arena OnE ...For pro Bloggers BY MUSANAHIM

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:36:00 +0000

u do not have to fail in life...u just have to keep trying watch out for my latest blog www.supnaija.tk

hey guys

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 01:09:00 +0000

when d going is hard only d tough can survive.........so be wise

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:32:00 +0000

Blog Tyrant.
One of the hardest tasks a
blogger can face is getting
readers to stick around. In
actual fact, its one of the
most important things you ’ll
ever learn to do. Why?
Because unless those
visitors delve deeper into
your site you are essentially
wasting your time with all
that amazing content, social
media effort, and SEO work.
Bloggers often forget that
we need to use things like
design, layout, colors,
format, and so on to help
visitors delve further in to
our sites.
In this post I’m going to
show you eight blog home
pages that make readers
click deeper. Hopefully it
will give you some ideas for
your own.

Apologies to you guys

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:22:00 +0000

I want to use this medium to apologise to all my esteemed readers for being off for some time i hope to make up for the lost time. God bless you.

Why Link Exchanges Are Like Mosquitoes

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:17:00 +0000

A Guest post by Akila from The Road Forks

Last week, I had a revelation when, after spending ten minutes fiddling around with a VPN in Podunkville, China, I opened my email and found four link exchange requests, including one asking to exchange links with “The Toad Forks” rather than our website, The Road Forks. As I slammed my laptop lid down, I realized that link exchanges are the mosquitoes of the blogging world.

Imagine that all of us bloggers — interesting and interested people engaged in making our blogs the Next Best Thing — sit down at a summer table with platters of thick-grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob next to an open cooler of dripping beers. The mosquitoes hover, pinching our legs and arms. We slap them away but their brothers come to replace them. They bloat with our blood, gorging and feeding on our health, and we develop unsightly rashes. That, my friends, are link exchange requests and we bloggers are helping these mosquitoes breed.

What is a link exchange request? A link exchange request is one where a site offers to link to your site in exchange for a reciprocal link. The key to this request is the requirement for a reciprocal link; in other words, if you don’t link to me, I don’t link to you.

Link exchange requests come in various forms. Some are from corporate entities seeking to promote blogs or sites by selling text links, though Google slashed PageRanks in 2007 in response to this tactic. Others are from bloggers — often, well meaning, newbie bloggers —- who send mass generic e-mails that cause me to inwardly groan, along the lines of, “Hey! Cool blog! Want to exchange links?”

Let me be clear, though: link exchanges are not e-mails from bloggers to others in the same genre inviting them to consider reading or linking to their blog because they have shared interests. If you are producing valuable content, you need to spread the word and e-mailing and networking with other bloggers is the best way to increase traffic to your site. Darren’s 11 tips to increase your chances of being linked to by another blogger boil down to two central tenets: get to know the person whose link you are asking for and produce content worthy of that link. A polite request that a person consider reading your blog is not the same thing as a request for a link in return for a link of their own.

Why do websites/bloggers want link exchanges? Link exchanges are an easy, get-rich-quick scheme to drive traffic and increase search engine results. In the short term, readers will jump to your blog, leading to more pageviews, ad revenue, and perhaps RSS subscribers.

Over the long term, links build your site’s “importance,” in the eyes of Google (and most other search engines, for that matter). A link exchange means more links for your site as well as theirs, more links leads to a higher Google PageRank, and a higher PageRank will cause a site to show up closer to the front page of Google search results, generating greater traffic for a site. Greater traffic means more ad revenue, fame, and the resulting glamour of being a hot-shot blogger.

The bad news: By participating in link exchanges, you risk injuring your reputation, the reputation of others, and angering Google. What do all successful bloggers have in common? Trust. A link might send new readers to your site but they are only going to keep reading your site if they trust that you will produce great content every week. The links on your blog are part of the content on your site; by linking to another site, you represent to your reader that the link is of good quality and will provide something valuable to the reader. If a reader clicks on a link that takes them to a site filled with ads for pills and dating programs, or to a blog that produces worse content than your own, the reader is going to question your judgment and wonder why you chose to link to that site. Nobody likes the guy who has to buy his friends. Unfortunately, by linking to one lousy site, you also devalue the other good sites on your blog. Bad for you, bad for your friends.

And, you certainly don’t want to irritate the most powerful player on the web. Google carries 71% of the search engine market and they hate link schemes. Google is in the business of providing the most accurate website hierarchy for a particular search term and falsely inflated links to a particular site lead to poor search results. In no less than three places in their Webmaster Guidelines, Google explains that participating in link schemes, including excessive link exchanges, could “negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.”

Welcome to the new Internet where content is king.

Link exchanges are part of the old Internet, a system in which PageRank ruled and social media was a fancy word for e-mail. Today, Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon drive more traffic to my blog (and, I suspect, most blogs) than links from other bloggers. In the last week of July 2010, Facebook not only dominated the social media sites but was the most visited website in the world – even more than Google – accounting for over 9% of all web traffic in that week. Facebook’s Like button and Twitter’s instantaneous communications reward interesting or useful posts without using artificial means to game a blogger’s popularity.

Google is taking advantage of this revolution with Caffeine, its web indexing system launched in June 2010 that crawls blogs, social media sites, commercial sites, and user generated content at a 50% faster rate. Previously, Google used to crawl pages once every few days or even less, resulting in stale web search results. Now, when you hit publish on your blog post, it will appear in Google search results in less than 30 minutes. This means that fresh content – whether in the form of blog posts, tweets, or Facebook posts – may be the key to landing at the top of Google searches. In fact, Google has recommended for years that webmasters stop obsessing about PageRank because it is only one of 200 factors used to determine search results.

The bottom line is that if you want to increase your readership in today’s Internet, focus on networking with other bloggers, effectively using social media tools to produce fresh content, and, most importantly, producing link-worthy content, rather than populating the Internet with infestations of spam-filled links. Maybe soon, we will all be able to sit back and bask in the sunny glow of a better, more usable Internet.

Read more from Akila at The Road Forks

How I Make Money Blogging: Income Split for July 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:39:00 +0000

BY DARREN ROWSE WWW.PROBLOGGER.NET

Over the last few months I’ve been sharing a monthly breakdown of where my income comes from in the hope of illustrating some of the methods bloggers might like to look at when making money from blogging (see previous months linked to below).

The month of July was the second month in a row where eBooks were the biggest money maker for me. Here’s a pie chart showing the percentage breakdowns.

Screen shot 2010-08-16 at 4.47.55 PM.png

Before I say much more let me show you how the different income streams have tracked over the last 4 months (note I’ve expanded ’speaking’ to be ’speaking and events’ to include the ProBlogger Training Day (which wasn’t a massive earner as we kept the price down – but because it’s something I’d like to try again). I have also added a ‘total’ line to this chart to track total income.

Screen shot 2010-08-16 at 5.04.20 PM.png

A few comments:

* Obviously there was a big eBook spike in June as we launched a photography eBook that month. July was down on the launch month but still very healthy – partly because of a few specials that I ran in July (I did a ‘Christmas in July’ special as well as offering a few communities a discount on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook).
* AdSense was also pretty good last month – there’s no real explanation for this as traffic was steady. I can only guess that some advertisers were involved in a bit of a bidding war on Digital Photography School which drove prices up a little.
* Affiliate programs were quite down – that can be explained simply by me not doing as many promotions in July – mainly because there were not too many product launches in my niches (for some reason they always seem to come out at once).
* Direct Ad Sales are on the rise and you’ll see this continue to grow next month as I’ve been working with a direct ad sales rep who is now selling ads for my sites which has already led to some new clients.
* Over all it was a good month. While not as spectacular as July it was up on the previous two months significantly.
* Continuity Programs – a few people have asked what they are. In short – they’re membership sites – ProBlogger.com and The Third Tribe.

Next month is shaping up to be an interesting month. Later this week I’ll be launching a product here on ProBlogger (at a fairly inexpensive price point) which will be interesting to track. I’ve also participated in a couple of affiliate launches and have seen some interesting direct ad sales. I’m not quite sure whether it’ll be as good as July but am working toward it.

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION FOR BLOGGERS..

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:05:00 +0000

This is a principle that works every time with every person
you do not think about what is impossible but what is very
possible....
This is the most powerful law in the universe
It states that what ever you want if you can set your
mind towards it you can succeed .
its just for you to be positive minded .
when you believe in your self you have the determination
and then you have a successful blog...
If you can apply the law of attraction in your business,
work and other aspect of life, you definitely will attract
every thing positive in your life . a lot of people have
used this law and they have succeeded.
what ever you are feeling is what is in the process of
becoming.

THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SECRET...

EZEH EMMANUEL JR (MUSANAHIM)
WWW.ARENA-ONE.BLOGSPOT.COM

LEARN FROM THE TOP MOST BLOGGERS

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:10:00 +0000

LEARN FROM THE TOP MOST BLOGGERS

This posting should do a lot to help you be on top
especially for people just starting to blog.....

1.) Find any of the top bloggers

2.) Search for their Errors

3.) Search for where they got it right

4.) search for their feasibility studies

5.) make your research broad

6.) make contacts with other Bloggers for co-writing

7.) This i discovered lastly find what you like much
i mean your passion and write about it.

For instance while i was starting i talked to Daren
Of www.problogger.com,I also talked to some guys at
wwww.blogcatalog.com they gave me their advise
I also wanted to know if yahoo and google which is the
best.

This points i made really helped me as a rookie blogger
which i still am.

HEY GUYS I WOULD LOVE SOME COMMENTS HON HOW IT HELPED YA
IN THE MEANTIME PEACE

Ezeh Emmanuel JR(MUSANAHIM)
www.arena-one.blogspot.com

More Jobs for Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:17:00 +0000

CasJam Design Blog

Description

The CasJam Design Blog is hiring writers for one-time articles and ongoing positions!

We're paying $40-$100 + performance bonuses!

Topics include (but not limited to):

Web Design, Usability, Branding, Online Business, Mobile Web, Freelancing, Photoshop, Design Inspiration, Apple, Web Development, WordPress, Tumblr, and other related topics...

We're looking for all types of content:

Articles (350+ words), In-depth tutorials (500+ words), Video screencasts, interviews, design inspiration posts, and more.
How to apply

Check out all of the submission guidelines here:
http://casjam.com/blog/contribute/

JOBS FOR BLOGGERS

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:05:00 +0000

Description

We are looking for a passionate Apple user to create posts that are tutorials and hints/tips about these subjects

* Mac OS X
* iPhone / iPad
* iPhone / iPad apps

Rather than being news focused or review focused we are interested in posts that are sharing your experience, 'how to' and tips.
How to apply

Please send email to peter@theinternetincubator.com

Subject should be "Apple Blogger"

Along with a brief introduction of yourself please send:-

* 3 samples of your work online
* List of Apple products that you have
* What kind of work you do with Macs

Ideally we are looking to keep one or two bloggers working on this project posting 2 posts each per week.

Description

Looking for talented writers who can quickly research and produce unique quality articles on education-related topics in a short span of time.

We need writers who are willing to immediately come onboard as fulltime freelancers, producing a minimum of 6-8 well-written 500-1000 word articles per day on assigned topics.

REQUIREMENTS:
- Strong writing and internet research skills
- Ability to work fast and under deadlines
- Ability to produce written work product that requires little to no editing
- Strong attention to detail
- Creativity

PAYMENT:
Writers will be compensated between $20-$40 per article depending on length.

WHAT YOU NEED:
- Paypal Account for all payment transactions
How to apply

Please write a 250 word article on obtaining an online degree for the profession of your choice. The article should include (1) What the degree is; (2) Why someone should get that degree; (3) The educational requirements for obtaining that degree; (4) A list of jobs someone who obtains that degree can perform and the expected pay/job prospects; (5) Any other information you deem relevant. The article should be written in a formal tone. We will be looking for clean, crisp, readable, and informative writing.

Please send a resume and the writing sample to bradsmith818@gmail.com.

Please include the word “Education Writer” in the subject of your email.

How do I get visitors to my site

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 07:40:00 +0000

1. Submit you site to free search engine directories.

like www.addme.com

2. Check for local government directories - it is easy to get into local, online listings.

3. Use forums and discussion boards. The best way to answer people's questions is by creating a short walkthrough on your site that teaches them. Show them where to find it and you have yourself a link.

4. If you don't have any friends, get some quickly.

use:- twitter facebook and other sites.

5. Review products on other sites like e Pinions. You can quickly establish yourself as an expert by writing thorough reviews of products in your field. Some of the traffic that hits your review will follow the trail back to your site, leading to links.

6. Find quality blogs and leave a comment with a link back to your site.

7. Use free advertising! Tell your friends about your site.

8. Add a link to your site in the signature of the forums you post on.

Big Content Monetisation Ideas for the Little Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:16:00 +0000

Creative Monetisation

When we discussed content strategy earlier in this series, we talked about the importance of having a grip on your content inventory so that you can achieve the best possible return on your investment in content.

How can you achieve that ROI? There are many options. In fact, as we’ll see, being creative about your monetisation strategy really can pay off.

To get you in the mood, take a look at the blog of illustrator and artist James Jean (Warning, artistic nude drawings there). Check his store to see some innovative approaches to the concept of “content monetisation”.
Whitepapers and Ebooks

Whitepapers, reports, and ebooks are established means by which to repackage quality content you’ve published on your blog into new, cost-effective formats. But don’t forget physical products, either — it works for James Jean, and it could work for you, too.

Before you begin, consider existing competition in the space — if leaders in your field release quality research or insight free, you’ll have to do something different, and do it well, if your audience is going to pay for your offering. Simply republishing a selection of your current blog content as an ebook won’t cut it. Augmenting that content, as a basic platform from which you can provide a range of value-adds, tools, and philosophies, might.

If you’re constantly immersed in your area of interest, you’re likely to come across information that, while it makes for good blog posts, also fuels your creative fire. It might start you innovating and exploring, and the resulting insights and experiences may generate new content or new perspectives that can augment and extend your existing content in other formats.

Products like these are usually most successful if you can provide solid practical value, unique insights, and compelling evidence. Don’t neglect to give your customers a means to assess the information for themselves, independently, as well as under your guidance. Interpret the results of your research in a paid report, by all means — but provide the raw data to allow users to conduct their own analysis, too.
Paywalls and Subscriptions

We’ve all heard about the News Corp decision to charge for access to its news sites — a plan that’s now going ahead in the UK and USA. Although opinion is divided over charging for web news, many blogs offer premium subscriptions that provide access to suites of value-added content such as research and interpretation, or deep insight and opinion. The free GigaOm network does this with its GigaOm Pro subscription service. Subscription services may also take in alternative media formats, such as videos or podcasts, that aren’t available through the free area of the blog.

Subscriptions won’t work for all blog types — expert content on business and academic topics seems to be one area in which paywalls have proven successful, but the average hobby blogger may have trouble justifying this tactic to an audience that can obtain parallel content free of charge elsewhere. If you do go ahead with a paywall, you’ll have to think carefully about how you’ll communicate the value of a subscription to your readers: will you offer a free trial? A demo? Will you let users pay on a weekly or monthly basis, or have them purchase a longer period, perhaps at a discount?

Users are already skeptical of paywalls and subscriptions. They can work, but usually they’re best left to the larger players who can afford to take such risks.
Content Syndication that Pays

An interesting alternative to the online news paywall approach has been developed by the UK’s Guardian news organisation. The Guardian is launching a service that allows others to syndicate Guardian stories free of charge — with the caveat that the content must appear as provided, and that includes an advertisement.

Syndicating your blog’s content with automatically-included inline ads may not be an option just yet. But are there other forms of “syndication” you can use? Could you arrange to republish selected posts regularly in another industry publication — perhaps in print — for payment?

Reselling your posts can be tricky, since you don’t want to dilute your brand or readership. By the same token, a well-planned strategy can serve to build your audience and your income. For example, you might syndicate time-critical content to other publications for a payment, but publish timeless, evergreen content, posts that build and engage community, and articles that provide great educational value, exclusively on your own blog.

Finding outlets that will pay to republish your posts may be a challenge, particularly while you’re still establishing your foothold in your chosen space, but as the Problogger income split posts prove, the small steps — and approaches that aggregate a range of income sources — really do add up.

What techniques have you used to monetise your content?

Continue reading this series of articles on questions surrounding blog content.

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

BEING PLAYFUL WITH YOUR BLOG

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:14:00 +0000

Well im back now after a long break due to circumstances beyond my control.

I wolud like to lay emphasis on certain things that would rekindle our spirits
towards achieving much in blogging.

One of the things that I’ve learnt over the years is that the more I try and use stuff, the more I discover what works and what doesn’t work for me in my style, but also for my readers, for blogging and the medium itself.

So, I’d like to ask you today:

* how have you played on your blog?
* How have you experimented?
* What have you tried?
* What has worked and what hasn’t worked?

I’d like this to be a discussion. For me, I’ve tried lots of different styles of writing over the years.

For example, I’ve done a few rants on my blogs. I discovered that, you know, me ranting doesn’t really work. Occasionally it does because, I guess I really believe in what I’m ranting about, but as a rule, ranting doesn’t really work for me.

I’ve also tried writing in the third person at times that sometimes has actually worked for me. It’s had a real impact upon people.

I’ve also found asking questions like this video post itself works for me.

It’s just about experimenting with different ways of communicating. With using images, with your design, it translates across your blog in lots of different ways.

So, what have you played with on your blog? How have you been a bit playful? How have you experimented? What have you learnt? What has worked for you in your style and what doesn’t work for you in your style?

I’d love to hear your comments.

Ezeh Emmanuel Jr.
www.arena-one.blogspot.com

Chitika eMiniMalls – How Much Money Do they Earn Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:12:00 +0000

Chitika eMiniMalls – How Much Money Do they Earn Me?

Chitika-EminimallsI’ve been getting quite a few excited emails from readers who have signed up for the Chitika eMiniMalls that I reviewed last week. There has been a lot of positive feedback so far from those who I’ve referred over to the program with some people earning some significant money from it so far (including ‘Rachel‘). There have also been a few (less) emails from bloggers who have failed to see them as effective.

The most common question that I get asked by readers about the eMiniMalls include:

* ‘How do the money from eMiniMalls compare to earnings of Adsense?’
* ‘How much money do you earn from eMiniMalls?’

(update: the third most asked question is ‘how do I increase my earnings?’ If you’re asking this you might also like to check out Chitika eMiniMall Tips for increasing earnings)

I’ve resisted talking about specific figures of money earnt to this point because I wanted to clarify with the Chitika people whether I was allowed to do so. Today I just got confirmation that it’s ok for me to talk about daily earnings figures but not CTR, impressions etc. The reason I want to talk about this is simply because I really believe in this ad system – as you’ll see from the figures below – it’s had a pretty amazing impact upon my earnings and I’d like readers here to have the full picture of what the potential to earn money with it is.

So let’s look at yesterday’s earnings for me with both Adsense and Chitika were. Update: due to Adsense terms (that I misread) I have been told that I cannot reveal my daily Adsense figures but only gross payment figures (monthly totals). So I’ll do that here instead of a daily figure for yesterday. You can pretty much work out what the Adsense earnings are from the figure if you know how many days are in August! All I’ll say is that yesterday was a bit under August’s average.

Adsense earnings for August – $15,849.73

Chitika eMiniMalls earnings Yesterday – $702.45

Let me follow the figures up with a few statements of qualification:

* Yesterday Adsense was a little below average for me
* While I can’t mention how many impressions there were for either program – they were very similar to one another
* The Chitika eMiniMalls figure is before their auditing process takes effect. From what I’ve seen of this process last month – this is likely to decrease that figure by around 10% – update this turned out to be an accurate estimation of the audit figure for this day.
* The ads appear across a range of sites (17 or so – NOT just this site). In most cases they appear on the same pages as one another (remember that you need to disable the contextual ad function of the eMiniMalls to do this and stay within Adsense’s TOS
* The CTR for Adsense is significantly higher than it was for the eMiniMalls
* The click value for eMiniMalls is significantly higher than it was for Adsense
* From what I can tell from these results and those of readers who are trying eMiniMalls (Chitika is yet to add channels) – the best performing sites seem to be product related blogs including blogs about gadgets, clothing, etc. Having said this I’ve heard from a number of bloggers with VERY general, non product related sites that are doing reasonably well out of them also.
* These are not just one off or fluke numbers – I’ve had no major increases in traffic over the past few days – I have added the eMiniMalls to more pages in the past week – but the numbers seem to be consistent over the past few days. Time will tell whether they will remain at this level but I have no reason to believe that they will not.
* The above figures are in US dollars.

As you can see from the numbers – I personally have reason to be pretty excited about eMiniMalls. If these numbers continue they will more than double my daily earnings and taken them to a level that is over $1000 per day. This is less than some of the bigger blog networks out there but for an ordinary guy like me who has only been at this blogging thing for under 3 years – I have to say that it’s very promising. I can’t guarantee that they work on every blog – but they are definately worth experimenting with.

Disclaimer: the links to Chitika in this post are affiliate links – if you sign up using these links I earn a small amount as a commission. It does not impact what you earn from Chitika but rather is paid by Chitika. While these links are affiliate links I genuinely believe in the product and have endeavored to point out both its benefits and weaknesses in all my writing about it.

Here’s What You Should Do to Improve Your Blog Today

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Earlier in the week I was asked this question – what is one thing that I can do tomorrow morning when I sit down at my desk that will improve my blog?

My answer was this:

Identify a reader’s problem (or that of a potential reader) and produce a post that will solve it.

I’ve covered some of how to identify readers problems in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook (day 16) but this has been such an important part of my own blogging that I want to emphasise it again here.

Ultimately if you are solving someone’s problem you’re doing something that creates an impression and when you do that you do a number of things including:

* increasing the chances that they’ll come back and become a loyal reader
* increasing their trust in you – which helps build authority, credibility and influence
* increasing the chances that they’ll tell someone else about you

I attempt to solve problems for readers on two main levels
Big Picture – What Problem is your BLOG solving?

I find it helpful to have a ‘big’ and overarching problem in mind as I start and then develop a blog. It helps keep me on track and is great for attracting new readers if you communicate it well.

For me on my photography blog the problem that I’m attempting to solve is that most people who own a camera are not using it to its potential. They take pictures that could be improve greatly with a little knowledge and so I want to give them more control over their cameras.
Small Picture – What Problem is your new POST solving?

With your big picture problem in mind you can now begin to break it down into smaller and more specific problems that your readers may have.

For me this means tackling problems like – taking blurry photos, not knowing how to take a decent social media profile picture, not knowing which DSLR to buy and not knowing the basic settings that most cameras have.

Some of these problems are more basic, common and general while others are more specific or advanced – but they all aim to help those who face the problems leave the blog better informed and equipped to solve the problem.

Ultimately this is all about being Useful. Of course being useful takes many forms and the problems that your readers might have could include a large list of things including some like:

* “I’m bored”
* “I want the latest news about….”
* “I want to learn how to….”
* “I want a laugh”
* “I am lonely”
* “I want to improve….”
* “I need a review of….”
* “I need advice about….”
* “I think I’m the only one with the problem of….”

The list goes on and on.
Here’s what to do Today

If you’re looking to improve your blog and you have a few minutes right now – start making a list of the types of problems your readers (or potential readers) have. (if you need help on identifying these problems check out the 31DBBB workbook (day 16) if you have a copy).

Once you’ve got your list of problems – select one and produce something (a blog post, a video, a podcast, a PDF report or even a tweet if its a small problem) and publish it.

Instant 50 ways to earn money online

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:59:00 +0000

I want to show people who are new to internet marketing or who are interested in making money online that there are lots of ways to make money online.

The options are limitless so you just need to find out what you think will be the most suitable way for you because everyone has different interests. I would recommend concentrating on a couple of these ways to make money... there are but so many hours in a day and the more rabbits you try to chase the less you may actually catch.

1. Write an info product for a well established niche, this is one of the easiest ways that i use to constantly make money online . If your info product has anything new or innovative then it should sell well. However, just don't write the ebook! Build a business. Gather visitors emails that comes to your site and offer them complimentary products through affiliate programs. Go ahead and offer upsells, and backends, and memberships for recurring income. If your just offering an ebook your leaving potential of thousands and thousands of dollars right on the dinner table, don't think of it as “YES! I made a sale,”think of it as a real business and increasing the amount of profits you make per sale.

2. Start your own online country, that’s right. What I mean by this is basically your own unique online community that is catered towards a group of people that allows them to share content and information with each other. Look at myspace, facebook, and youtube. Million and Billion dollar ideas in just a couple of years.

3. Build your virtual real estate. I'm not too much of a adsense site type of guy, im into building businesses instead, i prefer making social networking sites that will gather people's attention... and a good way to go about this is make it FREE, thats the magic word. Once you get people to register to your site you can then allow them to share it with their friends which will help make your site grow bigger. If your website is getting traffic then you can monetize off this with adsense or by selling advertising which can be a killer money maker by you literally doing nothing.

4. Help a friend get a job. Its funny while you’re out to start working for yourself, you are out to know help connect people you know with better jobs. Many people are looking for jobs, just take for instance craigslist one of the most populated websites in the world has a large section for connecting employers and job seekers. Also, monster.com is also a huge network for connecting employers with job seekers as well. If you can help connect someone then the rewards could be huge, as big as in the 1000 range, not really no chicken change.

5. Advertise and sell other people's products from your website which is known as affiliate marketing which is such a hot field because people are looking for ways to make money online without having their own product, and this is one that you can accomplish this. Some affiliate networks to check are commission junction, Amazon, and linkshare. The popular one for selling digital product is clickbank.

6. Sell yourself . Now, don't get it the wrong way. There are some sites online known as freelance services in which web masters or companies will pay you money if you do certain tasks for them. If you can build websites, program, or do any other technical skills then join these sites.

7. Write. This is something that anyone can do and there are no technical skills required except being able to use the computer and research. Look for writing jobs on freelance services. It will help to have a portfolio of some of your writings in order to help increase your chances of getting chosen.

8. Do you take pictures? You can sell linceneses to web masters or individuals to use the photos that you take and you can usually charge a good amount for these as well.

9. Assist businesses. Yes, businesses and web masters always need help and you can help them with everyday tasks by becoming their virtual assistant.

10. Know something about a subject and love to talk? Well, you will love blogging. Blog about the topic and write in a manner that attracts people. You can monetize your site with adsense, sell affiliate programs,sell advertising, you name it. www.blogger.com is a free blogging software.

11. Don't know a thing? No worries you are not alone, but that shouldn't stop you from blogging as it doesn't stop others, you can still make money just by blogging on topics that are interesting. You can blog about your everyday tasks, blog about your plans to lose weight, or blog about your plans to make money. Some marketers have started money making challenges such as the 30K challenge, or Willie Crawford's 1 million in 90 days challenge. These types of challenges can gather huge interests in people.

12. Fill a need. I own and frequent many forums and i have come to a conclusion that people love to complain. Thats great! Whatever they are complaining about provide them a solution, this equals more money in your wallet.

13. Make money by managing domain names. For example, domain name services like Sedo and Afternic gets paid just for regulating domain names. This can be nice steady income for having no products to sell yourself, or by not even selling other people's products... but just by being the middleman.

14. Buy and resell domain names for quick cash. I once purchased a domain name at the right time and then flipped it for $200. Domain name flipping takes some time to master like any other skill though.

15. Purchase a domain name, build up the pr (pagerank), gain backlinks, and then sell the domain name. If you can get a pr6 domain name then you should be able to sell this for a hundred or two on ebay.

16. If you can find a domain name that is keyword rich and is getting steady traffic then purchase it and park it and watch the money come in overtime.

17. Build a house and flip it. By this I mean purchase a domain name and build a website for it and then try and sell it for profit.

18. Get paid to post a forums. I would only recommend this if your looking for quick side cash because this is by no means a way to make a killing online. Some web masters will pay individuals to make posts at forums. Sometimes, an individual has a new forum up and running and want to get it active so they will pay individuals to post there under multiple usernames. Or, web masters could pay individuals to post on forums so that they can get more traffic to their website through signatures. Or, a webmaster could be the owner of a forum and pay forum users for each post they make in order to help them stay, and in order to help build up traffic.

19. Go ahead and try to start your own article directory, but you better do something to make it unique and beneficial to the article submitter. What’s going to make an individual submit to your article directory as opposed to ones that they are accustom to submitting to and “plus” get results with. The good news is most of the other article directories are doing pretty much the same exact thing that everyone else is doing, you just have to be that much different and find your unique positioning.

20. Learn the ins and outs about a large network and teach people how to use it effectively, become an expert in that field. For example, look at eBay. Even though it may be simple to use to the average Internet browser, there are still tons of people offline that has no idea about the INS or outs about it.This can be an easy way to make some extra money. Some offline services charge people a whopping sum of money just to sell their products for them on eBay, so that is something for you to think about.

21. Think of a crazy innovative idea thats newsworthy. Ever heard of the milliondollarhomepage http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com selling worthless links? Well, it got in the news and people swarmed to the site, proof that its not incredibly hard to make big money online.

22. Moderate forums, some forums get crazy traffic and some of them also get crazy amounts of spam that needs to be moderated...badly.

23. Make funny videos and then register for an account here http://www.thevideosense.com/ and post them.

24. If you are technical then offer support for software programs especially wordpress. People are always having issues with this software and there is money to be made by installing and customizing wordpress blogs.

25. If you like surfing the Internet then AGLOCO is a program that pays you for your browsing information (at the stake of your privacy though). You will need to download their tool bar into your desktop.

26. Sell tools and useful items to myspace users like templates, layouts, and backgrounds. Too many marketers try to spam this service which is against their tos, so just build real friends and sell themcheap items that they can use on myspace, easy money! Make money on myspace by selling users things that they can use while they are on myspace.

27. Write a newsletter and im talking about a real one. A list of subscribers is an incredible asset for your business because you can keep selling to those people over and over again but at least give some good content instead of only emailing when you have something to promote. You can promote your products as long as affiliates once you build trust with your subscribers.

28. Build your own forum. Thee are plenty of free scripts out there that will aid you in the process such as http://www.phpbb.com or http://www.simplemachines.org. This is an incredible way to monetize on giving something away for free. When people register they will enter their email and this is an unorthodox way to build a list. Not only that but you can build multiple streams of income by selling advertising as well as monetizing the forum with adsense.

29. Learn seo (search engine optimization), it can be very profitable for you in the long run. Web masters tend to be too busy and that is one reason why many do not get where they want, they cant manage their time too well. So, you can offer to get web masters links to their sites by writing and submitting articles to directories and even optimizing their pages for them.

30. Start selling on eBay, eBay is a goldmine. See what is currently selling hot here http://pulse.ebay.com/ and see if you can find any whole sellers with these items at an affordable rate. Make sure that you’re dealing with a reputable seller because there are many scams in this industry so beware.

31. Create an award website. Awards have been tested to increase the credibility of a website (which equals more money) so make a website with a fancy logo and offer it to web masters that meet your award's standards.

32. Make money online by researching and finding statistics, facts, or quotes for individuals that needs them.

33. Write articles. Some networks will give you money for how many view certain articles that you write get. Here is one such network: http://www.associatedcontent.com.

34. Learn the ins and outs of myspace, a lot of web masters are looking for people to do marketing for them on myspace and if you know about this network then you can make some money by offering your expertise.

35. Make money by referring individuals to paypal and eBay. Yes, these both have affiliate programs (doesn't pay much) but this could be an easy way to make money if you know people that are looking for ways to make money online.

36. Try using Co registration to generate some money online. What this means is that a company or service will pay you money when you can generate a lead for them. For example, you place a text banner on your site and once the individual clicks they will usually be sent to a form in which they can enter their personal information, and once they have done that you get paid for it. Its obvious that to get people to enter their “personal information” online you must have an incentive offer or copy, because people are fearful of spam (i am too). However, this shouldn't discourage you because this is very possible though.

37. Are you skilled at photoshop? I see a lot of talented individuals on online forums that be photo shopping images like crazy. You can seriously turn this skill into a business by start offering photo shopping services to web masters or individuals that are looking for such work.

38. If you can photoshop then try selling your images on ebay because you never know, some peoplecould very well purchase it. You never know if your images will become the next Internet phenomenon.

39. Are you knowledgeable in anything? Come on, i know you are smart in something everybody is good at least one thing. Well, what you could do is offer a inexpensive tutorial that teaches an individual how to learn the particular subject in an easy to follow manner.

40. Can you do screen printing for t shirts? Well, you are most likely an alternative to an online service www.cafepress.com. You can upload images of t shirts or what type of works you do at photo sharing services such as www.flickr.com.

41. Are you good at audio? You can get paid money to turn written text into audio or to turn audio into text (transcription).

42. Can you speak more then one language? Some companies or web masters may want text translated into more then one language.

43. Like software and scripts? Can you install these things? Webmasters who are not as technical may need your help, look around on freelance services to see who you can cater to.

44. This is to those who are always anxious to get money fast online. This is about the quickest way that I know to make money online. First, you join affiliate programs, and second you send traffic to your affiliate link through Google adwords. However, this takes some prior experience to master, such as being able to pick the appropriate keywords.

45. Can you code software? If so then you should code a software that will fix a much needed problem, there are many software coders selling their inventions online for good money.

46. Offer online tutoring. There are always people looking to learn something new and the Internet makes it not only easier for you to do so but also effective. Never before have there been such an easier way to communicate with individuals live from all the way across the globe. By having your own website on your own server, you will help make yourself stand out from the majority of your competition.

47. Like sports? Make a sports site of some sort and monetize it with one of the methods that i mentioned earlier. Golf is a very expensive sport which makes this a good niche to tap into.

48. Start a website that relies 100% on backends. This is an easy way to make money and to also get individuals to sign up to your website. Just look at eBay, and paypal. Both websites are FREE to join and sign up but there are many hidden fees. It costs every time you receive money through paypal, and it costs every time you sell something on eBay, it relies 100% on backend sells a nice and effective business structure.

49.Try network marketing. One of the fastest ways that an individual can grow their business is by leveraging the resources of others and a lot of beginning online business owners are always looking for other web masters to partner with. If you can help broker or bring webmasters together, then this may be a profitable business for you in the end. You could charge money for each connection that is made.

50. Online dating is a popular niche and there are many affiliate programs that pay you for each lead that you give them which can be some easy money if you know a lot of people. Or, if you have a unique idea you can go about forming your own dating site.

Get instant backlinks that will get your site S.E.O in 24 hrs

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:11:00 +0000

The sites below will give you instant backlinks. All you need to do it to replace yourdomain.com with yout own domain. and the will also give you instant ranking.

This is good for new websites and older websites but older websites may already have these instant backlinks. Also this will work only for your domain homepage and not for subpages.

http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.yourdomain.com

http://www.statbrain.com/www.yourdomain.com

http://www.builtwith.com/?yourdomain.com

http://snapshot.compete.com/yourdomain.com

http://www.aboutus.org/yourdomain.com

http://www.quantcast.com/yourdomain.com

http://www.cubestat.com/www.yourdomain.com

http://whois.tools4noobs.com/info/yourdomain.com

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yourdomain.com

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=yourdomain.com

http://www.siteadvisor.cn/sites/yourdomain.com/summary/

http://whois.domaintools.com/yourdomain.com

http://www.aboutdomain.org/backlinks/yourdomain.com/

http://www.whoisya.com/yourdomain.com

http://www.who.is/whois-com/yourdomain.com

http://www.robtex.com/dns/yourdomain.com.html

http://www.zimbio.com/search?q=yourdomain.com&btnG=Search

http://whois.ws/whois-info/ip-address/yourdomain.com/

http://whoisx.co.uk/yourdomain.com

http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referrals/yourdomain.com

These back links are highly ranked.

Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:21:00 +0000

Early in 2009 we simplified the process for monetizing your blog by adding a “Monetize” tab in the Blogger app. We started with AdSense, which allows you to add contextual advertising to your pages; more recently we added AdSense for Feeds to help you generate revenue from the distribution of your blog via RSS and Atom. Today we launched a third option: direct integration with Amazon Associates to search Amazon’s product catalog and add links to products that earn you commissions when your readers buy products you recommend.

With this feature, you can search Amazon directly from the Blogger editor and add pictures and links to Amazon products right into your posts. Your readers will earn you commissions whenever they buy the products you recommend, and if you don’t already have an Amazon Associates account, you can sign up for one for free without leaving Blogger.

If you’ve ever written a blog post about a book, recommended a gadget, or reviewed a toy you bought for your kids, you’ve likely gone through the process of drafting the post, opening up a separate window to go to find a site that sells the product, then going back to Blogger to paste the link to the product into the post editor.

Starting today, you can search the Amazon product catalog without leaving the Blogger interface and insert links to the products you find into your posts. Not only is the process of linking to products more efficient, but Amazon makes it easy for you to earn money whenever your readers actually buy the products you write about. This is known as an “affiliate program”, and it’s designed to let you recommend products you like to your audience — if they buy the product, you’ll earn a commission on that purchase. (For more on affiliate programs in general, here is a good overview at ProBlogger from this summer, and Darren’s “11 Lessons Learned” post about Amazon Associates is a good review of how to get the most out of the program.)

To get started, click on the Monetize tab for your blog and click “Amazon Associates”. Walk through the setup wizard, and add the Product Finder once you’re done.

Now for the fun part: when you are writing a post on Blogger, you’ll see an Amazon gadget to the right of your post editor (the “Product Finder”). You can search the Amazon product catalog from within Blogger — type in the name of the product you are writing about, and insert a link to the product, an image of the product, or an iframe containing the image, price details and a “buy it now” button. Every link that’s created contains your unique Associates ID, ensuring that Amazon will credit you for any purchases that result from readers clicking the link on your blog.

Make Money Online - Tips On Creating An Interesting Blog To Attract More Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:33:00 +0000

With the presence of blogging in the internet, it has fast becoming a great tool where one can make use of to make money online. With a little creativity and applying some tricks and techniques, you can now start to make your blog an interesting one and attracting loads of visitors. Once you have these loads of traffic to your blog, you can then start to make money. So what is a good blog and how can you make your blog interesting enough to make people want to revisit your blog all over again? Read on to learn more.

How To Attract More Visitors To Your Blog

Attracting more people to visit your blog is pretty much like marketing in itself. First of all, you need to know what your readers will want to read and know about. With this in mind, you then have to respond to their needs to give them a reason to visit your blog for the first time. Even after managing to get them to visit your blog, it does not necessarily mean they’ll stay with you. Imagine with the tons of blogs out there in the internet, your visitors can easily just go on to the next one and totally forget about yours. This is the time where creativity comes into play in order to keep them coming back. It is only when you have built a loyal base of readers to your blog, then only you will truly be successful and can make money off it.

Knowing The Needs Of Your Readers

Before you can start making any money from your websites, you need to have lots of people to visit your site. This also hold true for blogs created. On the other hand, you have to ensure that the contents in your blogs are interesting in order to keep your visitors coming back. So, with this in mind, you have to know that creating a successful blog is like creating an answer to a need, and of course, you need to know what those needs are first.

Naturally, you can ask them through a survey you created. Try to keep it short and brief and only stick to questions that are relevant but fairly easy to answer. If the survey takes too much time to answer, people might not want to answer. Basically, the trick here is to phrase your questions carefully such that you are able to get real and useful information out of them. Once you have managed to get what your readers want, you can then select which one you can use as the main topic for your blog. Probably it is a good idea that you should choose to write something you’re pretty knowledgeable about, or else you won’t have much to share that would be of interest to others. Also, try to ensure that your blog has one main topic around which your posts will revolve, in order to help you build a community of readers.

Update Your Blog and Have Fresh Contents Regularly

After having decided on a topic of your expertise for your blog, you can then start to write your posts. Whenever you have some spare time and have a topic in mind, do not hesitate to write down spare posts so that you can easily update your blog at a later time when you are not busy with any of your daily activities. If your blog does not have much updates, readers may notice it and might stop visiting your site again. They will probably think that they have nothing new to read anyway.

So, the key to a successful blog to hold your visitors basically lies in the content of your blog. As time passes, if your blogs is not updated regularly, visitors’ interest may fade, especially if they don’t learn or see anything new and entertaining on your blog.

What Should You Do To Hold Your Readers

Do not worry even when you have reached this point. Give yourself a chance to make something big out of your blog. Not to mention, making money out of it. Keep in mind that all it takes is a bit of ingenuity to make them come back for more. Try to be more innovative. Come up with new and exciting treats for your readers like posting pictures and launching online games. Instead of being a passive reader, you can also ask your readers to be part of your blog by participating in it. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try out different things which you think you will be able to build a community of readers that can be additionally attracting for new visitors and for old readers as well.

Advertising Your Blogs

Do not underestimate the power of online communities and social networks if you want to make money out of your blog, As in the actual world we live in, word of mouth also plays an important role online. Yes, advertising online is something which you cannot give it a miss if you want to make money online and be successful. But at the end of the day, the key to success as a blogger lies in your readers. They are the one who can spread the word and give good reviews about your blog. If your blog is really good and interesting, they are also the one who can ask others to check out your site. So, the more people you get talking about your blog, the more chances you have to make money out of it.

Want To Make Money Online? Start Blogging

Thinking of setting up your own blog? Do not hesitate and go ahead. It definitely pays to blog. If you want to be successful in blogging, take note of all the things mentioned above because they will surely be helpful to you as a blogger and to make money out of blogging. To learn more on how to make money with your blog, click on this link How To Make Money Easily With Your Blogs now. Good luck and be successful in blogging.

How do bloggers make money from blogs?

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:00 +0000

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Income Streams for Bloggers – How to Make Money Blogging

Advertising Programs – Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google – Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.

Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).

Lastly there’s BlogAds – one of the first blog specific ad networks.

RSS Advertising – The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point – but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship – In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month – one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases – as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies – either in one off or a regular fashion – and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.

Affiliate Programs – There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets – Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future – in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.

Blog Network Opportunities – with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks – bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging – by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks – there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself – blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities – as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties – but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities – Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors – this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations – Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs – Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ – or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising – My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising – quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales – especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details – but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking – While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work – his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago – but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.

by Darren Rowse www.problogger.net

making money because of your blog's Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:21:00 +0000

We now turn our attention to ways of making money from blogging that are more more ‘indirect’ in nature – or how to earn money because of your blog rather than from it.

Many of the following methods are the result of the profile and perceived expertise of the blogger themselves (whereas many of the direct methods mentioned previously are less reliant upon this).

Building a profile as a blogger doesn’t happen quickly and starting a blog with some of these hopes should be seen as a long term thing. My own experience in this area is that now after 18 months of blogging here at ProBlogger that it’s only been in the last few months that I’ve had opportunities open in most of these areas.

Consulting – when you are perceived as an expert on a topic you will find that people naturally come to you for advice – some of them willing to pay for it. Some niches are probably better positioned than others for their bloggers to get into paid consultancy work of course. I spoke with one blogger recently (blogging in a business/technology field) who was able to charge himself out at $600 per hour to give advice to a large company. Interestingly I’ve heard of a number of companies in the last 6 months who are developing VOIP services that bloggers will be able to add to their sidebars to enable them to be called by readers for consulting. The systems would have per minute rate on them to automate this consulting process.

Employment Opportunities – Just this last week PR blogger Steve Rubel announced that he’d been hired by a bigger PR firm. While he didn’t say it explicitly in his post I suspect that one of the reasons for him landing the job was the profile he’d built over the last year and a half from blogging. Steve’s case is not the only one – bloggers are increasingly being targeted by companies because of their demonstrated abilities in their field of expertise.
Business Blogging – Similarly there are some businesses who employ people to blog for them either as their main role or part of their role. One example of a company who employed a couple of bloggers was Vespa who now have two blogs. BloggerJobs is one site worth following if you’re looking for these types of jobs. Most of the jobs there are from blog networks but occasionally they include businesses looking for bloggers also.
Book Deals – Some days as I read through the RSS feeds that I follow it seems that every blogger I read has a book either in progress or coming out. Once again it’s about being seen as an expert in your field – if you can achieve this you will find publishers are more receptive to having an idea pitched to them and at times will even seek you out. This is becoming more and more common with publishers as they are seeing not only some great writers but that many of them already have large amounts of content on their blogs ready to be pulled together into a book!
Offline Writing Gigs – Manolo from Shooeblogs recently landed a writing gig in the Washington Post Express after he was discovered via his blog. These types of opportunities can be in the form of newspapers, magazines, trade publications etc.
Online Writing Gigs – Similarly some bloggers also land jobs writing for other forms of websites as a result of being discovered from their blogs.
Selling e-resources – I wasn’t sure whether to classify this as direct or indirect (and depending upon how you do it you could probably go either way) but some bloggers are leveraging the expertise they have in an area by putting together their own ‘e-products’ such as e-books, tele-seminars, courses etc and selling them to their readers.
Business Partnerships – One of the benefits of blogging about a niche topic that interests you is that you will begin to connect with others who have similar interests and expertise. As you interact with them it’s amazing to see the opportunities for working together that arise.
Speaking Opportunities – Once again this is dependent upon the topic you’re writing about but some lucky bloggers end up with all kinds of opportunities to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars on their topic of choice. Sometimes they are freebies, other times the conference will cover costs and on other occasions there are speakers fees.

If you’re planning to use some of these indirect ways of making money because of your blog it’s important that you think seriously about building your own profile and credibility as a blogger. Think about the types of people that you respect and look to as experts an consider what they offer in their fields.

These people are generally original thinkers that not only report what others are doing, but who provide answers and vision for their industry. They are also often well networked and have the ability to draw others along with them.

What does this mean for your blog? Here’s where I’d start:

provide useful content that shows an understanding of your niche.
network within your niche. Work on being connected with other key players (big and small).
use your blog not only to report and rehash news but to also show initiative in proposing solutions. Be proactive in your blogging and lead the conversation rather than just react to it.

Easy steps to write and publish a fre E-book

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:12:00 +0000

There’s never enough time. In an ideal world, you’d be posting to your blog frequently, writing great guest posts, building relationships with other bloggers, and responding to every single comment … and all that’s more than you can manage. You might have considered writing an ebook as a companion to your blog, but you just can’t find the time or the energy for it.

You already know all the reasons to do it: you’ve downloaded your share of free ebooks from other blogs, and you’ve seen that:

Free ebooks can be used as what Sonia Simone calls “cookie content”, to entice newsletter sign-ups
Free ebooks can be a great traffic draw: they get twittered about and linked to
Just having a free ebook available on your site will subtly shift readers’ perceptions: they’ll see you as one of the “big guys” of the blogging world

But, of course, an ebook is harder to create than a blog post. A 25-page ebook is 4,000 words or more; you have to edit and proof-read carefully (once people are emailing that ebook to one another, you can’t fix that embarrassing typo or broken link); you’ll need PDF and ebook cover software if you want it to look professional; you have to launch it with a bang…

Writing an ebook isn’t an easy undertaking, and it’s something a lot of bloggers never do. That’s why, if you do write a high-quality free ebook, you’re going to stand out.

Here’s how I wrote, published and launched my free ebook in just thirteen hours and how you could do the same. My time broke down like this:

Writing an outline: 30 minutes
First draft of content: 4 hours
Adding some graphics: 1 hour 30 mins (mostly my boyfriend’s work!)
Redrafting and editing, inserting all links: 3 hours
Appendix of resources: 1 hour
Creating a cover: 1 hour 30 mins
Converting to pdf: almost instant!
Final proof-read and link-checking: 15 minutes
Launching and spreading the word: 1 hour 15 minutes

I spread the tasks above across four days: I’m a freelancer so my schedule’s quite flexible, but I do have to do a bit of paying work once in a while!

And here’s your 13-step guide to doing the same:

Step 1: Get an Idea

You need a clear concept for your ebook. An ebook isn’t a blog post – but it’s not a blog either: don’t make it a general overview of your niche (especially if it’s quite broad). Pick one category from your blog, or a topic which would make a series of blog posts.

I’d wanted to create a free ebook for a while, but it was one of those things I thought I’d get around to “when I have a bit more time”. Then I came up with an idea for a mini-series of two linked posts (Reframing Work #1: Ditching Drudgery and the Conventional View of “Work” and Reframing Work #2: Min Hours, Max Cash – or Do What You Love?) which would lead very naturally to the ebook (Quit Your Day Job). I decided I was going to go ahead and launch it, a week after the first post in the series. This led to…

Step 2: Tell Your Readers

Tell your readers that you’ll be bringing out a free ebook in a week or two weeks’ time. It’s amazing how a deadline – and public accountability – can motivate you!

You might want to make the announcement in a post, on Twitter, or to your newsletter list. Communicate a sense of excitement: tell readers you have a “treat” or “goodies” coming up. This is part of the pre-launch process of getting a buzz going. I personally find the word “freebie” can have a bit of a connotation of something cheap and rubbishy – but you might think differently!

Step 3: Write the Outline

If you write long blog posts, you might already be in the habit of outlining before you begin. With an ebook, this is crucial: you don’t want to write for hours only to find you’ve wandered far off-topic. Neither do you want to sit staring at a blank screen, wondering what you’re going to say next.

Open up a blank document or sit down with a piece of paper and write an outline before you go any further with your ebook. Everyone has different ways of doing this, but one which works well for me is:

Spend five minutes mind-mapping: write down your ebook’s title or theme in the centre of a piece of paper, then jot down all the points that come to mind
Eliminate any points which are too broad for the ebook’s scope. Order the rest in a logical sequence (I just jot a number next to each)
Type or write out the list in order. These are your subsections or chapters in the ebook.
Jot down at least two bullet points for each section, or a couple of sentences: these are the main points you’re going to make. Sometimes, you’ll want subheadings within each section.
If you think of a great idea for a graphic, or a resource (book, blog, etc) to recommend, write that down here too.

It might sound complicated, but if you sit down for an uninterrupted half-hour, you can easily get a complete outline written.

Once you’ve got a list of sections and subsections, think about roughly how long each will need to be. Aim for a total of around 4,000 words: this is about right for a 25-page ebook set in a large font: I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

Step 4: Draft the Content

This step is the one which many bloggers find daunting – writing enough words to fill an ebook. If it seems overwhelming, try thinking about your ebook as a series of linked blog posts (with each subheading starting off a new post). Your outline really helps here, because it breaks writing your ebook into manageable chunks.

And these four tips should help too:

First: Get Rid of Distractions

It’s crucial that you avoid distractions while you’re writing. That means keeping away from emails, Twitter and Facebook till you’re done. You don’t need to write the whole ebook in one go – but try to give yourself a block of at least two hours to work on it, or set yourself the goal of drafting a certain number of sections.

If your family or housemates are likely to interrupt you, try heading off to a coffee shop or library for a few hours.

If you find it hard to concentrate, try using a full screen text program (I like Dark Room), or switch off your internet connection!

Second: Don’t Edit As You Write

This is your first draft, so forget any worries about the quality of your writing. Don’t keep editing sentences to try to make them perfect – just move on. You can come back and rewrite later: your current task is simply to get a complete draft down.

Third: Don’t Stop to Look Things Up

Don’t stop to look up links, quotes or statistics that you want to include. Just make a note to yourself in the body of the text. I tend to enclose these in square brackets [like this]. Stopping part-way through a paragraph or sentence breaks your flow … and it’s very easy to start looking up one quote and get distracted!

Fourth: Don’t Format While Drafting

Your finished ebook is going to be a visual masterpiece, with a cover page, section headings, subsection headings, bold text, italic text, lists, maybe tables and specially-formatted blockquotes…

Your first draft, however, should have few or none of these. It’s easy to get distracted with formatting, and it’s also inefficient to format before all the text’s written – you’ll find yourself changing a lot of things around.

Keep your formatting to a bare minimum while you’re drafting. You might find it useful to format headers and subheaders (make sure you know how to use styles in Word – don’t edit each header separately) – but the rest can wait.

Step 5: Add Any Graphics

Once the draft is complete, add any graphics that you want to include in your ebook. The type of graphics you use will depend on the topic of your ebook, but you might want to consider:

Charts to show statistics in a visual, instant way
Diagrams to explain complex concepts
Illustrations or photographs to complement the text
Small graphics to highlight tips, warnings or quotes

Don’t make the mistake of just using pictures to break up the text. If you use a large font size and use design elements well (just as you would in a blog post), then you don’t need to stuff your ebook with pictures. Graphics used for the sake of it don’t add much to the reading experience, and finding or creating suitable images can use up a lot of your time.

When you’re looking for graphics, be mindful of copyright laws. If you’re using images from Flickr licensed under Creative Commons, make sure you credit and link to the owner in the ebook. If you have a small budget for the ebook, you might consider buying stock photos from istockphoto or fotolia.

You should get your graphics in place at this stage because you may want to change around some of the text to explain or to tie in with the images you’ve chosen.

Step 6: Redraft and Edit Your Text

You’ve got your first draft done – the hardest part’s over. Now it’s time to revise, edit and polish your ebook until it shines!

As with the first draft, you need to find some uninterrupted time and space for this: it’s all too easy to make mistakes or forget to remove those “[notes to self]” when you’re getting interrupted.

It also helps if you follow a step-by-step method, working on one aspect of the redrafting and editing throughout the whole document, rather than trying to perfect each page as you go along.

My process for redrafting and editing is as follows:

Edit for Structure
Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links
Edit for Flow and Tone

First: Edit for Structure

Your first round of edits deal with the “big picture”: making sure that your chapters or sections are in the right order and cover all the points you wanted to make. Start at page one and read, fairly quickly, through the whole ebook. Look out for:

Sections which would work better in a different order
Places where you’ve repeated yourself in two different sections
Sections which are too short (you may need to expand and give more detail)
Sections which are too long (cut any waffle!)

Second: Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links

Once you’ve got the broad structure right, you can decide where best to enter quotes and examples. This will depend on the format of your ebook, but some things you may want to consider are:

Using an example, quote, tips box or case study to break up a long section of text
Creating a pattern: eg. opening or ending each section with a quote or case study
Putting all the links at the end of each sections for easy reference (even if you also link in the body of the text)

You may find that you need to move around a few sentences or paragraphs in order to make the quote, example or case study work well.

Third: Edit for Flow and Tone

Rewrite any sentences which sound clumsy or which are ambiguous. You might like to try reading your ebook aloud: this often highlights any over-long or complicated sentences!

This is also a good point to check that you’ve used a consistent tone of voice throughout your ebook. Did you start off chatty but then drop into a more formal style? If you’re not a naturally humorous writer, make sure that any jokes or puns you’ve included really are funny.

Step 7: Format Your Ebook

Now that the text is complete, go through and get everything into the right format. Set all your headers and subheaders, making sure that you use the “Styles and Formatting” feature of Word (or your chosen word processing program). Don’t set the font size and style each heading manually. It’s not only inefficient, it stops you making an automatic table of contents – more on that in a moment!

(You might want to read up on Styles and Formatting, if you’re not sure how to use this feature.)

Choose a modern, easy-to-read font for your text and for your headings. Make both text and headings quite large – bigger than you’d use in a document for work or school. As I mentioned in Step 3, I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

As well as formatting your section headings, you’ll also want to use some of the formatting options that you’re familiar with from blogging. This might include:

Using bold to emphasise key points, and italics for emphasised words
Setting out quotes in a different style (eg. indented, or in a box) from the main text
Using a magazine-style “pull box” for quick tips
Breaking some paragraphs into lists, to help keep the reader’s attention

You’ll also want to put a header or footer on each page with, at the very least, the page number. Consider including the title of the ebook in the header/footer on each page (in case readers print it out). You could also put your name, your copyright notice, or the URL of your blog.

Note that if you’re including a cover (and I recommend that you do), you can tell Word to use a different header and footer on the first page.

Step 8: Add a Table of Contents and Appendix

An easy way to make your ebook instantly stand out from the crowd is to add a table of contents and/or an appendix. Professional ebooks (and paper books!) have these – so why shouldn’t yours?

If you’ve used Word’s Styles and Formatting feature to set up your headers, it’s really easy to add a table of contents. Just insert a new page at the start of your ebook, and (in Word 2007), go to the “References” tab, then click “Table of Contents” on the far left.

Word will automatically lay out the table with the headings, subheadings and page numbers. If you change the ebook after creating the table of contents, simply right-click on it and “update”. This is the table of contents from my ebook:

Appendix

In my ebook, I wanted to supply some ideas for further reading at the end. These didn’t fit with the body of the text, so I created an appendix.

Depending on your ebook’s subject, your appendix could be:

A quick tutorial on something which some of your readers will understand but others won’t (you don’t want to put this in the middle of your ebook as those who “get it” will start skipping)
A list of recommended resources, like websites, blogs, books, products, services…
A “cheat sheet” for readers to print out – popular in technical fields
A list of notes and references for each section – often in more scientific books

Creating an appendix is simply a matter of starting a new page and putting the header “Appendix” (or, if you want multiple appendices, “Appendix 1”, “Appendix 2” etc.)

Step 9: Create Your Front Cover – And a Graphic

All the hard work of writing and formatting the text is done: here’s the fun part – creating your ebook cover!

I’d recommend spending a couple of dollars when creating your cover. Look through istockphoto or fotolia for a great, eye-catching image. Ideally, you want something without too much detail (as you’ll be using a thumbnail of the cover pic on your blog, to advertise the ebook).

I’m no designer, and it took me some time to make a cover that didn’t look hopelessly amateur! You might want to enlist a friend with a good eye for design, though some quick tips are:

Use a big, clear font for the title of your ebook
Consider having a subtitle or strapline in a smaller font
Stick to just two or three colours
Come up with a few designs or layouts and pick the one you like best

Once you’ve put your cover in as the first page as your ebook, take a screenshot and save it as a .jpg. If you can afford to spend a bit more (currently $27), I highly recommend a piece of software called eCover Software Pro, which I’ve reviewed here. It allows you to “drop” that image onto a book-shaped template, so that it looks something like this:

It’s very straightforward and intuitive to use, and it’s a powerful way to send readers the signal that you’re a serious problogger.

Step 10: Convert Your Ebook to a PDF

When I first started creating ebooks, I tried out a lot of different free options for turning Word documents into PDF files. The problem was, they didn’t keep links unless the links were written out as a full URL – so www.musanahim.wordpress.com would remain as a link, but musanahim wouldn’t! This also meant that they didn’t keep in the links that “jump” the reader from the contents page to the entry that they’ve clicked on.

A few months ago, I bought version 8 of Adobe’s Acrobat software – which cost over $100. I realised that spending hours trying to put the links back in manually each time would cost me a lot more, in the long term. It is a big outlay when you’re starting out as a ProBlogger, so I’d recommend doing what I did – look on ebay for a slightly older version of Adobe (as I write this, 9 is the current version, so look for 8 or 7). This will be just as good for your purposes, and will cost a bit less than the latest.

You could also see if your workplace or college has Adobe Acrobat. Or ask on Twitter to see if a willing friend can convert it for you!

The best free option I’ve used was pdf995, so if all else fails, give that a try!

Note: If you have Word 2007, you can use the “Publish as PDF” feature. I’ve not used this myself (since I have Adobe Acrobat) so I can’t vouch for how good it is or whether it will include all links. If anyone knows, do tell us in the comments!

Step 11: Final Proof-Read and Link Check

Once you’ve got your PDF file, go through and do one last check for typos. Try not to get tempted to do much editing at this stage … you could carry on tweaking for ever. Just check for anything that’s obviously wrong.

This is a good point to double-check that all the links are working – just in case anything hasn’t converted properly, or in case you put a link in wrong.

Step 12: Publish and Publicise

Publishing the ebook on your blog is easy, compared with all the work of creating it! You can either upload it using your blog software’s “upload” function (go to Media->Add New in Wordpress), or you can use an FTP program to do so.

Create a new post telling people about your ebook, using the cover image that you created (either with eCover Software Pro or as a “flat” looking image).

Then get the word out! Tweet about it, ask for retweets, send emails to blogger friends – though do make sure your ebook will be on-topic for their blog. You might even consider writing a letter to any one to send to your local paper.

I decided to run a competition in connection with the free ebook launch, which helped to gather retweets and a bit of a “buzz”.

Top 7 Reasons Why Many Entrepreneurs Fail Online:

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:53:00 +0000

by www.musanahim.wordpress.com

1) Experience: Many people coming to market online are jumping in with great expectations having ‘heard’ of the Internet gold rush. Entrepreneurs have this notion that is would be a ‘piece of cake’ to earn on the Internet because it is swarming with people all in one place. The main drawback here is most of these potential entrepreneurs have little or no business experience. Selling is an art. Getting people to buy from you requires technique. Most are lacking in this expertise so the learning curve can be steep.

2) Mindset: ‘I want to make money’ may be a good mantra to say everyday, but it does call for a lot more than chanting a mantra to make money online. A good portion of enterprising entrepreneurs jumping onboard the Internet wagon is not quite sure what to expect. Establishing and keeping the right daily mindset to win in business does take some planning, preparation and shedding of some emotional baggage, which many carry around.

3) Due Diligence: A common error in online business is folks do not do their due diligence when it comes to choosing a business. If you have an existing offline business, which you are working on getting online, to expand your market reach, then you would have done some groundwork already on your business niche. However, many aspiring entrepreneurs neglect to do the necessary due diligence and struggle to churn a profit after making bad decisions.

4) Understanding Your Niche: Niche marketing has been the talk on the Internet for quite sometime, but that’s what it’s been, talk. Many marketers still struggle with this concept of niche marketing. Marketing to a small targeted group of people, which is the core concept of niche marketing, can appear ridiculous to most marketers who came online to market because there’s the ‘whole internet’ to market to! What a ‘crock’ it seems to just market to a small group! And then there’s the struggle to choose a profitable niche, which can be quite eluding.

5) The Internet Machine: The notion of marketing on the Internet and making money just hitting keys on your keyboard, and earning overnight even while you sleep can be really ‘sexy’ and luring for many who want to make a profit online. The key here is that the Internet is a huge monster of a machine and the majority of entrepreneurs do not understand the mechanism. As such, marketing for profits is more of a hit and miss event than calculated, marketing tactics to generate profits for many Internet entrepreneurs.

6) Advertising: No other media provides more misleading advertising than the Internet. Every day thousands fall prey to well written ads which promise ‘big profits with little effort’ only to realize that building a business online seems to be more work than anticipated. By now you would think most have given up on the ‘get rich quick’ schemes. Not so! People are still looking to make big money and do little or no work. And there are plenty of marketers supplying this gimmick. If that’s what you are looking for, you’d better have some money to burn, before you will ever find the right business niche, business model or business tools to give you the winning edge online.

7) Noise: The Internet is a big buzz of noise. Many, many things happening at the same time. And it can be a very confusing, frustrating place to be once the novelty dies down and you get to thinking. Hordes of people are talking at the same time. Everyone seems to be making money except you; or at least that’s what they say. There are more business opportunities than you can count so how do you choose. Many claim they have the ‘system’ to make you money fast if you can part with some of your hard earned dollars to get started. And the list goes on… Many get lost in the noise for years without making profits in business.

The above are only a few highlights as time and space permits here. Making money, running a profitable business online and building wealth are all very possible on the Internet. That I know for sure.

The real struggle for most aspiring entrepreneurs is to get through the online clutter and recognize that churning a profit online does require a few critical ingredients:

Choosing a profitable niche
Matching with products that are in demand
Understand and master marketing on the Internet
Systematically apply cutting edge marketing tactics to continuously churn a profit

In addition be flexible enough to adapt to a changing and evolving market place called the World Wide Web!

5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 Hours

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:33:00 +0000

We all know that content is king and that if you keep blogging… if you keep doing what you love… the traffic and the money will follow suit. While that’s partially true, there is also things that you can do to:

Index your newly launched blog fast by major Search Engines
Increase traffic to your blog
Improve your SERPs (Search Engine Result Positions)

Why wait right? Content can be king but waiting around for traffic to come by itself is not a good way to start blogging. So let’s start…

Getting Indexed

Let’s say you launched a blog today and want it on Google’s results tomorrow. Can this be done? Yes.

Easiest way to get indexed by major Search Engines is to get mentioned by established blogs. This usually will get your blog indexed within 24 hours. But since we are new (i.e the newly launched blog of ours) I don’t think any blogger want to mention it. So instead of begging other bloggers to notice your newly launched blog, you just have to figure out other ways of getting indexed by Google fast. Can it be done? Absolutely! (All it takes a little effort on your side).

1. Blog Communities

There are few blog related community portals that have a very good rankings in Google and other Major Search Engines Results, they are: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Blogged and NetworkedBlogs, particularly MyBlogLog. This means that if you get your blog on these blog communities, Google will have no other choice but to index your blog. So, go ahead and register for an account on these communities and list your blog on it. Once you are done you will have a special page.

What to pay attention: Your blog’s description (have a proper write-up), keywords & tags (add related keywords and tags to your listing, this will be used by other members to find your blog), branding (put your logo, avatars, screenshots etc. have a consistent branding everywhere), and list your blog in the correct category.

2. Site Valuation & Stats Sites

Some of those How Much Your Site Worth? sites have a good ranking in Search Engines. All you need to do is to go there and check how much your site worth. This would create a special page for your blog and consecutively it would be indexed by Google. Here is a list of worthy sites: WebsiteOutlook, StatBrain, CubeStat, WebTrafficAgents, BuiltWith, WhoIs, QuarkBase, URLfan and AboutTheDomain.

3. Feed Aggregators

List your blog’s feed in these feed aggregators Feed-Squirrel, OctoFinder, FeedAdage. Once you have submitted your feed to these sites, they will keep track of your newly published posts and index them in their site. Whenever someone clicks on the blog post title, he/she will be redirected to your original blog post sending you free traffic and getting your latest posts indexed by Google.

4. Social Sites

Registering account on Social Sites with the same username as your blog’s URL is very effective in getting your blog indexed by Search Engines. Especially for those targeted keywords.

For example, if your blog’s name is WhiteElephant, it’s a good practice to register the same username at twitter as @WhiteElephant, and to create a page in Facebook at www.facebook.com/WhiteElephant. Having a consistent keyword-username on all major Social Sites will help get your blog indexed faster, and at a later stage it will also help build a “brand” for your blog.

So, get account on major Social Sites for your newly launched blog, namely: Twitter, Facebook (create a page for your blog), Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious etc. By the way, it’s a good pratice to create a separate Social Sites account for each of your projects. This way you can stay focused and post messages that are related to your project. In the long run, this will help build a community that are like-minded around your project.

Note from Darren: it’s worth nothing that many social media sites (like Twitter) use no follow tags on links which means the links don’t really help with SEO. Having said this - it’s still worth getting pages for your keywords/brand as these pages can rank in and of themselves in Google and can help you to have control over numerous search results for the same keyword.

5. Misc Sites

Squidoo is a community website that allows people to create pages (called “lenses”) on various topics. Creating a topic that is related to your blog and then including your feed in that page would help your blog get indexed by Search Engines. Squidoo used to have a really good ranking in Google results, but not so much today. But it’s still ranks well and it shouldn’t be neglected.

ChangeDetection is a website that monitors sites for changes. When you monitor a particular site using ChangeDetection, it will ask you whether you want the notices to be public or private. If you say public, it will be published in their news section. For example; AdesBlog.com got an update today, type of update: text additions etc. This of course will get picked up by Search Engines and Search Engines in return will index your blog.

Technorati is a search engine for searching blogs. According to Wikipedia, as of June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. It’s a dying breed, but not just dead yet. You have to definitely register for an account and get your blog listed on Technorati.

That’s it. Once you are done with creating accounts and submitting your newly launched blog in the above mentioned sites, you should see your blog in Google’s Search Results within 24 hours. Most of the time it will appear within the next few hours only.

Lastly, getting indexed is one thing but sustaining that traffic is another. And this is where the Content is King phrase should truly be emphasized. Because, without a good and valuable content, all your effort will be just wasted.

I hope you have found this post useful.

Beware of Phishing Attack on Google Adsense accounts

noreply@blogger.com (Ezeh) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:38:00 +0000

With all of the talk about Adsense users finding their accounts disabled lately, users should be aware of a phishing scam playing on Adsense clients’ greatest fear: losing their account.

Today I received an email purporting to be from Google telling me my account was disabled. And frankly, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to falling for a phishing attempt. That’s partly do to circumstance and partly because the scam is fairly well done.

On the circumstance side, I had an unusually high number of clicks on one of my sites yesterday. It seemed to good to be true, so I was afraid something was amiss.

On the scam side, the phishers appear to have copied an actual email Google uses to inform users their accounts have been disabled. Or at least something very close. There’s no broken English. Here’s what it says:

Hello,

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense
account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since
keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our
advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the
interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We
realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance
for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve taken,
please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by
visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

The email came from adsense-adclicks-noreply@google.com, which apparently is a real Google email address that it uses to contact customers, at least according to a couple blog posts. (Surprisingly, Gmail didn’t warn me that the email was actually sent from someone other than the return address like it usually does. But it did put the message in my spam folder.)

But there are a few problems with the email. First, there’s no email address in the ‘to’ line. Second, it just addresses me as “hello”, rather than a name.