Entries Tagged 'blogs' ↓

I was inspired to write this post, by reading Probloggers entry (full time income, part time Blogging). Problogger is one of the few blogs on blogging that I read.

My Situation

I’m supposed to work as a teacher, teaching economics 30 hours a week. Sometimes, I work less because my students don’t turn up. If they don’t turn up, I used to waste my time wandering around Oxford. But, a couple of years ago I discovered blogging and realised I could be actually earning money from blogging, rather than just sitting around aimlessly. More about myself on the about page

How I got Interested in Blogging.

I became interested in building websites in 2003. I had no idea of making money from websites; in fact I probably disliked and looked down on the idea. My first website was Poetseers.org - a non profit making site on poetry. It gets upto 16,000 unique visitors a day. It was here that I learnt how to gain traffic to a site. Then I thought, if I can get traffic to a poetry website, why not get traffic to a site on Mortgages and make loads of money?

To be honest, I didn’t expect much. I thought, there are already lots of sites on Mortgages and I’m probably too late. (It’s really funny that at the birth of the internet, people somehow think they are too late to start a blog! - What about the people who will be starting sites in 50 years time?)

Early Encouragement.

After about 6 months of blogging for income, I finally made the first $100 from Google adsense. (Notice how long it took to get my first $100 - that’s a really poor hourly return.) But, I wasn’t thinking of the hourly rate. I was just enjoying blogging. Then after a few more months, things started to take off - I was earning $300 a month. Then I had this thought. If 2,000 visitors a day brings me $3 a day. Then all I need to do is to get 20,000 visitors and then I should get $30 a day. All I needed to do was to create more pages and more blogs!

Multiple Blogging

Without really thinking of a long term strategy I began to start new blogs on: economics (I’m an economics teacher, and I actually had lots of revision notes I could put straight onto a site), cycling, Gardening, Blogging, House prices, Housing Market, How To grow potatoes (yes, I really have a blog on how to grow potatoes), Biographies of people, Remortgage quotes. Somehow I ended up with 15 blogs. See my other blogs.

To be honest, there are only 5-6 which make any significant money. Quite a few I have allowed to quietly die. But, I do enjoy having multiple blogs. When I get tired of writing about mortgages and finance (which is quite quickly) I will write some posts about cycling (which I enjoy much more because it’s my hobby). My gardening blog makes a bit of money, but, I mainly do it because it’s an outlet for my amateur photography.

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On some of my blogs I have been successful in increasing RSS subscribers; others have proved a little more difficult. These are the things that I have learnt which really help increase RSS subscribers.
Don’t Give Up

The first 100 are the hardest. Therefore, don’t expect it to be easy. Once you reach a certain tipping point, the number of subscribers will increase with less effort.

Focus

When people subscribe they want to know what to expect. If you have a mixed blog, it will increase the chance of people unsubscribing. Poem of the Day is pretty self explanatory. Every day, one poem. It’s a very simple formula and an effective strategy for encouraging subscription.

Quantity over Quality.

On our self improvement blog, the average posting schedule is 2-3 times a week. That’s not a huge amount, but, we try to make each post worthwhile. We aim for bookmarkable content, rather than quantity. People are happy to subscribe when they know their RSS feeds are not going to be filled with ‘blog filler’

Guest Posting

I have written a series of guest posts for various blogs. This helps create a steady stream of traffic. The traffic is also highly targeted, they tend to be people who know what RSS is and therefore, are more likely to subscribe. I have only written one guest post for Netwriting, but, it did lead to an increase in subscribers.

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There is an interesting thread on Freakonomics about People’s worst email mistakes.

Actually, it’s pretty gruesome reading. Some of the common mistakes come from:

• Replying all rather than replying to an individual.
• Using Auto complete for recipient. e.g. you want to write to steve_myboyfriend but autofill fills in steve_myboss.

It is also worth pointing out that:

• Email is not secure. You should feel like you are sending a postcard. It could be read by anyone.
• There is a lot to be said for using phone / letter for more important discussions.

At least there was one that made me laugh:

“I accidentally e-mailed a copy of university final exam to all of my students the night before the exam. Fortunately, they didn’t mind.” — Posted by Kara

Getting Your Website / Blog

1. Choose Your Niche. Choosing a good niche is essential to a successful blog. It must be good for you and a profitable in terms of advertising.

2. Interest in Blog. You must have an interest / knowledge in the topic. Don’t blog on something you don’t know about

3. Some Niches are much more profitable. It is worth bearing in mind that if you are getting a very high return on ad clicks, it is remarkable how quickly you can develop an interest in your profitable niche.- I never knew Mortgages could be so interesting.

4. Finance The niche should ideally be related to a product which has a financial value. If you blog about funny videos don’t expect a high click value rate. If you can get traffic for a blog about finance, insurance, mortgages, you can expect a higher return.

5. Motivation and Interest can Make any niche profitable. Any niche can make money so long as you can drive enough traffic. So if you have a real knowledge, interest in one subject that could be the one that is the most successful for you.

6. Blog on Products Blogging about Products is another way to make High revenue. If you blog about philosophy, general life, advertisers have no products to advertise. if you blog about different goods like computers, cameras there is a wide range of advertising programmes you can use like Amazon, bidvertiser e.t.c

7. Get your own domain. Don’t use a free domain like .blogspot and .wordpress. It looks bad, people / advertisers will take you less seriously. It will be harder to get links. You will regret it at some point, maybe not today, but you will regret it.

8. Make Bold Decisions. If you currently have a .blogspot address. - Change it now.

9. Choose a catchy domain, if possible with keywords. The ideal domain should be 2-3 syllables, which are memorable and remain in people’s mind. If you can get related keywords it will help. However, it is not essential as some people claim. Choose carefully, there comes a point when changing your domain is painful work. Memorable blog titles “Problogger” “Pick The Brain” “Copyblogger” “Lifehack.org” “Net Writing… :)”

Choosing Your Blogging Platform

10. Choose Wordpress. It’s that simple.

11. Plugins for any Need. Wordpress offers great flexibility, a variety of plugins, and choice of themes. It is being continuously developed and improved. It is also stable. You can customise it as much or as little as you want. Many have made the transition from blogger to wordpress.

12. My Experience. I switched several blogs from blogger to wordpress. I’m sure other blog software have their merits, but, having tried a few different ones I recommend wordpress as the most effective and easy to use.

Getting Started

13. A good, solid design is a must. True, you want to avoid spending too much time on frills and cosmetics. But, it has to look professional.

14. Avoid Looking Ordinary. Do not just use a standard blog theme. At least create a unique header.

15. Content is King. Sorry a bit of cliche but, work on creating content Writing High quality, interesting articles.

16. Be Patient. Don’t be despondent if traffic is slow in the beginning. Don’t worry about your earnings, or lack of them for the first 6 months. It takes time to get traffic.

17. Spread the Word. Let people know you have a new blog. This can be done through targeted emails plus commenting on other blogs.

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One of my  domains economicshelp.org gets75% of traffic from the UK. However, I had to switch from a UK host to a US host (because the UK host wasn’t giving good wordpress support)

I was concerned that this could lose the UK traffic. I did buy the .co.uk domain and mirrored that to the .org.

One tip I picked up is that in Google Webmasters tools, you can give a website a specific Country target. By default it is left at non country specific. For some websites it is very important to target a certain geographical niche. If you host on a foreign (US server) then selecting this option will enable you to rank in local searches. like Google.co.uk

Recently I have noticed that Google is giving much more weight to country specific searches. Search results can vary quite a lot from one country to another.

BTW: Netwriting.co.uk gets less than 50% of traffic from the UK, despite having a .co.uk domain name. But, the information here is not country specific I would leave the option at Google webmaster tools at non country specific.

I wrote previously about the benefits of having a .co.uk domain name

(It also helps that .co.uk domain names are cheap to pick up at less than $5. I know some countries like .com.au and .ie charge a very high amount.

There are some useful comments on this post at Problogger (in fact the comments are much more informative than the post itself) - the joy of having 46,000 subscribers - the readers will write the blog for you!

These are some tips for creating a regular publishing schedule. They are points I need to implement on this blog, which has suffered from inconsistent posting of late. (Just shows that when we give advice, we are often giving it to ourselves.)

• Traffic on a Saturday is about 50% lower than on a weekday. Therefore, I tend to avoid posting over the weekend.
• One of the best days to post is Monday. It’s the start of a new week and it’s good to start with a keynote article.
• There is tremendous power in creating a regular publishing schedule. For building up RSS readers, I suggest 5 posts a week Mon-Fri, is an excellent schedule to keep to. Even if you only post 3-4 times a week, a regular pattern will help people to know when to expect.
• Spreading Out Your Posting. One of the best features of Wordpress is the ability to postdate blogs. This means you can decide when an article is published. This is perfect for a blog I have on Poem of the Day. Once a week, I choose poems and set up publishing for the rest of the week. It saves having to go into the blog every day.  I have increasingly used this on other blogs. I will spend a day writing content for a blog, and then let the 5-7 posts get publised on a daily basis. This is an efficient way of working, especially if you have a lot of blogs.
• A regular time of posting also helps. If you know a blog gets updated at a certain time, it saves people making a wasted journey to your blog. Remember most people don’t use RSS. If they know what to expect then it will encourage them to go.

Some days I can spend several hours a day on the computer, but, one thing you soon learn is that productivity doesn’t equate to time spent. At times I can achieve more in 2 hours than I can in 5 hours. To become more productive the first thing is to become aware of how many tasks you can complete. If you keep evaluating your output, it will be easier to pick up on things that can increase productivity.

Tips for increasing productivity:

Finish a Task.

Often I find myself with several articles and tasks on the go at the same time. I like starting things but then don’t want to finish them off. The problem is that this is an inefficient way to work. If we get an article 75% finished it is easier to finish it whilst it is fresh in our memory. If we have to go back to finish off tasks we waste time remembering how we started. If we can do things methodically one at a time then it can be a very powerful way to increase our productivity. Don’t measure your productivity by tasks started, but only by tasks finished.

Have a Clear Goal.

Another big issue is whether we know what we are doing. If we have vague ideas about what we should be doing it is much easier to be unproductive. We flit from one thing to another, not entirely sure what we should be doing. If we have a very clearly defined goal then it can be like a magnet which pulls us towards completing it. Uncertainty in deciding what to do can be very time consuming. Therefore spend time preparing a plan of action and then follow it through.

The Power of Concentration.

Concentration is the art of focusing on one thing at a time. If we truly concentrate then we can be much more effective in finishing a task. Concentration means we avoid getting sidetracked by other issues. If we focus on only one thing at a time we can complete the task effectively and avoid getting sidetracked.

Simplify

To increase productivity we should always be trying to simplify.
To simplify our workplace creates greater focus. The less distractions you have around the workplace the more productive you can be. I often like writing in a quiet cafe, because there is nothing but my laptop. I need to work on creating a minimalist workplace so that I can have the same focus when writing at home. Continue reading →

Despite the internet offering the fastest growth sector of the economy, many multi million pound companies are still making basic mistakes with their own websites. It feels like many companies still view the internet with suspicion and caution. They do the bare minimum, but, to be frank they see it all as a bit of hassle and they would rather do without it.

These are some of the Common Mistakes Big Companies are Making on the Internet.

Deleting Pages

Many Newspapers still publish articles and then delete them. I know because I often link to newspaper articles and then a few weeks later the link is broken. This is annoying and I can’t see any good reason for the newspaper to do this. If they think it is too expensive to host a large number of files they are missing the whole point of cheaper bandwidth costs; The revenue from any advertising will easily outweigh the costs of hosting files. By deleting and moving pages they are losing out on links, traffic and easy monetisation of their site.

Frames

Even SEO advice from 6 years ago was suggesting don’t use Frames. Pages won’t get picked up by search engines and it is harder to link to them. Yet, I know some firms with million dollars of turnover still using frames.

• Look at J.K.Rowlings site - doesn’t work with my pop up blocker. At least there is an option of text pages - but, they are remarkably ugly e.g of text page This page is screaming “I’m trying really hard to make this page as difficult to read as possible’
• Tip: Don’t let the dementors design your site.

Getting their Nephew to Make the Site

This mainly applies to various medium sized companies. For some reason many firms are still reluctant to make a professional website. There is a strong desire to rely on some family friend, who is slow or limited in his technical capacity. Often there is then no one in the company who can actually edit the site, but, they rely on the ‘family friend’ to have complete control. I know of a company who spent a fortune on google adwords directing people to their website, but couldn’t get the family friend to update the website from the year 2007 to 2008.

But, We Don’t Get Any Business from the Internet

Many companies are still dubious about the potential of the internet to generate sales. Their attitude tends to be that our existing customers do not come via the internet, therefore it is best to concentrate on our existing customer base. However, this is discounting the internet before you have given it a chance. If you concentrate on your existing sales channels, then of course, that is what will remain your main source of business. To generate internet led business requires an investment of time and money. If it is done well then you can generate a new source of business. But, if you never try then the internet will never work for you.

How Can I Make Money Out of Free?

For many businesses the idea of giving advice and content for free seems to go against basic business practice. A lot of the internet involves giving free advice, free e-books e.t.c. But, giving things for free is a powerful way to build customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and regular readers. In this regard big business have a lot to learn from bloggers who have learnt the power of giving things for free.

• It took several years, but the New York Times finally realised it was better to offer unrestricted access to its newspapers.

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Wordpress have offered a sneak preview of the new 2.5 edition

It looks to have some good features including:

• Multi file upload
• Built in Galleries
• Full text Feeds (I look forward to this especially because I like to use the ‘more’ tag to break up long posts, but I would like RSS subscribers to be able to get full feed.
• Built in Gravatars
• Faster Load Times - very good news, you can never underestimate benefits of faster load times.

When writing blog posts, I like to find a couple of relevant links to add to the post. This has the following advantages

1. Provides a more useful and detailed article
2. Google like external links and can give the page a higher rank (if links are to relatively authorative sites)
3. Linking to other bloggers is an excellent way to contact other bloggers. If you link to someone they are likely to think kindly towards your blog. They may stumble your blogpost, leave a comment or even subscribe.

Therefore it is worth trying to find good links but I found Google search was not particularly good. Often the links in a google search are outdated or not blogs. I have also been experimenting with Google blog search but have been dissappointed. There seems to be a lot of spam blogs and unrelated content.

Stumbleupon Search

As an alternative to Google search, I highly recommend stumbleupon search. For my last article on Is it worth getting on Digg?, I used the stumble search facility and it quickly gave some excellent articles. These were both by bloggers and were also very recent.

To Use Stumble Search. Go to Tools, Addons and Stumbleupon Tool bar Options

On the configuration page , you can check a box Show search. (There are also options to see stumbles on regular google searches)

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