Providing the Essentials for Developing and Maintaining an Active Blog

It is very much probable to see high-traffic days like when your website is found at the very top of “Organic Listings”. A precious backlink,one at a time, will get you an awesome chain of backlinks, which will definitely bind you securely right at the top of SERPs. It sounds easy but is not that simple until you get the hang of it. Here are 4 simple tips to ensure your SERP (search engine ranking position):

1. Guest Posts

If you are a good writer, which you must be if you are blogging, then backlinking becomes easy. All you need is a flair to write and a willingness to do it! It is as simple as that. You can write guest posts for niche blogs for which the host shall bless you as he benefits too. He gets a well-deserved rest, an informative post and you get a well-earned backlink.Of course the readers get fresh blood, another opinion and another point-of-view.

2. Submit articles

Another option is to go the sites that allow you to post a blog with a backlink like GoArticles.com and EzineArticles.com. This has the stamp of authority and you can be assured that the backlink is welcome. You have the additional advantage of being able to use the same article on some other sites as well. If you are smart you can make some quick changes and make them unique and post them wherever you wish to. The more you write and submit the more backlinks you will have.

3. Pay for backlinks

Everyone is not happy paying for the backlinks but it is one of the most assured ways to get ‘votes’ for your blog. This is what matters at the end of the day and this is what we blog for. But do be careful. Google is wary of such strategies and is quick to catch on and you might not benefit in the end. Search engines do not take kindly to people gaming their algorithm. Anyway if you are careful this is a powerful tool to enhance your page rank.

4. Social Bookmarking sites

Bookmarking your sites may not be very popular but it sure does pay. Of course it depends which sites you bookmark with, if they are good quality you can reap their benefits too. The search engines can’t forget your presence and you are noticed even when fast indexing is done.

Play it smart and the smartness will show in your Google page ranking.

Tweet This Post 

There is a now a more than ever need to stand out in the ever-crowding blogosphere. There has to  be something about your blog that should make your readers crave for me, come tearing bandwidths onto your blog and visit you often. You need satisfied customers and let’s see how exactly we will be able to do it with your blog and a little bit of creativity:

1. Give Something away with each post: Now, you have heard of giving away free reports and free e-courses depending on your niche but you do that using a simple opt-in form, don’t you? I would day that you must give something away with each post. Be it a link to some other website that has some goodies for you, a free giveaway public-domain book, a rare classic, a popular classic, a bit of information that is not even known. You get the drift, don’t you? While you are at it, ask them to subscribe to your blog to make the process complete and allow them to download anything you are giving away. This way you will build a mailing list.

2. Use Your Auto-responder follow-up messages: After you take your readers’ email addresses, you would send them whatever you had promised them. After that, you will have to send out follow-up messages. YOu should be sending them informative emails that has even more juice about the niche your website operates in for the reader to learn and enjoy. While you are sending out emails, ensure that you have some links back to your blog so that they need to come back to your blog to read even more information about the topic the follow-up message was on.

3. Have an affiliate program for your Blog: Yes, have you thought about it? Ever? We have merchants  running affiliate programs and we have people selling e-books and informational products or even membership sites who pay their affiliates handsomely for any referrels. Why not do that with blogs? You don’t have to do it the “click-bank” way, but just put up a page on your blog that talks about the affiliate program and let the readers do all the work of promoting your blog for you.

4. Train and Lead: One of my favorites has always been the Integration of Online businesses with either an offline business or some other off line activity. If you can be enterprising enough, you could do carpet bombing locally, gather people around, announce that you would teach them how to start blogging and make some money or make money online using one of the many ways. After that, you may ask them to visit yourblog.com and sign-up so that you could keep in touch with them.

Tweet This Post 

While most bloggers struggle with building, running and maintaining a single blog, there are many others who run multiple blogs, across different niches which seems to make some sense in a way.Here are reasons why I think owning multiple blogs is an amazing way to reap the maximum benefit off the whole process of blogging:

1. The Pareto’s Principle: Also known as the 80/20 rule, when you have more than one blog, chances are that 20% of your blogs could bring in 80% of revenue to you while 80% of your blogs might not. Those that don’t earn you much can be sold or overhauled. If you just had one blog and that one blog did not earn much money, you would be in trouble, wouldn’t you?

2. Experience is priceless: Let’s admit it, the whole process of doing niche research for each of your blogs and then actually setting up your blogs, installing them, finding and optimizing the right theme for your blog followed by writing content and monetizing them all is an experience that would be priceless. You would really become an expert in setting-up and running wordpress blogs and that is, in itself, more precious than any monetary benefit you might accrue from all those blogs.

3. It’s a number’s game: The more blogs you have, the more leverage you get. You literally build an empire of blogs which work together to bring you income. Let’s say you use adsense for all of these blogs and let’s assume that each blog fetches you about $100 per month. Just the fact that you have 10 blogs across various niches would get you a cool $1000 per month recurring.

What do you think? Do you think you should stay focused on one blog or spread your wings and then build an empire of blogs each working in its own niche to its fullest potential.

Tweet This Post 

While most of us are online, it is the B2C markets or very few B2B markets like web hosting or other web services that we tend to focus on. However, there are so many opportunities for anyone smart enough to think that it makes me faint. Here are a few ideas to get you going:

1. Be the Business Blog Consultant — online and off: Most of the small businesses in your area wouldn’t know what a blog is. Why not offer them your services wherein you would do the whole act of putting up a blog on their primary domain( if they don’t even have a website, you can help them set it up) and take a retainer to blog for them, using keyswords pertaining to their business consistently and regularly. You get a client who pays you a retainer each month and they get to promote their business.
2. Be a local search specialist: Most people use the Internet to search for local businesses ( Who wants to pore through thousands of yellow pages listings?). But unfortunately, businesses are not found that easily. Local entrepreneurs have not yet understood the power and leverage Internet provides. Why not help them get found? Unlike global keywords like ” Blogging” and ” make money online”, local keywords like ” Car batteries + Pau, France” or ” Dentist+ Washington” have no virtual competition.
3. Become a Marketing consultant using the IM knowledge you have: You could, in fact, bring all your knowledge of blogging, Internet marketing, web-based productivity tools, etc, and become an Internet Consultant. Imagine the untapped goldmine this could be because chances are that no one is doing it at present and if they are, they are very rare.

Tweet This Post 

As I read through the WorldHum, Vagabondish, Road Junkie and Bootsnall, I always look for what that one kind of business would be that could help fund your travels while you roam round the world — one of the most common but often less achieved goals in the world for an average human.

I think blogging can be an awesome way to fund your travels while you go location independent. It has been touted as the best travel funding option by many of those well-respected sites mentioned above. But it isn’t easy because:

1. It takes time to build a blog like that: It’s going to take a lot of time and traffic to get your blog to a stage when it starts earning well enough for you. No matter which business model you choose, it won’t be an easy task. Not only does it take you a long time, it will also be very hard and demand consistent effort from you. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t do it, though.

2. Will the money your blog earns be enough for the expensive countries?: You must keep the cost of living thing in your mind and ensure that the countries youplan to visit to are “livable” given the earnings off your blog. Scandinavian countries, Most of Europe, Canada and the US are always expensive. Most of South-east Asia is Amazingly cheap. Did you do your research?

3. Will you keep at the act of blogging while doing the traveling?: Unless your blog earns you a residual income and it still manages to do well without your input, you got to keep blogging to continue to make money. However, this consistent effort should come in the way of your travels and snatch that chance of seeing the world leisurely away from you. Maintain schedule and stick by it — this should work.

Tweet This Post