The most important thing about having a blog is to establish your brand and let your readers get to know you. This applies mostly to blogs that are related to your business. As the author of the blog, you can tell your readers about yourself in the About page. Your readers will also come to know you through your style of writing and what you write about. If you have something meaningful to say, people will listen.

Get Started

If you don’t already have a blog, it’s time to take the plunge and get started. Remember Nike’s popular slogan? Just do it. You can learn along the way as you build up your first blog. There is a lot of freely available information about all aspects of maintaining and marketing a blog.

In the beginning, you can take a look at some of the popular blogs in your niche and take note of what you like about them. Basically you are trying to capture the best elements of those blogs and try to incorporate them in yours.

Blog Regularly

Even if you are not a Pulitzer prize winning author, you can still get better at writing as you practice. Try to blog as regularly as possible. If you stop for long periods between your posts, you may start to lose your readership. You can even write your posts beforehand if you know that you are going to be away on vacation. Then you can set up automatic scheduling to post to the blog.

Build a Community

As your blog readership grows, you will hopefully get more people interacting with you through the comments. Definitely install Akismet to catch most of the comment spam. Try to answer all of the valid comments quickly and you will make your readers feel that you care. Another option to think about is building a forum as part of your blog. Again, due to the problem of spam, forums require moderation and if you don’t have time to do this, you’ll have to find some volunteers or pay for help.

Another way to build a community quickly is by holding a blog contest. You can offer attractive prizes (like lots of cash!) or ask other bloggers to donate prizes in exchange for something you have to offer. You could offer to review their blog in your blog and give them a backlink. You could offer them your own product in exchange. Those are just two quick ideas.

Folks like Darren Rowse (Problogger) and Shoemoney have built their brands largely due to the popularity of their blogs. You have to find your own unique angle to it. For Problogger, it was teaching people about blogging and making money from it. For Shoemoney, a lot of initial interest was generated by showing a huge affiliate check and talking about tremendous success with ringtones.

Don’t delay, start thinking about how you can establish yourself in a crowded marketplace. The sooner you start, the better.

Technorati Tags: building your brand, blogging tips

Popularity: 39% [?]

Do you know how long your website or blog takes to load for users with different internet connection speeds? The reason this is important is because not everyone is using broadband although it is becoming increasingly widespread. If your site takes forever to load, the chances of the visitor clicking on the back button is higher and you’re going to lose a lot of traffic that way.

Fortunately, there are tools available online that lets you check how fast or slow your site loads. Most of these tools are free. One example of such a tool is from websiteoptimization.com.

It tells you how fast your site loads depending on what type of connection your visitor has. It also gives you suggestions on how you can improve your load time.

Try to keep the load time less than 3 seconds. The main culprit of slow load times is usually images. Try as to use images in JPG or PNG formats. These formats usually take up the smallest amount of memory. If you have Photoshop, you can save the images in different formats and compare the file sizes. You can also set the amount of compression to use.

If you’re using third party widgets on your blog, these could also slow down your load times. You might have noticed that I have removed the Blog Catalog widget from my sidebar because I found that it was taking a long time to load up.

Remember, the faster your site loads, the more visitors you’ll retain and more visitors mean more money!

Technorati Tags: website load time, compress images, image files

Popularity: 91% [?]

If you ever run out of ideas for blog posts, check out Lorelle’s list of resources to help you spark some ideas. Bookmark it and keep it for your reference.

One of the best things to keep your blog fresh is to post about top news stories. These get lots of searches and if you can offer a unique viewpoint or a critique of the story, you will draw a captive audience. If your blog is crawled often, you’ll see your posts being indexed within a day or two and as a result, you’ll start seeing search traffic related to the news story.

What are some of the ways you generate ideas for your posts? I keep a tab on other blogs using Google Reader and browse through the feeds for interesting items. You can also keep a notebook and jot down ideas that occur to your during the course of the day that might be worth posting about. Keep a long list and you’ll be able to draw from it in the future.

Technorati Tags: blog post ideas, where to get ideas for blogs

Popularity: 36% [?]

This could be the Google AdSense killer - it’s called AdBlock Plus. Install the Firefox plugin and you can block 99% of the ads you see around the internet from Google AdSense to banner ads. PC World chose Adblock Plus as one of the 100 best products of 2007. It has got an estimated 2.5 million users and growing.

But it still doesn’t block the AdSense ads appearing on the SERPs. In place of the ads, you see white space where the ads used to be. So can it kill the revenue streams of people who make a living from selling ads off their blogs and sites?

When you first install it, you can load up the default settings for ads that you want to block. After that you can block other ads by training the plugin to do so.

When you right click on a mouse, you will see the “Adblock Image…” option that you can select to block any new banners that you don’t want to see.

For example…

I took that example from Shoemoney’s blog (I don’t have anything against the man, just using his blog as an example since he’s well-known among the make money blogging circles)

Here’s Shoemoney with AdBlock Plus disabled….

Enable AdBlock Plus and POOF!… no more ads.

Want to see more examples?

Okay, let’s take a look at JohnChow minus the ads.

Looks nice and clean doesn’t it? Suddenly there’s all this free space.

So how does your blog stack up with AdBlock Plus?

How are you going to modify your monetization strategy when more users start to block out ads?

Technorati Tags: ad blockers, blocking ads

Popularity: 39% [?]

I just read a blog post where someone was giving advice about scaring people away from your blog by having too many banners. Unfortunately, he wasn’t following his own advice.

Here are the ad blocks he has:

1. A 468×60 banner right below the header
2. A 300×250 banner within each post
3. 2 Project Wonderful 125×125 ads on the sidebar
4. 8 125×125 private ad blocks
5. A PepperJam ad block
6. A Chitika ad block below each post
7. An Entrecard ad block

On top of those, he also has Kontera text links embedded within the posts.

One of my pet peeves is seeing a site that’s set up by a newbie blogger trying to make money online in the “how to make money by blogging” niche and there are more ads than actual content that is worth reading.

Folks, that is a sure path to failure!

You’re better off setting up a blog in a different niche to learn the basics of how to monetize a blog. If you ask successful bloggers in the make money online niche, I can tell you that probably 99% of them make less than 10% of their income through the blog. They have other ways of making money besides the blog whether it’s PPC, their own products, courses, consulting, etc.

Technorati Tags: make money blogging

Popularity: 24% [?]

One way of generating more buzz and traffic for your blog is by running a cool contest and telling people about it. Remember those count and guess the number of jellybeans contests?

If you have an outrageous prize like lots of cold hard cash or some fancy gadget like a certain type of cell phone, you can generate a lot of interest and other bloggers will write about your blog and link to you.

A word of caution

However, be careful that you don’t ask people to link to you using a specified anchor text or you could be seen as trying to manipulate the search engine rankings. Anything that looks unnatural to the search engines will raise red flags. Imagine that your backlinks suddenly increased by the hundreds within a few days and they all have the same anchor text. That can get you penalized and your site may drop in the rankings or worse still, be totally de-indexed.

Some bloggers focus primarily on contests as the theme of their blogs. Others run contests from time to time to grow their blog readership and build a brand. You can also run a contest with a specific goal. For example, a contest to give away Entrecard credits or a contest to give away some ad space on your blog.

Examples of blog contests

To get some ideas, check out a few of these blog contests:

$5000 Search Marketing Scholarship Contest

Tutorial Writing Contest

Affiliate Summit Passes Contest

From these examples, you should be able to get a good idea of how to set up your blog contest, the rules to have and prizes to offer.

Getting people to participate

Once you’ve set up your contest, it’s time to get the word out!

1. Contact other bloggers that you know that have closely related blogs. Chances are their readers will be interested in your contest as well.

2. You can also ask other bloggers to contribute prizes. The more prizes you have, the more people will participate as they feel that their chances of winning something are greater.

3. You can submit press releases.

4. Spread the word in forums related to your niche.

5. Buy advertising. You can buy ad spots on popular blogs in your niche to advertise your contest. Buying PPC traffic is another option. But you’ll want to set a specific budget for that.

Finally, once the contest is over, you should gather all your data and analyze your results to see if you met your original goal for the contest.

Good luck!

Image credit: the 10 cent designer

Technorati Tags: blog contests, gaining readers for your blog, building blog popularity

Popularity: 32% [?]

I just read a post on a blog that had 6 (yes, I counted them all) affiliate links to the same product - all in a single post. This is a bad idea if your target audience is in the make money online niche.

C’mon, your readers aren’t stupid and having that many affiliate links will surely turn them off. I don’t have anything against using affiliate links but to overdo it is being shortsighted while chasing near-term profits and sacrificing the long term sustainability of your blog.

Here are a couple of reasons why you shouldn’t overload your posts with affiliate links:

1. Your readers will start to distrust your motives. Trust is the highest commodity in the blogosphere. Once you lose the trust and respect of your readers, it’s extremely difficult to get it back.

2. Even if you think your readers are that dumb, the search engines aren’t. Don’t you think it will raise a few red flags if you have 10 links in your post and 6 of them all point to the same product? Search engines like natural linking patterns.

A few words about the make money niche

While you will hear the advice that you should stay away from this crowded niche, ignore that. People will always want to hear about ways to make more money. This is a HUNGRY crowd and it’s a great niche to be in. Of course, you will have to find your own voice and give a reason for why people should be listening to you.

With the economic downturn, the opportunity is even bigger. As companies downsize, people are nervous about losing their jobs and look for alternative ways to support their families. Working online is a great way to supplement your income. So again, there will always be interest in this niche and the marketplace will support a large number of players.

Technorati Tags: affiliate links, make money online

Popularity: 34% [?]

Maybe that statement is an exaggeration but the point is that too many blogs are depending on AdSense as their major source of revenue. And I’d say that the major motivation that’s keeping a lot of blogs alive is the fact that they can make some money off AdSense.

While many small-time bloggers can make some extra cash through AdSense on their sites, don’t fall into the trap of relying solely on one source of revenue. This is especially true if you’re planning to quit your day job and think that you can survive on AdSense alone.

image credit: blmurch (Flickr)

The importance of diversification

Imagine that you wake up one day and Google bans your AdSense account. Will that kill 80% of your revenues? 95%?

That’s what happened to Incredimail, a public listed company (NASDAQ:MAIL) that saw its stock fall 30% today after they announced that Google has banned them from AdSense.

According to Maxim Group analyst, Matthew Weiss:

“This announcement is a big blow for IncrediMail as we believe that approximately 85 percent of the company’s advertising revenues are attributable to its AdSense relationship”

According to an article in the MotleyFool:

“Through the first nine months of 2007, revenues soared 94% to $13.3 million. The company is taking advantage of its popular email applications to launch Instant Messaging and social networking.”

If 85% of the revenues are from AdSense, that would amount to about $11 million dollars for the first nine months of 2007.

Use your earnings to invest for the future

While you are getting some decent checks from Google, set aside a part of it to invest in your continuing education and also for growing your revenue streams. Maybe you can plan to acquire some other websites. Or use some of your profits to hire writers and invest in building up new sites.

Or you can invest it off-line in traditional stuff like the stock market, CDs, forex, or pick your favorite investment vehicle.

Think of it this way. Look at what happened to Polaroid. They should have seen the trends occurring in the photography business with the advent of digital photography. Instead they were relying too much on their instant cameras which use film and look at where they are today.

When you think of photography who do you think of? Kodak? Polaroid? Hardly. I think the winners are Nikon and Canon.

So be sure to keep up with what’s happening in the industry.

Once again, I see that so many blogs are following the same layout as some A-list bloggers, you know, having the 125×125 ad blocks on the right hand sidebar. It’s like lemmings.

The supply and demand for these ads will eventually adjust their prices. However, there will always be suckers who are willing to pay more than the market price for them. While some popular blogs can charge hundreds of dollars per month for these ad spots, the advertisers will soon come to their senses if they are really measuring the results of putting up those ads.

Ad buying tips

If you’re considering buying an ad spot, be sure to set it up in such a way that you can measure the results. For example, you can use Google analytics and look at the referrals coming from the site that you’ve placed your ad on. You can look at the traffic coming from that referral and compare it to your average visitor in terms of time spent on your site, pages viewed, etc. Don’t just advertise blindly.

Another way is to set up a specific landing page and link it to the ad. Place an opt-in box and measure the conversion rate from the traffic you are getting. In some cases, it may be worth it. If you’re paying $30 per month for a spot, that means about $1 per day. If you’re getting 20 visitors per day, you’re paying 5 cents per visitor. Let’s say 1 out of 20 visitors opt-in, that means your acquisition cost per subscriber is $1. This isn’t too bad compared to putting up an AdWords ad.

Who says that Google won’t penalize sites selling 125×125 ad spots next? It would be in their interest to squash the competition for advertisers who would otherwise be advertising on AdWords.

It’s almost like the heady days of banner advertising in the first dot com boom. Everyone was into selling banner ads on their sites until the whole thing came apart. Some of the Web 2.0 properties may face the same fate. You can’t base your business model on AdSense alone.

Technorati Tags: Google AdSense, Incredimail, getting banned from AdSense, revenue streams, diversification, banner ads, 125×125 ads, lemmings

Popularity: 53% [?]

Everybody and their mother knows that Google frowns on paid text links as a way for webmasters to buy link juice for their sites. So it turned out that 2007 was the year that most of what’s known as text link advertising died. Most bloggers are so scared now that they put no follow links on all their link ads.

(By the way, if text link ads are being discouraged, why does TLA still have PR7?)

image credit: w@ndering_st@r (Flickr)

There is another way to do sell text links which is virtually undetectable to Google. Some people call it content hosting or presell pages.

By the way, Bob Massa’s blog (where I found the term ‘content hosting’) is one that you should read and keep in your feed reader. Lots of good insight there.

The way it works is that you contact the webmaster or blogger directly and ask them if you could pay them to have some of your content and links put on their site as part of a post.

It’s like product placement on TV shows. Or like how you see the judges on American Idol always drinking Coke. That’s content hosting for you.

This way your links will look a whole lot more natural than if they are a part of a list of text links on somebody’s sidebar. That’s just screaming out for Google to get you.

I’m sure there is already an underground market for such a thing. If you target a well established blog to host your content, you get both the benefit of the traffic as well as the link juice.

That’s all the more reason to expand your inventory of sites so that you have a stable of sites with various PR values that you can use content hosting to introduce your newer sites. For the more advanced, you can spread out your hosting and also your IP addresses.

The key is keeping things looking natural. Some people think you’re trying to game the search engines. I think you’re just trying to figure out their rules and play by those rules.

Here is an image that I came across on Flickr. I’d like to call it Determination.

image credit: J Quantz Jr. (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: text links, backlinks, passing PR, content hosting, presell pages, link juice

Popularity: 37% [?]

If you want to learn about what not to do, read this interview with a blogger who is blogging on high paying AdSense keywords.

Okay, Rule #1 - NEVER reveal all your URLs.

You’ll either:

1. Get lots of people copying the themes of your blogs

or

2. Some people may think your “keyword-targeted” blog is a spam blog and report it to Google.

It’s best to keep the URLs to yourself.

Technorati Tags: niche blogs

Popularity: 14% [?]