making your living at it. Remember that having more than one blog going is entirely feasible once you have the basic procedures for monetizing a blog down to a system. Some people manage several different blogs covering many different niches and subject matters and do quite well for themselves.

The post Make Money Blogging: 7 Steps To Start Making Money in 2020 appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Today I’d like to share 5 simple-yet-effective ways for getting blog traffic and believe it or not, once it’s done correctly, you can get tons of traffic almost immediately. Okay, let’s start with the first one:

1. Launch Something

Many bloggers take launch to mean something product related, but I’m a big believer that your blog IS your product, and should be launched at least once. If your blog is new, launch it with a bit of a build-up. If it’s not new, maybe you launch a new series of content, a new blog design, or yes – a product.

The trick is just to build hype that something new is about to happen. People love to get excited about new things, even if it’s as simple as a new header or logo. Be creative!

2. Give Something Away

Yes, contests are passé, which is why I say skip the annoying parts of the contest and just give stuff away. It doesn’t matter what it is – it could be a book you no longer want, a consulting session, or a product of your own. Don’t ask for RT’s and Facebook Likes – just list a basic requirement and ask people to sign up.

Many bloggers use blog comments to take entries, which is a smart idea, but it’s also a pain in the butt to go through them all and try to pick a winner. I prefer the idea of asking people to sign up for my email list, and then pick a random person to give the prize away to…it’s simple, and it builds your list.

3. Email Signature

Many people forget the basics, like placing a call to action and URL in your email signature. Sure, your real estate agent might not care about your blog, but you never know who’s looking for what you’re offering.

Your email signature is like a business card, but gets around much more often. Take advantage of it!

4. Communities

Designers use sites like Forrst.com and Dribbble.com to get traffic to their projects. Dog bloggers use forums to do the same.

Any place that allows for discussion is a place that you can use to build traffic. Blog comments, communities, Facebook groups, etc – they all work to build reputation and refer traffic.

5. Guest Posts

This one is a big one. Writing guest posts for other bloggers will leave a permanent link back to your blog, which will continue to get traffic for years to come. Of course, you’ll want to take time to craft a nice looking bio/signature line, but that’s easy.

Try to write at least one guest post per month and see how it works for you. If you notice that one site does better than another, then keep writing for them!

Remember, getting blog traffic is not a one-time deal; you need consistent effort to build traffic, gain trust, and earn a reputation. Spend a bit of time every day using techniques like these, and I guarantee you’ll notice a difference.

Wong Chendong also known as “The Bad Blogger” is a blogger who blogs about Internet Marketing, Copywriting and Blogging related topics. If you are looking for more effective blogging tips that will separate you from the rest of the pack, making you a “Go-to-Blogger” in your blogging niche, than his blog www.TheBadBlogger.com will be the most rewarding blog you will ever read. Period.

The post 5 Simple-Yet-Effective Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog! appeared first on Carl Ocab.

I won’t beat around the bush, I’m really excited to show this video to you:

I hope you liked it :-)

In addition to that we’ve added a “custom stylesheet” and “custom functions” file so that you won’t lose your customizations when you upgrade in the future.

The new UBT is also iPad ready and of course, compatible to all browsers.

We really did a lot of stuff and it’s a major jump from the last 2.1 version that’s why we are relaunching with all the launch propaganda, mailings, etc. on…

May 18th, 2010

It will be limited though, check back soon or if you want, you can subscribe to the notification list.

Of course, we will not be sending you any “promotional stuff”, spam you or any of those uncool stuff :-)

The post The Ultimate Blogging Theme 3.0 appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Many bloggers are notorious for doing things at the wrong time. May it be trying to cash out too quick, or trying to do too much. I said “wrong time” because most bloggers follow the established bloggers too much that they tend to imitate what the latter is doing. I’m not saying its wrong but it’s not good because established bloggers have one thing we may not have yet (or Carl only does have here) and that is good reputation

A Blog Is a Good Reputation Management Tool

Contrary on what it used to be before, a blog is a useful tool for carving out one’s reputation. I know first time bloggers start blogging primarily because of money and I can’t blame them for that. But one underrated thing is that it brings a lot of good things more than just the money thing. Blogging gives out an online brand for yourself and it wouldn’t take long before it would start raking in reputations (hopefully for all good reasons).

Why not look around? Guys like Darren Rowse, Shoemoney, Daniel Scocco, yes they are making good amount of money with their blog but how has their reputation in their blog paved the way for more opportunities for themselves and their business? Because they have good reputation, a lot of people trust them. Because of their name, a lot of people are willing to do joint ventures with them and because they are famous a lot of fellow marketers respect them!

What Can You Get With Good Reputation?

I’ve always been told that before a company or a person do business with you, they search your name in search engines. This is so true. Just existing in the index of Google is not enough. You have to exist for the good reasons. You, being able to be known as a good influence can lead to a lot of good things that are way better than just making a direct income from blog. It includes:

• Getting invited to large conferences
• Being able to speak in seminars
• More business opportunities
• Irresistible Offers from some top notch companies in your niche
• Unique Brand for yourself

Those are just few things that you could be eligible with when you start gaining that reputation. These things are obviously better than just making money directly from your blog and these would lead to a lot of good opportunities that could very much make you and your business more profitable.

Wait patiently and Just Work Your Way Up

It is essential for us bloggers to be patient. It will initially take certain amount of time for a certain blogger to gain popularity, much more to gain good reputations. Sadly, a lot seemed to give up already and they just instead focus on milking their blog too much that it hurts their readership and reputation. Patience is a big factor here and it having the right mindset is essential to achieve it.

How about you? Are you risking yourself too much because you want to have that money quick? Do you also believe reputation can be your biggest asset as a blogger? I would be very much elated to hear what you guys would like to say.

Melvin is a young entrepreneur and student who has been doing internet marketing related stuffs for more than 2 years now.  He shares his experience and ramblings in his blog in w/c you can subscribe. He also uses Twitter and hopes to get followed by more people.

The post Your Biggest Moneymaker? Reputation! appeared first on Carl Ocab.

We, bloggers, are normally so busy writing articles and finding new traffic sources for our blogs that we forget that we already have some traffic coming to our blogs. And these visitors should be treated well so that they subscribe to our blogs.

Over 90% of bloggers find it difficult to increase their blog readers just because they don’t concentrate on converting their visitors to subscribers. So I formulated a 5 step plan that shows how to convert your visitors into readers.

#1 Attention: Draw Their Attention To Where You Want

The moment a visitors arrives, his attention should be drawn to your articles’ Titles. Its the articles that would make them your subscribers, not some Adsense or other type of advertisements.

#2 Interest: Show Them You Can Solve Their Problems

The visitor would only subscribe if you are able to clearly show how you can help him/her. This can be done in the following ways:

• Focus On Benefits, Not Features: In the article Titles don’t stress on features or the information, but the benefits. More people would read your article if it’s Title shows how the article can benefit him/her.
• Keep Them Glued To Your Articles: Long paragraphs look really boring, so keep them short. Enlist the benefits or information since lists are far more easy to read than paragraphs. Also, don’t forget to use Bold and Heading tags wherever necessary.

#3 Navigation: Give Them A Reason To Stay On Your Blog

You should make sure that your visitors find what they are really looking for. The navigation structure of your blog should be user friendly. Make sure all your popular posts are easily visible to the visitors. This would give him more helpful information and thus a reason to stay on your own blog.

#4 Trust: Make Them Understand You Are Behind The Blog

Trust is another factor that would give your visitor a reason to subscribe to your blog. In order to gain his/her trust, make sure you have an About page or an About widget on your blog, preferably with a photo of yours. Knowing that the blog is run by a living person and not by some script, he/she is more likely to subscribe.

#5 Action: Tell Them How To Subscribe, Simple

The last step, give your visitors easy options to subscribe. Remind them that they can easily subscribe to the future updates of your blog. Try to include subscriptions options right below the articles so that they see it every time they visit any of your article pages.

Also, don’t just put a link saying “Subscribe To RSS”. Many visitors might not know what is RSS. Instead, try something like “Subscribe To Our Future Updates” or “Get Future Posts Free”.

Bonus Tip

To summarize all this, don’t make your blog for search engines or for advertisements. Make your blog for your visitors. Trust is what would make them subscribe to you and, probably, buy from you. And trust is gained by giving your visitors what they want, by truly

Chetan Chauhan is the author of Page Rank Gameplan, a report on how to increase page rank.
how to increase page rank.

The post Catching Eyeballs: 5 Steps To Transforming Visitors To Loyal Subscribers appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Today, I was sitting at my computer desk trying thinking of something to blog about. I sat around for quite some time trying to think of something but nothing came to my mind. Then I finally thought of something. I thought I should write a post of ideas to blog about when you have no clue what you want to blog about. Updating is very important in blogging so what if you run out of ideas to blog about? Pretty much every blogger gets writing block and it’s not fun. So here are a few ideas to help you out when don’t have any ideas.

1. Go to Google!

I personally think Google is one of the best things that ever happened. I use it a bunch and it can be a great tool to use for a bunch of stuff, and when you don’t know what to blog about. Make a search of things to blog about or new stuff that’s going on like hot trends. I’m sure you’ll find an idea to make a post about there.

2. Keep a list/journal of things to blog about

This is what I do and it really helps. Sometimes I’ll just be doing whatever and an idea will pop into my head about what to blog about. So, I keep a journal and I just write each idea down. This way if you’re ever thinking of something to blog about, you just get out your journal and pick a topic from there.

3. Maybe re post an old post?

Perhaps if you made a blog entry a few months or years ago you can take one of your old posts and revise it to make it better and re post it. Perhaps you’ve learned more since then and have some new ideas you would like to include.

4. Take a nap or go to bed

Sometimes when you think too hard it can be very frustrating and mind-boggling and you just need to relax and get some rest. Go take a nap or go to bed and when you wake up you might feel refreshed and you might think of a new idea. Maybe even take a few days off and do stuff you like to enjoy. Give your mind a rest and when you come back later it might be a little easier.

5. Write a tutorial

Maybe you could write a tutorial to teach some of your readers to do something. For instance, write a tutorial on Web design, how to make money online blogging, etc, depending on the type of website or blog you have. Whatever you do, try not to go off topic.

6. Reply to a readers question

This is always a good idea for something to blog about. Take a question that one or some of your readers have asked you and address it in a post to inform the readers. Readers always like when the blogger themselves interacts with them.

7. Tell your readers to ask you some questions

Make a post where you tell your readers to ask you any questions they want. Then once they’ve submitted their questions, you can answer a few of them in a new blog post. This is always a good idea because you can gain loyalty from your readers and it’s an extra thing to post about when you don’t have any ideas.

8. Check your email

Check your email. This kind of ties in with 6 and 7 but maybe some readers have sent you a question or an email regarding a certain topic you could cover in a post.

9. Ask somebody

Maybe you could talk to a friend or somebody you know and ask them what would be something interesting to blog about that they would like to learn about. This might not work if they have no clue really about what you’re trying to do but it’s possible. I myself have come up with a few blog posts this way.

10. Interview somebody

Interview somebody. Interview a blogger. In most cases many people won’t mind sharing some information with you. Write up a few questions and be prepared in case they say yes. Perhaps they’ll make a post about you linking back to your site resulting in some more traffic!

So, if you ever get writers block, try a few of these ideas out for yourself and see how they work and most likely you’ll come up with something!

The post 10 Things To Blog About When You Don’t Know What To Blog About appeared first on Carl Ocab.

I love the idea, Carl, but I’m a little confused. How do you a) find the best authoritative blogs in your niche, b) submit your article to these blogs, and c) get them to publish it?

Way to go Joel for that comment (Now you’ll anticipate more people to subscribe to my blog, heh.)

Alright so…

How Do You Find The Best Authoritative Blogs In Your Niche?

Here are 7 websites I’ve been using when I go around hunting for popular blogs…

1. WhosTalkin – This new baby (just launched last year) is going big sometime soon. When you do a search, you get all the related blogs basing on your keyword PLUS results from other social media and social networking sites like Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, etc. A great tool for reputation management too.

2. Google Blog Search – Hmmm nothing new here, clean interface, relevant results, just the same as how Google serves us LOL.

3. Technorati – They’ve been pretty messed up for the last months because of their weird feature tests and design changes but their big, big directory still lives up to the promise of ranking top blogs.

4. StumbleUpon – Not really of good use if you’re doing a proper research, just a nifty tool to read some cool stuff on your interests.

5. Delicious – I like using Delicious personally because you get to know what people think about the blogs and how many people REALLY liked it – compared to the other sites in this list, it’s real people voting, not just some algorithm.

6. Ask Blog Search – Well Ask’s been doing a pretty good job with their blog search, less splogs than any of the above.

7. Google Reader – After a long day hunting, subscribe to the blogs you’ve found and test out Google Reader’s new “top recommendations” and you’ll double your popular blogs list.

How About You?

It’s definitely not a complete list, how about you? If you’re using a website or a technique to find popular blogs in a specific niche, speak up and share it in the comments section below ;-)

The post 7 Websites You Can Use To Hunt Popular Blogs In Your Niche appeared first on Carl Ocab.

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Still cheesy? :-p

How to enter

Alright, since it’s Blogging Olympics, let’s get more action into this contest! I’m adding new ways you can earn tickets…

• Tell me who these flag bearers are and the country they are representing – 7 tickets

• • Make a blog post about this contest – 7 tickets
  • Include the prize list in the blog post – 10 tickets
  • Stumble this post and save it on Del.icio.us – 5 tickets
  • REQUIRED Find at least one, Beijing Olympics token on my blog. You can find these tokens on other posts (Example) right after the article – 3 tickets per token found.

After doing any of the above, send me an email to carl@carlocab.com (Subject “Blogging Olympics 2008”) with all the stuff you’ve done and you’re good to go!

The contest will be a raffle draw. More tickets = more chances of winning!

This ends August 25, you don’t wanna miss out. Join now!

© Make Money Online With A 13-Year Old

The post Blogging Olympics 2008 appeared first on Carl Ocab.

Err! Enough with the spiffy 3rd voice introduction.

So yeah, I’ve just celebrated my first year anniversary, bought a cake and took a good glance of the past. I’ll also be having a contest, but there’s more than that.

Blogging has taught me hundreds of things since then. Today, I’ve compiled them and picked the best to share it with you. I’d suggest you bookmark it, print it out and save it in your desktop.

But before that, I would like to give a little plug here to those who have helped me succeed a lot of things online, blogging and in life. Special mention goes to the Lord God for guiding me, helping me and in all of these things. My parents who have supported me all the time. Lil’ brother and sister for the laughs. Friends and classmates (Gloria, Audrey and Jean requested a special mention, hehe) for giving me few hits here and there and for taunting me for my outstanding english – that I rarely show in class. My online buddies (too many to mention) for helping me with their tips and updates and last but not the least, to YOU my readers.

Alright, I guess I’ve thanked everyone. Without further ado, here are the 32 things that blogging taught me in 12 months:

1. WIIFM or What’s In It For Me

The first question that pops out to all of us everytime.

Let’s have a little question and answer here just to prove it to you:

• Why do you work? – To make money.
• Why do you want to make money? – To buy the coolest car.
• Why do you want to buy the coolest car? – To impress my neighbor.

Ask yourself, you’ll always find out that you do all things that give you a benefit.

Here’s a totally different scenario where you want to help people in need. You try to do it anonymously as you can.

But what’s in it for you? – you feel happy on the inside helping people and seeing them happy.

People need benefits. You can’t just ask someone’s shirt if it wouldn’t benefit them, and you can’t sell a product without giving a reason why the customer need your product. Show the benefits.

You won’t be reading this article if you didn’t have YOUR benefit right? Ask yourself.

2. People Like To Be Fed, Spoon Fed

I added a follow up message to those who download my free report “This Is Quick Money” asking them “What have you done today that I taught you in the report you downloaded yesterday?” I got loads of replies.

They were asking me basic questions like “How do I start my own freelance service?” or “What is an autoresponder?” that can be simply answered by our little household friend – Google.

Look at it on the brighter side, what if you sell an ebook that spoon feds people on what they need. Wouldn’t that make you a good sum of money?

3. Content Is Not King, Marketing Is

The internet is FULL and overspilling with awesome useful content. It’s so many, you can’t stay on a site for a minute.

If you generate more and more content, do you think your traffic will also increase? Nah. Well with the right marketing, it will.

Marketing without content is dumb. So I consider content, as part of marketing.

4. Always Show BIG Numbers

What do A-listers have in common? (Preferably John Chow, Shoemoney, and Problogger)

They have BIG Numbers to show.

John Chow with his eye cracking monthly earnings, Schoe with his $180k AdSense check and Problogger with an astonishing amount feed readers.

5. Sleep Is Important

Here’s a good one.

There was a time when I slept 1:30 AM on a Sunday night. Tomorrow is school so I had to get up 5:00 AM.

That’s roughly four hours of sleep for me. My eyes was closing all day long. I even took a nap on our lunch break.

When I got home, I tried to write an article but I just can’t. No ideas was floating on my mind. All I can think of is to sleep and forget all those things first. I can’t even answer a single email!

I’ve learned a lesson the hard way.

6. Act Now, There’s No Later

You have this super idea that you know if you take action, would make thousands over thousands of dollars. After sometime, you forgot about it and you were surprised to see someone did it and got the cash you dreamed of. Has this happened to you?

When you have an idea, implement it now – before anyone does. If you have to stay up all night long, sure. Just act.

7. Log Your Achievements For The Day

Everyday I bullet point all the things I’ve done. From writing a blog post to SEO stuff and etc, just so I can track my achievements.

If I did less the other day, then I would exert more effort the next day.

8. Blogging Is A Sport

You get better and better everyday. The more practice, the better you get.

Let’s have this little article I wrote on my first month of blogging, compare it to this post ;-)

9. You Won’t Make Money Blogging – ALONE

Quoted from the Kidblogger’s Master Plan leaked report.

Yes, you won’t make money blogging alone. Although you can get some coins but that’s not money. It’s not enough compared to the time blogging ate.

That’s why, there’s a system. With that in place, everything is completely duplicatable – Of course, you have the option to hire writers too.

So if you think you can make money off blogging by yourself now, STOP.

10. Blogging Is A Job

Writing an article everyday, sponsored review deadlines, blog commenting schedules?

What’s the difference from your ordinary day job? Ah well at least, you’re at home. But still…

11. Very Good Is Not Very Good At All

I owe this one to Seth Godin. Having read his Purple Cow (Still on the halfway) my perspective and goals change when doing something.

We see very good things everyday, when we walk down the street, everywhere. Very good is too saturated. When you’re unique, you’re just you, you stand out.

12. You Don’t Have To Be Passionate About Your Niche

Our passion is to make money – not writing. So why do you need to be passionate about your niche? You can always hire writers who are passionate enough to write good articles for you.

13. Don’t Sell Yourself Too Thin

Have you encountered those $27, $17 or even $7 crap books? (No offense intended, most of them are really CRAP). They’re selling themselves too thin, why sell for $7 if you can for $97?

If you think you can sell a $97 product 100 times, do you think you can sell it for $7 1000 times – with the same people? No! Not a chance.

Why?

You see, some people are not buyers. They’re there to see what’s going on and skim over your site, but only small amount of real buyers are worried about the price.

So if you have 1000 prospects, 10% of them bought the $97, but not 100% of them will buy your cheap $7 product.

Heck after selling them the $97, you can even upsell or downsell them another product!

14. Monetize Now Or Die

The “Wait for your readership to grow, before you monetize” saying just makes me laugh all the time.

Let’s just say you waited half a year to monetize your blog, then on the 7th month, your hosting crashes, your PayPal is frozen, all the back ups are gone – or your blog got hacked, the tables in your database ruined and you don’t have a chance to fix it.

Wanna cry now?

Tip: Here’s how I sold my private advertisements.

15. Blogging Is Communication

I’ll let author Tom Peters speak to you “Communication is everyone’s panacea for everything.” In blogging, you communicate by writing informally. You write like you’re talking to your reader. Informal is the best, even copywriter legend Gary Halbert (You are a homo habilis if you don’t know him) uses it to sell!

16. Go Positive

Don’t give clues to your readers for the things that you don’t want them to do. Like say, “Don’t unsubscribe to my blog! I’ll post tomorrow” (Darn, I said it! But with this post, I think you would stay subscribed, aye?) or “Don’t leave yet *sales pitch here*”.

Even though that’s a warning, it’s still a command that might give your visitors a hint.

17. Experiment!

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, take risks – the money is there. Here’s one from me ol’ favorite speaker Anthony Robbins “There is no failure, there are only results”.

Through tons of experimentation when I was young, I was able to learn a lot of stuff about SEO. Because of that, my company now offers SEO services in the Philippines.

18. Experiment! Be Careful Though

Just a word of warning, don’t go below the belt. If it still urges you, don’t forget to grab hold of your privacy.

19. Gurus Don’t Know Everything

Even though they make thousands or even millions of dollars online, they don’t know everything.

I’ve talked to loads of marketers who make six figures a month, but guess what – I still have something to share to them. Everyone has something good at.

20. Focus

Speaking of number 19, that’s the number one reason why those guys are called “gurus”. They are good at a specific, very VERY specific sub niches of internet marketing.

In link building, we have Jack Humphrey. List building, Joel Christopher. Affiliate marketing, Ewen Chia and Chris Mcneeney. Traffic generation, John Reese. The list goes on…

They boiled down so much, they tend to ignore other things not relevant from the niche they are focusing at.

21. Be Prepared For Legal Issues

I can’t believe loads of people put legal issues as the last item on their list! Imagine with just one (yes, it’s that serious that I have to put all the styles in it) flaw, you can lose your whole business – or worse, even your personal stuff.

I won’t finish this as I’m not qualified to do so. Just go get a lawyer now and let him tell you what to do.

22. Set Goals In Everything You Do

When I get home from school, I rest for half an hour before I go online. I never thought that that 30 minutes is one of the most important factors of success.

I plan my day strategically so I won’t lose a single minute out of the blue. And these goals are not just for the sake of writing, they need to be done.

23. Shorter = Better

We are at the attention age era. People are surrounded by tons of information, we give too little attention to things as we have the option to just move on and click away.

In that case, we have less time to tell people what we are really trying to tell them. And heck, it’s actually harder to explain things shorter than the usual.

P.S. Yes, this article is shorter than the usual, I have 32 things to pin point so there. :-)

24. Design Is An Important Factor

Like what I said above, we are at the attention age – and one of the most attention-grabbing part of a site is its design. This is so important that we now offer web design in the Philippines.

Your website’s design speaks for you. Connect your design with your niche. I guess my master plan is a good example.

25. Sometimes We Could Use Some Ramblings

Blogging is communication aye? (number 15) Why not give your readers a bit taste of your life and how you live?

Even though, yes, your readers are there for topics about your niche, but a post a month with updates of your current lifestyle won’t hurt right?

Most people are curious cats and would always like a snippet of someone’s life. That’s one reason why gossip is a pretty wide niche. ;-)

26. Mingle With The Big Boys

It has been said that if you add up all the earnings of the top five people you hang out most and get the average of it, it will be close to your current income.

That’s simply true. When you hang out with poor people, they’ll influence you to do what poor people do. If you hang out with middleclasses, same thing happens. If you hang out with millionaires, they will influence you too on how to become as rich as them. Even if you have nothing in hand! They’ve got the kicks, all you have to do is listen.

27. Under Promise, Over Deliver

I hear amazon.com does this nicely.

When I ordered my first books from amazon they gave me a rough date when will the books arrive, it’s for three weeks I guess. Surprisingly it arrived in our frontdoor in only two weeks.

I’m pretty sure that they knew they can give it in less than three weeks, they just under promised to make us think they have over delivered in service.

28. Protect Your Feed

Content aggregation is a big hit these days. You know those guys who scrape all your content and plaster big blocks of ads around it trying to make money?

Yes, it annoys me too. One way or another, I see five to 10 duplicates of every article I post on this blog – luckily most of them links back to the original article, but some just don’t get it. Some just copy pastes the whole post, leaving no trace behind.

However, if you place links inside your posts, it will be carried by the scraper because most of them still carry out the html.

29. Make People Feel Important

This I owe to my email list.

First of all, lead capturing is harder than you think it is. It takes three steps to make people subscribe to your list. They type their name and email, press subscribe and go to their inbox to confirm it. Sounds simple? NO! Tell you what (I guess there’s no softer way to say this) people are LAZY.

Why do they have to spend their spare minute to subscribe to your newsletter (or whatever you are offering) when he can subscribe to the one next block?

Make them feel important, give them private access to your swipe files for example. Or maybe a beta access to your new site, etc.

30. People Love Lists

Oh c’mon, you’d never get this far if you didn’t love lists! ;-)

31. Leverage Other People’s Resources

In order to start making money, there are a lot of things you should consider. You need traffic, list, content, credibility and tons more. If you drill down those things and do it all by yourself, it will take years before you can establish a good online business. Notice, I only said good.

But what if you can leverage other people’s resources? Other people’s traffic, list, content and credibility? Wouldn’t that skyrocket your business and your profits?

32. Read Then Implement

This is probably the best thing that blogging taught me after 12 months – read. Don’t just skim, read. If you bought a book today, read it, finish it then implement it. Don’t get another book if you still haven’t implemented the principles taught in the first one.

Start this year right, buy a book now then read it and implement. You’ll be mesmerized by your improvement. I guarantee it.

To Close This One Up

I’ll let Henry Ford close this looong article with his infamous quote “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

The post I Paid 12 Months To Learn These 32 Things appeared first on Carl Ocab.

No, I’m not a natural writer. In fact, I’m still having those “Dramatic pause” every minute or so looking for the right word to express my point (That’s because English is not my first language.)

What’s my secret?

Focus.

Do nothing but write the article.

But how do you grab hold of that focus till you finish the article?

Here are my five tips:

1. Turn Off That Music

Do not lower the volume, turn it off!

I’ve had bad experiences with music when writing. In my own experience this is the number one thing that always keeps me out of focus when writing.

The last minute you were writing, the next minute you find yourself singing and swaying with the music.

Now who’s with me?

2. Close Your Email

This one is a killer. Tons of people are in to this. Tons of people write with their email accounts open. And yes, tons of people are distracted with their email accounts open.

It just snowballs you when an email arrive in the middle of you working on an article. After you’ve replied to it, you see another one waiting, you reply to it again, and so on and so on.

Email is the one of the internet’s biggest time whore, try to schedule things up and make a habit of checking your email.

3. MSN, YM, Skype and AIM Is A No No!

If your IM client has over 100 contacts piled up, you can imagine how hard it is to focus on writing with your IM client open. Heck, you can’t even do any simple work.

It’s just too irritating. Especially when someone adds you and asks personal stuff and that. Well, you can’t just close the client or block the guy because he might classify you as “Rude” and tell the world about it. Argh.

4. Close The Windows, Lock The Door

If you have kids mingling around your house, I might have hit the bulls eye on this one.

As for me, I have a brother and a sister – and they won’t stop bugging me everytime. I can’t blame them about that though, I’m sure I did that to my dad before too.

5. Cut Your Internet Connection

With just one click, you could easily get lost on what you’re doing. Especially when you have the StumbleUpon toolbar installed or any other toolbar that with one single click, it will take you to another website.

The solution, cut the connection.

There are days were our connection is a bit laggy, we can’t browse or do virtually anything online. I’ve observed that I write faster on these days, because often times in the middle of writing an article, I recall a website I haven’t read in months.

What’s Loosing Your Focus?

Like in any other article, I want you to get involved.

How about you? What’s the single biggest thing that keeps loosing your focus when writing? Or any work you always do.

The post 5 Tips To Grab Hold Of Your Focus When Writing appeared first on Carl Ocab.