Monday, March 5, 2007

Can You Charge For Your Blog's Content?

Scott at Blog Herald recently talked about the viability of Paid Content Business Model for blogs. In other words, blog readers have to pay to access to the content of the blog.

Scott has also pointed out a few blogs that qualified themselves to charge for a premium:
All you have to do is look at the top blogs to see examples of blogs that might be able to charge for their content, e.g., Engadget, Gizmodo, GigaOm, TechCrunch, Problogger, Seth Godin, TMZ, Ars Technica, PaidContent. (I am purposely not mentioning The Blog Herald to avoid a conflict of interest.)

In this case, Darren at ProBlogger.net thinks it is possible for blogs to start charging, observing some obstacles as well as the likely reasons for readers to pay.

Most blogs mentioned above have an edge in their industry. They are either very committed to produce quality content, particularly enlightening, or they are always the first to discuss on something. This makes them popular. Should they hide away the content and only paid members can access, the impact of their blog will no longer be there.

Instead of charging for blog content, bloggers can create a training course which only paid members have access to. In this case, say Darren can create a blogging course, teaching his secrets more deeply, giving more insightful content than his blog. This can work.

Some of the models I can think of:
1) Create a membership site focusing on discussion and consultation (monthly fee)
2) Create a course teaching and sharing deeper knowledge (monthly fee)
3) Create an ebook, audio or video course (one time sale)
4) Personal coaching programs

The main problem with charging for content is there are too many free content on the internet. People will search for them, until they give up. Internet is also a competitive landscape. Most internet marketers will offer something others do not have in order to gain an edge over the others.

Say on a topic, there are 5 secrets. Internet marketer #1 will offer secret 1 for free, just to get some leads. Internet marketer #2, in order to be different, offers secret 2. If there are more than 5 internet marketers in that niches, you can almost find any information for free.

It is not surprising to buy a course or ebook just to realize you already possess the knowledge.

The only thing people can charge on the internet is personal experience. You can no longer sell information. Information is everywhere for free. Google is improving everyday to ease people searching for information. But you are lucky, you can still sell experience.

What if Darren decides to let you join him for a day, so you can observe how he do research, what RSS he reads, how he reply to emails, how he talks in phones, how he network with other bloggers, how he manage to come up with thoughtful posts, would you pay? I will.

I am not as big as Darren. I am a behind-the-scene, small and little blogger who manage to make some money off my blog. Best part is, I am sharing my limited experience in Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint, a blueprint that teaches you how to setup a blog to make $500 a month, step-by-step. If I can, you can too.

Friday, March 2, 2007

Keyword Research For Your Blog

Keyword research is critical to a blog's success. If you are just blogging casually, you don't really have to care about keywords. However, if you are serious about making money out of your blog, you need to master keyword very well. Your skill on targeting the right keyword determines the success of your blog.

Most of us know what keyword research is. Here are some of the tools that you can use to do keyword research. They are all free:
1) Overture's Keyword Research Tool
2) WordTracker's Free Version
3) Keyword Discovery's Free Version
4) Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Four of them give you different set of results when you search for a keyword. It depends on whether you are doing keyword research for site structure or article.

Using four of them can give you a comprehensive list of all possible keywords that you can target for your blog. Targeting the right keyword can bring you good traffic.

Other than those 4 tools, there are more that I share in my Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint.
I also talk about how to research the keyword, laterally and in-depth. I also share with you how to create a blog-structure based on the keywords, using "dog training" as case study.

If you want your blog post to rank well, you must make sure:

1) The main keyword appear in the URL

2) The main keyword is in the Title

3) The main keyword is in the Heading tag

4) The main keyword is in the first sentence of the first paragraph and ending paragraph

5) The main keyword is in the meta keyword and description tag

6) The main keyword appear at least once in every paragraph.

7) Keyword density of 3% is natural.

8) You must use keyword stemming, like: keyword researching, researched keyword...for the main keyword: keyword research.

9) You must also use highly related keywords, like: Keyword finding, keyword generation, keyword list, root word, synonyms, seo... for the main keyword: Keyword research.

10) You must have a link-out like this: Keyword Research anchored on your main keyword.

If you do keyword research but do not implement the above 10 steps, throw away your keyword list. They are useless to you.

The purpose of doing keyword research is to understand how search engines find content and how you can help the search engines to understand your content. Help them, and they will help you.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Make Money Blogging - What You Need To Know

There are quite a few things you need to know if you want to make money blogging. It is not as easy as register an account with blogger and adsense, and then sit and watch the money coming in. There are more to it. Here are some of the knowledge you need to equip yourself with:

1) How to blog well
Blogging has got more and more challenging. Normal content is not going to get attention anymore. Technorati is tracking over 58 million blogs, readers have choices which blog to read. So, you really need to put up cornerstone content to be able to attract readers.

2) Basic of HTML
If you are not an IT person, try to learn at least the basic of HTML. This will give you some power to modify your theme and the visual effects of your writing. I would suggest you to lookup W3Schools, who taught me most of my HTML knowledge.

3) Promote your blog
Here comes the challenge. Most bloggers face the problem of not getting enough traffic to their blog. If you want to make money blogging, you need to learn how to attract traffic to your blog. Traffic is the most expensive commodity on the internet, and big Google is built totally upon traffic. Joel Comm has a good book about driving traffic to your blog, it is called "Adsense Traffic Secret", currently selling for $7 only. You can also check my "7 Ways Of Driving Traffic" in my Ultimate Blogging E-Training Course. It is free though.

4) Basic of SEO
Although SEO is not as important for blogs as for websites, you need to learn and apply as much SEO knowledge as possible to your blog to reap the benefits of free traffic from search engines. If you manage to get to the front page of search results, you are likely to see an explosion in your income. One and I guess, the only SEO book that still matters, is Aaron Wall's SEO Book. If you do a search on Google for the word "SEO Book", you will see Aaron's book showing up on the first 3 pages. Imagine if your site shows up in the first 3 pages of the search result!

It is priced at $97, a bit high in price, but if you have a blog setup or some revenue door already opened, you can easily earn back the $97 investment with the higher amount of traffic you will get. It is here:



In short, making money blogging is not hard. You just need to learn how to make $1 a day first, then gradually increase it to $2, then $3... That's how you can make $500 a month blogging.

In Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint, I will show you how to make $500 the first month blogging, step by step. That's why it is called a blueprint.

Monday, February 26, 2007

How To Make Money Blogging

"How To Make Money Blogging?"
I am often asked.
And my answer is always: "There are thousands of ways".

That's right. There are thousands of ways you can make money blogging. Blogging for dollar is nothing new anymore, compared to few years back. Now, if you want to have a blog, you can get a free one with Blogger.com. What you do is just keep blogging, do some marketing, and install some monetization techniques, that's all. Your blog will be a money maker.

But how many actually makes money from their blogs? I have made $75 just from one blog post, in which I write about a review on an affiliate product. I have also make $21 in a day from one blog post that drives crazy amount of traffic. The possibilities are endless. In Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint, I will outline to you how to make $35 the first month blogging, maybe more, depend on how fast you grasp on the concept.

Your blog is a money maker. If you have a blog, but you are not making money out of it, you are wasting an asset. It is just like an abandoned office in the downtown of New York City, not good economically.

I have heard people saying you should not make money from your blog. Why not? The question here is not whether you should or should not make money from your blog, but can your blog make money? Some blogs just can't make money.

Blogs that make good money have some common traits. There are certain rules and techniques a blogger must heed. So, it depends on whether you want to make money professionally, or casually. Both ways work, though the result is a big difference. You can get the tips in Ultimate Blogging E-Training, which is free.

Here are 3 common ways to make money blogging, that work:

1) Display Advertisements
This is the most common way of monetizing your blog. You do not have to worry about sales, fulfillment, invoicing and the like. What you do is find a few advertisers willing to advertise on your blog, put their ads up on your blog, and charge them as high as they are willing to pay. Well, there is an easier version: Google Adsense.

2) Sell Digital Products
You can write your own ebook, record your own home study course with videos and audios, and sell them through your blog. This can be a lot more profitable than option #1 above, if done right. However, it requires some skills such as the ability to write a good copy, to sell, and to handle customer requests.

3) Promote Affiliate Products
If you are blogging about dog training, you can seek some affiliate programs and promote them to your readers. Just do a google search about "dog affiliate program" and you will get a list of programs you can join. Make sure you promote something that wins trust.

For more ways to make money from your blog, or How You Can Make $500 A Month From Your Blog 28 Days From Now, get Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint.


Saturday, February 10, 2007

How Fast Can I Make Money Blogging?

"How Fast Can I Make Money Blogging?"



This is a common question asked my many bloggers, especially new ones. I think it is normal to ask this question. We all want to see immediate result, don't we?

It depends on various factors:

1) Are you skilled enough?
Make money blogging is not as easy as blogging. Blogging is easy, but when you are talking about monetizing your blog, there are skills and knowledge involved. You need to be able to increase the popularity of your blog, network your blog, attract advertisers, build up page rank, drive traffic to your blog, build your reputation, choose the right topic, manage your readers...

2) What type of monetization are you using?
The fastest and simplest way, of course, is to use Google Adsense. You can expect to earn your first dollar pretty fast if you monetize your blog with Google Adsense. However, to have a long-term sustainable growth of earnings, you need to put in a lot of effort into your blog. There are many ways you can monetize your blog. One of the way I used outperformed my monthly Adsense earnings in less than 7 days. I shared it in Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint.

3) Is this your first blog?
If you are just started out, give yourself some time before you can see the first dollar. It is not surprising to see 90% of the blogs are abandoned after a week. However, once you learned about how to blog for money, you will be able to create blogs after blogs and make money very fast.

Generally, if you follow the tips laid out in Ultimate Blogging E-Training Course, which is free, you will be able to make at least $35 within the first month. Good Luck!

Make Money Blogging And Writing Possible?

My friends often ask me, "Can you really make money blogging and writing?"

And my answer is always, "More than your day-time job".

Blogging and writing can be a hobby, they can also be a business. If your hobby is blogging and writing, why not turn it into a business and fire your boss? No, I do not mean you have to quit your job immediately, many do not choose to quite their job, cos they love their job, but if you were to blog and write, there are so many opportunities for you to make some money here and there.

If you are really serious, a blog can be turned into a money machine, provided that you have the necessary knowledge on how to maximize the potential of your blog and how to combine tools available to you, leverage on them, and create a passive income flow.

It is undeniable that a blog is a virtual real estate that produces positive cash flow. Many do not understand how the hell a blog can make money. That is why my friends keep asking me how I make money blogging.

They ask not because they want to know. They ask because it is hard for them believe, as they have not done it before. That is why this blog is born, to share with you how making money blogging and writing is possible, and anyone can do it, even if you are still a minor.

Blogging and writing can be free. It can also bring you a few dollars here, a few dollars there. It can also buy you some new furnitures, pay for your vacation, feed your family. It can also become a business that you start hiring an office of staffs.

Let me show you some examples of blogs that make money:
1) Weblogincs
One of the largest blog networks on the internet was making $120,000 a month before it was sold to AOL for $25 million.

2) ShoeMoney
Jeremy Shoemaker's Shoemoney blog, making $140,000 a month.

3) Darren Rowse
The ProBlogger, Darren Rowse, a six figure blogger, who manages over 20 blogs. He writes in them!

In my book, Ultimate Blogging Master Blueprint, I will teach you how you can start your blog now and make $500 a month in less than 28 days, with full money back guarantee. I have also setup an E-Training Course that is free for you, as of now.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Bloggers & Writers Can Make Money

Hi, I am Daniel.

My friends and family are asking me how to start making money online. Well, my answer to them is: "Blogging and writing".

While there are many ways to make money online, most requires special skills and experiences. The best and easiest way for a newbie to start making the first dollar is blogging and writing.

Through out this blog, I will explain and share with you how I blog and make money. Of course, I will also share with you all the monetization techniques that you can use on your blog.

If you want to know them fast, you can check my Ultimate Blogging Course at:
www.UltimateBloggingCourse.com.

The course itself is free, as I am doing it for my friends. It also includes 12 PDFs you can download.

Stay tuned!