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Tips Motivasi Diri

2008-08-05T20:40:00.000+07:00

Seringkali rutinitas, dan berbagai masalah yang datang silih berganti setiap hari membuat kita kehilangan motivasi untuk mendapatkan yang lebih baik dalam kehidupan. Hingga semua tujuan kita mengabur dan lama-lama menghilang. Berikut kami sampaikan tujuh cara untuk mendapatkan motivasi setiap hari:

1. Ciptakan Hasrat - Lihat imbalan dari usaha Anda secara jelas. Cara ini memberikan banyak motivasi untuk membuat rencana Anda cepat terwujud. Bayangkan rumah impian Anda setiap hari, dan ini akan memberikan Anda dorongan untuk menjadikannya nyata.

2. Ciptakan Rasa Sakit - Dalam program Neuro-Linguistic mereka mengajarkan pada Anda untuk menghubungkan rasa sakit dengan tidak melakukan tindakan. Gambaran kekasih Anda keluar dengan orang lain, saat Anda menyaksikan itu dengan diam-diam, hal itu mungkin membuat Anda termotivasi membicarakan hal-hal yang Anda hindari dengan pasangan Anda.

3. Bicarakan Rencana Anda - Bicaralah pada pasangan Anda tentang rencana Anda, atau tuliskan dalam selembar kertas apa yang akan Anda lakukan lalu tempelkan di kulkas.

4. Miliki Sebuah Ketertarikan yang Nyata - Jika tak ada ketertarikan sama sekali Anda mungkin perlu melakukan sesuatu, untuk itu buat sebuah tujuan besar dalam pikiran Anda.

5. Miliki Energi - Kafein akan memberikan rasa sehat untuk sesaat, tapi dalam satu atau lain cara, Anda membutuhkan energi lebih sebagai motivasi untuk setiap hari, misalnya dengan olah raga atau tidur cukup.

6. Ciptakan Keseimbangan Mental - Sangat sulit untuk menemukan motivasi jika Anda dalam keadaan tertekan. Hilangkan beberapa perasaan negatif Anda, atau pada akhirnya pilih kerjakan pekerjaan penting saat Anda dalam mood yang bagus.

7. Ambil Sebuah Langkah Kecil - Lakukan pengumpulan untuk satu tas besar daun-daun di halaman. Dan denagn segera Anda akan membersihkan halaman. Setiap sebuah langkah kecil yang Anda ambil untuk mencapi tujuan akan memberikan motivasi pada Anda setiap hari. (buzz/erl)

Memotivasi Orang Lain

2008-08-05T20:38:00.001+07:00

Motivasi adalah dorongan untuk mencapai tujuan tertentu. Dorongan itu bisa saja berbentuk: antusiasme, harapan dan semangat. Semua yang kita lakukan setiap hari senantiasa dibayangi oleh adanya motivasi. Misalnya, seorang karyawan yang bekerja tentu saja memiliki motivasi bekerja, begitu pula seorang atlet memiliki motivasi bertanding, seorang pelajar dengan motivasi belajar, dan lain sebagainya.

Motivasi ibarat api di dalam pikiran seseorang yang terkadang besar membara kadang juga redup, tergantung kondisi mentalnya. Jika seseorang ingin menggapai kesuksesan, motivasi adalah panas api yang harus dijaga jangan sampai padam, karena padamnya motivasi berarti kehilangan bahan bakar untuk menggerakkan mesin tubuh ini untuk menggapai tujuan. Memberikan motivasi adalah menyalakan kembali api motivasi di dalam diri seseorang supaya kembali bersemangat, memiliki keberanian dan pantang menyerah untuk melakukan sesuatu dengan cara tertentu. Kemampuan untuk memberikan motivasi adalah adalah sebuah keterampilan yang bisa dipelajari oleh siapa saja, seorang ibu rumah tangga, mahasiswa, manajer, dan tentu saja pemimpin.
Manusia ibarat sebuah gunung es yang tertutup oleh samudra, yang terkadang perlu diingatkan bahwa yang kadang terlihat hanya kekurangan (potongan es di atas air), namun keunggulannya tidak kelihatan karena masih di bawah permukaan air. Salah satu cara memperlihatkan potongan es yang besar itu adalah memberikan motivasi kepada orang tersebut.

Kebutuhan Manusia
Teori Maslow merupakan teori populer yang menggambarkan hierarki kebutuhan manusia yang berbeda-beda. Dengan mengetahui jenjang kebutuhan seseorang, motivator merumuskan bentuk-bentuk motivasi yang sesuai dan lebih terfokus kepada tingkatan kebutuhan dari seseorang.
Di jenjang paling bawah, motivasi berbentuk materi seperti: rumah, makanan, uang, dan sebagainya. Di jenjang berikutnya, motivasi tidak lagi berupa materi tetapi berupa perasaan, penghargaan dan kesempatan berkarya. Oleh karena itu, teori ini menjelaskan bahwa materi merupakan faktor mendasar yang mutlak ada sebelum munculnya kebutuhan-kebutuhan yang lain yang sifatnya nonmateri. Dengan demikian, motivasi dapat berbentuk dua hal, yaitu materi dan nonmateri.
Hal-hal yang Perlu Diketahui sebelum Memotivasi Orang Lain
Untuk menjadi seorang motivator, dibutuhkan penciptaan terus-menerus dan bukan berasal dari kelahiran seseorang. Di bawah ini adalah hal-hal dasar yang layak dipahami oleh seorang motivator:

n Motivasi kepada diri sendiri
Memotivasi diri sendiri adalah hal yang pokok sebelum kita memotivasi orang lain. Kita harus menciptakan suasana dan keteladanan yang dapat menjadi bahan bakar kita untuk mulai membakar orang lain. Para motivator ulung adalah orang-orang yang dihormati atas keberhasilan mereka sebelumnya.
Di dalam bukunya Successful Motivation in a week, Harvey memberikan pelajaran selama seminggu belajar motivasi diri sendiri dan orang lain secara praktikal. Harvey menyebutkan bahwa calon-calon motivator memiliki sifat-sifat sebagai berikut:
• Positif
• Rasa berterima kasih kepada orang-orang terbaik yang bekerja bersama kita
• Menyadari pentingnya harga diri

n Kecerdasan emosi
Pada umumnya motivasi disampaikan lewat komunikasi lisan antarmotivator dengan orang lain, yang mengharuskan motivator memiliki kecerdasan emosi yang baik karena kecerdasan emosi adalah dasar untuk berkomunikasi baik dengan diri sendiri maupun orang lain. Kecerdasan emosi mencakup pengelolaan emosi diri sendiri maupun orang lain.

n Empati
Empati adalah menempatkan diri seolah-olah menjadi seperti orang lain. Perlu disadari bahwa sesungguhnya motivasi hanya bekerja di luar, api motivasi sebenarnya berada di dalam diri masing-masing. Oleh karena itu dengan berusaha menempatkan diri menjadi orang lain, ide-ide untuk memotivasi orang akan menjadi lebih tajam karena kita melihat dengan kacamata orang tersebut bukan dengan kacamata kita sendiri.
Dalil-dalil sebagai Motivator
McGinnis memberikan 12 kunci prinsip yang merupakan rahasia pemotivasian yang perlu dipahami sebagai seorang motivator:

1. Harapkanlah yang terbaik dari orang yang Anda pimpin
Sebagai seorang motivator, Anda harus membantu orang-orang untuk mencapai keberhasilan sehingga mereka dapat memberikan yang terbaik kepada Anda. Sebagai manajer misalnya, Anda senantiasa mendorong staf Anda untuk menambah pengetahuan dan keterampilan supaya mereka dapat memberikan performa yang terbaik di pekerjaan mereka, dengan demikian tujuan bersama bisa tercapai. Selain meningkatkan pengetahuan dan keterampilan, Anda juga selalu mengingatkan bahwa mereka memiliki potensi tersembunyi dan keinginan untuk melihat mereka berhasil.

2. Pelajarilah secara mendalam apa yang dibutuhkan orang
Prinsip ini merupakan prinsip pendahuluan di mana rencana motivasi yang baik haruslah dirancang dengan melihat keinginan/hasrat mereka saat ini dan bukan berdasarkan rencana motivator itu sendiri. Jangan mengganggap bahwa orang lain memiliki kebutuhan yang sama dengan Anda.

3. Menetapkan standar keunggulan yang tinggi
Menetapkan standar keunggulan yang tinggi berarti mendorong seseorang untuk mencapai target atau nilai tertentu, misalnya catatan waktu bagi seorang atlet renang, volume sales untuk Manajer Sales, dan lain sebagainya. Standar keunggulan juga merupakan budaya/kebiasaaan yang menjunjung tinggi prestasi tertentu, misalnya kualitas, rekor, inovasi, dan sebagainya. Memiliki keunggulan yang tinggi merupakan kebanggaan tersendiri bagi seseorang yang mampu meraihnya.

4. Ciptakan suasana di mana kegagalan bukanlah sesuatu yang fatal
Motivator yang tulus akan selalu mengingatkan bahwa kegagalan bukan berarti akhir dari segalanya. Tidak ada manusia yang tidak pernah gagal tetapi hanya sedikit yang mampu bangkit dari kegagalannya dan merekalah yang mencapai keberhasilan. Kegagalan adalah pengalaman yang akan membentuk kesuksesan. Seorang motivator tidak akan mengumumkan kegagalan seseorang tetapi hanya keberhasilan yang dicapai.
Motivator dapat memberikan contoh-contoh orang berhasil di dunia yang melalui berkali-kali kegagalan, di antaranya : Thomas Alva Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churcill, Soekarno, dan lain-lain.

5. Jika Anda mengharapkan seseorang untuk melakukan apa yang Anda inginkan, maka topanglah rencananya yang mengarah ke tujuan itu.
Prinsip 5 ini mengajarkan seorang motivator yang senantiasa mendukung orang lain untuk melakukan apa yang si motivator tersebut inginkan. Prinsip 5 ini cukup kontroversial karena seakan-akan kita memperalat seseorang, akan tetapi di baliknya tidaklah demikian. Sebagai contoh adalah seorang ayah yang menghendaki anaknya menjadi seorang petenis profesional, berjuang sejak anaknya masih kecil. Sang ayah sebagai motivator memancing minat dan menggali bakat tenis dari anaknya sendiri, menemaninya berlatih dan bertanding terus-menerus sampai anaknya berhasil menjadi petenis profesional. Tidak hanya itu, ia juga mendorong dan membesarkan hati anak-anaknya dalam mengejar berbagai sasaran setingi mungkin, dan yang bisa melakukan motivasi sesuai dengan cita-cita anaknya, maka hal itu di kemudian akan memberi arti yang sangat penting bagi kehidupan anak-anaknya (McGinnins).

6. Pakailah keteladanan untuk merangsang keberhasilan
Untuk membujuk seseorang melakukan sesuatu, menuntut kita sendiri yang harus memberi contoh agar dia melakukannya. Cerita mengenai kerja keras dan keberhasilan dapat membuat seseorang menjadi yakin karena cerita-cerita tersebut langsung mengena ke hati yang menggetarkan perasaan dan mengubah sikap kita.
7. Kenalilah dan berikan pujian atas prestasi
Sebuah pujian adalah penguatan secara positif dalam psikologi. Berikanlah pujian secara langsung dan dapat diketahui juga oleh orang banyak. Carnegie sebagai seorang motivator manusia mengatakan manusia adalah makhluk yang haus akan pujian atas prestasi mereka.

8. Pergunakanlah perpaduan antara pergulatan yang positif dan pergulatan yang negatif.
Pergulatan negatif adalah pujian, penghargaan, kasih dan lain-lain sedangkan pergulatan negatif adalah teguran, hukuman, amarah, dan lain-lain. Kedua pergulatan ini adalah dua hal yang saling bertolak belakang tetapi sama-sama merupakan cara untuk memotivasi orang. Seorang motivator harus jeli melihat kapan menggunakan pergulatan negatif atau positif untuk memotivasi orang. Dalam situasi tertentu, motivator bisa saja bertindak keras, tetapi selalu bertindak adil sehingga seseorang bisa memahami nilai-nilai yang ingin ditanamkan dan tidak asal melihat hukumannya saja. Secara keseluruhan, McGinnis menganjurkan lebih banyak pujian dibandingkan hukuman.

9. Sesekali ciptakan hasrat untuk bersaing
Persaingan tidak terlalu efektif jika terus-menerus dilakukan karena bisa menciptakan perasaan dimanipulasi, saling menjegal yang menciptakan kompetisi yang tidak sehat. Gunakanlah persaingan untuk memberikan inspirasi dan memacu semangat, bukan hanya media untuk melemparkan kritik.
Berikut ini dua contoh kalimat untuk memotivasi tetapi terdapat perbedaan makna di dalamnya:
Ana, kapan kamu mau membersihkan kamarmu sendiri? Kenapa sih kamu nggak seperti temanmu yang memiliki kamar yang bersih dan rapi?
Ana, apakah kamu menyenangi kamar Ria yang bersih? Kapan kamu mau bersih-bersih kamar lagi?

10. Upayakanlah kerjasama
Kerjasama di ini berarti melakukan sesuatu secara bersama-sama. Kebersamaan membangkitkan motivasi yang luar biasa karena semakin banyak yang ”menemani” maka semakin kuat tekad yang timbul.
11. Upayakan agar di dalam kelompok ada peluang untuk melawan.
Sewaktu memimpin sebuah kelompok yang memiliki beberapa orang anggota dengan sifat melawan, seorang pemimpin sekaligus motivator tidak selalu mengganggap kehadiran seorang pemberontak akan mematikan niat kita sebagai motivator mereka.
Sifat kontradiksi adalah alami dari manusia yang ingin membatasi kekuasaan pimpinan yang menentukan nasib mereka. Hal seperti ini dapat membawa angin positif karena pemberontak dapat berkembang menjadi pemikir yang bebas, kritis dan kreatif, memiliki pendapat sendiri dan berkemampuan untuk memimpin orang-orang.
Menghadapi para perusuh membutuhkan kiat-kiat tersendiri, misalnya berusahalah untuk selalu mencari tahu dan menerima tingkah laku mereka dalam batas wajar, mintalah pertolongan darinya, dan carilah sisi-sisi terbaik mereka. Tetapi jika menjadi sangat parah, Anda sebaiknya menggeser atau memecat orang tersebut.
Dengan demikian secara tidak langsung Anda telah menciptakan pemimpin-pemimpin baru yang akan mengerjakan tugas-tugas Anda di masa mendatang dan Anda sendiri dapat meninggalkan kelompok tersebut untuk naik ke jenjang yang lebih tinggi lagi.

12. Usahakanlah agar motivasi Anda tetap tinggi
Beberapa cara seorang motivator dapat memotivasi dirinya sendiri adalah: bergaullah dengan orang-orang yang berhasil dan berpikiran positif, awasi gagasan-gagasan yang masuk, manfaatkan sumber informasi, tingkatkanlah kemampuan dan keterampilan Anda dengan mengikuti kursus/ seminar, tingkatkan spiritualitas Anda.

Bentuk-bentuk motivasi

1. Teguran atau Kritik
Menegur berarti mengingatkan bila seseorang tidak mencapai standar agar dia dapat mencoba kembali mencapai standar tersebut. Di dalam menegur, seorang motivator harus dapat memperlihatkan kesalahan apa yang terjadi, memiliki cukup fakta dan disertai perasaan sang motivator, apakah marah, tersinggung ataupun frustasi.
Mengkritik adalah sebuah tindakan yang sulit kalau kita melihat prinsip-prinsip berkomunikasi yang diungkapkan oleh Dale Carnegie, yaitu jangan mengkritik, mencerca atau mengeluh sebaliknya berikan penghargaan yang jujur dan tulus. Jadi sebisa mungkin jangan menyampaikan kritik, tetapi berikan saran-saran berharga yang membangun.

2. Amarah
Amarah adalah emosi yang digunakan oleh pembicara-pembicara untuk memukau pendengarnya. Amarah seorang jenderal digunakan untuk membangkitkan kemarahan seluruh tentaranya untuk membangkitkan semangat juang seluruh tentaranya. Amarah seorang manajer untuk menegaskan kembali standar keunggulan mutu perusahaan.

3. Tantangan
Adalah target yang tidak mustahil untuk dilakukan dengan melihat keterbatasan-keterbatasan yang ada. Tantangan yang realistis mampu membangkitkan antuasisme dari staff / tim untuk memberikan performa terbaik yang semakin baik lagi.

4. Kecacatan tubuh
Di dalam buku-buku banyak yang mengisahkan orang-orang cacat yang berhasil berjaya di bidangnya. Sebagai contoh Andrea Bocelli, penyanyi suara tenor yang sangat terkenal meskipun tidak dapat melihat. Setelah memperoleh keberhasilan, mereka tidak tinggal diam tetapi selalu memotivasi orang lain apalagi yang mengalami cacat tubuh untuk terus berusaha mencapai keberhasilan dan tidak selalu melihat kekurangan yang mereka miliki.

5. Kepercayaan dan tanggung jawab
Buatlah orang tersebut merasa penting dan dibutuhkan oleh orang lain serta diperhatikan oleh orang lain termasuk Anda.
Secara umum, beberapa orang akan terpengaruh untuk berusaha jika diberikan tanggung jawab karena tanggung jawab adalah wujud otoritas untuk membuat perubahan atau mengambil keputusan. Lebih jauh lagi, memberikan tanggung jawab berarti memberikan kesempatan kepada seseorang untuk membuktikan kemampuannya.

6. Materi
Memberikan materi adalah untuk memenuhi kebutuhan dasar manusia (Teori Maslow). Materi dapat berupa gaji yang pantas, fasilitas, kendaraan, rumah, dan lain sebagainya.

Motivasi di berbagai bidang

n Olahraga
Motivasi berupa latihan mental, khususnya kepada pemain-pemain muda untuk membentuk kepercayaan diri, keyakinan dan target untuk menjadi juara. Motivasi merupakan faktor nonteknis yang menentukan kondisi mental atlet di samping faktor nonteknis. Di dalam sebuah pertandingan, kehadiran pendukung memberikan keuntungan besar kepada atlet yang didukungnya.

n Perusahaan
Secanggih apa pun pengetahuan dari pemimpin puncaknya, dalam titik tertentu keberhasilan ditentukan oleh berapa besar motivasi kerja dari seluruh karyawan dari perusahaan tersebut. Motivasi kerja tersebut ditunjukkan dengan penampilan yang prima untuk perusahaan.

n Ketentaraan
Dalam setiap pertempuran, kehadiran seorang pemimpin perang yang disegani memberikan motivasi tempur yang tinggi kepada setiap tentara yang dipimpinnya.

Penutup
Dengan menjadi seorang motivator, kita dapat memperoleh keuntungan-keuntungan seperti kerja sama tim, jiwa kepemimpinan dan motivasi diri yang lebih kuat.
Seseorang yang memberikan motivasi kepada teman-teman, kerabat, rekan kerja membuat dunia ini akan menjadi tempat hidup yang lebih baik.n

Presiden: Reformasi Hukum Sudah Banyak Kemajuan

2008-08-04T18:42:00.000+07:00

Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono mengatakan proses reformasi di bidang hukum banyak mengalami kemajuan meski masih ada banyak kekurangan.

“Reformasi yang kita laksanakan di bidang hukum kalau kita mau jujur dan berjiwa besar ada banyak kemajuan,” kata Presiden saat membuka Rakernas Mahkamah Agung di Jakarta, Senin [04/08].

Namun, menurutnya kemajuan yang telah dicapai bukan berarti proses reformasi sudah selesai karena masih banyak kekurangan yang harus diperbaiki. “Tidak benar kalau reformasi bidang hukum gagal. Tidak benar kalau tidak ada yang dicapai atau jalan di tempat. Tetapi tidak benar juga kalau semua sudah berjalan dengan baik,” katanya.

Presiden menyatakan, proses reformasi sektor hukum harus terus dilakukan untuk mencapai cita-cita negara hukum yang tertib dan masyarakat yang patuh hukum. “Saya mendukung penuh modernisasi pengadilan Indonesia agar menjadi maju, memiliki kualitas tinggi, efektif dan efisien dan mampu memberikan pelayanan terbaik. Saya juga mendukung upaya MA dan badan peradilan lainnya untuk terus meningkatkan kinerja, kualitas dan profesionalitas sehingga bisa menjadi penegak hukum sejati,” katanya.

Reformasi hukum patut diteruskan karena merupakan amanah konstitusi yang menyebutkan Indonesia adalah negara hukum yang wajib menegakkan hukum dan keadilan.

Selain itu masyarakat juga selalu mencari keadilan dan mereka yang terlibat kasus hukum pasti menginginkan kepastian hukum, pengadilan yang tidak rumit, percepatan pengurusan perkara, murah dan keputusan yang adil. “Kita menginginkan negara yang tertib hukum dan masyarakat patuh hukum, dan kepastian hukum dengan kerangka hukum yang baik, transparan dan akuntabel,” katanya.

Untuk itu, lanjutnya, para penegak hukum termasuk hakim harus memiliki integritas yang tinggi, profesional dan memiliki etika serta nilai. “Jika ini berjalan, negara juga akan memikirkan insentif yang ‘fair’ (adil). Kita sedang tata insentif dan disinsentif bagi yang lalai sehingga bisa meningkatkan kesejahteraan yang tepat dan adil,” katanya.

Presiden juga meminta kepada masyarakat untuk tidak menjadikan polemik sebuah kasus hukum yang melibatkan aparat hukum. “Isu-isu tentang penyimpangan, pelanggaran dan kejahatan yang dilakukan oknum penegak hukum seperti dari Kejaksaan, Kepolisian dan badan peradilan tidak perlu sangat dipolemikkan. Tidak perlu dibikin ruwet,” katanya.

Menurut presiden, semua kasus harus diserahkan kepada sistem yang berlaku di pengadilan. “Kalau ada yang salah dan terbukti akan dapat sanksi hukum. Kita jaga agar proses hukum yang dilakukan ‘fair’ tanpa tekanan pihak manapun,” katanya. ( ant )

Tukaran Link Yuk...

2008-08-01T10:20:00.005+07:00

Tukaran link ?

Ya...itulah salah satu bagian yang harus dilakukan oleh para blogger.
Saya telah mengumpulkan beberapa link dengan page rank tinggi dan dofollow. Mau tau ?
Tapi jangan lupa ya, link saya juga ditambahkan di blog anda, bisa kan ?

Membuat Read More Blogspot Baru

2008-08-01T10:05:00.001+07:00

Sobat mungkin melihat bahwa artikel-artikel saya terlihat hanya berupa judul-judul dengan satu atau dua buah paragrap saja, dan untuk melihat keseluruhan artikel harus meng klik link yang bertuliskan >> Selengkapnya...", ini di sebut pengkaburan atau pengkamuflasean postingan (ribet banget nyebutnya). Bagi sobat yang baru posting artikel hanya satu atau dua artikel saja mungkin menganggap tidak perlu menyingkat artikel sobat, namun jika nanti artikel sobat sudah banyak, maka mungkin saja ada terbersit ingin membuat menu ini.

Nah, disini saya telah menemukan (dari paman Google :)red)trik baru untuk menampilkan read more tersebut dengan script yang sangat sederhana.
Gak usah basa-basi, langsung saja...
pertama sekai adalah

mencari kode

</head> di dalam css blogspot

kemudian menambahakn kode berikut tepat diatasnya :

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span.fullpost {display:inline;}
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span.fullpost {display:none;}
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setelah itu, carilah kode seperti ini juga :

<div class='post-body entry-content'>
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dan tepat dibawah kode tersebut, teman-teman meletakkan kode ini

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'><div> </div>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'> Selengkapnya...</a>
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Begitu lah kira-kira

Optimasi Adsense

2008-07-31T14:16:00.000+07:00

Anda seorang Adsense Publisher? Kalau ya, maka mulai hari ini mungkin Anda sudah melihat perubahan di lembar laporan Adsense Anda. Di bagian tengah laporan, tepatnya di bawah summary adsense report, Anda akan temukan fitur baru yang diberi label Recent Messages. Fitur ini berisikan tips optimasi adsense khusus untuk Anda yang akan dikirim setiap awal bulan.

Sepanjang bulan berjalan, sistem Google akan menganalisis performa account dan setting iklan adsense Anda. Awal bulan berikutnya Google akan mengirimkan laporan khusus berisi tips untuk mengoptimasi performa adsense Anda. Ini tentu tips yang akan berguna untuk meningkatkan earning Anda bulan berikut. Tapi, Anda perlu waspada. Kenapa?

Tips dari Tim Adsense ini hanya sekedar saran, tentu Anda tidak mutlak untuk melaksanakannya kalau menurut Anda tips itu tidak terlalu penting atau bahkan bisa merugikan Anda. Anda mesti ingat bahwa tips atau saran yang diberikan itu tentunya adalah berdasarkan penilaian Google sendiri, jadi tidak mustahil saran itu akan dipengaruhi oleh kepentingan Google sendiri dalam meraih keuntungan yang lebih optimal dari Advertisers.

Salah satu contoh bisa dikemukakan di sini. Misalnya selama ini Anda memasang filter untuk menyaring atau memblok iklan tertentu yang earning per click-nya kecil. Google membolehkan kita memblok sampai 200 alamat URL bukan? Filter ini dilihat dari segi kepentingan Google tentu merugikan karena peluang iklan tertentu untuk tampil menjadi kurang, yang berarti hilangnya peluang income bagi Google dari iklan yang bersangkutan. Google kemudian memberi tips kepada Anda agar filter ini Anda hapus atau Anda kurangi dengan alasan bahwa filter itu akan mengurangi jumlah dan keragaman iklan yang akan tampil di website Anda.

Contoh ini menunjukkan bahwa kepentingan kita (untuk menampilkan iklan dengan harga per klik yang lebih tinggi) bertentangan dengan kepentingan Google (untuk menampilkan sebanyak mungkin iklan berapa pun harga per kliknya). Dalam keadaan seperti ini, apakah Anda akan menuruti tips dari Google untuk menghapus filter iklan dari account Anda?

Hal lain yang perlu dicatat, Google sendiri tidak menjamin bahwa income Adsense Anda akan lebih baik bila menuruti saran mereka, karena saran tersebut diberikan berdasarkan pengalaman sukses publishers lain yang bisa saja berbeda kondisinya dengan Anda. Google Inside Adsense Team menulis:

While we’re not able to guarantee results from implementing these suggestions, we’ve found that these techniques have been successful for many publishers in the past which is why we’ve developed this feature for you.

Templateku yang terakhir

2008-07-29T18:55:00.000+07:00

Akhirnya setelah sekian lama, saya mencari-cari template yang cocok buat saya, dan hari ini telah saya dapat denga surfing dari paman GOOGLE, dan penampilannya lumayan keren...he...:)

Ternyata mengedit css yang ada tidaklah sesulit yang pernah saya bayangkan, setelah dicoba dan dicoba, akhirnya berhasil.

Mungkin teman-teman punya komentar denga hal ini, maklumlah, saya masih baru. Saya mengingatkan kembali kepada teman-teman yang baru juga agar tidak jemu-jemu meng-updat blognya.

Bravo Blogger

Indonesia Siap Tanam Serentak 100 Juta Pohon

2008-07-26T19:57:00.000+07:00

Pemerintah akan mencanangkan Hari Menanam Pohon Indonesia dan Bulan Menanam Nasional. Kegiatan ini mengambil tema "Menanam Serentak 100 Juta Pohon dalam Rangka Mendukung Peringatan 100 Tahun Kebangkitan Nasional". Hari Menanam Pohon dan Bulan Menanam Nasional akan dicanangkan pada tanggal 28 Nopember 2008 oleh Presiden RI Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dalam Penanaman Serentak 100 Juta Pohon yang rencananya akan dilaksanakan di Dodiklatpur Rindam III Siliwangi, Rangkasbitung, Kampung Gedong, Desa Ciuyah, Kecamatan Sajirah, Kabupaten Lebak, Propinsi Banten. Bulan Menanam Nasional ditetapkan bulan Desember, meskipun pada dasarnya kegiatan penanaman pohon oleh masyarakat sebagai bagian dari gerakan menanam nasional harus terus menerus dilaksanakan sepanjang tahun.

Pencanangan Hari Menanam Pohon tahun ini dimaksudkan untuk meningkatkan kepedulian berbagai pihak akan pentingnya penanaman dan pemeliharaan pohon yang berkelanjutan dalam mengurangi pemanasan global dan untuk mencapai pembangunan Indonesia yang bersih (Clean Development Mechanism). Pencanangan Hari Menanam Pohon Indonesia dan Bulan Menanam Nasional ini bertujuan untuk mengurangi dampak pemanasan global, meningkatkan absorbsi gas CO2, SO2, dan polutan lainnya, mencegah banjir, kekeringan, dan tanah longsor, meningkatkan upaya konservasi sumberdaya genetik tanaman hutan, dan meningkatkan kesadaran masyarakat untuk menanam dan memelihara tanaman sebagai bagian dari sikap atau budaya bangsa (mindset) yang melekat pada kehidupan sehari-hari.

Sasaran kegiatan ini adalah untuk menjadikan seluruh lahan menjadi hijau (cukup vegetasi), baik di dalam maupun di luar kawasan hutan, sehingga mampu memberikan fungsi perlindungan, estetika, hasil ekonomi masyarakat, dan sekaligus dapat berfungsi sebagai penyerapan karbon.

Pemilihan lokasi penanaman pada masing-masing daerah berdasarkan persyaratan yaitu aksesibilitas mudah, lahan kritis atau tidak produktif, bukan lahan sengketa, dapat berfungsi sebagai penghijauan lingkungan, demplot, arboretum, konservasi sumberdaya genetik, memiliki fungsi perlindungan kepentingan publik seperti mata air, rentan tanah longsor, dan sempadan sungai, pemilik lahan tidak keberatan, tidak menimbulkan kesulitan pemeliharaan, tidak dalam rencana konversi lahan, dan bukan lokasi yang direncanakan atau dilaksanakan proyek pemerintah.

Sasaran lokasi penanaman yang di dalam kawasan hutan meliputi lahan hutan yang tidak sedang dilaksanakan proyek seperti proyek HTI dan reboisasi, dan lahan hutan yang rusak atau tidak produktif yang mendesak untuk dipulihkan. Adapun sasaran di luar kawasan hutan meliputi kawasan yang tidak sedang dilaksanakan proyek, kawasan publik, perkantoran milik pemerintah maupun swasta, tempat ibadah, sempadan sungai atau jurang yang memerlukan perlindungan, tepi jalan, jalan tol, lahan milik pemerintah yang berfungsi sebagai ruang terbuka hijau, lahan milik desa, adat, atau masyarakat yang tidak keberatan, halaman lembaga pendidikan, lahan bekas tambang, perkebunan telantar, dan lain-lain.

Jenis pohon yang ditanam dapat dipilih sesuai dengan jenis unggulan lokal daerah atau jenis-jenis yang memiliki kesesuaian dengan peruntukan lahan seperti jenis yang digunakan sebagai perindang, Multi Purpose Tree Species (MPTS), fungsi perlindungan, arboretum, penghijauan, pendidikan, rekreasi, dan lainnya.

Kegiatan ini secara nasional melibatkan berbagai pihak yaitu Departemen dan Lembaga Pemerintah Pusat, Pemda Tingkat I, Kodam, Polri, dinas/instansi tingkat propinsi, Pemda Tingkat II, Dandim, Polwil/Polres, instansi tingkat kabupaten/kota, BUMN sektor kehutanan, swasta sektor kehutanan dan sektor lain yang terkait, ormas, perguruan tinggi, LSM, dan pihak lain yang telah berpartisipasi dalam kegiatan Gerakan Menanam Indonesia 2007.

Pada tanggal 28 Nopember 2007 yang lalu, Presiden RI telah mencanangkan Aksi Penanaman Serentak Indonesia di Desa Cibadak, Tanjungsari, Bogor. Rekapitulasi Hasil Penanaman Serentak Indonesia tersebut hingga bulan Juni 2008 berjumlah 86,9 juta pohon dari target 76 juta pohon. Sedangkan pohon yang ditanam pada Gerakan Perempuan Tanam dan Pelihara Pohon sejumlah 14 juta pohon dari target 10 juta pohon. Keberhasilan menanam tersebut mendapatkan penghargaan internasional Certificate of Global Leadership dari United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP).

http://www.antara.co.id/arc/2008/7/25/indonesia-siap-tanam-serentak-100-juta-pohon/

Deplu RI Kecewa Larangan Terbang Uni Eropa Diperpanjang

2008-07-25T13:09:00.000+07:00

Departemen Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia (Deplu RI) menyatakan kecewa atas larangan terbang terhadap beberapa maskapai penerbangan dalam negeri yang diperpanjang oleh Uni Eropa.

Hal itu dikatakan Juru Bicara Deplu RI, Teuku Faizasyah, dalam media briefing di Gedung Deplu, Pejambon, Jakarta, Jumat (25/7)."Kita kecewa karena berbagai langkah yang kita lakukan ternyata tidak mendapat respon yang sepadan dari Uni Eropa," ujar Faizasyah.

Ia mengatakan 60 persen dari temuan International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) yang harus diperbaiki oleh maskapai penerbangan itu sudah dipenuhi. "Kita juga menyayangkan sedari awal penerapan larangan terbang itu sifatnya unilateral, tanpa ada upaya berkonsultasi dan menyampaikan sejak dini mengenai hal tersebut," jelasnya.

Alasan kekecewaan, dikatakan Faizasyah, karena maskapai Indonesia telah berupaya memenuhi perbaikan yang diharapkan ICAO, tetapi larangan terbang masih tetap diberlakukan.

Uni Eropa (UE) memutuskan memperpanjang larangan terbang bagi maskapai Indonesia ke negara mereka hingga November nanti. UE menilai otoritas penerbangan sipil di Indonesia belum memenuhi persyaratan sesuai ICAO.Keputusan tersebut diambil berdasarkan masukan dari sidang komisi keselamatan penerbangan UE yang dilakukan pertengahan Juli lalu.

Dalam sidang tersebut, komisi keselamatan penerbangan UE menilai maskapai Indonesia belum layak dicabut embargonya meskipun dalam waktu setahun ini industri penerbangan lokal sudah menunjukkan kemajuan dalam faktor keselamatan.

Irak dilarang ikut Olimpiade

2008-07-25T13:08:00.001+07:00

Komite Olimpiade (IOC) mengumumkan bahwa para atlit Irak dilarang mengikuti Olimpiade Beijing.
Tim Irak sebelumnya sudah terkena larangan sementara setelah pemerintah Irak mengganti anggota-anggota komite Olimpiade negara itu dengan orang-orang yang mereka tunjuk.

Menurut piagam IOC, semua anggota komite harus bebas dari pengaruh politik.

Karena itu tim yang terdiri dari dua atlit dayung, dua pelari cepat, seorang atlit panahan, seorang atlit angkat berat dan seorang atlit judo tidak boleh berlaga di Beijing.

"Kami mengirim surat kepada pemerintah Irak hari ini untuk mengatakan berdasarkan keadaan saat ini para atlit Irak tidak dapat bertanding di Olimpiade Beijing," kata juru bicara IOC, Emmanuelle Moreau.

Hussein al-Amidi, sekretaris jenderal Komite Olimpiade Irak mengatakan: "Pagi ini kami diberitahu keputusan final Komite Olimpiade Internasional untuk melarang keikutsertaan Komite Olimpiade Irak."

"Itu adalah keputusan final, tidak bisa diubah. Ini berarti Irak tidak akan ikut serta pada Olimpiade mendatang."

"Hal ini adalah pukulan bagi Irak dan reputasi internasional, atlit dan kaum muda Irak."

"Saya bersumpah bahwa para atlit yang sudah berlatih... mereka menelepon saya hari ini dan mereka menangis dan sangat sedih."

Komite yang dibubarkan oleh pemerintah Irak dipilih pada tahun 2004, sejalan dengan peraturan IOC.

Ketua Komite Olimpiade Irak Ahmad al-Samarra'i dan beberapa anggota lainnya diculik oleh beberapa pria bersenjata ketika menghadiri pertemuan di Bangdad tengah pada bulan Juli 2006.

Sampai sekarang mereka tidak terlihat lagi.

Pemerintah Irak mengatakan keputusan mereka ambil karena komite itu korup dan tidak berfungsi dengan benar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesian/news/story/2008/07/080724_iraqolympicsban.shtml

Vegetable

2008-07-23T17:39:00.000+07:00

The term "vegetable" generally means the edible parts of plants. The definition of the word is traditional rather than scientific, however. Therefore the usage is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, as it is determined by individual cultural customs of food selection and food preparation.

Generally speaking, a herbaceous plant or plant part which is regularly eaten as unsweetened or salted food by humans is considered to be a vegetable. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological kingdom Fungi, are also generally considered to be vegetables, at least in the retail industry.[1][2] Nuts, seeds, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits are usually not considered to be vegetables, even though all of them are edible parts of plants.

Is it a fruit or a vegetable?
A simplified Venn diagram shows the overlap in the terminology of "vegetables" in the culinary sense and "fruits" in the botanical sense.
A simplified Venn diagram shows the overlap in the terminology of "vegetables" in the culinary sense and "fruits" in the botanical sense.

The word "vegetable" is a culinary term, not a botanical term. The word "fruit" on the other hand can be a culinary term or a botanical term, and these two usages are quite different.

Botanically speaking, fruits are fleshy reproductive organs of plants, the ripened ovaries containing one or many seeds. Thus, many botanical fruits are not edible at all, and some are actually extremely poisonous. In a culinary sense however, the word "fruit" is only applied to those botanical fruits which are edible, and which are considered to be a sweet or dessert food such as strawberries, peaches, plums, etc.

In contrast to this, a number of edible botanical fruits, including the tomato, the eggplant, and the bell pepper are not considered to be a sweet or dessert food, are not routinely used with sugar, but instead are almost always used as part of a savory dish, and are salted. This is the reason that they are labeled as "vegetables". Thus a plant part may scientifically be referred to as a "fruit", even though it is used in cooking or food preparation as a vegetable.

The question "The tomato: is it a fruit, or is it a vegetable?" found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the 1883 Tariff Act on imported produce. The court did acknowledge however that botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit.

[edit] A list of vegetables defined as different parts of plants

* Flower bud: broccoli, cauliflower, globe artichokes
* Seeds: Corn
* Leaves: kale, collard greens, spinach, beet greens, turnip greens, endive
* Leaf sheaths: leeks
* Buds: Brussels sprouts
* Stems of leaves: celery, rhubarb (sometimes called a fruit because sweet pies are made from it)
* Stem of a plant when it is still a young shoot: asparagus
* Underground stem of a plant or tuber: potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potato (often incorrectly called a yam in the USA), also the true yam
* Whole immature plants: bean sprouts
* Roots: carrots, parsnips, beets, radishes, turnips
* Bulbs: onions, garlic, shallots

* Fruits in the botanical sense: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, capsicums (bell peppers and hot peppers), eggplant, tomatillos, christophene, okra, also the following:
o Legumes: peas, beans
o Whole unripe seed pods of legumes: green beans, snap peas

I got rid of Text-Link Ads

2008-07-22T10:34:00.000+07:00

Google Penalizes Paid Links

Last fall, Google started cracking down on paid links. To understand what this means, you first have to understand that Google lists sites in its search results in part by examining who the site links to and who links to it. Some websites pay money to other websites so that they will link to them, and this improves the buyer’s standing in the search listings. Google felt this distorted the value of its listings, and so it started penalizing sites that were buying links by reducing their Page Rank. Page Rank (named after one of the founders of Google) is Google’s way of assigning a value to websites for the purpose of determining who gets listed higher in search results. It seemed to most people that primarily those taking advantage of Text-Link Ads’ paid links were being targeted. At the time, and up until recently, I was running Text-Link Ads on my gardening site.

Ads, or Google Juice?

I don’t want to be a slave to any search engine’s rankings, but Google’s crack-down made me realize that Text-Link Ads had misrepresented their services to me. During the publisher sign-up process, the links that will be placed on your site are referred to as ads. But really what they are selling to their customers is an opportunity to raise their Page Rank by being linked from my higher ranking page. Unwittingly, I wasn’t really selling advertising space, but “Google juice.”

And although I chose the option to approve all ads before they started running, several ads got placed on my site that I never had a chance to approve–or disapprove. I don’t know whether this was a bug in their system, lost email notifications, or deliberate deception. On one occasion I did find that my option had been reset to automatic approval, and I had to change it back. More recently, I had received an email notification and had rejected the ad because it wasn’t related to gardening. Shortly thereafter, two other non-gardening ads showed up in my sidebar, and I never got the email requesting my approval. This time, when I checked, my options were still set correctly.
A New Source of Income is Needed

These things disturbed me, as I had thought I was signing up to place garden-related ads on my site, and it turns out I was selling Page Rank to anyone willing to plunk down the money. However, there was no denying I was earning more per month with this program than I earned, on average, with Google Adsense, and I like to be compensated for the considerable time I put into writing and maintaining my gardening website. For this reason I wanted to come up with an alternate source of income before ditching Text-Link Ads. My plan was to upgrade my software, refine the website’s design, and then approach my favorite garden vendors directly about advertising on my site.

But I was too busy to upgrade the site, and not looking forward to cold calling my favorite garden merchants, and so I was letting the whole thing slide. Then last week I got an email from Text-Link Ads requesting me to update my service with them by switching from pasted-in code to their WordPress plugin. The plugin needed to be configured before it was installed, and I was asked to provide a title for this section of my sidebar, and was specifically requested not to use any language to indicate the links were paid. That was the final straw. Income or no income, if I can’t state openly that the “ad” is being paid for, I don’t want the ad on my site. It was one thing for them to deceive me; it was quite another when they asked me to deceive my readers. I was not crossing that line.

I gave them notice that I would no longer be participating in their service and took the ad code off my site. I’ve emailed one merchant about the possibility of advertising on my site but haven’t heard back, and I’m trying to work up the courage to approach other gardening businesses. I’ve started upgrading my site design in anticipation of upgrading the software, but it’s the type of thing where you need a nice block of time to really make some progress. Long story short: this was the kick in the pants I needed to finally break with Text-Link Ads, but I’m not going to replace that income any time soon.
What now?

I started out blogging for love but sure enjoyed blogging for money. I could probably make more money if I spent the time I now spend blogging on freelance writing, but then I have to write what the market wants to buy–not what I want to write. I’ve always had trouble doing that. Marketing–figuring out what the other guy wants to buy, or making him want to buy what I’ve got to sell–has never been my strong point.

So, what’s next? I’m not sure.

How To How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site

2008-07-15T17:48:00.001+07:00

You've probably heard before a lot of hype about how much money you can make with affiliate programs. Maybe you've even set up a site yourself, only to find that after buying the domain, a few bucks a month in hosting, software or a web designer to design your site, etc., that the piddly affiliate fees hardly even covered your cost. Well, here's the hype-free way to really make money with an Amazon.com affiliate site. And it'll only take a day to make the site. The secret? Low cost, low effort.

Here's How:

1. If you don't already know it, learn some basic HTML. You have to do this to keep your costs down and still get what you want. Even if the site is basically laid out for you, you're going to need to know how to insert images, create hyperlinks, and do some basic text formatting. Our HTML Guide offers a free 10-week HTML class and a great collection of beginning HTML tutorials. Get over any anxiety you have about this. Just do it. You'll thank me for it later.
2. Decide on your topic. You're going to be doing product reviews and recommendations, so pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.
3. Choose your domain name. Make it keyword-rich, not clever. Think how people will find your site in the search engines. Here are some ideas (all available, by the way):
Music: BandsFromTexas.com, BandOutOfBoston.com, SouthpawGuitarists.com, ClassicPsychedelia.com, Non-Stop-Hip-Hop.com, Merengue-Music.com
Books: Mormon-Authors.com, Arts-and-Crafts-Books.com, Books-by-Stephen-King.com, ClassicBusinessBooks.com
Others: Best-Baby-Toys.com, MomsMags.com, FelliniMovies.com
4. Register your domain name. If you're not technically inclined at all, register your domain wherever you set up your hosting in step 5. Otherwise, you can save a few bucks by choosing a lower-cost provider. Not a big deal for one or two sites, but it can be for ten or twenty. I use GoDaddy, who have great domain management tools and are less than $10 a year. The least expensive I've found from a reputable source is 1&1, whose price is under $6 a year (last I checked).
5. Set up your web hosting. This is where most people get burned. For this kind of site, you do not need $10 a month web hosting! Check out Discount-Hosting.com for no-frills hosting with adequate functionality and bandwidth, for around $10 a year! If you want more features, or especially if you're planning to run multiple sites, see GeekHosting.com or Multidomain-Hosting.com.
6. Install weblog software. "Weblog, you say?" Yes. It will give your site all the structure you need, plus make it easy to quickly post new content. My pick is WordPress, which is open source (i.e., free), easy to install and use, and yet very powerful. Download it and follow their installation instructions. Turn on notifications to Weblogs.com and Blo.gs. In WordPress, this is under Options | RSS/RDF Feeds, Track-Ping-backs.
7. Make it pretty. Free templates for WordPress are available at Not That Ugly. Choose a style you like and then tweak it to suit your tastes and the theme of your site.
8. Set up categories. Most blog software allows you to create sub-categories to help organize your entries. This will help visitors narrow in even more specifically on their interests. For example, BandsFromTexas.com might have one group of categories for genre — rock, country, blues, etc. — and another for city of origin — Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, etc.
9. Sign up as an Amazon Associate. It's simple and free. Just visit Amazon and click on the Join Associates link at the bottom of the page (here's a direct link for your convenience). Your site should already have at least the basic setup done, even if you don't have any content there yet.
10. Create your blog posting bookmarks/links. There are two links that are going to be essential for you to make this easy. First is the blog posting link. In your blog software, on the posting page (see their instructions), at the bottom of the page there should be a "bookmarklet". Click on the link (and hold the mouse) and drag it up to your Links toolbar in your browser (assuming Internet Explorer), or your Favorites menu. This will allow you to blog a product with one mouse click.
11. Create your Amazon Build-A-Link bookmark/link. This will make it easy to build the link with your affiliate ID built in. Log in to Associates Central, look in the left navigation sidebar, go to Build-A-Link, and under Static Links, find Individual Items. Click and drag this onto your Links toolbar or Favorites menu.
12. Build your first link. Go to Amazon and find the product you want to review. Scroll down to Product Details and find the ASIN or ISBN. Double-click on the number itself to select it, then right-click and choose Copy. Click on your Amazon Build-A-Link link. Right-click in the search field and choose Paste. Change the selection from Served Link to You Host. Click Go. Your selection should show up. Click Get HTML. Choose the kind of link you want, select the highlighted text and copy it.
13. Blog your review. Now click on your blog posting link (Press It! by default in WordPress). If you're using WordPress, you should now see two pieces of link code in your posting form, the first one ending with "Associates Build-A-Link >< /a >". Delete through that point. The second part is a link to the product with your Amazon Associate ID built in. Now just write your product review, choose the appropriate categories for it, and hit Publish.
14. Build out your site. Before you promote your site, you want to have some substantial content there. Write several product reviews. Have at least 2-3 in each category you've created. You may also want to make a categories for articles, news, and commentary about your topic. The more content your site has, the better. And the great thing is that while you're writing all this, the search engines are getting notified automatically, assuming you turned on the notifications mentioned in step 6.
15. Promote your site. The best free way to do this is to communicate with other bloggers writing about similar topics, and to participate in online communities where your topic is discussed. See the Online Business Networking category for ideas, as well as the Internet Marketing category.

Doing The Google Dance With Page Rank And Backlinks

2008-07-15T09:32:00.002+07:00

Page Rank or PR is one of the most essential aspects of many online marketers include while designing their marketing campaigns web sites, Google is well know for its page rankings. Search Engine Optimization determines the page rank as well as whether or not the subject is a hot topic.

In order to determine how well they should rank, Google uses a complex algorithm to analyze web pages. The manner or formula that Google uses is a well-guarded secret. However, it is public knowledge that one consideration is in the number of pages that link to a particular page or backlinks.

The internet is full of information concerning backlinks. It is however, controversial as to the manner of how individuals get their links as well as almost everything concerning page rank. Some individuals get their backlinks by purchasing them for others or a link broker; however, Google discourages this type of practice to do so.

Google holds its stance, that a page rank should be naturally popular and not artificially stimulated by outside sources. The page rank, according to Google should reflect the true interest and relativity of the page according to specific search terms.

Of course, some contend that this type of method of determining the page rank is great and worthwhile, whereas there are others who consider this as an overbearing, sinister motive on Googles part.

Although, the argument continues concerning the rules of Google, the backlinks hold importance in ranking web pages. If you are into marketing online, page rank is an essential issue to you and your sales.

Page ranking is vital, since it can increase the traffic you have for potential clients. If your page falls below the first page of search engine results, it will influence the amount of internet traffic your site entertains.

Each link does carry its own difference in quality, since it is not only the number of backlinks on a site, but the quality of those links as well. Yet again, this is an area of controversial debate.

Reciprocal links can make a bad impression where page rank is concerned; since this is when different, sites trade links to improve the page rank of their web page. Google passes over reciprocal links. In other words, pages that contain reciprocal links will not benefit from page rank, so it is a big waste of time.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, Google is more in favor of one-way links. These links lead from one site to another website, with no reciprocal links involved between the two sites.

The favoritism of these one-way likes is quite simple really. Many consider that, a website that has many links leading to it is providing information that others may consider high in value.

Therefore, a page rank will reflect that other individuals think it a good website because of the number of links that lead you to that particular website. Whether you agree or not, the reasoning for this is compelling, while many leading SEO experts consider backlinks and the quality of those links to hold consideration in the calculation of a page rank.

The true issue is however, that many online marketers need to learn how to go about finding valuable and valid links for their websites. There are two basic methods, which are DIY, Do it yourself or OS, Outsourcing.

The do it yourself method is demanding and time consuming, although it features considerable merit for many reasons. However, it simply means taking the time to build good relationships with other websites, since this will aid in increasing the natural page rank. This is what Google looks for when ranking web pages.

Link building by Outsourcing are a process you can use through an assortment of agencies that specialize in this technique. Many online businesses claim the ability of being a matching service. This permits you to get backlinks from various other web sites. They match you up with other web sites they have in their database of related content.

However, there are risks involved with outsourcing since you have no real control of the method that links are created for your website. Therefore, it is in your best interest to study the practices and polices of any type of link building program. When it comes to outsourcing your link building to others, it is best to practice the art of caution.

On the other hand, social networking is quickly becoming a very popular technique for acquiring inbound one-way links to your website. It is however, an experimental method at this time. However, many individuals report that this method brings considerable success and quickly improves a page rank.

Backlinks are only one of the contributing factors out of hundreds of factors that determine page rank, according to Google. Google has no intention whatsoever in giving away its secret information, since it feels this would compromise the integrity of Google and its search engine results.

What is obviously significant and well known is that Google ranks pages according to the quality and number of backlinks as a central factor. Online marketers should pay special attention to such details as they would any other faucet of their business enterprise. This is something to consider carefully with any type of marketing strategy.

You should always be careful and take your time to focus while creating your web pages and website, so that they are search engine optimized. Although, backlinks are essential, they are only one portion of how well your page is ranked in the search engine results.

Optimization for search engines should always hold a forefront in your thoughts and planning, when writing your blogs or building your web pages as well as writing articles to use in a marketing program. In order to do the Google dance it is imperative that we all learn the first steps to enjoy the success of having our web pages within a top page rank.

About the Author

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.

Article Source: http://www.content4reprint.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-optimization/doing-the-google-dance-with-page-rank-and-backlinks.htm

10 Ways to Optimize a Popular Post on Your Blog(2)

2008-07-15T09:21:00.000+07:00

3. Off Page SEO

The other thing you can do to attempt to boost the search engine ranking of the post is to build a few incoming links to the post. Search engines see incoming links to a page as like a ‘vote’ - the more votes the higher it’ll rank (in general).

Note: The best type of incoming links are ‘relevant’ ones (ie from sites on a similar topic) and ones with the keywords that you’re trying to rank for in the link.

The first way to get some extra incoming links to the post is to link to it from your own blog/s. Find other posts on similar topics and link to this post from them. You don’t need to link to the post from every page on your blog - but do find at least a few other posts to link up to it from.

The second way to get extra incoming links is to submit the link to other bloggers. You might do this by pulling a few favors with other bloggers or by emailing them to suggest the post might be relevant to their readers. Don’t spam people and do keep the links relevant to the sites that you’re submitting them to - but any links you get can help give the post an extra boost.

Lastly - another source of links can be social media sites that you are active on. Even just tweeting the link in a relevant way to readers can add a little Google Juice. I’ll write more on social media sites in my next point.

4. Submit it to Social Media Sites

If the traffic to your post is coming from a social media site like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit or Delicious you’ll need to act a little faster to optimize the post. I’ll suggest some ways to do this below - but first you might want to see if there are some ways that you can ‘help’ the post become even more viral on social media sites.

For example - if the post is on the front page of Digg there’s a chance that it could also be growing on StumbleUpon or Delicious. Check this out and vote up the post on those services. Send the links over to others to give it their vote too.

You might also like to add a link or button to the post itself if it’s doing well on social media. For example - if I notice a post is starting to build momentum on Digg I’ll add a Digg button to it. This can often be enough to tip it over the edge and onto the front page.

5. Add Options to Subscribe

This one is important whether the source of traffic is search engines, another site or social media as it focusses upon converting your new visitors to the page into ongoing readers of your blog.

When I have a ‘hot post’ I’ll often add a link to the post that says something like ‘enjoying this post - get more like it via our newsletter’ and link to a page giving the blog’s subscriptions options. These links can do very well at the end of posts.

6. Add links to the post to other pages on your blog

Drive people deeper into your blog by adding links to other pages on your site. You can do this within the content of the post itself or at the end of the post as ‘further reading’.

The key is to make the link to your best posts and to posts that are relevant in terms of content to the hot post.

7. Optimize Page Loading

Hopefully you won’t need to do this because your page will already be well optimized - but if you’re getting ALOT of traffic (for example from Digg or some other large site) your loading times might slow down - particularly if you have a lot of large files that need to load.

I learned this the first time I got on the front page of Digg on a photography related post where I had 20 large images that needed to load. The page didn’t crash but I burned through a heap of bandwidth that day and probably lost a lot of readers who got frustrated with the slow loading images.

8. Monetize the Post

Personally this is not something I do straight away as I like to work first upon converting readers into subscribers - however if you have one post with a lot of traffic it could be wise to add monetization streams to that post.

For example - if the post is doing a lot of impressions you might want to add some CPM ads to the page.

Another technique is to add relevant affiliate products to such ‘hot posts’.

I would avoid adding too many of these to hot posts as you could end up putting readers off. My personal approach is to monetize sites by converting people into regular readers and letting their continued visits to my blog make money over a longer period. Sure you might be able to earn a few extra dollars by stuffing such pages with CPM ads - but those visitors will be less likely to return in future.

9. Improve the Post

Some bloggers resist updating their blog posts - but I think it makes a lot of sense to not only add new posts to a blog but to improve old ones. I’m not just talking about editing posts for SEO benefits - but editing and adding to posts so that they become more valuable to readers.

Here’s the thing - if you’ve got a post that is attracting thousands of readers to it but it’s and ‘average’ quality post - you’ll have a lot better chance of converting readers to be loyal if the post is of an ‘excellent’ standard. So look over such hot posts and see if there are ways you can improve them.

10. Write More Posts Like it

Finally - we’re onto Keith’s question and the idea of writing more posts like the one that is ‘hot’.

I think that this is a good idea - on a number of levels.

* Extend Ideas - write an update to the post, or another one that takes the ideas to a new level.
* Related Topics - if there are other topics of a similar nature write posts on these.
* Target Other Related Keywords - write posts that target related keywords to those being searched for to find the first one.
* Similar Voice - sometimes it’s not the topic that you write that attracts people but the way you write it. For example I chatted to a blogger recently who had an avalanche of traffic to a humorous post that they’d written (the first time they’d ever written in that style). They began to write more of these types of posts and saw continued success with it.

If you write a followup or related post to the first - make sure you add a link to it on your hot post.
What Have I Missed?

In this post I’ve shared 10 things that I do to popular posts (I should say that I rarely do all of them to the one post - each will be more important in different situations) but what have I missed? What else do you to to popular posts on your blog?

10 Ways to Optimize a Popular Post on Your Blog(1)

2008-07-15T09:20:00.001+07:00

1. Analyze the Source of Traffic

The first thing that I’d highly recommend you do when you realize that one post on your blog is attracting more traffic than others is to spend some time analyzing the source of the traffic. Where it’s coming from will determine what actions you need to take next.

* Is the traffic coming from search engines? If so, you’ll want to do some SEO on the post. You should also do some analysis of what keywords people are searching for that drives them to the post.
* Is the traffic coming from social media? If so, it’ll be more temporary so you’ll want to act fast and concentrate on converting visitors to subscribers.
* Is the traffic coming from another blog or site? If so you’ll need to act quickly, concentrate on getting subscribers but also build a relationship with the other site.
* Why does the post work? - this is an important question to ask yourself, particularly if you’re looking to write more posts like it. Is it the title of the post, is it the topic, is it the voice you wrote it in?

The more information you have on where the traffic is from and why it’s landing on your post the better equipped you’ll be to decide which of the following strategies you should take next.

2. On Page SEO

If point #1 shows you that traffic is coming to the post from search engines you are in luck. Search engine traffic is wonderful because it has the potential to send your post traffic every day for years to come. However don’t just sit back and feel good about yourself - ask yourself how you can take the traffic to the next level and drive even more search engine traffic to it!

One of the things you will want to do is optimize the post for search engines even more than it already is. Obviously you’ve done something right in terms of SEO - but how can you improve it even more?

Knowing the keywords that the post is doing well for in SE’s is important here. Once you know this you can highlight them to the search engine bots by bolding them, adding them to your post to increase keyword density, adding images that have those words as their name and in alt tags, adding them in headings etc. Don’t ’stuff’ your post with the words - but finding ways to naturally build them into your post can help it rank even higher for those words.

Again - don’t over do this. You’re already ranking well so just tweak the post a little.

Read more about on page SEO at Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers.

Making Your Blog Popular Through Content

2008-07-15T09:17:00.001+07:00

As a blogger one of your goals might be to become popular. You might be able to do this by optimizing your blog or by using the diverse social mediums out there today. These methods are great and can really boost your popularity, but they are usually not in your control. The one thing that you have in your control is the content on your blog, so here are some ideas on how you can increase your popularity through your content.
Break news

News spreads through the blogosphere like a wildfire. If the news is hot everyone else will start writing on it and link back to where they found it. In most cases it is not easy to break news due to thousands of people trying to do the same thing. But if you can find the time to break news people will link to your blog as well as read it on a regular basis so they can be up-to-date on the latest happenings.

Post on weekends

There is a good chance that your readers also read other blogs. Because of the sheer number of blogs that post on a daily basis they probably don't have time to read all of them. If you post when your readers have time, such as the weekends, there is a good chance that they will read your blog. Look around at all of the blogs in your industry, there is a good chance that most will not post on weekends. I know that some may not agree with this idea, but it is something to consider if you have the time on weekends.
Write timeless posts

Try not to only write blog posts with a lifespan of 1 week, mix it up a little by writing on things that are timeless. Those posts might not be a smash hit right out of the gate, but they might become popular a couple months down the road. So try to also write things that can last for longer then 1 day or 1 week.
Teach don't sell

A lot of people are starting to blog because they want to make money. There is nothing wrong about making money or even blogging to make money, but try not to make a sales pitch in your blog posts. If you try to educate and teach people through your blog, it is possible that people will think of you as an authority in your industry which can lead to all kinds of great opportunities.
Join in on conversations

Emailing out bloggers and asking them for links can be an effective approach to increase your traffic. But another good way to increase your popularity is by joining in on conversations. A good example of this is when Rohit Bhargava wrote 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization; after thousands of people saw it and started adding to it the list grew to the 17 rules of Social Media Optimization.

Making a blog popular is a challenging proposition especially with all the new blogs popping up every day. The best thing to do is write quality, useful content about topics that really interest you, remember people are waiting to hear what you have to say, don't waste their time!

Make Money With Google AdSense

2008-07-14T13:26:00.000+07:00

Anyone who owns or is thinking about creating a website would be crazy to ignore this.

I am happy to say that making money with your site, no matter the topic, has become easier than it's ever been before - and it's 100% legitimate.

If AdSense had been available in 2000, I would have NEVER shut down my soap opera fan site that received 200 hits per day. I would have been able to earn money from that traffic and probably turned a small profit.

What is AdSense?

Google.com earns most of its revenue by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. All this is managed through a program they call AdWords.

Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns from AdWords by placing these same text ads on your site. In other words, you're helping Google advertise and they pay you a percentage of what they earn.

This program is called AdSense.

Every website owner should be involved in this. It's just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Even if your site is just for information purposes, you can still participate and make decent money with AdSense -- or at least enough to fund your website.

So if you are one of those people that don't like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some.

Even if you earned as little as $10 in a month, it would more than likely cover some or all of the costs for your web site. Perhaps you are simply looking for ways to add additional revenue to your website, then it's perfect for that situation too.

This program is getting so popular, people are creating websites just to display the ads and profit from Google's AdSense alone.

I don't usually like to use the term "easy money" because there really is no such thing. You still have to create your own website and learn how to bring in traffic in order to make good money with this program.

I certainly don't want to make it sound like you get something for doing absolutely nothing. There's no such thing.

However, I've got to say that AdSense is probably the closest you'll ever come to fast money on the Internet -- especially if you already have a website that gets a good amount of traffic.

What's even better...the program is completely free. You can also use it on multiple websites and there is no limit to the amount you can earn.
How AdSense Works

Don't like to read a lot of text? Watch my 4-minute video on how AdSense works.

And now for the text version of how AdSense works...

If you go to Google.com and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you'll notice some "Sponsored Links" that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for.

Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer. With the AdSense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it as well.

All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila! the ads will show up. Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.

Once your account reaches $100, you'll receive a check in the mail.
"Is Google Crazy?"

I know what you're probably thinking...

"What's the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?"

The answer...

Because Google is very smart.

Now that I understand how AdSense works, I can see that it's a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google. Let me explain...

Since the advertiser's ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google's site), they are getting much more exposure. More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.

This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.

Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit; and of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.

What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.

Of course, I'd expect nothing less from the most popular search engine on the web. :)

Making Money on the Internet

2008-07-14T10:32:00.000+07:00

Here are some ways of making money on the Internet from your personal Web site...

Banners
They were one of the first ways of making money from hobby Web sites, however they are not so popular now since most surfers don't even look at them. In fact, the click-through rate (the percentage of visitors who actually click on a banner) has steadily dropped, from around 5% 4 years ago to less than 0.5% now.

In the Traffic-Building volume of Make Your Site SELL! 2002 (the free ebook describing all possible ways of making money on the Internet), banners are called #1 "Time and Money Wasters." Save yourself months of poorly spent time. Read this essential manual first.

If you have highly relevant, cleverly designed banners, you can beat the odds. However, you need relatively high traffic to actually make more than pocket change. In fact, most banner advertising companies prefer to only pay for actual sales (even click throughs are no longer attractive, since many people click through because they are paid to, and not because they intend to buy anything).

Freebies
Under this category are things such as free lotto tickets and various games where you can win prizes. Often, these are implemented as pop-ups and are much more annoying than banners.

Affiliate programs
They pay you a percentage of the sales you generate for them, or for each visitor you send. This is one of the best ways of making money on the Internet. You don't have to spend time and energy creating your own product. And some of them pay 50% commission. See Affiliate programs for more information on building income from affiliate programs.

Google AdSense
This is one of the easiest ways of making money on the Internet for small and medium sites by displaying relevant, text-based ads from Google AdWords (Google's own advertising program) and receiving a share of the pay-per-click payment. Sign up for AdSense.

Other tools
There are many tools that can help you make some pretty big commissions without your visitors even realizing that you're building income from their visits.

For example, several search engines will pay you a few cents per search made from your Web site. If a few hundred people use your search box, you'll earn a few dollars a day - not bad for a few minutes of cut & paste a small line of code within the HTML of your Web page.

Selling a Product or Service
This is an obvious way of making money on the Internet. To succeed in it, you have to succeed at three points...

1. Develop a great product that is of interest to others on the Web.
2. Write a professional Web site designed to sell.
3. Attract targeted customers to the site.

Ken Evoy's Make Your Knowledge Sell! is a very useful ebook for those who want to get a piece of the e-commerce pie but don't know how to come up with a product. MYKS! shows you that your knowledge, life experience, specialized interest or hobby can be packaged into an information product ("infoproduct") that other people want and are surfing to find.

An infoproduct offers the best entry point into the world of making money on the Internet for most people. Absolutely everything is in MYKS!... from brainstorming to automating your order-processing. You need absolutely nothing else to succeed at selling what's in your brain.

For additional information on how to start selling online, see Selling on the Internet and Free Merchant Accounts. You'll also find there a list of 3rd party credit card processing companies - processing fees, extra costs and other details.

See also...

Passive Cashflow Secrets
It's a series of videos in which Neil Shearing shows you examples of how he does work once and then is paid for it over and over again. Each movie comes with a PDF transcript and a set of action steps for you to take.

Internet Success Blueprint
It's a complete guide on how to start making money on the Internet, written specifically for beginners.

Auto Income Secrets
This ebook shows step-by-step how to build websites focused on making money from adverts - gather keywords, build pages around them, place ads and promote the website.

SiteSell Free Downloads
From within this page, you can download several very helpful ebooks, which are highly recommended to those who start making money on the Internet. There's no charge - you're not even asked for your email address.

How to Make Money From Your Blog

2008-07-14T09:42:00.000+07:00

StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004. By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income. Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day (updated as of 10/29/06). I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion. In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there. Would you like to know how I did it?

This article is seriously long (over 7300 words), but you’re sure to get your money’s worth (hehehe). I’ll even share some specifics. If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later.

Do you actually want to monetize your blog?

Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs. If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.

If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first. If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine. If you think it’s evil, fine. But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path. If you want to succeed, you must be congruent. Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. If, however, you find yourself full of doubts over whether this is the right path for you, you might find this article helpful: How Selfish Are You? It’s about balancing your needs with the needs of others.

If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it. If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads. Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere. If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations. Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best. If you’re going to sell products, then really sell them. Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy. If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it. Don’t take a half-assed approach. Either be full-assed or no-assed.

You can reasonably expect that when you begin commercializing a free site, some people will complain, depending on how you do it. I launched this site in October 2004, and I began putting Google Adsense ads on the site in February 2005. There were some complaints, but I expected that — it was really no big deal. Less than 1 in 5,000 visitors actually sent me negative feedback. Most people who sent feedback were surprisingly supportive. Most of the complaints died off within a few weeks, and the site began generating income almost immediately, although it was pretty low — a whopping $53 the first month. If you’d like to see some month-by-month specifics, I posted my 2005 Adsense revenue figures earlier this year. Adsense is still my single best source of revenue for this site, although it’s certainly not my only source. More on that later…

Can you make a decent income online?

Yes, absolutely. At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home. I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler. If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it. I’ve always done it full-time.

Can most people do it?

No, they can’t. I hope it doesn’t shock you to see a personal development web site use the dreaded C-word. But I happen to agree with those who say that 99% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs will fail. The tagline for this site is “Personal Development for Smart People.” And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook), smart people are a minority on this planet. So while most people can’t make a living this way, I would say that most smart people can. How do you know whether or not you qualify as smart? Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you have to ask the question, you aren’t.

If that last paragraph doesn’t flood my inbox with flames, I don’t know what will. OK, actually I do.

This kind of 99-1 ratio isn’t unique to blogging though. You’ll see it in any field with relatively low barriers to entry. What percentage of wannabe actors, musicians, or athletes ever make enough money from their passions to support themselves? It doesn’t take much effort to start a blog these days — almost anyone can do it. Talent counts for something, and the talent that matters in blogging is intelligence. But that just gets you in the door. You need to specifically apply your intelligence to one particular talent. And the best words I can think of to describe that particular talent are: web savvy.

If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some. But if becoming truly web savvy is more than your gray matter can handle, then I’ll offer this advice: Don’t quit your day job.

Web savvy

What do I mean by web savvy? You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies. What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization. But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:

* blog publishing software
* HTML/CSS
* blog comments (and comment spam)
* RSS/syndication
* feed aggregators
* pings
* trackbacks
* full vs. partial feeds
* blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
* search engines
* search engine optimization (SEO)
* page rank
* social bookmarking
* tagging
* contextual advertising
* affiliate programs
* traffic statistics
* email

Optional: podcasting, instant messaging, PHP or other web scripting languages.

I’m sure I missed a few due to familiarity blindness. If scanning such a list makes your head spin, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a full-time living from blogging just yet. Certainly you can still blog, but you’ll be at a serious disadvantage compared to someone who’s more web savvy, so don’t expect to achieve stellar results until you expand your knowledge base.

If you want to sell downloadable products such as ebooks, then you can add e-commerce, SSL, digital delivery, fraud prevention, and online databases to the list. Again, you don’t need to be a programmer; you just need a basic understanding of these technologies. Even if you hire someone else to handle the low-level implementation, it’s important to know what you’re getting into. You need to be able to trust your strategic decisions, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re a General who doesn’t know what a gun is.

A lack of understanding is a major cause of failure in the realm of online income generation. For example, if you’re clueless about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll probably cripple your search engine rankings compared to someone who understands SEO well. But you can’t consider each technology in isolation. You need to understand the connections and trade-offs between them. Monetizing a blog is a balancing act. You may need to balance the needs of yourself, your visitors, search engines, those who link to you, social bookmarking sites, advertisers, affiliate programs, and others. Seemingly minor decisions like what to title a web page are significant. In coming up with the title of this article, I have to take all of these potential viewers into consideration. I want a title that is attractive to human visitors, drives reasonable search engine traffic, yields relevant contextual ads, fits the theme of the site, and encourages linking and social bookmarking. And most importantly I want each article to provide genuine value to my visitors. I do my best to create titles for my articles that balance these various needs. Often that means abandoning cutesy or clever titles in favor of direct and comprehensible ones. It’s little skills like these that help drive sustainable traffic growth month after month. Missing out on just this one skill is enough to cripple your traffic. And there are dozens of these types of skills that require web savvy to understand, respect, and apply.

This sort of knowledge is what separates the 1% from the 99%. Both groups may work just as hard, but the 1% is getting much better results for their efforts. It normally doesn’t take me more than 60 seconds to title an article, but a lot of experience goes into those 60 seconds. You really just have to learn these ideas once; after that you can apply them routinely.

Whenever you come across a significant web technology you don’t understand, look it up on Google or Wikipedia, and dive into it long enough to acquire a basic understanding of it. To make money from blogging it’s important to be something of a jack of all trades. Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” That may be true, but you don’t need to master any of these technologies — you just have to be good enough to use them. It’s the difference between being able to drive a car vs. becoming an auto mechanic. Strive to achieve functional knowledge, and then move on to something else. Even though I’m an experienced programmer, I don’t know how many web technologies actually work. I don’t really care. I can still use them to generate results. In the time it would take me to fully understand one new technology, I can achieve sufficient functional knowledge to apply several of them.

Thriving on change

Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities. You need an entrepreneurial mindset, not an employee mindset. Don’t be too concerned with the risk of loss — be more concerned with the risk of missed gains. It’s what you don’t know and what you don’t do that will hurt you the worst. Blogging is cheap. Your expenses and financial risk should be minimal. Your real concern should be missing opportunities that would have made you money very easily. You need to develop antennae that can listen out for new opportunities. I highly recommend subscribing to Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog — Darren is great at uncovering new income-generating opportunities for bloggers.

The blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity. It takes some brains to decipher these opportunities and to take advantage of them before they disappear. If you hesitate to capitalize on something new and exciting, you may simply miss out. Many opportunities are temporary. And every day you don’t implement them, you’re losing money you could have earned. And you’re also missing opportunities to build traffic, grow your audience, and benefit more people.

I used to get annoyed by the rapid rate of change of web technologies. It’s even more rapid than what I saw when I worked in the computer gaming industry. And the rate of change is accelerating. Almost every week now I learn about some fascinating new web service or idea that could potentially lead to big changes down the road. Making sense of them is a full-time job in itself. But I learned to love this insane pace. If I’m confused then everyone else is probably confused too. And people who only do this part-time will be very confused. If they aren’t confused, then they aren’t keeping up. So if I can be just a little bit faster and understand these technologies just a little bit sooner, then I can capitalize on some serious opportunities before the barriers to entry become too high. Even though confusion is uncomfortable, it’s really a good thing for a web entrepreneur. This is what creates the space for a college student to earn $1,000,000 online in just a few months with a clever idea. Remember this isn’t a zero-sum game. Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous. Let it inspire you instead.

What’s your overall income-generation strategy?

I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are utterly clueless when it comes to generating income from their blogs. They slap things together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason and hope to generate lots of money. While I’m a strong advocate of the ready-fire-aim approach, that strategy does require that you eventually aim. Ready-fire-fire-fire-fire will just create a mess.

Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site. If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income. You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is. An initial target goal I used when I first started this site was $3000 per month. It’s a somewhat arbitrary figure, but I knew if I could reach $3000 per month, I could certainly push it higher, and $3000 is enough income that it’s going to make a meaningful difference in my finances. I reached that level 15 months after launching the site (in December 2005). And since then it’s continued to increase nicely. Blogging income is actually quite easy to maintain. It’s a lot more secure than a regular job. No one can fire me, and if one source of income dries up, I can always add new ones. We’ll address multiple streams of income soon…

Are you going to generate income from advertising, affiliate commissions, product sales, donations, or something else? Maybe you want a combination of these things. However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing. I took 15 minutes to create a half-page summary of my monetization strategy. I only update it about once a year and review it once a month. This isn’t difficult, but it helps me stay focused on where I’m headed. It also allows me to say no to opportunities that are inconsistent with my plan.

Refer to your monetization strategy (or philosophy) when you need to make design decisions for your web site. Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that. Do you need to funnel people towards an order form, or will you place ads all over the site? Different monetization strategies suggest different design approaches. Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will generate income for you, and design your site accordingly.

When devising your income strategy, feel free to cheat. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Copy someone else’s strategy that you’re convinced would work for you too. Do NOT copy anyone’s content or site layout (that’s copyright infringement), but take note of how they’re making money. I decided to monetize this site with advertising and affiliate income after researching how various successful bloggers generated income. Later I added donations as well. This is an effective combo.

Traffic, traffic, traffic

Assuming you feel qualified to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging (and I haven’t scared you away yet), the three most important things you need to monetize your blog are traffic, traffic, and traffic.

Just to throw out some figures, last month (April 2006), this site received over 1.1 million visitors and over 2.4 million page views. That’s almost triple what it was just six months ago.

Why is traffic so important? Because for most methods of online income generation, your income is a function of traffic. If you double your traffic, you’ll probably double your income (assuming your visitor demographics remain fairly consistent). You can screw almost everything else up, but if you can generate serious traffic, it’s really hard to fail. With sufficient traffic the realistic worst case is that you’ll eventually be able to monetize your web site via trial and error (as long as you keep those visitors coming).

When I first launched this blog, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge. All of my plans hinged on my ability to build traffic. If I couldn’t build traffic, it was going to be very difficult to succeed. So I didn’t even try to monetize my site for the first several months. I just focused on traffic building. Even after 19 months, traffic building is still the most important part of my monetization plan. For my current traffic levels, I know I’m undermonetizing my site, but that’s OK. Right now it’s more important to me to keep growing the site, and I’m optimizing the income generation as I go along.

Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation. More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you. And it also means you’re helping more and more people.

With respect to traffic, you should know that in many respects, the rich do get richer. High traffic leads to even more traffic-building opportunities that just aren’t accessible for low-traffic sites. On average at least 20 bloggers add new links to my site every day, my articles can easily surge to the top of social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and I’m getting more frequent requests for radio interviews. Earlier this year I was featured in USA Today and in Self Magazine, which collectively have millions of readers. Journalists are finding me by doing Google searches on topics I’ve written about. These opportunities were not available to me when I was first starting out. Popular sites have a serious advantage. The more traffic you have, the more you can attract.

If you’re intelligent and web savvy, you should also be able to eventually build a high-traffic web site. And you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to build even more traffic.

How to build traffic

Now if traffic is so crucial, how do you build it up to significant levels if you’re starting from rock bottom?

I’ve already written a lengthy article on this topic, so I’ll refer you there: How to Build a High Traffic Web Site (or Blog). If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later. That article covers my general philosophy of traffic-building, which centers on creating content that provides genuine value to your visitors. No games or gimmicks.

There is one other important traffic-building tip I’ll provide here though.

Blog Carnivals. Take full advantage of blog carnivals when you’re just starting out (click the previous link and read the FAQ there to learn what carnivals are if you don’t already know). Periodically submit your best blog posts to the appropriate carnivals for your niche. Carnivals are easy ways to get links and traffic, and best of all, they’re free. Submitting only takes minutes if you use a multi-carnvival submission form. Do NOT spam the carnivals with irrelevant material — only submit to the carnivals that are a match for your content.

In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month. You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog. Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss. Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff. I still submit to certain carnivals every once in a while, but now my traffic is so high that relatively speaking, they don’t make much difference anymore. Just to increase my traffic by 1% in a month, I need 11,000 new visitors, and even the best carnivals don’t push that much traffic. But you can pick up dozens or even hundreds of new subscribers from each round of carnival submissions, so it’s a great place to start. Plus it’s very easy.

If your traffic isn’t growing month after month, does it mean you’re doing something wrong? Most likely you aren’t doing enough things right. Again, making mistakes is not the issue. Missing opportunities is.

Will putting ads on your site hurt your traffic?

Here’s a common fear I hear from people who are considering monetizing their web sites:

Putting ads on my site will cripple my traffic. The ads will drive people away, and they’ll never come back.

Well, in my experience this is absolutely, positively, and otherwise completely and totally… FALSE. It’s just not true. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put ads on my site. Nothing. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put up more ads and donation links. Nothing. I could detect no net effect on my traffic whatsoever. Traffic continued increasing at the same rate it did before there were ads on my site. In fact, it might have even helped me a little, since some bloggers actually linked to my site just to point out that they didn’t like my ad layout. I’ll leave it up to you to form your own theories about this. It’s probably because there’s so much advertising online already that even though some people will complain when a free site puts up ads, if they value the content, they’ll still come back, regardless of what they say publicly.

Most mature people understand it’s reasonable for a blogger to earn income from his/her work. I think I’m lucky in that my audience tends to be very mature — immature people generally aren’t interested in personal development. To create an article like this takes serious effort, not to mention the hard-earned experience that’s required to write it. This article alone took me over 15 hours of writing and editing. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to earn an income from such work. If you get no value from it, you don’t pay anything. What could be more fair than that? The more income this blog generates, the more I can put into it. For example, I used some of the income to buy podcasting equipment and added a podcast to the site. I’ve recorded 13 episodes so far. The podcasts are all ad-free. I’m also planning to add some additional services to this site in the years ahead. More income = better service.

At the time of this writing, my site is very ad-heavy. Some people point this out to me as if I’m not aware of it: “You know, Steve. Your web site seems to contain an awful lot of ads.” Of course I’m aware of it. I’m the one who put the ads there. There’s a reason I have this configuration of ads. They’re effective! People keep clicking on them. If they weren’t effective, I’d remove them right away and try something else.

I do avoid putting up ads that I personally find annoying when I see them on other sites, including pop-ups and interstitials (stuff that flies across your screen). Even though they’d make me more money, in my opinion they degrade the visitor experience too much.

I also provide two ad-free outlets, so if you really don’t like ads, you can actually read my content without ads. First, I provide a full-text RSS feed, and at least for now it’s ad-free. I do, however, include a donation request in the bottom of my feeds.

If you want to see some actual traffic data, take a look at the 2005 traffic growth chart. I first put ads on the site in February 2005, and although the chart doesn’t cover pre-February traffic growth, the growth rate was very similar before then. For an independent source, you can also look at my traffic chart on Alexa. You can select different Range options to go further back in time.

Multiple streams of income

You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket. Think multiple streams of income. On this site I actually have six different streams of income. Can you count them all? Here’s a list:

1. Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
2. Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
3. Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
4. Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
5. Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
6. Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)

Note: If you’re reading this article a while after its original publication date, then this list is likely to change. I frequently experiment with different streams.

Adsense is my biggest single source of income, but some of the others do pretty well too. Every stream generates more than $100/month.

My second biggest income stream is actually donations. My average donation is about $10, and I’ve received a number of $100 donations too. It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal. So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish. It’s win-win. I’m very grateful for the visitor support. It’s a nice form of feedback too, since I notice that certain articles produced a surge in donations — this tells me I’m hitting the mark and giving people genuine value.

These aren’t my only streams of income though. I’ve been earning income online since 1995. With my computer games business, I have direct sales, royalty income, some advertising income, affiliate income, and donations (from the free articles). And if you throw in my wife’s streams of income, it gets really ridiculous: advertising, direct book sales, book sales through distributors, web consulting, affiliate income, more Adsense income, and probably a few sources I forgot. Suffice it to say we receive a lot of paychecks. Some of them are small, but they add up. It’s also extremely low risk — if one source of income dries up, we just expand existing sources or create new ones. I encourage you to think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income too.Automated income

With the exception of #6, all of these income sources are fully automated. I don’t have to do anything to maintain them except deposit checks, and in most cases I don’t even have to do that because the money is automatically deposited to my bank account.

I love automated income. With this blog I currently have no sales, no employees, no products, no inventory, no credit card processing, no fraud, and no customers. And yet I’m still able to generate a reasonable (and growing) income.

Why get a regular job and trade your time for money when you can let technology do all that work for you? Imagine how it would feel to wake up each morning, go to your computer, and check how much money you made while you were sleeping. It’s a really nice situation to be in.

Blogging software and hardware

I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it. Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface. And you can’t beat its price — free.

The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. I’m a programmer, so I coded it all myself. I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site. Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the Million Dollar Experiment.

I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog. You don’t get enough control. If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset. You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s. Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes. If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk. It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run.

Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from. I recommend Pair.com for a starter hosting account. They aren’t the cheapest, but they’re very reliable and have decent support. I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.

As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS). This web site is hosted by ServInt. I’ve hosted this site with them since day one, and they’ve been a truly awesome host. What I like most about them is that they have a smooth upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing. I’ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless. The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle. I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn’t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.

Comments or no comments

When I began this blog, I started out with comments enabled. As traffic grew, so did the level of commenting. Some days there were more than 100 comments. I noticed I was spending more and more time managing comments, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort. It became clear that with continued traffic growth, I was going to have to change my approach or die in comment hell. The personal development topics I write about can easily generate lots of questions and discussion. Just imagine how many follow-up questions an article like this could generate. With tens of thousands of readers, it would be insane. Also, nuking comment spam was chewing up more and more of my time as well.

But after looking through my stats, I soon realized that only a tiny fraction of visitors ever look at comments at all, and an even smaller fraction ever post a comment (well below 1% of total visitors). That made my decision a lot easier, and in October 2005, I turned blog comments off. In retrospect that was one of my best decisions. I wish I had done it sooner.

If you’d like to read the full details of how I came to this decision, I’ve written about it previously: Blog Comments and More on Blog Comments.

Do you need comments to build traffic? Obviously not. Just like when I put up ads, I saw no decline in traffic when I turned off comments. In fact, I think it actually helped me. Although I turned off comments, I kept trackbacks enabled, so I started getting more trackbacks. If people wanted to publicly comment on something I’d written, they had to do so on their own blogs and post a link. So turning off comments didn’t kill the discussion — it just took it off site. The volume of trackbacks is far more reasonable, and I can easily keep up with it. I even pop onto other people’s sites and post comments now and then, but I don’t feel obligated to participate because the discussion isn’t on my own site.

I realize people have very strong feelings about blog comments and community building. Many people hold the opinion that a blog without comments just isn’t a blog. Personally I think that’s utter nonsense — the data just doesn’t support it. The vast majority of blog readers neither read nor post comments. Only a very tiny and very vocal group even care about comments. Some bloggers say that having comments helps build traffic, but I saw no evidence of that. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. Managing comments detracts from writing new posts, and it’s far better to get a trackback and a link from someone else’s blog vs. a comment on your own blog. As long-term readers of my blog know, when faced with ambiguity, my preference is to try both alternatives and compare real results with real results. After doing that my conclusion is this: No comment. :)

Now if you want to support comments for non-traffic-building reasons like socializing or making new contacts, I say go for it. Just don’t assume that comments are necessary or even helpful in building traffic unless you directly test this assumption yourself.

Build a complete web site, not just a blog

Don’t limit your web site to just a blog. Feel free to build it out. Although most of my traffic goes straight to this blog, there’s a whole site built around it. For example, the home page of this site presents an overview of all the sections of the site, including the blog, article section, audio content, etc. A lot of people still don’t know what a blog is, so if your whole site is your blog, those people may be a little confused.

Testing and optimization

In the beginning you won’t know which potential streams of income will work best for you. So try everything that’s reasonable for you. If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself. Feel free to cut streams that just aren’t working for you, and put more effort into optimizing those streams that show real promise.

A few months ago, I signed up for an account with Text Link Ads. It took about 20 minutes. They sell small text ads on my site, split the revenue with me 50-50, and deposit my earnings directly into my PayPal account. This month I’ll make around $600 from them, possibly more if they sell some new ads during the month. And it’s totally passive. If I never tried this, I’d miss out on this easy extra income.

For many months I’ve been tweaking the Adsense ads on this site. I tried different colors, sizes, layouts, etc. I continue to experiment now and then, but I have a hard time beating the current layout. It works very well for me. Adsense doesn’t allow publishers to reveal specific CPM and CTR data, but mine are definitely above par. They started out in the gutter though. You can easily double or triple your Adsense revenue by converting a poor layout into a better one. This is the main reason why during my first year of income, my traffic grew at 20% per month, but my income grew at 50% per month. Frequent testing and optimization had a major positive impact. Many of my tests failed, and some even made my income go down, but I’m glad I did all that testing. If I didn’t then my Adsense income would only be a fraction of what it is now.

It’s cheap to experiment. Every new advertising or affiliate service I’ve tried so far has been free to sign up. Often I can add a new income stream in less than an hour and then wait a month to see how it does. If it flops then at least I learned something. If it does well, wonderful. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. If you haven’t tried anything new in six months, you’re almost certainly missing some golden opportunities. Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you. Failure is impossible here — you either succeed, or you learn something.

Pick your niche, but make sure it isn’t too small

Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic. My wife runs a popular vegan web site. She does pretty well within her niche, but it’s just not a very big niche. On the other hand, my topic of personal development has much broader appeal. Potentially anyone can be interested in improving themselves, and I have the flexibility to write about topics like productivity, self-discipline, relationships, spirituality, health, and more. It’s all relevant to personal development.

Pick a niche that you’re passionate about. I’ve written 400+ articles so far, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. I’m not feeling burnt out at all. I chose to build a personal development site because I’m very knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate about this subject. I couldn’t imagine a better topic for me to write about.

Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money. I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a recipe for failure. Think about what you love most, and then find a way to make your topic appealing to a massive global audience. Consider what will provide genuine value to your visitors. It’s all about what you can give.

A broad enough topic creates more potential advertising partners. If I keep writing on the same subtopic over and over, I may exhaust the supply of advertisers and hit an income ceiling. But by writing on many different topics under the same umbrella, I widen the field of potential advertisers. And I expand the appeal of my site at the same time.

Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about. Often I visit a blog with a clever title and tagline that reveals nothing about the site’s contents. In that case I generally assume it’s just a personal journal and move on. I love to be clever too, but I’ve found that clarity yields better results than cleverness.

Posting frequency and length

Bloggers have different opinions about the right posting length and frequency. Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more. I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite. I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now). That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles. I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic. It’s true that fewer people will take the time to read them, but those that do will enjoy some serious take-away value. I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions. If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.

Expenses

Blogging is dirt cheap.

I don’t spend money on advertising or promotion, so my marketing expenses are nil. Essentially my content is my marketing. If you like this article, you’ll probably find many more gems in the archives.

My only real expenses for this site are the hosting (I currently pay $149/month for the web server and bandwidth) and the domain name renewal ($9/year). Nearly all of the income this site generates is profit. This trickles down to my personal income, so of course it’s subject to income tax. But the actual business expenses are minimal.

The reason I pay so much for hosting is simply due to my traffic. If my traffic were much lower, I could run this site on a cheap shared hosting account. A database-driven blog can be a real resource hog at high traffic levels. The same goes for online forums. As traffic continues to increase, my hosting bill will go up too, but it will still be a tiny fraction of total income.

Perks

Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to enjoy some nice perks as your traffic grows. Almost every week I get free personal development books in the mail (for potential review on this site). Sometimes the author will send it directly; other times the publisher will ship me a batch of books. I also receive CDs, DVDs, and other personal development products. It’s hard to keep up sometimes (I have a queue of about two dozen books right now), but I am a voracious consumer of such products, so I do plow through them as fast as I can. When something strikes me as worthy of mention, I do indeed write up a review to share it with my visitors. I have very high standards though, so I review less than 10% of what I receive. I’ve read over 700 books in this field and listened to dozens of audio programs, so I’m pretty good at filtering out the fluff. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s a great deal of self-help fluff out there.

My criteria for reviewing a product on this site is that it has to be original, compelling, and profound. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, I don’t review it, even if there’s a generous affiliate program. I’m not going to risk abusing my relationship with my visitors just to make a quick buck. Making money is not my main motivation for running this site. My main motivation is to grow and to help others grow, so that always comes first.

Your blog can also gain you access to certain events. A high-traffic blog becomes a potential media outlet, so you can actually think of yourself as a member of the press, which indeed you are. In a few days, my wife and I will be attending a three-day seminar via a free press pass. The regular price for these tickets is $500 per person. I’ll be posting a full review of the seminar next week. I’ve been to this particular seminar in 2004, so I already have high expectations for it. Dr. Wayne Dyer will be the keynote speaker.

I’m also using the popularity of this blog to set up interviews with people I’ve always wanted to learn more about. This is beautifully win-win because it creates value for me, my audience, and the person being interviewed. Recently I posted an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen as well as a review of his latest book, and I’m lining up other interviews as well. It isn’t hard to convince someone to do an interview in exchange for so much free exposure.

Motivation

I don’t think you’ll get very far if money is your #1 motivation for blogging. You have to be driven by something much deeper. Money is just frosting. It’s the cake underneath that matters. My cake is that I absolutely love personal development – not the phony “fast and easy” junk you see on infomercials, but real growth that makes us better human beings. That’s my passion. Pouring money on top of it just adds more fuel to the fire, but the fire is still there with or without the money.

What’s your passion? What would you blog about if you were already set for life?

Blogging lifestyle

Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings. I work from home and set my own hours. I write whenever I’m inspired to write (which for me is quite often). Plus I get to spend my time doing what I love most — working on personal growth and helping others do the same. There’s nothing I’d rather do than this.

Perhaps it’s true that 99 out of 100 people can’t make a decent living from blogging yet. But maybe you’re among the 1 in 100 who can.

On the other hand, I can offer you a good alternative to recommend if you don’t have the technical skills to build a high-traffic, income-generating blog.