Turn Your Blog Into Money Making Machine

So You Want to be a Problogger?

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:50:00 +0000

Do you consider yourself a problogger? Do you have any tips to share in this matter? Daniel at Daily Blog Tips has put up ten points that every problogger should have. This includes:

Time
Expertise on a topic
Passion for the topic
Writing skills
Technical Knowledge
Blogging Knowledge
Web Design Skills
Business/Marketing Knowledge
Creativity and Innovative Ideas
Network of contacts

To the above list however, I believe time is one of the main issue specially for people (like me) that get into blogging while still having a full time job. It is really a tough job trying to make a fulltime income from blogging part time. Basically, you cannot really quit the job to blog full time if you are not making enough.

But who say’s we are here for an easy life? If we want to be a successful problogger then go work hard and smart. Remember, problogging takes time, time for you and for me to learn, perfect our skills, experience and enjoy.

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Blogging or Niche Blogging: What's the Difference?

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:18:00 +0000

What is better - to have one blog covering several topics or divide it and have a portfolio of blogs and focus each blog on one topic (niche blogging)?

As I surf the net, I found the common trend is on one subject per blog. At first I did not appreciate this idea. I did not see the difference in having one blog with several categories or several blogs covering each subject. But as I look closely on the issue I found some strong arguments for niche blogging strategy.

Running one blog with several categories is simpler in many ways. You will have to manage one design, one set of statistics, one set of readers and etc. But having separate statistics is definitely better and easier to track and analyze.

You can also ask yourself about your usual preference in surfing the net? Is your favorite blog having several subjects? If you are like me, my favorites are mostly focused niche blogs. I also noticed that the more topics cover the particular site the less likely I will put it in my favorites.

With niche blogging you will have a chance to develop loyal readership who bookmark or follow the blog via RSS because they know what they will be getting. As an author you will have more freedom to really focus upon a topic and don't feel uncomfortable that you do not pay attention to other topics - which will lead to increase in quality and depth of articles. Blogging on one topic can raise your credibility and profile. Your readers will perceive you as an expert on the topic or in an industry.

Revenue comes easily with focus blogging. Ad program like Adsense seem to work better on sites that are tightly focused. Search Engines like sites that are focused on one topic, that have multiple pages on the one theme and that are integrated sites. Niche blogs are usually more attractive to private advertisers or sponsors who are looking for content to place their ads on that is relevant to their product or service.

If you want to succeed blogging then blog with focus. Go for niche blogging.

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Problogging Success Guide Express in Images

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:44:00 +0000

Someone say picture speak a thousand words. This post content consist maily of images. I found them very informative and helpful to any blogger who wish to be successful.

Sources: http://blog-player.blogspot.com/

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Increase Your Traffic by Sending Your Traffic to Other Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 02:08:00 +0000

Am I kidding? Definitely no, in fact I am on my very right mind telling you this: If you want to have more traffic to your blog then sends your visitors to visit other blogs, websites and even to your competitor blogs.

You may be thinking that the above is the foolish thing to do but I am here telling you that this is at par with other effective blog traffic strategies.

If you blog about what your competitors are saying and if you place their links within your post then you are doing brilliant service to your readers. Readers will lover your blog more. It appears to them that your blog has more authority in the industry your blog belong.

The more you send people away to more valuable resources, the more valuable you become to your target audience and the more your readers will stick with you. Also, blogging about other bloggers position yourself to get your blog cited by them at some point. Thus, will increase your traffic coming from them.

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Great Bloggers Block Advice from a Prolific Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:32:00 +0000

Do you suffer bloggers block? Have you developed techniques on your own on how to battle against bloggers block? I am but found a great relief knowing that one of the most prolific writers on the web suffers the same. What is good about Darren Rowse is that, he developed his own way of battling bloggers block. Best of all, he even care to share it with others.

His twenty-five tips on battling bloggers block:

Change your Blogging Environment
Keep an idea Journal
Free Writing – Just Write
Read what other Bloggers are Saying
Combine Two Disconnected Ideas
Start with a Need
Take Questions
Flip an Idea
Collaborate with other Bloggers
Set a deadline
Take a Break
Stimulate your Mind
Find your Golden Hour
Comment on others Blogs
Read your Archives
Macro and Micro Posts
Write in a different voice
Change up your posting form – 20 Types of Blog Posts
Start writing the Middle of your Post
Short Posts
Side step Blogging Blockages
Mine your other Communications
Reward Yourself
Say it Out Loud
Mind Maps

He made a longer post on this one. But find time to read them because I found them very informative and useful. Check it out.

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Target .edu and .gov Sites for Backlinks

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:34:00 +0000

Dailyblogtips came up with nice tips on how to gather .edu and .gov backlinks. Their tips however, can be use to gather backlinks targeting any specific keywords not just for .edu and .gov sites. Whether your blog has relevant content or not with the site you wanted to have a backlink, their tips will work.

One thing I learned new from their post is that...

It is widely accepted that .edu and .gov backlinks carry a larger weight for search engine algorithms. Despite the fact that Google has never admitted it (sometimes it even neglected) most SEO and online marketing experts would confirm that .edu and .gov links outperform other extensions in terms of search ranking juice.

So, why don’t you try gathering .edu and .gov backlinks?

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Target Popular Bloggers to Link to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 01:30:00 +0000

Do you love fishing? Do you love to catch bigger fish? These questions are almost the same as asking: Do you love catching inbound links or do you love popular bloggers to link with you. If you do, then why don’t you go target the bloggers well-known in your industry to link to your Blog?

Wall Street Journal made mention on how to target bloggers well-known in your industry to link to your Web site.

Here's a new catchphrase in search-engine optimization these days: Link baiting.

The term may sound shady, but link baiting is an aboveboard tactic that calls for generating new or particularly interesting content on a Web site in hopes that a popular Web site links to it. Having well-ranked Web sites link to yours boosts your site's search-engine results, because most major search engines -- including Google and Yahoo -- consider the number and "quality" of links when generating their rankings. And, having your site linked to a popular site likely will prompt other sites to link to your site as well.

Suppose, for instance, you'd love to have a blogger who's well-known in your industry link to your Web site. You notice this blogger frequently highlights interesting strategies for funding a start-up business. So in hopes of piquing that blogger's interest, you add well-written, interesting content to your site about new trends in start-up financing. Then you conveniently shoot an email to that blogger with a link to the post.

Just remember, authority sites won’t squander reader equity to link to unworthy content. So, work for high quality content whose theme favors the readers best interest of the Blog you are targeting.

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Considering Blogging as a Full Time Job? Read This First

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:28:00 +0000

You may be reading successful stories over the net about successful bloggers earning high income from blogging revenues. Has this stories prompted you to leave your current job? Will you go for full-time blogging?

I asked this question to myself and I answered it in one of my post saying - if blogging will give me 3 times my full time job income, I will consider going full-time blogger. But for some people, perhaps they see fullfillment in their present job, blogging for them is just a part-time job regardless of the revenue they will derive from it.

But if you consider doing it full time, my advise is that - do not leave your present job just because you know someone making a good living by blogging. Test the water first. Try to make your blog successful first, that's the beauty about blogging. You can make a successful blog doing it part-time. Second, see if blogging work is really for you. Blogging like other jobs requires some set of personality.

At this point, I'd like to bring you to one of the post made by Darren. The Monkey Bar Blogging post where he shared his transistion from part-time to full-time blogger, also provide you some reality check about blogging as a profession. With Darren post, I hope I provided some cautionary and realistic advice for people who want to blog for a living.

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Attract Traffic With Great Headlines

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:05:00 +0000

Did you know that headlines are the most important part of your post? Sometimes it's the only thing a person will read. If it interests them, they'll read more. If not, then your post is as good as a scratch paper to them.

A headline is one or two lines that telegraph the most important points of your post. The question now, is, what makes a good headline?

Try to think about the first words you'd say to someone when they pick up the phone and you have a really great story to tell. It should read and sound like a headline you read in a newspaper. Ask yourself this question: If you could write the headline in the newspaper, what would it say?

Headlines matter especially with blogs. Surveys show that people only scan what they read on the net and you have to grab their attention quickly. But that's not all. If the person is using an RSS reader they may only see that headline. Similarly if your page comes up in a search engine, the first thing people are going to see is the headline.

Tips on making a good headline include:

write strong headline
summarize don't tease
use important words first (strong verbs first)
include keywords
tell the readers what he doesn't know

You can also enrich yourself by reading a couple of Copyblogger posts entitled 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work and How to Write Magnetic Headline series.

Remember, how to make your blog readers read your entire post will start with a good headline.

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Blog Income: A Function of Both Quality and Quantity Content

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 07:41:00 +0000

Do you work very hard on writing great articles? Do you optimize your adsense placement and affiliate ads? Do you optimized pages well for Google? If yes, then there is supposed to be no problem, your blog is going to succeed but not. You will still have a problem like why you generate only a handful of daily visitors and few cents of revenue.

If you spent so much time writing quality content that you can post one per day and after over three months of blogging the blog has only 90 posts/pages then you got problem with quantity. They were good pages but there just wasn’t very many of them. I am not here saying that you could not earn revenue for those 90 posts but at that rate I doubt you can earn more than a dollar a week for at least a year or two. You just don’t have enough pages.

Having more pages is like having more entry points to your blog. The more posts you do the higher the chance someone will upon your blog through a search engine. There is also a higher change of getting links from several than fewer posts and links are profitable source of traffic.

Google also ranks pages that are updated regularly higher than those that are stagnant and will send its spiders through your blog more regularly if you’re a prolific updater.

I myself work hard at providing quality content on this blog. Without it I got little chance of earning a repeat visit. Having said that I also believe in providing quantities of content.

Let it be our discipline to continue adding pages as much as we can. Because quantity is paying off increase in traffic and therefore will fuel the increase of revenue to all your income streams.

Good luck!

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Why Some High Quality Content Fails To Attract Links and Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:10:00 +0000

Ok, you're blogging for something and you've made quite a number of high quality post. But have you ever wonder why, despite of your high quality posts, your blog seems to go no where near to success?

You often encountered successful bloggers advising you to go for high quality content. They say it’s their secret of success. But why this approach seems not working to you?

Let's take one of your high quality post and ask yourself a couple questions. Did this post manage to attract significant volume of readers? Did this post manage to attract inbound link? If your answer to both questions in NOT, then you failed to execute the missing piece – call to action.

It's not enough to say "here is it – my high quality post". You must sell the reader on the benefits - what your content is about and most of all why they should read it. Then when they have read it why they should tell all their friends, family, enemies, and readers if they do have a blog.

A good call to action will pay dividends so spend some time on it. Test alternatives. Try out options and beat your last attempt. You will want to use variations of your call to action everywhere so it had better be good. The bottom line is, it needs to get the reader to do what you want now. Later becomes less effective, they need to fell the burning need to obey right this minute.

Let others know this truth. If despite their high quality post their blog seems to go no where near to success it’s because they failed to include a good call to action.

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3 Great Reasons Why Success Comes Easy Blogging on Niche Topic

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:28:00 +0000

Did you know that it is more difficult to write a profitable blog on broad than niche topic? Here is why.

1. You have a better change of ranking higher in search engine if all your posts are on related topics that are interlinked. Your blog will most likely be considered highly authority by search engine if you blog on closely topics. The higher ranking your blog is in the eyes of the search engine, the more search engine traffic your blog likely to receive.

2. You have a better change of finding an advertising income stream for your blog. As in the case of Adsense, if you write on many topics the ads may or may not related to your content and people will not likely to click non related ads. The ideal situation is that you write on topic and your readers see ads for that same topic – if you get this happening you increase the chance of them clicki9ng and therefore of you earning an income. Likewise with private sponsorship deals you’re unlikely to find a company willing to pay you money to put their ads on unless their product relates to what you’re writing about.

3. You run the risk of confusing your readership if you blog on too many topics. Worst is that, there is a greater change that most of what you write will not be of their interest. You are more assure that what you write is of your readers interest if you stay focus writing on specific, highly related topic.

So, if you want to write about more that one topic, I strongly suggest you should start a second, third and fourth blog rather than try to put all of them into one. Remember, success comes easy blogging on niche topic.

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7 Tactics to Make Your Blog Your Driving Sales Force

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:52:00 +0000

Marketing Sherpa posted an article entitled 7 Practical Tactics to Turn Your Blog Into a Sales Machine. His ideas might be useful if you want to position their blogs into a driving sales force.

The tactics involve:

Seed your blog posts with keywords
Report exclusive news and insight
You don’t need to blog daily
Add easy contact links to every single post
Jump on incoming leads super-swiftly
Measure by qualified prospects, not total traffic
Blog elsewhere

They said..

‘Call us cynics. Blogs may be hip and trendy, but they don’t do diddly-squat for most people’s businesses. After four years of research, MarketingSherpa reporters estimate only .03% of the 34.5 million existing blogs are driving sales or prospective customers to their bloggers. (That’s less than 1,000 that we’ve been able to find.) Want your blog to be the one that works? Discover seven practical secrets from a real estate blog that gets prospects to raise their hands and beg to be contacted.’

Read more details of this article at 7 Practical Tactics to Turn Your Blog Into a Sales Machine.

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How to Make Your Blog Readers Read Your Entire Post

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:52:00 +0000

8 out of 10 people will read title post, but only 2 out of 10 will read the entire post. You may have a lot of visitors coming but what’s the value of those if you will lose most of them in a matter of seconds? How can you make visitors read your entire post?

Is there a technique on making your visitors read your entire post? How about asking yourself what is the most important part of your post aside from the title? If your answer is the opening paragraph, then you are absolutely right.

But how do we make an opening paragraph that will compile the visitors to read the entire post? I am not a good speaker but I believe that when it comes to grabbing the attention of your audience, blogging and speaking share the same techniques.

So, here is the 5 ways to have an opening paragraph that will capture the reader’s imagination and pull them deeper into reading the entire content.

1. Ask Engaging Question
Opening a question is an effective way to create curiosity and gets the reader thinking. Question will bring active engagement to the rest of your post.

2. Use Anecdotes
Anecdotes work wonder holding your readers attention in crucial opening. They can grab your reader’s attention especially if the quote comes from recognizable authority or famous person.

3. Trigger Reader’s Imagination
Activate the minds of your reader by engaging them into imagination. Produce mental pictures into reader’s mind, use words like imagine and picture this are very powerful technique

4. Use an Analogy, Metaphor or Similes
Analogies, metaphors and similes are great ways to capture reader’s attention. They are very effective when it comes to telling a story. They provoke mental imagery that allows readers to tell a story to themselves.

5. Shocking Statistics
This post itself employed this technique telling you - 8 out of 10 people will read title post, but only 2 out of 10 will read the entire post. This will work effectively when it is unique, startling, or even shocking. The statistic should also be directly relevant to the point of your post as well.

The above my not be the complete list on how to make your blog readers read your entire post. So, if you have other ways to fasten your visitors to read your entire post, please put them on the comment area.

Good luck! I hope you learn something from this post.

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5 Steps Video Series on How to Making Money From Keyword Research

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 08:56:00 +0000

Keyword is one fundamental key to successful blogging. You can come to blogging without minding about keywords, but if you are blogging for money then keyword research is not only essential but a must.

To gain substantial traffic from search engine, you need to discover the keywords used by consumers in searching. This fuel the popularity of keywords research and keyword software search tools.

And today, I found a great series made by Brad Callen about using Keyword Elite software tool to quickly and easily locate profitable opportunities base on what consumers are saying they want by searching, and also by what your competition is doing as well.

Here are the 5 steps served up in 5 videos:

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Frequently Asked Question about Links

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:08:00 +0000

We seem to know well the importance of links but we may still have some questions about them. Good that Wayne of SEO Chat made a good article on Links - Links: Frequently Asked Questions. It started with the basic questions then it gets deeper than that.

Some of the questions I found worth sharing here are:

Why are links important?
Links are important because they help Internet users find interesting, informative, and useful content, either on the site itself or at other Internet locations. Inbound links have special value to the search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, and Ask Jeeves, as the number, duration of linking time, and quality are part of the search engine algorithms. As a general rule, the more incoming links that a Web page and website receive, the better the site will rank in the search engines.

Do all links have equal value to the search engines?
While quantity of links is important, quality is even more important. Some inbound links are simply given more value than others by the search engine algorithms. Links from pages deemed to be more relevant, in terms of topic and theme, are given more weight. Also given more value are links that are labeled with more keyword rich anchor text, links from pages with higher Google PageRank, and links that originate within content pages rather than from the ubiquitous "links pages." There is even some evidence that linking out to other Web pages provides some benefit to the link sending page.

Are links from blogs helpful?
Inbound links from blogs are very powerful. Because blog writers, called bloggers, are very generous linkers, they are very likely to link naturally to interesting and informative content. The blog will be highly theme relevant to your site as bloggers tend to stay within their main areas of interest. If the link is placed within a blog post or article, powerful link anchor text might also be included. Blogs also contain a links list, referred to as a blogroll, and those links are usually placed on the blog's high PageRank home page.

Are blog comment links good for search engine rankings?
Blog comment links are now treated in much the same way as guest book links. Google is even suggesting a robots.txt coding to prevent any link popularity or PageRank transfer from blog comments to prevent spamming. It's important to note that blog comments are very different from blog links themselves. The two link types should not be confused, as they are similar to a website's relationship to its guest book.

Who are the best link exchange partners for a site?
The best link exchange partners are other sites sharing a similar or complementary theme and topics to your site. Avoid sites that have no theme or topic relevance to your own site because they will provide little in the way of link popularity or inbound traffic.

Read more at Links: Frequently Asked Questions

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How to Convert Your First Time Visitor into Regular Reader – Part 2 of 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:45:00 +0000

This is the second and final post in this series on how to convert your first time visitors into regular reader. You might also like to read the part 1 of this series. Here are a few of the things that I believed will help those one off first time visitors to stay around and interact with your blog a little longer that a one off visit.

6. Make Things Easy for Your Visitors
Making things usable and easier on the visitor can drastically increase your conversion rate. If your content is hard to read, it is very unlikely that visitors will come back to read your blog. If they want to subscribe to your RSS feed then make it easy for them.

7. Pay Attention to Individual Page Design
Every page is a potential doorway into the rest of your blog. Given this information, you have to make your pages engaging and easy to navigate. It is worth asking a non blogging friend to test your blog’s usability and navigability to see just how easy it is to use.

8. Make an Easy Way for Your Readers to go Deeper into Your Blog
Give your reader a clear and easy way of going deeper into your site and engaging with your topic. Think about where you want potential readers of your blog to go next? What are the key posts that you’ve written on your topic? What would be a good introduction to your site? What do you want them to see?

9. Provide a Link to Other Relevant Posts
You may have written closely relevant to other post. Have their links handy at the end of every article post. Providing them with more on the same topic is logical way of keeping them on your blog.

10. Promote your RSS Feed
After every post, it’s nice to have an active link such as - If you enjoy this post Subscribe to This Blog's Feed.

11. Have a Search This Blog Facility
Many visitors would like to use search features to find if you have written topics of their interest. I tend to use the Google search option that Adsense then this not only allows your readers to search your site but gives you an income stream for your blog.

There are many ways to convert first time visitors into regular readers; these are just some of the ways that I know so far. If you know of any other ways to convert first time visitors into regular blog readers, feel free to leave a comment.

Remember, each new reader is a potential regular visitor, and perhaps someone who will link to your blog.

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How to Get Yahoo Traffic for Your Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:15:00 +0000

This blog on its’ three months of existence has been quiet successful getting traffic from Google. Although I received a number of traffic coming from unknown source, as far as my sitemeter statistic is concerned, I don’t remember getting a single traffic from Yahoo.

I begin to wonder. Is there something wrong with my blog? Are you experiencing the same thing? How do you manage to get some traffic from Yahoo?

I try to surf for the solution and this is what I got so far. It involves signing up for a MyYahoo page and using the RSS Headlines feature. This feature allows you to track a variety of blogs via RSS. Simply add your own RSS feeds and it seems that Yahoo adds them to its own tracking system which must be linked to their indexing system.

I will try the above approach and let’s see if I will have some success getting traffic from yahoo.

If you have any other ideas, techniques or strategies, please do share it with me and to my readers. The comment area is wide open for your valuable inputs.

Thanks!

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How to Convert Your First Time Visitor into Regular Reader – Part 1 of 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 17:45:00 +0000

Are you a blogger? If yes, this post is for your, keep on reading. When you visit someone’s blog, have you ask yourself- what the blogger(s) could do to make you their regular reader? If not, then why not? Is it this you want on your blog to happen – to convert your visitors into regular readers? Check this out because you maybe missing something too valuable for your successful blogging.

What a blogger could do to make you his regular reader is a million dollar question. It is very important that stand a secret on how to increasing readership and on how you can convert your first time visitors into regular readers.

I know many of you have probably opened up your web stats and found out that you are getting bombarded with visitors. It could have been caused by a link from a large site, by a tons of blogs linking to you, by an increase in search engine rankings, or by getting to digg's homepage. So with all these first time visitors coming into your blog, how can you convert them into regular readers?

1. Make Your Blog Message Very Clear on Every Page
If your reader cannot work out what is the point of your blog within a few seconds they will probably take off pretty quickly. Ask yourself this question - What message are you sending about your blog?

2. Pay Premium Attention to Conversation
Write content that talk to them. By doing this you can create a conversation and allow visitors to comment. Aim about building a relationship with your visitors. Have an atmosphere of enabling conversation to take place. Encourage them to come back and make a visit again.

3. Give Your Visitors Great Attention
Don’t be selfish to think your blog is all about you. Help your readers when they need help and if they want something from your blog then listen and take it into consideration.

4. Write Content That Will Benefit Your Readers
Writing content that can benefit readers is one way to get them coming back to your blog.
Another effective strategy is writing a part series and that is, if a new visitor like part 1, there is a good chance he or she will come back to read the coming part series.

5. Be Creative and Unexpected
Keep visitors on their toes, spice up your regular routine with something different every once in awhile, it will keep your blog from being boring. If visitors are excited by your blog they will convert into regular readers.

I’ll continue this series on making first time readers loyal readers tomorrow. Feel free to leave your own tips and strategies in the comment area.

Update: Part 2 is now available.

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8 Steps to Place a Live Digg Button on Your Beta Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:48:00 +0000

The easiest way to get your articles on digg is to encourage your visitors to submit their favorite stories directly to digg. Up until this point many sites have linked directly to the URL submission page. While this works, it is now possible to take it one step further by pre-populating the submission form with a title, description, and topic.

Once your story has been successfully submitted you can now display the number of diggs and allow users to digg your content directly. How to do this depend upon the blogging software you are using. This post is all about how to put a live Digg button on your Beta Blogger.

1. Login to your beta blogger account. Once you are on your Blogger Dashboard window, select the blog you want the dig button to appear. Go to the Layout, click Edit HTML and check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox.

2. Download your current template to make a back-up.

3. Locate the following markup:

<h3 class='post-title'>

4. Replace the code below

 <h3 class='post-title'>
 <b:if cond='data:post.link'>
   <a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
 <b:else/>
   <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
     <a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
   <b:else/>
     <data:post.title/>
   </b:if>
 </b:if>
 </h3>

with

 <h3 class='post-title'>
   <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
     <a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
   <b:else/>
     <data:post.title/>
   </b:if>
 </h3>

5.Locate the following markup:

<p><data:post.body/></p>

and replace it with

<p>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<span style="margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; float: left;">
  <script>
    digg_url = '<data:post.link/>';
  </script>
  <script src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.js"> </script>
</span>
<data:post.body/>
<b:else/>
<data:post.body/>
</b:if>
</p>

6. Save your template.

7. Go to your Blogger Dashboard » Settings » Formatting » Show Link Field. Be sure to select yes.

8. Save Settings.

Now, if you want a link button to appear in a post, Edit the post and suppy the link field with the url of that post.

For more comprehensive guide, visit the post entitled Integrating the Digg Box in your Blogger Posts.

Why don't you try to digg this post and see if this really work?

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Big Winners in Blogging Money Making Game Worked Differently

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:22:00 +0000

Have you read my post entitled Big Winners in Blogging Money Making Game Are Not Lone Bloggers? If not, please do so because I don’t want you to miss a thing especially if you are blogging for money.

The message from that post is vital: You can make a living by lone blogging approach. However, it is certainly not scalable, your growth is limited. If you want to be a big winner to blogging money making game then build a business – collaborate.

How do big winners of the blogging money making game work exactly?

I was trying to make research to give you specific examples on how the big winners in blogging money making game really work. But thanks to Darren, he made it for me in his post entitled What ProBloggers Can Learn from TechCrunch 20.

Yes, two big winners in blogging money making game, Jason Calacanis and Mike Arrington launched their new business venture name TechCrunch 20. Obviously, they are using their high profile and blog readership as leverage to fuel success in building business.

Two very important principle of making money from blogs were emphasized by Darren. These are:

Indirect Methods of Leveraging Blog Profile - It illustrates that sometimes the best ways to do it are not through direct methods like advertising or affiliate programs. Instead - what’s they’re doing with TechCrunch 20 is an indirect money maker that leverages the profile and traffic that MIke and Jason have built up over the years. It’s these indirect ventures where the real potential lays for many bloggers.
The Power of Collaboration - TechCrunch 20 also illustrates the power of networking and collaboration. If Jason or Mike had gone for this alone they would probably have done reasonably well - but working together they are likely to achieve a lot more. Just the fact that they are launching this together creates a buzz - their different skill sets and networks will only make it a stronger venture.

What these two people did may be something that the average blogger would not be able to do. But who says the above two principles will not work for an average blogger? No one. These principle will definitely work for you and for me.

Success comes to people who work differently. Apply the above principles around your niche and the possibilities for new ventures could be endless.

Good luck. I hope you learn something today.

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Let Your Readers Fill the Content of Your Blog Post

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:53:00 +0000

I found another clever way to create quality post. I’ve seen this working fantastic in problogger.net. It’s all about asking tips from your readers. Yes, Darren asked tips from his readers like how they find readers for their blog and where do you find stories for your blog.

He said the results were pretty good. It’s done pretty well on Digg and he hope some of those featured got some flow on traffic.

I think the idea is perfect as it is a win-win situation. Darren satisfies his readers by giving them a change to share tips and readers feel they are valuable to Darren and to problogger.net.

Readers also get additional exposure from Darren’s high traffic blog. And there is more. When Darren or somebody will post these collaborative tips to Digg and to similar sites, they will all reap the digg power. What if all who contributed will make a digg? Getting front page is much even easier by this approach. (That is, if Digg will still have a popularity page).

So, what are you thinking now? Will you implement this kind of technique? What do you think the essential requirements for this technique to work successfully?

Good luck! You are invited to place your ideas, suggestions and reactions in the comment area.

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Big Winners in Blogging Money Making Game Are Not Lone Bloggers!

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:53:00 +0000

Are you blogging for money? If you are, please do yourself a favor. Read the entire post because you may not be on the right track into making money online.

In the pursuit of making money online, you often follow the techniques and strategies used by people you consider successful in blogging. You follow their foot prints, you dream of becoming big and quest to succeed online. However, you don't realize the same people you considered successful in blogging are distancing themselves from lone blogging. Yes and this is the truth.

Let us take the case of problogger.net of Darren Rowse. Some post of Darren tells us that problogger.net is earning five figures a month. In another post, Darren admitted that if he will not make a post for a month, his income will gradually decrease. By these words, we can figure out that problogger.net afford him to making a living. It is basically a job, not a business yet.

In order to make it big, Darren is not just building more blogs but building more business as well. Look again the problogger.net. Have you notice there is an increasing trend on guest post? Expect more guest post to come as Darren is expected to be spending more time building businesses and lesser time on blogging. That is if he want to make his income even bigger.

How about stevepavlina.com? In one of the post, Steve said, at the end of 2005, StevePavlina.com was generating $2-3K/month in income. A year later it's now generating $30-40K/month. The income will probably fluctuate a lot in 2007 as I make further changes to the business model next year.

The biggest question here is that why would Steve change his blog business model? The obvious answer is growth. He disclosed hiring an Assistance to give him more time for blogging. This is a strong indicator that he is definitely treating his blog more of a business than before.

Why? What is wrong when you blog alone? Certainly, it is not scalable. And although, you could make a living being a blogger, you certainly aren't building a business if you are a lone operator.

There is a big difference between making a living and building a business. The key to building a business is building "processes" that are valuable, not "products" that are valuable. And if you are blogging and selling ads and you don't have anyone helping you with anything, you have no processes. All you have is a product: your writing and your ability to sell. A good example of a man building a business is Jason Calacanis of weblogsinc.

So, for you to become a big winner in blogging money making game, start building a business.

Good luck!

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January 2007 Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:46:00 +0000

8 Secrets on How to Keep Yourself Posting Into Your Blog
Learn how to master yourself well enough that you can inspire your ownself to get motivated to make a post at all time.

How to Select Blog Theme That Will Bring You Passive Income
Uncovered the secret of knowing the kind of blog that gives you a lifetime passive income.

10 Excellent Tools to Help You Generate Blog Post Ideas
Are you having problem of what to write for your blog? Have you force yourself to find meaningful content? Here are ten great tools that will help you out when you’re out of ideas to write.

18 Super Tips to Make Your Users and Search Engines Love Your Blog
Here is an advice on how you can optimize your blog for both users and search engines without alienating one or the other.

How to Have a Large Readership Online: The Secret Revealed
It is not the search engine but your regular readers are the ultimate source of sustainable traffic. How to have a large readership is one very important question and this post has the answer.

8 Strategies to Maximize Contextual Advertising Revenues
If you have been looking for information on how to increase your blog's contextual advertising revenues, this post will greatly help you.

Top 10 Most Effective Linkbaiting Techniques
Here is a list of 10 most effective linkbaiting techniques that are commonly used.

How to Turn Your Blog Into a Link Magnet?
It is not just about good quality post on getting hundreds or thousands of natural links. It’s about high quality content with built-in linkbaiting mechanism. This post will tell you more about this.

9 Ways to Triple Your Google AdSense Revenue
How can you be sure that your current Google Adsense placement will bring you the fullest possible income for your blog? This post will guide and give you great ideas.

Huge Google Adsense Check: Are They Inspiring?
Looking for inspiring stories and pictures of Google Adsense success? See them here with their inspiring adsense check.

5 Techniques to Boost Your Traffic from Social Networking Sites
More are said that social networking sites will bring you some traffic. But what exactly bloggers must do to make this claim a realization? This is what exactly this post is all about.

How to Maximize the Use of Forums to Bring You Blog Traffic
Forums are not only good for generating more blog traffic but they are also a great way to get your message out. This post is about how to maximize the used of forums to generate blog traffic.

How Much Money Successful Bloggers Are Making Online?
This post will give you an idea on how much successful bloggers are making online...

How to Possess the Most Active Ingredient for Successful Blogging
Learn about the most active ingredient for successful blogging and how to possess them.

5 Explosive Secrets to Boost Your Traffic For Free For Years
Your ultimate target should be to create sustainable traffic system, a kind that will pay you for years for a one-time effort. All this can be done through the powerful principle known as leverage. This post will tell you more about it.

What Do You Think the Greatest Value You Receive From Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (Ruben) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 07:43:00 +0000

I surfed a lot and today I was trying to juice the net about the great values we receive from blogging. And here is what I found so far.

receiving feedback. By blogging you can get instantaneous feedback of your work. You can see if your ideas resonate with your readers or not. Several of these feedbacks will also lead you to fruitful post ideas.
acquiring knowledge. Blogging offers a medium of interaction. You can interact to people that are smarter than you and learn from them.
gaining readership. Keeping on blogging afford you to maintain readership. You can also gain new readers who stumble onto your blog.
finding solutions. With so much discussions and opinions, blogging allows you to see solutions you may never have come to.
keep you inform. Blogging help you continue to keep up-to-date on the latest happening of the industry where your blog belong
gaining relationships. Blogging can lead to new friends, many of whom you may never meet face-to-face but with whom conversation is both frequent and stimulating
self improvement. Blogging makes you better at what you do. If you want to become a good writer then blog. If you want to be creative then blog.
community. Blogging creates robust, multi-way communication networks among bloggers and respondents that may benefit you and your client.
mental exercise. Blogging helps you sort out your thoughs - having to think through a post, articulating it and seeing the idea in writing.
gaining variety of viewpoints. Blogging may give you variety of viewpoints on a given topic, including some views or points you may not have thought of.

What about you? What value do you receive from blogging? If you care to share it to others, you are welcome to place it the comment area.

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