MoneyOnline.net

Make Money Online with SEO

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:02:04 +0000

There are so many questions any company, established, growing, or brand new, can have when they decide to go online. How much can you make? Is the whole “make money online” movement really a worthwhile way for others to make money off you? And what do you have to do to make those six figures some companies are with simple SEO tools?

What’s Make Money Online?

Yes, it may sound obvious, but to “make money online” in a real, proven, and profitable way isn’t to sign up to fill out forms online or some other get-rich-quick scheme. No, if you really want to make money online, there’s no doubt you should study the market in detail. There are some genuine ways to make money, but often you fall down before you reach the summit. Whatever your SEO purpose, whether you want an SEO blog to bring in new customers, or if you want to increase conversions, the best way is to make money online with proven keywords.

SEO=Profit:

SEO is about profit. If you’re not converting enough customers to stay in business—which can be scary—you need to rework your SEO goals. It’s a business plan in action. The best model, whether you’re selling products online or using ads to make money with your blog, is a thorough but simple business plan. In the real online world, certain markets are wide open to make tens of thousands if not millions in the beginning. For example, with a few Google Adwords ads you place, you might double you income in a matter of months. On the other hand, your brand new SEO blog might not convert many customers. Really, a business plan comes down to conversions.

Conversions are #1:

Conversions are the #1 goal of any online business, at least in most for-profit businesses. What are conversions? A customer buying a product from you, hiring you for a service, clicking on an ad you have, there are many possibilities. Somehow you are making money off an online browser.

All business plans should incorporate a realistic model for conversions. As mentioned before, it depends on the type of online business you go into. No matter what, you need to build trust with a reader or offer an incredible deal.

For example, it took major online seller Amazon several years to go out of the red and into the black. Along with Ebay and many search engines, the business is thriving. SEO is about profit, and profit comes from conversions. It may take time, so don’t quit before you give the plan a chance.

Importance of Direct Response:

Direct response is a term used in conjunction with conversions. For example, you get a personal letter from a magazine publisher asking you to renew your subscription. That letter is a form of direct response. In the online world, you need to get this from a good number of buyers. The good news is tens of millions of buyers across the world buy online every day. If you can get a good number to your site, and get a response from a good number, your business will grow.

Informing or Selling:

Direct response isn’t all about selling products or services. Sometimes a simple ad campaign can allow your business to thrive. One key component of SEO marketing is to not only get them to your site via Google or another engine, but to get them to visit again. A good idea is to offer free items along with items for your prices. For example, a computer company offers remote access services to clients in the New York area, but on their site they also provide free resources on getting your internet working quickly and efficiently. By informing, you’re able to sell.

Getting Keywords:

Finally, keywords are the way to make money online. The sky is the limit when it comes to SEO, but the marketplace is huge; you have lots of competition. For a successful SEO campaign to work, implement the strategies in this post. Write a business plan. Inform with free articles. Ask customers to come back. And by doing that, your conversions and your business will be profitable.

Author: Trond Lyngbø

Student of the Blog: Learning to Make Money Online

Trond — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:00:00 +0000

The phrase “work from home” comes to mind. “Online platform” sounds new, but it’s the new tag word for writers on the internet. Blogging is there, on the horizon, where you can make money online without being crammed into a cubical. You can make much more, working from home, if you do it right. However, a student of the blog sees there are many lessons to be learned first. This blogging career is just as much a journey as becoming a novelist, if not more so. You learn something every day, though you might not make blogging cash every day. During your dark days and your bright ones, you will see a career. To study for a blogging career isn’t like taking a class; you can learn it much faster.

This article provides a road map to preparing for a successful blogging career, by learning how to make money online from the beginning.

Writing 101:

You need a writing style for this work from home career. It doesn’t have to be up there with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, but it does need to be distinctive. You’ll develop that by writing tons of posts and asking for feedback; this is a proving ground for any writer. Many sites even offer blogging writers critiques, where you can learn more about writing than on any one article. One site of note to do this on is called Urbis, where a whole community of writers and bloggers share ideas, articles, and news. In any business field, however, talent is often less important than learning. A student of the blog can see that writing is just another tool for finding ways to make money online. This work from home career means writing does come first, but a different kind of writing.

Blogging 101:

You will need to know keywords; know how to research niche topics; and decide which topics are most valuable to you. These are the basics. Blogging is a far different kind of writing, where money comes faster the quicker you learn. For example, a masterful magazine writer might not become a successful blogger. It takes a lot of patience, and he/she might quit before the success comes. Yet profitable blogging is a lucrative online career. Once you see that keywords, for one, are needed instead of flashy adjectives, you have a better chance.

Make Money Online Beginnings:

Day 2, and you have had five readers so far. Where is the money supposed to come from? Why do others make more money? They learned to make money online the tough way; for you, it doesn’t have to be that way. For one, learn from their mistakes. Build a network of bloggers whom you can chat with. These are your connections in the online world-and you will need them. You can find top bloggers everywhere, on just about every major forum or group, including sites pandering to online careers, work from home opportunities, and ways to make money online. Some are better than others. For all three of these, there will be plenty of bloggers. Blogging is a true beginner’s trade, where more and more are jumping on.

“Beginning bloggers make nothing.” It has been said, and is somewhat true. You are still in the beginning stages, learning the basics of this journey toward success. If your blog is successful, however, you could be earning ad revenue within weeks. You could also take your pick of what “Paid Post” sites to use, because if your blog is successful, they will want to pay you. Why? Good writers are harder to come by on the net than you may think, and that’s all the more true for bloggers. You still need to stand out from the pack as an accomplished student of the blog. Another lesson to learn is the strategy of multiple blogs.

Trying out Several Blogs:

Some topics have been covered by dozens, or hundreds, of other bloggers. Does the internet world need another horror blog with an odd name and racy pictures? Do we really need the latest on the pop-diva-breakdown? If you study the blogging world, you will see many build their online careers on the right niche topics. The right niche for you could go into thousands of fields. In the beginning, branch out as much as possible, seeing what readers like from you. You are learning. As you go from site to site promoting your small blog (s), and trying to make money online, you will be find what works.

Seeing What Works:

Other bloggers will come up with flashy titles, cool pictures, and get hits via search engines more than you. All you have is a few, basic “beginner” blogs. Learn from them; you are a beginning blogger and your readers want more. It’s sad, but good pictures and interesting titles are a path to make money online. You will see what works mostly when you get “repeat visitors.” Repeat visitors are your bread and butter; they tell you if the blog is on the right track. You will see what works as a student of the blog. If you do, making money online is only a matter of time.

Student of the Day:

Become an “internet junkie.” It will make you a successful blogger. What I mean is to keep posted on all the major happenings on the net, from paid blogging news, to topics that focus on your niche topics. For example, if you have a book blog, the site “Salon” should be checked out frequently. If you have a blog on jewelry, build a network of jewelry blogs you can visit, getting news on upcoming products. You don’t have to do this every day; you can take a few hours every Friday and Monday. This is the best crash course for learning not only writing blogging articles but choosing the topics for them.

Learning Never Ends:

So you have a couple blogs planned in your head. Maybe you have a film blog, a blog on jewelry, and one on collecting. There you have it: three niche topics for an online platform. You will still be a student-even a year later-because as the internet changes and grows there will be new ways to make money online from your blog. Learning never ends.

Author: Trond Lyngbø

Make Money Online with a Free Blogger Blog

Trond — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Blogger is a blogging host owned by Google which uses a example.blogspot.com name. Making money online with a free Blogger account has some advantages over other free blogging hosts, namely, Google Adsense. We’ll go over the basic ways you make money online with a Blogger account in far more ways than simply Adsense, so keep reading.

Blogger Basics—Why It’s Powerful

Blogger is quite simple to use for any creative writer and creative bloggers. it offers many unique templates, you can post almost any kind of ad, and you can publish every single day of the week. Blogger blogs often get compared to WordPress ones, so let’s discuss that.

Blogger or WordPress?

Blogger is free much like WordPress.com blogs. Notice the .com on WordPress—WordPress.Org is designed for special domain names to be used. So Example. WordPress.com becomes Example.com. Typically, professional bloggers opt with buying a host service, using WordPress.org, and creating a powerful blog to make money online. You can make money online with Blogger too! You need no web domain or host. There are advantages to both, but for beginners Blogger is usually the best option, especially if you want blogging cash.

Blogger, Adsense, and Blogging Cash:

Adsense works seamlessly with Blogger blogs. Google owns both, so within a matter of seconds you can put Google Adsense on your blog. Some bloggers make good money doing this, but the reality is in the beginning your earning more pennies than dollars. Still, many professional bloggers like the simplicity and the keyword oriented ads with Adsense. You will make money, just not huge amounts. Where can you make big amounts online? Paid blogging and blogging jobs are the answer.

$50-100 a Post? Welcome to Paid Blogging:

Paid blogging is quite a dangerous game to play, yet its rewards are immense. What is “paid blogging”? It’s simply publishing sponsored posts on your blog, only you write them. Typically you’re writing a 100-200 word post on the advertiser’s product or service. Some of the best sites for this are Blogitive, Pay Per Post, Sponsored Review, and Loud Launch. There are dozens more, as this is a highly profitable field.

But what dangers are involved? Google gives you Google Page Ranking, and in short when you post paid posts often Google knows. Your ranking, which can be 0-10 depending on how popular your blog is, can be lowered by Google! Once they lower it, many sites will pay less for your paid posts. Some bloggers online have offered solutions to this problem, like using “no follow” tags into your paid posts, then asking Google to reconsider the page ranking.

Blogging Jobs—Experience Counts

A less dangerous way to make money online with Blogger is with blogging jobs. Write well, publish often, keep your blog going, and you’ll be close to a professional blogger with the writing skills and understanding. Once you’ve proven you can blog, you’re valuable to some companies who need bloggers. With one small blog, you can prove yourself.

Using Affiliate Marketing:

Last, but not really the last way to make money online with Blogger, is the big bang: affiliate marketers. Many bloggers swear by these, especially over other advertising accounts like Adsense. Affiliate marketing revolves around working with companies like Commission Junction and ClickBank to earn money on referrals and leads. This can make you $500 in a month, or $10. Combined with Adsense and the occasional paid post, affiliate marketing is a worthy addition to your blogging plan.

Finale:

So where are we now? Or where are you with your blogging dreams? Blogger is often underrated online, but many professionals love its seamless use and free domains. You can’t make money online with ads on WordPress.com, but you can with a free Blogger account. For beginners, it is better. For the experienced, it’s a route to more passive income.

Make Money Online in 13 Steps

Trond — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:00:00 +0000

How to make money online blogging from home is truly the work from home business in action. It’s that one creative business that continues to grow. To blog from home simply means what it sounds like: building a powerful business by typing words, sharing them with hundreds, then thousands, then to the world. It involves creativity. And in this set of guides, it involves profit.

There are lessons to be learned along the way, even by the most advanced bloggers. In the spirit of that, let’s see to the basics.

1. To Begin:

You need a blog, the easy part. You also need plenty of ambition and determination. You can start out with one blog or ten. My advice is to go into this with a set business plan, which I will go over in the next guide. In short, it means you must look at this as more than a creative writing venture: you must also look at it as a way to make money online. Once you start profiting from your blog, cutting weekly checks exceeding $300 (which happens), you’ll no longer fight the urge to profit.

Yes, Advanced Bloggers Too:

You may already know all of this. You may have a blog failing, and one succeeding. This set of guides will help you too. There is no steep learning curve for blogging, but for profitable blogging it takes some time. For example, if you want to start going with paid blogging sites, making as much as $30 for a post of 150 words or even more, then there is a learning curve. You can’t just write all you want, especially if it makes no sense. There is a reality to be understood.

The Blogging Reality:

The biggest reality for any blogger, advanced or beginner, is the simple fact there are millions of blogs out there. And thousands of new ones every week on just about every topic. However, and this isn’t meant to give you false hope, there is only one person with your unique personality. Your interests may coincide, your business ambition may be similar, even your writing can be similar—but you’re still a unique blogger from your first post to your 1000th post.

To Profit:

However, there aren’t as many profitable blogs as there are blogs, and many bloggers have no interest in money. If you want to blog from home, maybe even make this a career or a side income, you already have an advantage. Blogging from home will mean more income for you. There is no guarantee of cutting thousand dollar checks, but by following these simple steps of an emphasis on passive income and paid post income, you will get something.

Writing What You Want:

You even get to write what you want! Who doesn’t want that? It’s an art form that is growing in popularity. It used to be writers penned novels to show an interest in writing. Today hundreds of millions are using social media to not only communicate ideas on entertainment, but business and money. Again, you stand apart immediately if you think you can profit from it. To blog from home is to make money online.

Make Money Online:

On the other side is another reality. If you want to profit as a blogger, it takes strong business sense, a unique take on writing, and absolutely no qualms about profiting from your “Art.”

2. Set Out with a Business Plan, Or Write One Now

It’s time for your first blogging assignment. It pays little in the beginning, but could pay off with some big blogging cash in the end. Whatever the stage of your blogging career, if you don’t have what I like to call a “business plan” you may be missing out on some profit. The truth is blogging is a career for thousands, if not tens of thousands. Often they go into this with a set goal. It’s much like starting out as a freelance writer or graphic designer, working from home and setting up profit plans. With a blog, however, the devil is in the details.

Final Words on the Business Plan:

You don’t even have to write this out. If you say, “I want $100 a month by day 100,” that’s fine. It’s good to set some kind of realistic goals for readership or income if you want to blog from home successfully. By making it a business, the work from home element becomes powerful. You can make money in your pajamas. Still wondering about blogging hosts? The next guide has the goods.

3. The Best Blogging Hosts

First, one crucial rule of blogging from home: never pay for blogging services. I have been blogging for over almost two years now, and I’ve spent zero dollars on anything except one domain name. I haven’t paid to advertise my blog, haven’t paid for more “special services” like submitting to search engines. You can do most of these things by yourself, quickly and easily. It takes some practice, but with a good blogging host it’s much simpler than you think. Of course, advanced bloggers will know where this is going. WordPress. Blogger.

WordPress—Pluses and Negatives

WordPress is quite tough, but perhaps the best creative blogging service. I say creative because it’s hard to make much money on the site, unless you’re selling a product or service and are simply trying to promote it. For example, you are selling your services as a magician, so you start a blog and share magic tricks. Presto, readers like it and go to your main site, maybe even buy a book, item, or service from you.
Why can’t you make money with WordPress other ways? They have rules on ads. As of this writing, they are planning on offering ads for their blogs, but there are no paid postings allowed. This actually has pluses, as readers are more trusting in reading a WordPress blog.
On the other side, for art bloggers or informative blogs, WordPress has the unique look and easy manageability many other blogging services don’t have. You can get readers quickly with a WordPress blog, can easily adjust your templates to make the blog look good, and can easily use it to provide some other service. But truly, if you want blogging cash, maybe you should look elsewhere. However, if you want to advertise something else, and don’t need to directly make money with your blog, you can’t do better than WordPress. Soon they will have more features to make money blogging.

Blogger – Blogging Cash Made Simple

This isn’t meant as a WordPress is #1 and Blogger is #2. In fact, if you want blogging cash, it’s the opposite of that, as Blogger is the #1 way to make blogging online today. It’s simple: they allow paid ads, and since Google owns them, you can easily put Adsense ads on your blog. There are pluses in both, so let’s go over them.

Blogger Allows Paid Posts:

There are negatives too. WordPress dislikes paid posts, and so does Google. If you fill your pages with paid posts, they usually won’t suspend you, but your blog Page Ranking will almost always go down. However, if you want to start making money blogging, it’s still too lucrative to simply rule out. On popular blogs, it’s completely possible to make $40 for a post of 150 words. That’s not the batting average, as most of the time you’re talking $10-20 for a paid post in the beginning. However, if your blog takes off, you can get paid twice that or more.

The designs on Blogger are, in my mind, 2nd to only WordPress. They have some powerful features which make posting regularly just as easy as WordPress. In terms of usability and usefulness, Blogger is the route to blog from home profits.

Final Say on WordPress and Blogger:

Try both WordPress and Blogger. See which one works for you. It’s not good business to stop all ads on a site, especially when they can put ads on your blog. Meaning: WordPress will change over soon enough and allow paid ads, which may increase your blogging cash profits. For now, you can make blogging cash quickly with Blogger.

4. Dynamic Content Tips For Blog From Home Success

In order to truly create blogging cash, you need lots of new content. It’s time to revert back to your original plan, where you should either go for profit or take this as a hobby. Sometimes it can be both, and no rules are set in stone. However, to profit from your blog means to create all kinds of useful, powerful, and unique content. This will almost always mean more hits; the beauty is within one day you can double your readers with one powerful post. So what do you post about?

Picking a Niche:

It’s time to start thinking of a specific niche. It doesn’t have to be the only thing you blog about. Say you have a movie blog; you’ve been running it for several months and it’s getting a decent amount of readers. You publish all kinds of articles on films, from action to horror, but it’s not really getting enough hits to make you a profit. The answer is to narrow your niche down. For example, you can focus on horror films … or major actors, actresses, and directors. All this means you are going even more specific on a more popular topic. It may take a little more work, but niche blogging is the way to go. It may not work the first time, but when you offer enough unique content it often will.

Reslanting Posts:

One powerful trick all freelance writers use is “reslanting” articles. That means, “Health and Beauty for Teenagers” becomes not only “Causes of Acne for Teenagers,” but also “Best Acne Skincare Products for Teenagers …”5 Tips for Beating Acne” … even “When Makeup Clogs Pores.” Every blog post you create has one guaranteed slant if the purpose is to inform. This works best with your most popular posts. So on your niche film blog post you write “10 Best Schwarzenegger Films” while also saying “The Goods on Schwarzenegger Films” And “Why I like Schwarzenegger Films” and “Which Schwarzenegger Film Was Best?” Again, we took one post and turned it into several different, informative, and powerful blog posts. Reslanting your articles is a key to blogging from home.

KISS Posting:

Still, you want to keep your blog postings simple, short and to the point. Running on and on with articles is a big mistake. Or becoming far too specific can lure away valuable readers. The more simply you write anything, the easier it is to understand. And if you offer not only examples but pictures, you are writing not just for yourself … you’re also writing for others.

Seeing What Readers Like:

So you posted several times with one article slanted to different topics. Now let’s see what the readers are enjoying. One useful strategy is to write the basic one article, “10 Films,” and then several more on completely different topics. For example, on one my blogs I posted on comic books, and saw quite a discussion and a higher number of hits on my blog. But I wrote a how-to as well on a different topic, and it didn’t really do much for my readers. The answer was more on comics. It’s important to be able to follow your “stats” constantly, especially with specific page views.

Blog From Home on What You Want:

The truth is, sometimes blogging on what you want is crucial. It adds some power to your words: you care about what you’re saying. If you’re passionate and opinionated on politics, others may be just as impassioned and want to hear your input. If they don’t like your blog posts, maybe they’re not your ideal reader. Someone out there, more than likely, does.

5. Creating More Hits

More hits for your blog mean several things:

Someone is enjoying your material.
You are usually getting more repeat visitors.
You are going to start profiting from your blog.

This may sound like an advanced blogging topic, as the hits usually start coming in later in your blogging career. True, by day 30 you may only be getting a few dozen readers a day. It truly depends on how much you emphasize your business plan, setting about getting more and more readers from day one. This guide will tell you the crucial ingredients of obtaining more hits with your blog.

Social Media is A Must!

Blogging from home using social media is crucial, and without it your blog may falter getting off the ground and flying. However, not all sites use social media. Social media simply is the new term for web 2.0, a more user friendly online world. By blogging you already know many of the basics of social media. For now, let’s stick to advertising your posts on two sites.

Digg and Stumble Upon:

Digg.com is perhaps the most important blogging friend you will have in this career blogging world. you write up a post … publish … copy the URL … paste it into Digg … write a short synopsis—and click your way to more readers! It’s the easiest way to get more readers, especially if you are starting a new blog. It doesn’t guarantee success, but at least your building up more online backlinks. Stumble Upon is similar; what they use is a tool bar where you can “thumbs up” your own articles. It’s a bit easier than Digg. You just need to download a special toolbar which allows you to advertise each article. My advice is to use both Digg and Stumble Upon. And I will tell you how.

Submit your post to Digg, saving the short description you write on your article.
Clicks the Thumbs Up on Stumble Upon toolbar, which will then ask for a description. Paste the same description you used for Digg.
Wait for more readers!

Again, social media is the easiest way to find new readers, some who might favorite your blog and keep coming back.

Finding the Popular Articles:

Again, using social media means utilizing things like stats. Some sites, like Blogger, don’t give you all your stats per page. There are many services you can use in place of that, like Google Analytics or Stat Counter. WordPress, however, offers all your stats per page and post for free, but still has that paid post rule. There are ways to use Blogger to track stats. If you only post one piece a day, and use a free stats counter, you can see day by day which posts are hot. If you post one on Saturday morning, and Saturday is your biggest day for hits, it clues you in on what to re slant.

Re slanting Again:

The point here is you will find out, one way or another, when to re slant a popular article. Remember: re slanting is simply reworking your initial idea, so “How to Get Newspaper Work” turns into “10 Ways to Find Online Newspaper Jobs” and “Tips on Getting Editorial Jobs at Newspapers.” These are similar ideas with a different focus.

Less Personal, More Formal – Business Blogging 101

Most of the biggest blogs in terms of readers blend first person with third person. First person would be personal experience articles. How you found your first job … why you like blogging … what scares you on Halloween. Formal articles are more businesslike and direct. Again, “How to Find Blogging Jobs” and so on. Third person, however, usually offers more to the reader—making it more valuable. If you treat this like a business, the majority of your posts will seek to inform, educate, and commentate. There is still the need for a good first person essay, but the demand is more for how-to-do-something.

Eyeing Reader’s Profit too:

One perfect example of formal writing is eyeing not just your pocket book … but the reader’s. If you can make them money, say by offering “work from home accounting job” listings, you’re tackling the business idea of getting rich, or simply making more money. Even saving reader’s money is powerful; who doesn’t want to save money?

6. Power Blogging is Advertising in Disguise

Blogging from home is interesting in that the more you create the better off you are, and the more unique the pieces you create, the more chances you have at making this a career. The two main tools for successful online blogging are Digg and Stumble Upon. However, sometimes you may get only a few readers from using such social media tools. There are several other ways to truly create a powerful blog that gets new readers every day and continues to grow. This guide explains how.

The more you write:

The more you write the better of you are. You still need to submit your blog posting, but you will get more readers by simply writing and posting more. This doesn’t mean quality should go down, but it’s the principle of business volume. You’re better off creating a lot than creating too little. This means you post at least 4-5 times a week if you are truly interested in making blogging cash. Set a goal from the beginning; this will make it much easier. You can write down, “I want 6 posts a week” and post two different articles on the same day, doing the same two other days. This cuts down on posting every single day.

Unique Articles Mean More Readers:

Yet if you are writing on just one specific topic, and post two articles on the same subject on the same day, or two days in a row, you’re making mistake. Say you are a business entrepreneur, and write ten articles on business finance and ten on businesses going online. There is nothing wrong with exploring the same subject in detail continuously, but one useful strategy is to spread these posts out as long as possible. You wrote ten on business finance, that’s ten posts spread out over a month. The other ten on businesses going online is spread out in the same way. Now you need to write some original, single articles to go in between.

Don’t make this stop you from writing two similar posts at the same time. Just be weary of posting them both on the same day or right on top of each other. Simply put, the more topics you write on and the more subjects readers search your blog for, the more hits you’re getting.

Writing More of The Same:

Now, before we go into more detailed advertising routes, let’s go back to the idea of reslanting original article ideas. I will keep this short and sweet. If you write two articles on the same subject right after each other, you have a better grasp on what makes them different. If you write on one topic one day, then a month later the same topic, they might be far too similar.

Free Advertising:

If the more posts you create mean more readers, the next step is the more free advertising you get the better. I recommend submitting your blog not only to powerful search engines, but blogging directories. Blog Hub, Blogarama, and Blog Catalog are a few examples of powerful directories to submit your blog to. All it usually takes is embedding some html into your blog so the directory shows up. You get more readers over time, but not the 100 new readers in one day you get from Digg and Stumble Upon (on the best days).

Are you a writer? On some level, if you want to be a blogger you are also saying you want to be a writer. Use that. Writers are powerful. Enterprising writers use the online world to get more hits for their articles. Enterprising bloggers submit free articles to article submission services; this means you allow other companies to post your article as long as they keep you by-line and link to your blog. Also, every site you publish an article on is the perfect place to advertise your blog. If you like books, for example, you can write for book review sites; they don’t usually pay, but they offer you a free bio to plug your blog.

Advertising You Have to Work For:

There are other routes to advertising your blog, less simple, but just as powerful. One good idea is to immediately find out which of your friends and family have blogs or websites. That’s a big first step if they do. Then you want to find other bloggers who blog on similar topics. Exchange links with them or do guest posts on a regular basis. All of this is creating dozens if not hundreds of backlinks to your blog, and it’s a must for any beginning or advanced bloggers. Article marketing is also a sure bet!

Check Blog PR and Ranking:

Lastly, there are dozens of tools to find your blog page ranking. Google Page Ranking and Alexa seem to the biggest. You can check your blog page ranking for free with a simple search. This tells you immediately if your advertising strategy is working, or if you need to change it up. Don’t get disheartened if you have a blog ranking of 0. This is often the case even with blogs several months old, or blogs which didn’t have much posting activity for a few months. You can change that.

7. Paid Posts

It’s a dangerous game to get involved in the paid post world, but also one of the most profitable ways to make money online. All you do is write ads. This guide offers several examples of powerful paid posting operations which can earn you some blogging cash if you put time into it. It’s not unheard of to make thousands of dollars from a SINGLE service. Still, there are dangers, so let’s first go over those.

The Dangers of Paid Blogging:

The biggest danger of paid blogging is losing your Google Page Rank. It happens to bloggers who fill their blogs with lots of paid posts. Say you’re working with a company, and you have two blogs. They offer ten ads for you to write, and you reserve them all. Now, since most paid posts have a time limit, you need to write five ads per blog in sometimes less than two days. That fills your blog with paid posts. That’s why, I believe, Google is attempting to curtail bloggers from overfilling their blogs with paid posts.

The result is, after months of paid blogging, you make quite a bit but lose your valuable Page Rank (PR). So what do you do then? First, before you even go into the paid posting world, understand that it doesn’t happen to every blogger. And if you do lose your PR, it can be corrected. There are many different strategies across the net, but one proposed adding NO FOLLOW tags into the paid links in your blog post. This is a simple HTML fix. Then you wait – or take some elements of Search Engine Optimization into action!

The Benefits of Paid Blogging:

However, if you went into blogging thinking you’d be lucky to break $100 a month for your blog after a year, think again. Paid posts are incredible profitable ways for bloggers to earn blogging cash. You can make as much as you want, depending on the rankings of your blog itself. Making $30 for 150 words isn’t out of the question, nor is making even more per post.

Who to Use:

Most readers will know the main paid blogging sites. There are Smorty, Blogitive, Pay Per Post, Loud Launch, Blogging Ads, and dozens of others. Pay Per Post is perhaps the best … Blogitive the steadiest earner … Blogging Ads the smallest … and Smorty seems to be going downhill with so few ads being posted. The power in all of this seems to be so many options. But you must first put the time into creating a successful blog. Your bog usually needs to be 30-90 days old and have some kind of PR to be accepted into most paid blogging programs.

What do you write?

You write a short ad for your blog. For instance, Blogitive will ask you to write 100 words on a new health site. You are given a press release to work from … write the ad in your language at 100 words and submit it on your blog … then publish and paste the final URL into the Blogitive form. It sounds complicated, but that takes you a total of 5-20 minutes to write one ad. Some take longer, some pay more than others, and it’s all about what the market is seeing.

Making Money Blogging:

So maybe you thought $100 a month was a good goal. It’s not a bad one; many would be happy with it. However, with paid blogging you can make that in a week, sometimes a day. And it’s all part time work. Again, however, you have to handle your PR. It’s up to you whether paid blogging is the way to go.

8. Defining Blogging Cash

There are countless avenues to make money blogging, beginning and ending with you creating a readable blog which gets repeat visitors, or just enough repeat readers for you to get some advertising for your business. “Blogging cash” is a simple word enticing thousands to start blogs. This short guide explains in detail what it is and how you make it.

Definition:

There is of course no dictionary definition for blogging cash. I define it as more than a few dollars a month. If you want to make the most of your time on the blog, you need to understand making $10 on month 3 isn’t a good thing. You can make far more. Blogging cash isn’t measured in millions either, but there are quite a few bloggers making a career of blogging.

It’s Still Work:

This isn’t going to be walking across the block and picking up money. There is a misconception that to make blogging cash all you need is a “great ideas” and to write a lot. Every post needs to be strong in keywords. Every post needs to have a focus to it, usually on getting some kind of reader response. And every post needs to at least attempt to bring more readers to your blog. This takes work, especially if you are trying to run multiple blogs at the same time.

Making Decisions on Income:

Speaking of multiple blogs, you might have to retire one or two of them. This isn’t a rule, but rarely will your very first blog just take off like some author’s bestselling first novel is turned into a movie (“Harry Potter”).

It’s time to make clear decisions on how you will earn some blogging cash. It’s okay to make very little in your first months on your first blogs, but once you get experience, it’s time to see what works and what doesn’t. If your dream idea for one blog fails, it’s best to start anew.

30 Days to Blogging Cash:

However, you can make money blogging quickly. There are some changes occurring in the advertising world online, namely with paid posting sites like Pay Per Post. If your blog is 30 days old, it can now be accepted into some sites, including Pay Per Post. Bringing in lots of passive income this early isn’t impossible either, especially when you work hard to promote the blog from day one. You need to create lots of backlinks in order to do that. This isn’t a race, however, and by 90 days you should be making blogging cash.

90 Days to Blogging Profit:

Now, just about every paid blogging site will accept your blog in by 90 days, because by now you’ve proven you’re not just here for a few weeks or to cash in. By now you’re an experienced blogger, likely with some regular readers, and a strong set of backlinks across the web. Paid blogging, again, isn’t your only option. With ads like Adsense, you can create revenue streams. It’s important to start doing this on day one. By day 90, if you have no passive income plan set in motion you may have to wait a few more months for it to become profitable. It takes lots of links, readers, and clickers.

Hitting the Year Mark:

By the year mark, you’re an experienced blogger, making blogging cash. Sure, you’re likely not the #1 blog online, or on your topic, but you’re getting close. This is when the blogging cash you’ve been trying to create starts working for you. There should be hundreds of sites linking to you, and you should be working with many ad companies to make this blogging cash. You will, literally, be making money while you sleep. With 200 posts and dozens of working ads, all you need is a strong reader base.

9. Passive Income

Passive income is a broadsword used to cut a carrot: it doesn’t exactly entail that the income is easy to make, but that it works for you. That makes sense to many bloggers across the net, but also angers them. I can see the frustration. You spent hours, days, weeks on writing ten excellent posts. You had 100 readers, 200 hits, and a few clicks. You made .33 cents total, and you’re left wondering, “What’s the point?” The point is passive income isn’t the right phrase to use all the time. “Passive” by definition is less hands on, but in the beginning or even middle period of your blog(s), you will put more work into it only to attain results months later. So let’s go over the basics of passive income blogging.

The Dangers of Passive Income:

There really aren’t any huge “Dangers” unless you publish risqué’ content or ask your users to click your pay per click links all the time. For instance, most advertisers won’t want to post ads with you if you ask your readers to click the paid links ten times. That’s passive income blogging rule #1, and Google Adsense is the proponent. However, another danger is you make absolutely nothing, for months. It happens to bloggers who don’t put the work into their blog. It does make sense. Who wants to get paid $2 an hour trying to get more hits on their blog, and therefore more passive income? Still, there are more pluses than negatives, and most successful bloggers make the majority of their income with passive income.

The Pluses of Passive Income:

First off, paid posting is much like the dangerous get rich quick scheme. You may make a lot, but you may lose a lot and take some chances along the way. You need to directly write the ads, spending time writing promotions for other companies. However, with passive income ads you sign up for services and post what you want … normally. You need to hit on some powerful topics to truly make the most of Adsense or other programs. Another benefit is, after six months and 100 posts, all those older posts will start adding up more and more. You will actually make something while you’re sleeping!

How to do it:

Let’s go over Adsense. If you have a Blogger account, it’s as simple as signing up for the Adsense program . Google owns both. You’re writing articles on depression, say, and of course the Google Adsense ads pick up on your keywords and place there. The more clicks you get on these links, the more “real” clicks I should say, the more profit you get. Other advertising programs work on page views: the more page views you get, the more money you get. This begins to add up the more blog posts you create. Lastly, some pay you a monthly fee to post ads. Combined, these three passive income routes often turn into profit with creative bloggers who know keywords and how to get more hits.

10. More Services

One useful strategy for a blog you can’t make much direct or passive income from is by engaging a new element: selling your services. You must be an expert on something, and you can create articles on exactly that. You showcase your blog as a resume in action.

This means, if you have a WordPress blog, you can find different sources of income. Just because WordPress as of now doesn’t allow many ads doesn’t mean you can’t profit. It’s time to think on your feet. So how do you do it? This guide tells you how.

You’re An Expert On …

What you have most experience in, of course. That isn’t always the most profitable route to go. If you are a minister, you might find no one wanting to buy your services for their churches; there is so much competition. However, as a faith based person you could break into more lucrative markets, namely e-magazines and books. There are many churches which publish their own newsletters, and there is a Christian book shop in almost every city.
See how specific we went into developing that idea? You need to utilize what you know more than anything in order to obtain profit. No subject is too small.

Selling That:

There are many other routes to go, especially for bloggers. You can not only use the blogs to market books, but specific services. You could start a successful real estate blog, using it to sell houses on a specific site. Blogs are one powerful way to get any new site off the ground, along with press releases and word of mouth. Once you have a site, it’s best to start a blog where you share your expertise in certain matters. So where you’re selling real estate on your main site, you’re informing on your blog and making yourself a credible expert in the field. Then, when you say you’ve found a rare deal, more online users will listen. And you might make some money.

Writing Services:

Most of all, as a blogger you are a writer in disguise. Take off the cape and show the world you can write for them! It’s odd, but there are quite a few freelance writers who simply started out with one or two blogs, and watched them become smash hits. Then, they became “marketable” freelance writers in other online fields, or even in the publishing world.
Another route is the whole element of offering your blogging services. If you’re a talented blogger, you’re in demand with many sites. I personally know bloggers who sell their services to all kinds of businesses, from law to health. You put together a powerful resume and start following the job boards for blog work like Pro Blogger.

This Still Means Profit:

Lastly, what you’re doing it utilizing your blog to sell more than ad space. You can place a link to your main website in the signature of every email you send, as well as every blog post you publish. You can even have an entirely separate About or Services blog page, where you can explain your professional services to readers. The possibilities are endless.

11. Creating Several Profitable Blogs

Whether you want passive income or more direct income, whether you want to be a career blogger or just want another source of part time income, your best bet is to create more than one blog. There is a big strategy and a small strategy to this, and making more from each post by treating this like a business. This guide explains how to create more than one profitable blog, starting at day 1.

Day 1 Blogger:

It’s best to stick with just one blog if you are just starting out as a blogger. If you’re an advanced blogger, my later tips here are more up your alley. On day 1, follow the steps of creating a strong business plan intent on earning income even within the first month. Real income, not income that paid you $10 for 20 hours of work. It’s not easy, but it is more than possible. Thousands of bloggers are using it.
But, on day 1 of any blog the focus is trying to find a mindset for successfully getting more readers. The most important thing to remember is, one powerful blog can jumpstart an entire series of blogs. It can lead to lots of paid work and experience in this growing market.

When to Build 2 Blogs:

You can still try to start two blogs, especially if you have experience online. This guide, after all, is about creating more than one profit stream. Blogging cash comes with one blog, but the reality is several successful blogs on different topics almost doubles your possible readers. Say for example you are building a collecting blog, with an emphasis on selling certain products via auction sites and retailers like Ebay and Amazon. You will find one, if not dozens, of even more specific niches. Selling collectible books. Selling comics. Selling coins. Each of these has potential for a separate blog, especially if you have an interest in the subject.

Still, you will have more experience than on one topic. You like commentating on films too, and this in some way coincides with collecting books or comics; people who like one often like the other. So by creating one blog and getting the same reader to both, you are doubling your potential hits.

Make Sure They Like the Writing:

I say this from experience: creating more than one blog often makes two or more lesser quality blogs. You may have a day job, you may have kids to feed, and building a blog from scratch can be tough. Therefore, the qualities of your posts may go down. If this is the case, you might want to stick to one blog now and see if it’s successful.

Backlink Bonanza!

You will want to make sure all your readers from one blog know about your second or third blogs. Again, this is doubling the amount of readers possible. So with every single post on both blogs, leave a hyperlink to the other blog. That’s a backlink, and it’s a proven way to build a blogging career. Also, if you publish any writing online, always make sure to include your blogs in your bio, the short paragraph where you explain who you are and what you do.

One Fails:

Lastly, by building more than one blog you get to see the market for each. One may fail for you, bringing in few if any readers. While on the other side, the second and/or third blogs take off. There is nothing wrong with “retiring” a blog that isn’t making much headway.

My final tip on failed blogs is to simply set a plan from the outset on when you will throw in the towel. Set a profit margin, for example. If you don’t make $100 a month by month 3, you’re out with that blog.

12. Career Day, Creative Blogging Turns Into Blogging Income

Since there are millions of blogs, and only a select few are making enough blogging for careers, there is a misconception about the whole “Career Blogging” phrase. Career blogging is a tough word to use, but as someone who used it once, and whose paychecks were coming in solely from my blogging efforts, I can say it may not be the best career, but for many reasons it can be a lucrative one.

Can it be a career?

Yes, blogging can be a career, just like screenwriting or novel writing can be careers. The good news is you need no direct connection to Hollywood (or live there), nor do you need to craft a masterpiece of 100,000 words and feel the pain of countless rejections on your way to becoming a career novelist. When compared to other creative fields, blogging from home looks rather good. There are thousands of bloggers out there who make the majority of their income as bloggers. It happens. It’s the reality of the online world. It starts with following the time tested rules of writing. Write well. Write plenty. Get the golden repeat visitors.

Repeat visitors:

Repeat visitors mean more hits on your blog(s). Simply put, this is your career in a nutshell. If you are questioning whether you can make blogging a career, this will tell you if it’s possible. If you can get repeat visitors across multiple blogs, you can make money online in big amounts. If you treat this more as a hobby and only post once a month, you’re not going to get the serious reader willing to keep coming back for information.

More than One Blog Element:

Having more than one blog is a MUST if you want to be a career blogger. Even if they make most of their money with one blog, there are many career bloggers with six or more blogs. Some are “building blogs” still waiting to take off. Others are more professional blogs, where thousands of readers visit. Still other are in between, bringing in just enough money for the blogger to keep them going, but not enough to live off solely.

Using Social Media:

Social media is crucial, but underlying it is the fact you need to understand how blogs work to profit from them. For example, using Tags and Keywords are powerful ways to get more readers. If you pick up on a powerful keyword, or choose a unique but popular tag, you’re using social media like it’s meant to be used.

Selling Reports and eBooks:

Your blog is a success! You’re making decent money! What next? It’s time to branch out into blog consulting or other writing fields. These will supplement your income even more, and with your emplaced and successful blogs already bringing in hundreds if not thousands of readers a day, you can start cashing in with more than ads. This goes back to offering more services, but it’s more specific. For one, blog consulting is a powerful tool to use; once you get lots of readers, you will find many who have their own blogs. They want help on being “career bloggers” themselves so you can do some blog consulting for them.

13. The Final Theory

When the magician hides his face during a show, you don’t know quite what to expect. He shows you some magic tricks, tricking you into his realm. Then he reveals his face and it isn’t what you expected: you wanted more. Some great magicians hide their faces, and the greatest bloggers hide from the world with words, playing tricks with things like keywords and off the wall topics. Blogging is a movement that has evolved online more than any other field. It’s an enjoyable process from start to finish. The final theory on blogging from home is offered in this short guide, no magic tricks used.

Creative Bloggers Unite!

Blogging is somewhat of a solitary business, like creating fiction. However, there are many advantages. You write something today, you publish it tomorrow, it gets an odd hundred or thousand readers, and then you move onto the next post. Even if you’re writing a feature magazine article, you will wait a minimum month to see it in print, and that’s if you’re incredibly lucky. Novels are written over months and years, often never published at all. Blogging is the expression that is shared almost immediately, and that’s why it has inherent advantages over many other writing forms. It’s also quite addicting.

The Blogging Addiction:

Think about what you are doing. In a visual world, you are offering opinions to thousands of people. You are behind a desk or sitting in the sun and conversing with people, where you’re speaking and they’re listening. The addiction is simply that you value this just as much as they do; expressing yourself becomes more and more of a must. That’s the reason many novelists and screenwriters go into blogging; I know personally of many who enjoy writing about oddball events while they successfully pursue storytelling careers.

Work From Home Reality:

In reality, the true magic trick is making money from others in an honest way. There are so many “Work From Home at $50/hour” ads that people are inundated with. It becomes an “act” to hide the ads or paid posts which you must use to make a decent living. You have to blend romance with business, business with romance.

The Final Theory:

Blogging from home is a magic trick that you can repeat again and again and get different results. Whatever your field, it can be immensely profitable or somewhat disappointing … oddly amusing while depressing … fulfilling at times while at others a waste of time. It’s oddly moving to see someone, anyone, respond to your writing.

My philosophy is it’s better to have blogged than to have not blogged at all

The Importance Of Keyword Research

Trond — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:52:50 +0000

If you are planning a website for your small business or are looking to increase the effectiveness of an existing website there is nothing more important than spending time on the first step of the process. No, it’s not which hosting company or designer to choose. It’s not how you want your website to look or behave. It’s your keywords.

If you are trying to expanding your business using the internet or generate leads from your website, you have three options. You can choose to pay to advertise, you can choose to optimize your site for the search engines in the hopes of generating free traffic, or you can do a combination of the previous two techniques. No matter what route you take, keyword research and selecting the right keywords for your site is a very important but often overlooked step in the process.

If you are scratching your head at this point wondering exactly what a “keyword” is, then here is a basic explanation. Keywords are the terms that a page or site is focused on. They are also the terms that your ideal customer would type in to a search engine if they were looking for what you have to offer. For example, if you were an air conditioning company operating in Chicago, you might target a keyword such as “Chicago air conditioning” or “air conditioning Chicago”.

The goal is that you will generate a list of words and phrases that are relevant to what your company offers and receive enough interest from web searchers to make them worth your effort. Not all keywords will perform the same way. Some keywords simply get very little in the way of search volume no matter how relevant to your site they may be, while other keywords are searched for on a daily basis.

Using the previous example, it might surprise you to note that according to the public Google search data, “Chicago air condition” gets very few searches in any given month while “air conditioning Chicago” receives 2000+ queries each month on Google alone. If this were your business the simple choice of keywords could have a profound effect on whether or not your online presence was profitable for your company.

Once you have found the right set of keywords to target for your site, you will want to make sure that they appear in the text on your site and even in your domain name if possible. These small tweaks can make a big difference in the number of free visitors your site receives from the search engines as well as the amount of money you pay and traffic you receive from paid advertising in Google Adwords and similar networks who take landing page quality in to account.

By doing diligent keyword research for your website you stand to gain more traffic and more sales than you would if you skip over this critical part of the process. Choosing the ideal keywords to target and following good website optimization practices can turn your simple website in to a profitable source of new leads and customers for years to come.

Why SEO is the Ultimate Traffic Generation Method

Trond — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:35:40 +0000

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the main process wherein an internet marketer improves the quality and volume of traffic to their website. The higher your site lands in the rankings, the more visitors you’ll get to your site. Taking marketing strategies into consideration, it is the best way to increase a site’s relevance. The harsh reality is that if your site doesn’t make it in the rankings to the initial rankings page, there is a good possibility that all the effort you’ve put into your website could be for naught.

The amount of traffic generated by SEO is second to none and for that reason alone, it is the ultimate traffic generation method. To say the least, it doesn’t matter whether it is media publicity, press releases, or social networking, they cannot compete with SEO for generating traffic to a website. So what is it that makes SEO such a successful method for generating traffic? The main reason is because 90% of the people searching the internet for products and services use search engines to find what they are looking for.

When your site ranks high on a search engine results page, you are bound to get hoards of traffic to your site. Consequently, if your site is not search engine optimized, search engine spiders have no way of recognizing your website, and therefore can’t send any traffic to it. Taking the requirements of search engines into consideration will assist you in creating and developing a website that will result in great returns where massive traffic and revenues are concerned. For these reasons alone, SEO is the best marketing strategy you can use to get the best traffic possible to your site.

You have to understand how vital SEO is when you are developing your marketing plan. When you consider the millions of people who are searching the internet every day in order to purchase their needs, providing the right information, products and services is critical in order to be successful in internet marketing. In order to receive the traffic that you need in order to sustain your business, you have to land high up in the SEO rankings or you are going to have a rough go of things. Implementing and employing an effective SEO traffic generation program is crucial.

Take a comprehensive approach to generating SEO traffic for both the immediate future and down the road. SEO driven traffic is a testimony to the fact that there is strength in numbers, and the higher up in the rankings your site achieves, the greater the number of visitors you’ll get consistently and continually to your site. If you’re just starting out, it is oftentimes recommended that you hire a professional who is skilled at developing a marketing plan that contains an SEO strategy for your business.

These professionals are skilled at developing a foundation for a successful traffic generation plan. Ultimately, this can result in increased revenues and profits form you internet business venture.

Actually, I, Trond Lyngbø, am one of these professionals

The Importance of SEO for B2B Creative Business Part 1, Basics

Trond — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:48:11 +0000

Why use SEO for your creative business?

This series focuses on selling for the B2B market, a billion dollar field online.
Another question: Why go online with your B2B creative business?

Here’s food for thought. In a recent book called “The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying decisions,” which was quoted on MarketingToday.com, a huge amount of creative businesses researched online before making a purchase. They needed a product or service, and over 90% of them looked to the internet! That’s a number you can profit from.

This guide focuses on that study and more to show you the importance of SEO B2B marketing, one of the most profitable fields for creative businesses offering products and services. Your business needs to go online—that’s not news—but it also needs SEO marketing to truly make money online.

Business to Business Basics:

Business to business is simply a term designed for different companies working together. That’s simple, but what’s not is how the exchanges are made. Often companies are looking to profit both ways; one company wants to sell a service to another, the company buying the service intends to increase profits. Essentially, it’s all about profiting, but in different ways.

Creative Businesses Online:

Positioning yourself in the online world is one of the wisest moves you can make. For creative businesses going online should be the #1 goal—most of the time. Some products or services don’t translate as well into the online world. Yet there are so many that do! Even food and medicine purchases, so common at super markets and drug stores, are increasing. Perishable foods, for one, are an example of a market you might not want to tap. But since we’re talking about the B2B market, you’re more focused on harnessing SEO to make money online.

The Make Money Online Basics:

Making money online comes in many varieties. For example, if you have a blog on some niche topic, say films, you might use Amazon Associates or BN.com to get commissions on buys from films you review; with a few clicks you make money online. This blog, whether you want to call it a business or not, is profiting from another site. That’s classic B2B.

Key Placement of Keywords—The SEO In Action:

SEOs are incredibly important in the online world, as are RSS feeds. Both used together mean you make money online. In the B2B market, you’re offering a product or service. A freelance writer offers articles for online publication … a web marketing whiz sells his direct response web design services … a foreign oil company offers to sell discounted oil to American companies. These all make money, and need distinct, powerful keywords. SEO-search engine optimized is a term which has become a blossoming industry in the past decade. Often people unsure of their writing will fill pages full of keywords hoping to make more money. Volume is good, but so is quality, and you want specific placement of keywords.

Selling—volume or quality?

Volume is good for keywords, but the general rule is about 5-10 percent of your text is keyword rich, sometimes a bit less and sometimes more. For B2B marketing, you often have more time to sell your product or service, especially if you’re offering an incredible deal. Business owners are more than patient if you can make them more money, and that’s the purpose of B2B marketing.

Part 1: The Importance of SEO for B2B Creative Business – Part 1, Basics

Part 2: Highly Profitable SEO Keyword Rich Websites, And Why They Work

Part 3: Importance of SEO B2B Research and Development

Part 4: Importance of SEO Research Tools for Any Business Market

Part 5: Why SEO B2B Marketing Solutions Are Important

Part 6: Importance of Social Media SEO For B2B Creative Sellers

Part 7: SEO Keys: Search Engine Marketing and Placement For Small Business

Part 8: B2B Marketers Have a Budget of Time and Money: SEO Marketing With a Budget

Part 9: The Importance of Search Engines for Research and Buying: SEO And Google

Part 10: Major Search Engines Rules: The SEO B2B Company Page

Basics of Marketing and Considerations for Social Media Communication

Trond — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Small business owners can easily fall into the trap of marketing their company using free social media websites. With social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn, you can create a free account, but free doesn’t always mean the account is right for your business. Be prepared to make a considerable time commitment to social media marketing. Before you create social media profiles for your small business, read the following basic principles of marketing. Next, decide whether the time commitment of updating social media profiles matches your business goals.

Five Basics of Marketing

The Brand – The small business uses marketing and advertising communication formats to create a brand in the target market. If your business is local, your target market includes people who live and work in your area who might be interested in purchasing your products or services. Networking with people on the Internet expands your potential target market to a global audience.
Person-to-Person Marketing – You and your employees affect the brand of your company through daily interaction with customers. Focusing on customer service strategies helps to ensure that your employees use sound person-to-person marketing to create positive messages. All communication should improve the company brand in the target market.
Advertising vs. Marketing – Advertising is when you pay money for advertising your company (i.e. buying a quarter-page advertisement in the local telephone directory). Marketing is using promotional items and messages (i.e. press releases, email newsletters, and signs) to promote the brand of your company.
Planning – Small business owners should understand that many aspects of the business affect the brand of the company in the target market. The small business owner may not be aware of all ways that the company sends messages to the public. Planning a marketing strategy ensures that the small business owner considers the impact of messages sent to customers through communication vehicles. In addition to press releases, email newsletters, and signs, there are other vehicles, including company promotions, employee uniforms, business cards, vehicle advertising, and Internet communication.
Value – Marketing creates value in the minds of consumers in the target market. Tracy L. Tuten (2008), author of Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, explains: “Organizations rely upon strategically developed marketing mixes to ensure a strong value proposition for customers, meaning that the organization can offer a product the customer wants, at a price the customer perceives as reasonable, delivered at the right place and the right time.

An established business owner has a lot to think about before developing an online presence through social media websites. Building a brand is a complex process that requires marketing insights and considerable effort.

The Time Commitment

Small business owners may recognize that using free social media removes the barrier of cost for marketing the small business. However, small business owners may not give adequate consideration to the implications of creating social media profiles for communication with the public. The decision to create a profile on a site like Twitter or MySpace should occur after studying the nature of social media and how long it might take for the benefits of social media marketing to be realized. Here are five factors to consider.

Choose the right social media website for the company’s marketing plan. Decide if each social media website will deliver valuable marketing messages to the minds of potential customers. Time will be spent using each site for marketing, including creating and developing a social profile for the company, communicating with customers, and updating the profile page with periodic updates about the company.
Choose how many social profiles the company can easily maintain. Once you get past the allure of free social profiles, you spend a lot of time networking. For example, it takes time to read and to respond to contacts from potential customers on applications like Facebook and MySpace.
Consider the required manpower for customer communication. New customer contacts begin with the social media presence of your company. People who find your company on a social media website may become real customers who call, email, write, or visit in person. They need individualized attention like all other customers. Will your staff be able to meet their needs?
Remember the blog is a social media tool that requires a steady stream of fresh content. It takes time to update a blog every day or two with new information. Each message you send through the blog is a marketing message for the target audience. Online users can use the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feature of many social media websites to subscribe to your blog posts. If web users subscribe, they will get regular updates from your blog on their own blog, website, or email account.
Consider the possibility of delegating social media communication to a trusted staff member. An employee with marketing savvy and strong communication skills can manage the social profiles of your small business. However, decide if the time your employee spends on social media networking fits your business strategy. If you won’t generate new customers or higher sales from the labor hours an employee spends on social networking, your payroll allocation for this task might be better invested in another marketing strategy.

You need to make an informed decision about the potential benefits of marketing your small business using the free tools of social media websites like LinkedIn and Twitter. All messages created by your company must positively reinforce the brand you have created through traditional marketing strategies. The time your staff spends on social networking also impacts your decision.

Don’t create social media profiles for your small business just because you can get a free account. Fit social media marketing into a marketing plan where it makes good business sense. Your target audience should receive positive messages about your company. Will your brand successfully use social media networking to give customers something to believe in?

Do you want to follow me on Twitter?

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Top 10 Keyword Phrases to Make Money Online

Trond — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

In order to make money online, you should know the top 10 keyword phrases. There are many ways to use keyword phrases to make money online but here we will just be looking at the top 10 and how to get them:

Several keyword phrases: Use several words for your keyword phrases instead of just one word. Since most people think one word is enough, your competition may think that way, too.
Think like your target audience: What keyword phrase will visitors use to get to a site? Single words may be more competitive, so try to find two- or three-word phrases that a customer looking for your site may click on.
Other sources for keyword phrases: Have several people give you suggested keyword phrases and use the best ones, or combine the ones you prefer, and use them on your site.
Competitor’s keyword phrases: Use your browser to see the source code of your competitor’s page. This way, you will see what keyword phrases they are using. This way your web pages can be optimized.
Finding variation of keyword phrases: Try to come up with a variation for the keyword, such as words that are similar to it or synonyms of the word you selected. You may be surprised at how many variations of the keyword phrases you may come up with.
Keyword phrases that reflect local cities and states: In your keyword phrase, you can add a city, town or state so as to make it specific to that location only. Some people prefer to work with locals, rather than a global audience. You can even add these to your contact page to pull in possible traffic from your competition and make some money online.
Check the statistics from your site: Search the statistics program from your search engine and the raw server log to find out what keyword phrases your visitors are using to find you and your site. They may be using words you did not even think of.
Optimize your page: By using keyword phrases that are really relevant to your product or service, you will get a lot of visitors to your site and may even be able to make a lot of money online by doing so.
Speak to your visitors: Another way you can find keyword phrases that will make money online for you is to ask your customers and visitors how they found you. They will be your gauge so you can change or modify your keyword phrases.
Effective link building: To be effective in building links, you must incorporate important keyword phrases into you linking text and titles. Effective keyword phrasing gives search engines, such as Google, a clue as to what the page is about. This keyword phrase, depending on its ranking, can also make money online for you, especially when customers start to purchase your products and services.

Rich Niche 8: Make Money Online – Keyword Phrases to Blogging Gold

Trond — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

The movement to work from home has in recent years spun out to become the make money online job, where you can not only sit at home, but communicate via social media tools and other formats to earn an income. The reality is this is just like any other creative business; if you don’t put work in there is little point. However, with a startup at the cost of a computer and internet connection, it truly can be profitable. That’s why it’s such a hot topic in the writing, blogging, consulting, and other career fields.

Blogging:

Blogging is perhaps the easiest route for the make money online movement. It takes more patience than skill. Many top bloggers aren’t the best writers, but they have strong business sense. With blogging, you are keying in on a popular online search. If you can focus your posts to make money online while blogging, you’re in bloated but incredibly hot niche.

Creative Online Writing:

There are many other fields for writers beyond simply blogging. The rates at which writers are earning off the internet is incredible. Some base their entire careers writing SEO content for companies. It makes the niche very profitable. Creative online writing is a very specific niche, and requires a working knowledge of the markets available. The more you’ve published online the better—it shows experience.

Consulting:

Consulting is another specific niche in the blogging world. It’s more than a retirement game or a marketing move: consultants often charge what they want. Usually, we’re talking about consulting with businesses, offering new images from Fortune 500 companies to the small business trying to break into the online world.

Work from Home Businesses:

Consulting is ultra-specific, where work from home business is a very broad field. It means what it sounds like. This field, though already huge, is prime for bloggers. If you are a career blogger (make money online as your main income) you speak from experience on this field.

Make Money Blogging:

Typically, “make money online” is one of the hottest niches for top bloggers. You can post far more than ads; you can also publish job postings from top companies. Sometimes they’ll pay you, and if they don’t you can expect to get lots of visitors. It’s a field so lucrative you can start as many blogs on specific topics as you want, if you have the time and patience to work on them. This all means a passive income from ads and special reports, then direct income from other features like job postings or paid posts.