Speed Up To Make More Money With Blogs

Doesn't it annoy you when some websites or blogs are painfully slow to load? It does me, so much so that often I don't bother to wait and move on to something else.

Most of us have a broadband connection but just think how slow some sites must be on dial up.

I read somewhere that in the US slightly over 10% still use a dial up connection for the Internet.

"So what?" you might say. But if our blogs are slow to load doesn't it follow that this could be costing a money making blog - well money.

I'm no tech expert so I won't go into the ins and outs of how to speed up loading times. What I have noticed myself though is that some widgets and photos slow things considerably. Maybe a couple less widgets and optimizing images could speed things up.

It's something we should no doubt look at because those dial up people - every one in ten hits - otherwise are going to move on without clicking on our ads or promotions. Also a lot of broadband visitors will also take umbrage as they expect things to pop up pretty quickly.

Slow loading may cost us potential money, but I read recently that there could also be more to it than this.

I've no idea if it's 100% true but I've heard that Google have loading times included within their search engine algorithm. If this is right then a blog could be penalised if it loads at a snails pace.

Two reasons therefore to try and keep loading times at a reasonable level.

(1) It'll cost possible sales or clicks if visitors get fed up waiting.
(2) It'll damage search engine rankings (allegedly).

It's something I'm going to look at on my own blogs.

There are several free website speed checkers about such as the one at Self SEO. They write about slow loaders:

"It is estimated that if a page doesn't load within 5-8 seconds you will lose 1/3 of your visitors."

I think it's worth thinking about. If our aim is to make money, then every improvement we make must help.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Make Money With The Right Blog Name

In my experiments with money making blogs I have found that it helps greatly if ...

(i) you choose a blog name that is relevant to the niche / subject matter of the blog and

(ii) that the blog title contains some of your keywords.

I believe that by following these two steps it's possible to get decent positions on Google search pages.

If we take Mike's Money Making Mission as an example the following keywords give the blog a useful position:

Mikes Money Making Mission - 1st on Google (probably this would be expected!)
Mikes Money Making - 1st in Google
Mikes Money - 1st on Google
Money Making Mission - 1st on Google
Making Mission - 3rd on Google
Mikes Mission - 15th on Google

Now some readers will say something like ...

"Okay, but will people search those keywords?"

or

"What about the keywords: Money Making?"

My answers to this: Firstly people do search those words.

Secondly, with the keywords Money Making, there are over 38+ million search results. With all of the big boys about I wouldn't really expect to be number one, or even on the first couple of pages but ...

... this emphasises the need for long tail keywords.

For example, with these long tail keywords:

money making chain letters - MMMM is 2nd on Google
chain letters money making - MMMM is 1st on Google
money making zlio - MMMM is 1st on Google
money making blog - MMMM is 1st on Google

Plus there are lots of other examples which I won't bother to list.

All I'm trying to illustrate is the value of:

(1) Keywords in a blog's title and also
(2) Long tail keywords which also contain the title
keyword(s).

If we also take my Celebrity Insider blog. Search the keywords Celebrity Insider on Google or Yahoo and it's top of the pile.



That's it! Think blog names and long tail keywords.

Good luck,
Mike

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Organisation & Discipline Makes Money With Blogs

The thing about having lots of money making blogs, which I've been talking about in the last couple of posts, is that you have to be quite organised and disciplined to keep everything ticking over.

I said in the previous post about starting blogs: 'You wind them up and let them go.' And this is true, but all blogs need to be updated occasionally and this is where the organisation and discipline steps in.

I keep track of this myself with the 'favourites' option on my computer. I have a folder for each blog and in this I keep likely sources for information for posts in a prority order.

In other words I click on the first entry to see if there is anything about the particular niche that I could write about. If there isn't I move quickly on to the next entry and so on.

I also use Google alerts which helps me monitor people, events and so on that are relative to my blogs.

The SEO Keyword Suggstion Tool is one entry I have in all of my folders.

From this I can get lots of info and keywords which can give ideas for a post. For example if my blog was about say Cristiano Ronaldo the footballer (soccer) entering his name would give 50+ keywords and phrases, any one of which might be a theme for a post.

Other good sources of information (on Ronaldo as an example) would be:

Yahoo! News

Google News UK

MSN News

ShoutWire

You can search for tags on the likes of:

Wink People

Technorati Tags

digg

Or search for blogs on:

Technorati Blogs

Bloglines

Google Blog Search

There's probably info on the person / subject on:

Wikipedia

About.com

Answers to Questions might be found on:

answerbag

Yahoo! Answers

And so it goes on. I've barely touched the surface of what is available.

I've built up what I regard as possible sources for my blogs and, when I see I haven't updated a certain blog for a while, I delve into my favourites folder for that blog, and usually come up with something about which to write a post.

It's not rocket science. The info is out there.

I also flick through the likes of Google Trends to see if there is anything that might be about the subject matter of any of my blogs in general.

Running several blogs does take a bit of discipline and organisation but it can make money and money making is the name of the game.

Above all enjoy it.

Good luck,
Mike.

Zlio: Grab your own free online store and stock it with the products of your choice from the thousands on offer.

Make Money With Lots Of Free Blogs

Following my previous post I was asked: Isn't it better just to concentrate on one or two money making blogs than setting up lots of them? And how have you got the time to keep them all updated if you have lots?

I do concentrate mainly on a couple of blogs, for the biggest part of my blogging income, but I like to set up new blogs for fun, experiments and to make additional money. I must have well over thirty floating about in different places on the blogosphere.

If I can go back to yesterday's post and the example I gave of the new Helen Flanagan blog. What I will actually do, with this blog, is to try and keep it reasonably updated for about a month. I've so far done 28 posts in 22 days.

After a month, if everything has been done properly (keywords, images, titles etc), it should tick over virtually by itself. It will then only be necessary to do the occasional new post when there is some actual news about Helen - perhaps once a week or fortnight.

Now if you have several such blogs all ticking over, just being updated now and then, it's not a lot of work after the initial thrust of setting up the blog.

You wind them up and then let them go!

Some will perform better than others. Here's a couple of stat charts, for the last couple of weeks, showing the number of hits I've had on a couple of such blogs where I've followed this procedure.


Sometimes the blogs don't do this well. I've some that only get 10 or 20 hits a day. But, there again, some have done better.


If you have been reading Mike's Money Making Blog for a while you'll know that I believe, quite simply, that traffic = money.

And by this I mean any sort of traffic. I don't believe there is any bad traffic, just that some is better than others. Look at the major stores in town. What do most of them do? They run promotions to get people through their doors.

It's the same with blogging.

Going back to having lots of blogs. It's an accumulation thing: the total number of hits on all of the blogs combined. This is what makes money, providing they have been monetised properly.

You can work out the stats yourself. How many hits could you achieve with a number of blogs? Ask yourself if you think that the total traffic on these would outperform one blog. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but I know what works for me.

Good luck,
Mike.
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The Two Secrets Of Making Money With Free Blogs

Sometimes I think SEO experts talk a load of codswallop and I must admit I've preached similar stuff on this blog. The fact is though that there are only two secrets to building a successful money making blogs.

Yes, I've read/preached about inbound links, leaving comments on other blogs, social networking, syndicating articles, exchanging links, promotions and so on. You know the usual advice if you've been blogging for a while. Everyone says the same thing and then regurgitates it perhaps with a slightly different format.

But really you don't need these things. At least I found out by accident that you don't.

I started a blog, never did any promotional work (other than putting links to it on some of my other blogs), never left any comments on other blogs, never exchanged or tried to get inbound links etc. etc.

But, despite this, the blog has done okay and has earned me money. Sure other blogs may have more hits but this one has only been running for about six months. Here's the last weeks traffic chart.


So what are these two big secrets?

(Secret 1) Publish text and/or images that people really want to read.
(Secret 2) Use the right Keywords.

You might be thinking, "So that's it? No way!"

However these two things are paramount - in my opinion, of course - to anything else in creating a successful blog that will make money. They might sound a bit disappointing but if you think about it, they really are all important.

Let's take Secret 1.
I've previously harped on about this but it's no good having the best writing skills and accurate grammar and prose if nobody wants to read what you write. So the niche you choose is all important. It must be popular - I am talking about making money with blogs here.

You have to find material that people want to read and will be searching for on the search engines. If neither of these apply to your subject matter then it's doubtful if you'll make much money or attract many hits easily.

Also included in this secret is the suggestion that you should write lots of posts and cover a wide variety of topics within your chosen niche. I'd suggest churning out quality posts, perhaps four, five, six a day when the blog is brand new. This gives a wider range of possible searches.

And with Secret 2.
The keywords have to tie in with the subject matter of each post and with the general theme of your blog. Look also for long tail words and phrases. You want to cover as many options as possible that may be used for searches.

From what I've experienced if you use these two things then traffic will come your way plus the money making that goes with it.

"Ah," you might say, "But what if you also followed the standard SEO advice as well, wouldn't that get even better results?"

And the truthful answer is probably. 'Yes.'

It's surprising though that if you follow Secrets 1 and 2 how the search engines will pick up your posts and images and will send you traffic. You'll also most likely get inbound links as well from other bloggers who like, and also need, what you have written.

To sum up: posts that people want to read plus using keywords correctly are the way to make money with blogs. All of the other SEO advice and tricks are the icing on the cake.

Good luck,
Mike.

The Money Making Blog Numbers Game

I think a lot of bloggers, especially newer ones, wonder how they are getting on traffic wise compared with other blogs.

They sometimes believe that the average blog is getting hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of hits. After all, more established bloggers shout it loud when their traffic hits new heights. Must admit I've done this myself.

This can cause newbies despondency when their own blogs perhaps aren't attracting as much attention as they had hoped.

So lets have a reality check!

These are figures based on my own personal research (you are welcome to disagree). Anyway, this is how I see comparative traffic figures.

Supposing there are 5000 blogs picked at random. To be in the Top 100 you would need around 850 visitors a day, but to be in the Top 500 you'd need only about 100 and for the Top 1000 just 50.

At the bottom of the list would be blogs with just 1, 2 or 3 hits.

You see the truth is that the majority of blogs are far from successful and most don't make much money.

This fact shouldn't put anyone off blogging because with just 100+ regular hits you'll be in the top 10% of the blogging elite.

Below are some traffic figures, plucked out of the air, showing where they would place a blog in a random selection of 5000 blogs.

To be in ...

6th position would need about 7213 hits (per day)
13th position would need about 4782 hits
21st position would need about 2687 hits
45th position would need about 1898 hits
65th position would need about 1422 hits
70th position would need about 1296 hits
75th position would need about 1110 hits
80th position would need about 858 hits
94th position would need about 844 hits
108th position would need about 593 hits
279th position would need about 193 hits
393rd position would need about 166 hits
370th position would need about 145 hits
480th position would need about 131 hits
506th position would need about 104 hits
622nd position would need about 70 hits
687th position would need about 81 hits
703rd position would need about 73 hits
819th position would need about 62 hits
907th position would need about 43 hits
3563rd position would need about 3 hits
5000th position would need about 1 hit

Does all of this really matter? Nope, not a bit. With money making blogs it's about how much money you actually make, whether this is with 100 visitors or 10,000 hits.

The truth though, as I see it and keep mentioning, is that it is all a numbers game. The more traffic you can attract to a blog the more money you'll make.

With say Google AdSense you may well need 10,000 page impressions to make $10. If you, therefore, have 10,000 impression a day you'll make $3650 in a year but if you have 100 page impressions a day you'll only make $36.50 a year.

Traffic is therefore virtually the most important thing needed to make money with blogging.

Yes there is good and bad degrees of traffic, quality is important, but ultimately if you attract the right amount of traffic - any traffic - you'll make money.

It's the same as a salesman talking to people at random. If he talks to some people he'll make some money, but if he talks to a lot of people he'll make lots of money.

If a guy at a formal dance asks one or two girls to dance he'll get one or two dances, if he asks lots of girls to dance he'll get lots of dances.

If a ... you get the message!

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. John has emailed me that his latest Proven Earners Carnival is now published.

The Long Tail Way To Make Money

Okay, how's your long tail?

I mean if you have, say a money making blog, do you concentrate on the word money as a keyword? If you do you'll have a heck of a lot of competition and might have a job getting a good position on the Google search engine.

Also, if you use a word like money, it can mean different things to different people. In other words someone who puts money into a search might not be thinking about money making. If he or she isn't then they'll probably leave your blog as quickly as they arrived. It might be a referral for the stats but it won't make you any money.

A Long Tail, in a keyword sense, is more than one word. It could be several words, or a phrase, that really defines what your post (or blog) is all about. Therefore, if a searcher uses your Long Tail words, when they arrive via Google it's more likely they will remain longer on your blog - as you should have something they are really looking for. So this time they are a referral that is more likely to make you money.

So how do you decide what Long Tail words to use?

One way is to use a tool (yes, it's free!) such as the Keyword Suggestion Tool.

This tool will give you up to 100 suggestions and these are based on what people have been searching for.

Let's give an example.

So you've written a post all about, let's say, Harry Potter. So what Long Tail keywords should you use? Here's what this particular Keyword Suggestion Tool came up with:


The full list includes 100 suggestions but I thought that would take up a bit too much space! Anyway, the above list shows what people are presently searching for.

Yes, the two words Harry Potter are at the top but are you realistically going to get a top ten search engine position with these? Doubtful. But you might just fare a lot better with some of the other suggestions on the list.

Whatever Long Tail set of words you choose, of course, has to be incorporated within your post and even in the title if possible.

I used Long Tail keywords long before I'd ever heard of the expression. It simply made sense to me and I've proved to my own satisfaction that they work.

You could even get ideas for posts based on a selection of Long Tail keywords. Enter the theme (i.e. dogs, football, soccer, baby, art or whatever) of your blog into the Keyword Suggestion Tool and see what it comes up with.

If we take the theme or niche 'dogs' the tool suggests: dog breeds, westminster dog show, dog names, dog parvo symptoms, dog food coupons, dog rescue shelters and so on. So amongst the top 100 there should be an idea of something on which to base a post.

The idea is to try and match the searcher with what he or she is looking for. Do this and you have a proper targeted referral - that has a better chance of making money.

I know I've often said that Lots of Traffic = Lots of Money but ...
... Lots of Targeted Traffic = Lots More Money!

Give the Keyword Suggestion Tool a try, there are also others about and they could help:

(1) Bring more targeted referrals
(2) Get a better position on the search engines
(3) Give ideas on which to base a post relative to your niche.
(4) Make you more money! Providing you have the right ads, programs etc. to tie in with the keywords.

Good luck,
Mike.

A Money Making Look At April

So that's four months of 2008 finished with. A third of the year gone, wonder if you are a third of the way to your targets or objectives - obviously you've set some!

Though I'm not a stats mad person I do look at how things are going generally at the end of each month. So I know things such as: 24.6% of visitors to this particular blog come direct whereas 42.9% arrive via Google. I also see that Web Dosh referred the most readers from other blogs (thanks John).

It's strange that two of my most read posts are from March and June of last year: Lots Of Ways On How To Make Money and How To Make Money With Chain Letters. For some reason the keywords within them show up high on Google. Could it also be those two magic words 'how to'?

This is one of the advantages of building lots of posts on varying subjects. Some of them will appeal to the search engines and to searchers in general.

As for keywords this blogs top five are: Money Making Blog, Voxant, Zlio, Mike Perry and Money Making Blogs.

My own money making for April was 'satisfactory'. One thing I have noticed though is that AdSense commission is down and this is because the clicks per impressions percentage has dropped quite a bit.

Not too sure why this is - maybe I need to shuffle things around a little or, perhaps, it's the much hyped (or at least it is in the UK) supposed possible recession. Personally I think if you tell people about something enough they will start to believe it, whether it's accurate or not.

One of the things we mustn't do in business (and money making with blogs is a business) is to see what's in the media and start to use this as excuses for not achieving our objectives. Most difficulties can be overcome. It just means we might have to make changes and try differing approaches.

So far this month (May) I've had payments from Google, Voxant and CC Bill. So that's a good start. Recession? What recession!

Good luck for May,
Mike.

P.S. John has sent me an email saying his Proven Earners Carnival is up and running.

Money Making: Quite Easily Done

I was asked if I would do anything different if I was just about to start my very first money making blog.

I think the main two things I would have done, the very first day, are:

(1) I would have got myself a .com URL instead of sticking with the .blogspot address.

One of the reasons I didn't do this, at the time, was because I wanted to see if I could make money from blogging without spending any myself. In other words I wanted to make money from nothing. It was a self imposed challenge.

Now that I have proved to my own satisfaction that this can be done I wish I had spent about $10 and got myself a .com. It definitely sounds and looks more professional.

Personally I'm quite happy with my blogs being hosted on Blogger and, as you may well know, there are options to purchase a .com and still host the blog on Blogger.

(2) The second thing I would have done straight away is to get myself another template and not stick to Blogger's standard layouts.

There are lots of places where you can get alternative templates for free, such as at FinalSense for example.

This won't give you an 'exclusive' template but they have lots to choose from. Make sure, if it is for Blogger, that it is an XML design so that it is compatible with the up to date version of Blogger.

Switching to a new template is very easy to do, though you will most likely have to update the side columns all over again.

Also it's useful learning a bit of basic HTML so that you can tweak your template if necessary.

Following these two things it's back to that old chestnut of publishing good content - that people want to read. Yes, I know I keep saying this but you can have the flashiest template, an interesting .com address but without quality content the blog won't make money. It's substance that matters.

I can illustrate this by saying that my biggest earning blog still uses a .blogspot URL. Though it's content that is important (1) and (2) above might just have given me an extra edge that would have made the blog more acceptable to mainstream websites.

I guess to sum up: make the blog look as good as you can, have a suitable .com and publish content of value.

Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum - or some say Quite Easily Done).

Good luck,
Mike

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Your Story Is Worth A Fortune

I was introduced to the idea that your story is worth a fortune when I was involved with network marketing (MLM) a while back. I think this premise also holds good for money making blogs.

Perhaps the word fortune might be considered a little over optimistic but, there again maybe not, if it is your nature to always look on the bright side of life.

If you can tell your story, about how you succeeded in making money, then others will be influenced by this in a positive way and may be willing to follow your example or suggestions.

The problem falls down though if you haven't a genuine story to tell but carry on as if you have.

By this I mean you can't really advise others how to do something unless you have done whatever it is yourself.

There are dozens of money making blogs about at the moment and many publish what they earn. This is fine, but the idea falls down when the bloggers concerned start giving advice on how to succeed. I've visited a few of them recently and, as an example, one was all about how to get lots of visitors to a blog.

This is obviously a useful subject but where it falls down, as it did in this particular case, was because the blog stats showed that the blog was getting less than 20 hits a day. He hadn't put into practice what he was preaching. He didn't even know if, what he had written, would work in reality.

The question we have to ask ourselves when reading any sort of 'how to' stuff is: Has the person writing the words actually achieved whatever it is themselves?

Going back to how your story is worth a fortune: What do you do if you are just starting out?

Initially you have to tell other peoples' stories until you have established your own.

When I started network marketing at first my wife and I told the stories of people in our upline. Once we had got our business going well we then moved on to relating our own experiences about the volume of sales we had achieved, the number of people we had in our downline, the amount of our Royalty cheques and so on.

If you can tell an honest story, and can back up what you say, others can relate to this. They start to believe 'if this guy can do it so can I'. And once they/we can believe they/we can achieve as well.

It's like that elusive four minute mile. For hundreds of years it was thought of as impossible. Once Roger Bannister achieved the impossible 37 other runners also broke four minutes in the first year. Now it's commonplace.

Once someone proves something is possible others do the same and forge ahead to something even better.

When telling a story though sometimes it's necessary to adapt it to the person you are speaking to. I don't mean fib, but you tailor it to suit whoever you are talking with.

Back in the 80's distributors were making massive money monthly with Herbalife. But if the person you were communicating with couldn't comprehend such amounts it was simply a waste of time mentioning the figures. You need to read people and give them what they want to hear.

Some of us think in hundreds, some thousands, some tens of thousands, some even millions. It's no good talking about tens of thousands to someone who thinks in hundreds and conversely you can't talk in hundreds to someone who thinks in tens of thousands.

But back to money making blogs. I'd say start building your story about how you are progressing and keep on updating this as the weeks tick by. If the story sounds genuine others will follow your lead.

Good luck,
Mike.



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To Clarify Mike's Money Making Mission

I wanted to clarify Mike's Money Making Mission in view of a few emails I have received recently.

My Money Making Weekly Reports show the money I have made, but this is not purely from this blog. I don't actually believe, though there are always a few exceptions, that a ton of money can be made from such a blog.

Since I started blogging I have, however, set up various other blogs - all free blogs, on Blogger. I haven't paid out any money whatsoever in the way of advertising, Google AdWords and so on. Everything I have done has been with freebies - this was my initial aim and I have stuck with this.

My only expenditure is for my broadband connection, but I would have this whether I blogged or not. I don't therefore consider this as outgoings.

The other blogs I have used to generate money have in a way been experiments. I've worked on the theory that it's always possible to make a little money with a blog - even if it's only, say, $5 a week. Everyone should be able to do this! On this assumption therefore 10 such blogs would bring in $50 per week - agreed? Of course if you could greatly increase the earnings per blog (or the number of blogs) the weekly money could increase to all sorts of worthwhile amounts. It's easy enough to do the sums.

On this basis I have set up a variety of free blogs.

Some only have one post but the strange thing is that even these, which are now established, have a reasonable PageRank of 4. They don't get massive traffic but again, 10 times a small amount of hits equals a much larger number.

I like to try different things. My latest experimental blog, which hasn't been a great success so far, mainly consists of feeds - free content in other words for doing very little.

If this turns out to be a waste of time, at least I've had a go at something new and now know that this doesn't actually work. Even if it goes on to get only a couple of hits a day I won't delete the blog. It might still earn a few dollars now and again. With the Internet you never really know what might happen - but if it's gone then definitely nothing will happen.

Here are blogs that help make my money.

Money Blogs
Mike's Money Making Mission
Mike's Business Articles
Successful & Profitable Blogging
How To Become Wealthy Part 1
How To Become Wealthy Part 2
How To Accumulate Money
Celebrity Blogs
Celebrity Insider - Photos & News
Insider Hot News
Celebrity News Feeds
In Praise Of Konnie Huq
Madonna Photos
Hopefully this will have cleared up any misunderstandings that some readers may have.

Good luck,
Mike.

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It's All About Money Making Cycles

I'm sitting here scratching my head!

It's always easy to write about money making things when everything is going well, many blogs do this. But today I'm going to be different and say, for the last couple of days, things have taken an almighty dive.

Ever since I did my Money Making Weekly Report on Saturday, when I was on a high, things are suddenly not looking quite so rosy.

As a couple of examples, for the week ending Saturday I was averaging 1587 hits per day on my Celebrity blog. Since then, for Saturday and Sunday, this has crashed to only 368 per day.

For the two weeks ending Saturday I was averaging just under $10 a day on Google AdSense. For the last two days this has slumped to only $3.90 per day - relative to the decrease in hits.

Also nothing has much happened over the last couple days on any of the other things I'm involved with. It's been a complete washout - a bit like the weather in the UK. Most odd!

It's why I did a sponsored post yesterday. I thought I'd better at least make some money and an easy $18.50 would help.

So I've got a bit of a challenge to get things back on track. I'm wondering if I'm trying to do too much in too little time. Maybe it's better to concentrate my time and efforts on say two important targets. I'll be giving this some thought.

I like to be honest and say what is really happening with my money making and not hype everything up. I think it's necessary to stress that blogging with free blogs, and without using any capital, can be a bumpy ride.

It's like life. I've always believed in cycles where at times everything goes right and your luck's in. It's the time when gamblers cash in and sales simply drop in your lap - but there are also times when it's the complete opposite.

It's how we manage the lows that's important. It's the time to build, plan and to do something positive. And then the highs will be even higher.

It's also true that the harder you work the luckier you get.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Money Making Blogs - The Apprenticeship

I suppose it's natural to want to earn money quickly. It's how life is nowadays. We want everything now, straight away. There's nothing wrong with this. Life is short so it's only right to make the most of every minute.

To build a money making blog on a proper foundation, however, does take time - unfortunately.

Yes, it can be done quickly for short term benefits - build and sell, for example. But a blog that will last long term takes an apprenticeship. This is what the big earners have done. There are exceptions but this is often done with investment and borderline marketing.

It was interesting what Darren Rowse wrote recently:

"... part of me is very glad that I didn’t 'Go Pro' or start commercializing my blogging too early. That first 12-18 months of blogging on a personal blog was very formative. I learned so much about communicating online, building community, writing and the way that blogs operate - to the point that when I began to blog on a commercial level I had a lot of skills that helped me grow those new blogs faster.

The other great thing about that first year or so was that it gave me a love for blogging. I blogged because I enjoyed it and not with dollars in my eyes. As a result I wrote about things that interested me and not what would make money.

In a sense, that first blogging experience was an apprenticeship or training ground for what came later."

In other words he didn't become problogger from the start. He learnt the trade and it was this experience that made him the success he is today.

Though there is a host of information, about how to make money with blogs, it's only when you put everything into practice that you actually appreciate what is necessary to build a blog as a money making business.

There are shortcuts but the greatest ingredient is time - if it's a long term business that you are after.

Again quoting from Darren Rowse:

'I see a lot of bloggers rushing into commercial type blogs that I think could learn a thing or two from starting a personal blog for a few months (or longer). These blogs quite often are on topics that they think will make money (rather than things they know about and love), they quite often have ads slapped all over them (instead of presenting their content as the prime thing on the blog) and they quite often have content that is regurgitated from elsewhere, uninspiring and uninteresting.

These blogs rarely survive longer than a few months because the blogger gets frustrated by the lack of initial earnings (remember it takes a year or so for a blog to 'hit its straps') and has no real interest in the topic to keep them blogging.'

Learn the trade! And, as Darren says: remember it takes a year or so for a blog to 'hit its straps'.

Good luck,
Mike.

Darren Rowse is publisher of problogger the place to go for genuine advice on earning money with blogs.

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