7 Signs That Your Blog Is On The Right Track

Building a solid and effective blog is frustrating and that take hard work to build it. I have been working on building a solid foundation on the blog however with other daily errands I have has made me slow down my activity in this blog. Thus, it make me think like I am getting nowhere. I bet that most of you felt the same way too, at some point of your blogging life. I am wondering whether I am at the right track, or not. Is there any progress?

So, I've started evaluating my blog.

 

[1] Did my subscriber count increased?

Since I’ve started, yes, I have found it did increased and stop when I slow down. I did see some progress there. Gaining the trust of subscribers is not easy as you need to stay consistent with your blogging.

 

[2] Did my inbound linking increased?

Links are very important which may help in gaining traffics however, my linking slowed down when I didn’t blog consistently.

 

[3] Did the numbers of comments increased?

Well it did. However, once I have slowed down again, I could not attract more commenters to participate in the post.

 

[4] Any increased of page views or page per visit?

Yes, I can see that from my Google Analytics and noticed that readers are very interested in the HOW TO and widgets posts.

 

[5] Am I consistent in posting?

If you are posting consistently then that will be a major effect in the blog. It may sound easy but to post something unique and informative daily is not an easy job to do. *that reminds me to pick up my consistency once again*

 

[6] Did I improve my articles quality?

Yes, I would say thorough the time I learn to blog, I have found ways to find more informative post to share it with the readers. Although when I look at my first few posts I am kind of embarrassed by the quality however I know I am not alone. Growth in quality takes time when you are used to blogging for informative topics and learn how to write in general. Don’t sweat, it takes more experience in blogging to be good in quality post.

 

[7] Did I increase my network of bloggers?

As all bloggers know that networking is significant to gain loyal readers, inbound links and much more. In a way, I am still striving hard in networking areas. I bet most of us out there are trying hard on this as well, spending a lot of time networking here and there, don’t we?

 

 

 

 

6 ways to improve your reader’s experience

Building a site is not all about building a good looking theme only but building a site means getting your readers coming back and influenced by your site’s user experiences. Your site should be easily navigated whenever visitors come to your site, thus easier for them to look for something they want.

 

[1] Is ABOUT page important?

When I visit a site, I might be solely interested in what the writer offers in the contents. Mostly I will stumble upon their site whilst searching for something to read. However, I would also like to know who is the writer, whether a she or a he, where is he/she from, what he/she do or work and etc. I want to know who wrote the article and whether they are trustworthy or not. By making yourself known to the reader it makes yourself easier to be contacted. Thus, readers may inform you when your site has problem or give you some ideas on how your layout should be. Plus, they might introduce you to others as well.

[2] Do you find your site loading speed is slow?

Visiting a site with slow loading is sometimes threatening my patience. If I lose my patience I might not re-visit the site. Don’t you? Many readers may not have the higher speed internet connection privilege on their side, thus having a site that loads too slow might kill their interest in visiting your site. I love to install widgets that work very well for my purpose in my blog, however if I find any of it is making my page load too slow, I will take it out or pluck it under the footer so that the body will load first and the footer later. I believe there are many tricks or hacks out there that can help you tweak your page to load even faster.

[3] Do you prefer to organize by categories or dates?

At first, I would organise my site by months and ignore the categories as my list is far too long. However, I find that once I’ve pluck in the categories, the readers managed to navigate to what interest them to read. In money making blogs, it is most important to organise by categories as it will let readers select what they category they are interested in to read rather than finding it through the selected archives by months.

[4] I used related images

A picture speaks a thousand words. Most of the time I will put in an image to portray the topic I am blogging about, thus I can easily relay the message to the readers to the particular post meaning. It might intrigue more readers too.

[5] Make your content scan-able

Sometimes when I visit a money blogging tips blog, I may not take the time to read every word in the post and I will mostly scan through it to pick up the points. So how can I organize the post to make sure that my points are ‘highlighted’ out from the post? Well, I sometime use numbering, block quotes, bolded certain text, italic certain text, and point form. Readers can easily go through the list or words without reading others that might ‘waste their time’.

[6] Do you show your blog’s top posts?

When I visit a blog/site the first time via a search, after reading the specific post, I will search for any related post that might interest me. Having a top posts list might help me out to check out what other readers read. It helps me to navigate through their page to skip from one post to the next as well.

Tell me what other ways you prefer to be able to navigate through a webpage?

 

 

 

Top 5 lesson to make money online

Starting any blog that you want to make some money from is very easy and some comes free too. There are so many tips or tricks and heaps of information out there on ways to make money online, selling affiliated products or even creating make money forums. The toughest part of the above-mentioned will be continuing in blogging, like what I am doing in this blog. Why is it tough? Well, you need to maintain the frequency of blogging in your busy schedule. Sometime you probably need to turn into a hermit and gone missing for a week or two running your upmost important errands, and worrying how your traffic might tumble down as time passes.

 

Blogging for money sounds to me like a marathon and I do see some blogs fail after the excitement withered off. Getting ideas to blog in your blog is getting tougher as you go on. I know most of us wants to make money online as well as to start a money making blog, but read the list below before you start.

 

1. Are you able to write good contents? Contents that will attract and gain the attention of your readers. Contents that reader will learn something from it. I find contents that helps people to solve problem keeps them coming back for more.
2. Are you able to make your blog stand out? Anyone creates the money making blog with a general name such as ‘Money Making Blog” or whatnots. How are yours something different than the rest?
3. Blogging not only takes your time and effort but also your intellectuality in writing something that you enjoy and wants to share with others. Are you able to do that?
4. Everyone is writing about money making online. Same opinions and same points. Are you able to give different perspective?
5. Do you know how to make your blog pleasant to read by reducing clutter? Perhaps this will be my next posting tips….
   

The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers

Are you consistence in blogging?

When you started your blog, did you decide on how many times a week you plan to blog? When I started out with this blog I have blogged consistently every day, however if time is a constraint, I will stick to at least three posts per week, which only lasted a week. I’ve seen the traffic slow down when I blog less thus that pushes me to blog more all the time. So, if you are a beginner, I would suggest that you blog consistently with at least three posts per week.

Are you passionate with your blog topics?

Blog contents are important to drive unique visitors and increasing the visitor’s loyalties to your blog. If you don’t have interesting and meaningful contents, you might have a hard time growing your blog. Visitors like contents that they can learn tips to do something and there would probably be a higher chance they will visit again if they found it highly enlightening. So, blog more meaningful stuff!

Do you interact with your readers?

After two months of blogging, I’ve started to implement the chat box in my blog. Initially I rely on the comment function on each post to interact with my readers, however chat box will make me more approachable and keeping my blog on a lighter tone. Readers may not know the real me or feel my friendliness if I depend solely on the comment function, and I would not know who are my readers too. Do drop some messages on my chat box when you drop by.

Giving out love link

Till now, I am not worried about any page ranking mechanism or whatnots. Thus, I will link to anyone who I find have good contents on their blogs. Most bloggers wouldn’t mind to exchange links, something of a hobby bloggers have formed. Send some link love…and interact with each of them!

Do you do niche blogging in your blog?

Do you plan to blog in a niche topic or about everything that interest you? Well, I know for the fact that niche blogging will boost up more traffics as your blog will attract visitors with the same interest, however I have decided to blog anything that I found interesting and will enlightens the readers in my blog. The better way to brand would be getting a domain yourself with a brand name. That would incur cost, thus if you are just a beginner...BlogSpot is a good alternative selection.

Choose your main language

Majority of the world understand English and can read articles in English, so choose the right language for the readers you aim to have.

Is good writing important?

Not everyone is born with good command of English, however writing your content in an easy to understand article is a must to get your message across. Readers mostly want to learn something when they drop by, they may forgive bad grammars once awhile…but contents that are hard to understand will freak them out.

Learn something new every day

I have found that blogging has helped me more in gaining the knowledge I need, knowledge beyond just plain blogging, knowledge that improve myself a lot. A lot of blogs that I’ve came across have been a great resource for me and every time that I hopped to a site, most of the blogs help me to learn effective ways of certain things. Thus, you can treat this as a learning path for yourself whilst sharing the knowledge with your readers.

Be sincere and honest

Well, readers love sincere and honest bloggers. Don’t we all??

Basically, readers will respect bloggers who are honest with their posts and comments. So, whenever I am unsure about something in a post, I will surely state it out and ask for reader’s opinion for some feedback or to correct me. Like the saying goes “there is always room to learn more”.

How frequent do you visit my site?

Last but not least, I never fail to visit the other successful bloggers’s blogs. To be successful, you got to learn from the successful people. Why not visit here often? Let me share with you what I have found from those successful bloggers in my site.

Microsoft's new slogan is, "The Search That Pays You Back!"

Check out this Live Search Cashback.

Double Dollar qouted:

Microsoft wants to pay people to use its Live search engine and buy products through Live Search cashback. According to Microsoft, the initiative to attract users by paying cash is an attempt of the company to convince the advertisers that Microsoft has a viable plan for competing with Google in the growing market of online advertising.

Machinist qouted:

But Live Search Cashback isn't a gimmick at all. By giving me more information, and by passing money from retailers to me, Microsoft is fighting Google on very Googly terrain: usability, and the quality of search results.

Check out the detail explaination from Machinist on how it works.

What will you do if your sites/domains are banned by Google?

There are many publishers who tested this method before and proved possible.

In Google Adsense, not only your accounts will be banned but your website or domain may be ban as well. After putting in so much effort into building the website you’ve wanted and gaining the traffics to enjoy the revenue it generated, then you received an email stating your website are banned!!! How would you feel? What will you do? It probably will be a nightmare for me and I seriously wouldn’t want that to happen to me.

When your website is banned, there will be no ads displayed where you’ve put your codes. Have you experienced this before?

You might want to try this tip.

There are 3 ways to make money online

Do you find this helpful? It educates you about PPC, PPL, PPS.
Very informative and refreshing knowledge.

Ten tips to make money with photography

Many people are looking for ways to earn money online. However, we are always afraid of some get-rich-quick-scams that populate itself in the www. Of course, getting rich is not as easy as growing some money-tree which make you rich overnight. Nonetheless, there are other means of clever techniques with a little bit of hard work to build up a passive income.

You can do stock photography! What is it you ask?

"Stock photography is photography or other imagery of common landmarks, objects, concepts, people, and events that can be used and reused for a variety of commercial purposes. Stock photography can be searched by keyword and remains catalogued until purchased by a customer."

It is all about selling the photos you take with your digital camera to agencies online. I know, you might be putting off this idea just because you don’t have good professional camera right? But, if you visit a few sites I am listing down later, you might change your mind. Why? Some of the photos sent by the registered users are taken with camera with the minimum of 5 mega pixels with 3 zooming specs.

How much can you earn? I think roughly it varies from 30% to 80% commission, depending on the website you’ve registered. It has something like if people downloaded your photo, then if the photo you make is $1/photo, so 20 people equal $20! But, if you sold your photos, you may lose all your rights on it.

How do you get started? Get a Digital Camera (minimum of 4 megapixels) and a Light box.

Ten tips to make money with photography

1. Look at the best selling stock images Fotolia,Dreamstime,Getty Images and Corbis Image. Note down the kind of images that you can easily re-shoot and use your creativity to shoot better photos.

2. Look which season or festival is coming next? For example, just before the Christmas Holidays, images and photos that signify Christmas / Santa / holidays / Gifts are sought over by every publisher. So, submit such images two months in advance. Now, is the best time to submit Easter images.

3. Describe your photos with relevant keywords. Again, look at some of the successful photographers on keyword suggestions.

4. Submit your images to more than one stock agency site. In this way, you could earn money with same photographs using different stock agencies. Refer to the Terms and Conditions of stock agencies before you do this.

5. Use bright lights, but avoid harsh shadows. If you use the light box, the light is diffused so you can shoot high-quality, professional photos.

6. Invite your friends and ask them to pose for your photos. People photographs are the highest selling stock photos. You need a signed, no-objection certificate from them (a model release) for using those photos comemrcially. You can learn about model release at fotolia.

7. Read your camera manual and understand the different modes to use it more effectively. Many professional photographers use simple Point and Click cameras because, they are the best to shoot close-up , macro photos.

8. Set your camera to shoot highest quality and largest size picture.

9. For every weekend, shoot at least 50 images and upload them to stock agencies. Always, always upload only the best images.

10. Prepare for rejections. In your early days, many of your images may get rejections for poor quality, blur, not having commercial value. Prepare for it, and always look at some winning photos.