Work-At-Home Success University Course: Blogging For Bucks Lesson 4
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Introduction Welcome to Work-At-Home Success University and Blogging for Bucks! I m excited to have you as a valued student in this four-week training program! While blogging is well known now, many people are skeptical about its moneymaking potential. How can you make money posting stuff for free? It is true that blogs have the potential to make money, but like any other work-at-home venture, whether or not YOU make money will depend on the decisions you make, how you implement what you learn and whether or not you do the work. In this four-week course you are going to learn about blogging; what it is, how it makes money and what steps you need to take to be successful. Before we begin with the lessons, there are three important things that I need to mention to you... 1) Worksheets - The course comes with instructional materials as you see here, but it also includes worksheets. These handouts are crucial to your success so don't skip them. They are designed to help you gather and organize information so that you can use it to be a successful blogger. 2) Audio and Video Materials - When appropriate you'll find audio or video supplements to the instructional materials. These are designed to assist in providing the information in a clear and concise manner. 3) Weekly Lessons - Here is the schedule of lessons for Blogging For Bucks. Week 1 - What is blogging? Blog types Choosing a blog topic Determining if you have enough content to support a blog. Week 2 - Starting Your Blog Three different blog options
Setting up the blog Creating/getting content Making a blog calendar Week 3 - Monetizing Your Blog AdSense - Fast and free Affiliate marketing Advertising Sponsored Reviews Sponsorships Week 4 - Getting people to your blog with little or no advertising (or money) The content in the later lessens may look sparse, but each topic area has a ton of information and step-by-step details. Some of the information will be technical, but every effort has been made to walk you through the steps one-by-one. Now that we ve gotten the housekeeping out of the way, let s get to the reason why you re here the lesson!
Marketing Your Blog You've got a blog and added money-making resources, but you won't make any money until people visit your site. This is where most bloggers fail. Having a blog in and of itself won't make you money. Only by having people visit your blog, click on your ads and affiliate links will you make money. So, as well as adding new content, marketing is your number one job from now on. Here are some tips to get visitors to your blog. Email Signature From now on, every email you send should have your name, blog address, and if you created a free report for your email list, information about that as well. Check your email service or software to set up your email signature line so it is automatically included or you can add easily by using "Add Signature". Here's a basic example: Leslie Truex Free Jobs At Home Report at Work-At-Home Success http://www.workathomesuccess.com A Note About Search Engines Search engines are an important tool to helping people find your site; however, you don't want to rely on search engines alone. For one reason, it can take months to get indexed and if you aren't doing other marketing strategies, you probably won't get ranked very high when you do. Second, search engines change their algorithms, which change ranking. If you rely on search engines alone, you may find that while you're in the top 10 one day, you could be completely buried on a later page the next. Search engines don't use keywords alone to help determine your site's ranking. They use keywords to help categorize your site. Ranking comes from proper use of keywords, quality content that uses derivations of the keyword, the number
and quality of links that point to your site (banklinks), and the quality of links that your site points to. Many of the strategies you find below will create banklinks that help with ranking. You also need to make sure you provide quality, unique content on a regular basis. Create a link list (i.e. blog roll) or use other people's articles occasionally to have quality links away from your site. You are judged by the company you keep, so links to and from your site should be quality sites. SEO Search Engine Optimization If you are using Wordpress, you've already put plugins in place to optimize your site including Google Sitemaps and All-in-One-SEO. But you aren't done. Even if you aren't using Wordpress, writing content that uses your keywords and their derivations helps search engines find you when users type in your keywords. Use reader friendly titles in your blog post, and All-in-One-SEO (in Wordpress blogs) to create keyword rich titles (the plug-in feature appears at the bottom of your posts page). Stay on top of current news and trends and then write about them to keep the search engines finding your site as a top resource for those topics. Blog Commenting and Forum Participation A great way to get targeted visitors to your blog that will be interested in your content and products, is by leaving comments on other similar blogs or forums in your niche with a link back to your blog in you comment or signature. Do a search on Google for other blogs and forums in your niche that are relevant to your own blog. Focus on sites that have a lot of traffic and activity, and are seen as an authority in your niche. Don't simply tell people to visit your blog. Instead make a comment about the post or offer a tip to another commenter. Try to engage constructively in the conversations and threads, and offer useful advice. The more you contribute in a
positive manner on forums and blogs, the more clicks you will get on your link back to your blog and the more traffic you will get. Don t ever try to spam blogs by leaving comments of little value such as one liners like great post. This will never work and no one will even click on your link. Most bloggers will delete them. (You should too...remember the quality of links leaving your site are weighed in your search engine ranking.) Once you have a couple of blogs identified, participate regularly to build up a reputation as being a helpful authority. Submitting RSS Feeds RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds allow readers of your blog to automatically receive any updates for you blog as they happen. The great thing is, Wordpress automatically creates an RSS Fed for your blog. (Check the RSS link on your site). Blogger too creates RSS feed urls for easy subscribing. Submitting your RSS Feed to RSS Feed sites will help increase your backlinks, which will help with your SEO and rankings. Do a search for RSS Feed Feeder sites that you can submit your RSS Feed to. Pinging Your Blog Pinging your blog will notify the Search Engines of your blog s content, since the search engines are always scanning the net trying to pick up any new content. By pinging your blog you will speed up the process of getting all the pages of your blog indexed. There are also a lot of sites out there that publish any new content found on the web. By pinging your blog you will also notify these site s of your new content.
In Wordpress, login to your WordPress site and click on "Writing" under the "Settings" menu. At the bottom you'll see a box that says, "Update Services". Copy and paste the following list into that box. Each time you update your site, it will 'ping' these other sites to let them know new content has been created. http://api.feedster.com/ping http://api.feedster.com/ping.php http://api.moreover.com/ping http://api.moreover.com/rpc2 http://api.my.yahoo.co.jp/rpc2 http://api.my.yahoo.com/rpc2 http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping http://audiorpc.weblogs.com/rpc2 http://blog.goo.ne.jp/xlrpc http://blog.goo.ne.jp/xmlrpc http://blogpeople.net/ping http://blogsearch.google.ae/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.at/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.be/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.bg/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.ca/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.ch/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.cl/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/rpc2
http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.de/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.es/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.fi/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.fr/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.gr/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.in/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.it/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.jp/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.lt/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.pt/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.ro/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.ru/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.se/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.sk/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.tw/ping/rpc2 http://blogsearch.google.us/ping/rpc2 http://feedsky.com/api/rpc2 http://hamo-search.com/ping.php
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/ http://newsblog.jungleboots.org/ping.php http://ping.amagle.com http://ping.bitacoras.com http://ping.blo.gs http://ping.blogg.de http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc http://ping.blogoon.net/ http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/rpc2 http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xlmrpc http://ping.exblog.jp/smlrpc http://ping.fc2.com/ http://ping.feedburner.com http://ping.kutsulog.net/ http://ping.myblog.jp http://ping.namaan.net/rpc http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php http://ping.snap.com/ping/rpc2 http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php http://ping.weblogs.se http://ping.wordblog.de/ http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc http://r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc http://rcs.datashed.net/rpc2 http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/rpc2 http://rpc.bloggerei.de/ping/ http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger http://rpc.britblog.com http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080 http://rpc.newsgator.com http://rpc.pingomatic.com http://rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/rpc2 http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping http://rpc.technorati.jp/rpc/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com/ http://rpc.weblogs.com/rpc2 http://rpc.wpkeys.com http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-prep/submitpingextended.doz http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php http://wasalive.com/ping/ http://www.14470.net/api/ping http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b http://www.bblog.com/ping.php http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php http://www.bitacoras.net/ping http://www.blogdb.jp/smlrpc http://www.blogdigger.com/rpc2 http://www.blogmatcher.com/u.php http://www.blogoon.net/ping/ http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogupdates http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1 http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php http://www.blogsnow.com/ping http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi http://www.bulkfeeds.net/rpc http://www.coreblog.org/ping http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/ http://blogoole.com/ping/ http://www.imblogs.net/ping/ http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/ http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php http://www.newsisfree.com/rpccloud http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php http://www.pingqueue.com/rpc http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php http://www.snipsnap.org/rpc2 http://www.topicexchange.com/rpc2 http://www.weblogues.com/rpc http://www.xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/ http://zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php In blogger, login to your account, and access your Basic Settings. Choose Yes from the Let Search Engines Find Your Blog drop-down list. This will ping Weblogs each time you post. Social Bookmarking If you social bookmark your blog you will not only get more backlinks, you will also get more traffic. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious allow people to "bookmark" a blog post or article they link. Articles that get many bookmarks are often listed on the bookmarking site's home page. You want to bookmark your posts, but be careful that don't come off as a spammer. There are dozens of social bookmarking and web 2.0 sites out there that you can submit your blog posts to. Doing this can be very time consuming though so I suggest using some kind of software to automatically social bookmark your posts for you. Here are a couple of popular ones that are also free: http://www.onlywire.com http://www.socialposter.com To use these services, you need to have accounts at the various social bookmarking sites. You can usually apply to them through the service. If you already belong to social bookmarking sites, you can still use the services above by giving them the username and email to your accounts. For LifeSparkNetwork members, Onlywire.com is available. Search for "Only Wire" in your Plug-ins on your dashboard to install.
Article Marketing Article marketing is very popular and has always been a very effective way to get backlinks and also traffic from interested readers. The key here is great quality content that leaves the reader wanting more. It s fairly easy to come up with new articles because you can use material from the blogs posts you ve written. To avoid duplicate content troubles, re-write your blog posts for submission to article directories. Here s a few of the top article directories that you can post your articles to: http://www.ezinearticles.com http://www.articlesbase.com http://www.articlesnatch.com http://www.goarticles.com http://www.articlealley.com http://www.articledashboard.com Because submitting your articles to many articles directories at once can be time consuming and tedious, you may want to use a service. I use Distribute Your Articles, which submits my articles to thousands of resources. It saves me time and gains me greater exposure. If you plan to use articles in your marketing plan, it may be worth your while to use a service. However, I also have a list of websites/blogs that I send articles to directly. These are sites that I have developed a relationship with that I know have great traffic and meet my target market. While a service will distribute my article to directories and those directories will list the article online, they may or may not get used by other website or blog owners. Having a list of websites that I send my articles to ensures my articles get in front of my target readers.
Use the information week 2's lesson about writing blog posts to write articles. You can use your blog posts as articles, but tweak them to make them unique instead of sending the exact same content. Video Marketing Video marking can be one of the most effective and efficient ways to get traffic to your blog. Video blogging is incredibly popular right now as many people prefer to watch video rather than read. If you have a really good video that s both informative and entertaining, you could get hundreds of thousands of views! With so many people viewing your videos, you can expect a large number of people visiting your blog. Use content from a blog post to create a video that you can post on your site and upload to YouTube and other video sites. Videos are also great for backlinks. You have 3 main options here for creating a video: 1) Use a flip cam and record yourself or someone else. 2) Record PowerPoint slides using Camtasia (or the free version Camstudio ). 3) Using Animoto http://www.animoto.com which can create videos for you in minutes for free (there are paid options for longer videos and more features as well). All you need is to upload your own photos or put your own text in, pick the music and layout, and Animoto will do the rest (it s really easy). There are quite a lot of popular video sites out there that you can submit your videos to for free. However if you don t want to do this manually I would suggest using a software program such as TubeMogul http://www.tubemogul.com which is free or TrafficGeyser http://www.trafficgeyser.com which is paid (but is really good).
Social Media Sites This includes Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. There are many other social networking sites, some may even been in your niche, so do a search to find the ones most relevant to your topic. You don't need to join them all, though. Join the social media sites that your target market uses. If they don't use MySpace, you don't need to create an account there. Participate as if you were at a gathering in person. At a party you wouldn't spend the whole night selling your wares (at least I hope not). Instead you'd be listening to other people talk, conversing, telling stories, sharing tips and resources, etc. It s important here that you don t ever try to hard sell anyone or over promote. Instead build relationships that will lead people to want to know more about what you offer. This can be a very effective and rewarding way to drive traffic and create a longterm fan base and a reputation in your niche. Facebook Fan Pages Aside from a profile, you can have a fan page for your blog. Using a Facebook app called Networked Blogs you can have your blog posts feed to your fan page as well. You can create a Facebook like button or graphic to post on your blog. Facebook Fan Pages have a discussion feature to you can interact with your fans. Social Media Systems Twittering, Facebooking etc can be time consuming. Use services such as HootSuite, Social Oomph, HelloTxt and/or Tweetdeck to manage your social networking. Application plugins and widgets can automatically send your blog posts to your social networks as well. Press Releases While online press releases may not get you publicity, they will create backlinks from reputable sites. A press release isn't an ad, but an announcement that tells
who, what, when, where and how about your business. You can use a press release to announce the launch of blog, when you add a new feature, if it gets special recognition and anything else that could be deemed news worthy. Use a catchy headline to hook your reader. Keep the release to one page and include your contact information should someone want to interview you. Here are a couple of places you can post your press release for free: PRNuke USPRwire PRFree PRWeb Web 2.0 Sites Another great way to not only get traffic, but also increase your blog s rankings and backlinks is to create a network of web 2.0 sites. This method involves sites such as Squidoo, Hubpages, Tumblr.com etc and having them all link back to your main blog. This can be very powerful and you ll not only increase your blog s rankings, you ll also see your Web 2.0 pages appear in the search engine results. Another tip is to social bookmark every web 2.0 page you make to boost the ranking of your blog. Offline Advertising Drop Cards Drop cards are business size cards that have your website and a catchy tag line to entice visitors. They are "dropped" during your everyday outings such as leaving them at the bank, gas station and doctor's office.
Free Work-At-Home Jobs www.workathomesuccess.com Here is a list of places you can leave your drop cards: Doctor's Office Dentist's Office Pharmacies Mechanic's waiting room Dry Cleaners Laundromat College Campus Library Hair Salon Video Store Gas Station Bank Pet Store Realtor's Office Restaurants, Cafes Convenience Stores Bus Stop Car Decals Through a resource like WebDecal.com you can get a sticker to advertise your blog on your car. Flyers Leave flyers with tear-off strips that have your website url.
Press Releases When you write a press release to post online, send it to your local media as well. Public Speaking You can have teleseminars or webinars online, or volunteer to speak at your local community college and social groups. Publicity One of my favorite ways to get in print or interviewed for radio/t.v. is through the HARO report. This free service sends requests for experts from media resources to people like us who want to promote our business. The report is delivered by email three times a day with requests for experts in a variety of areas. Through this report I was able to be in Women's World, Redbook and more. Paid Advertising I don't often use paid advertising and most bloggers I don't either. However some do and it can be a way to get traffic quickly. Ezine advertising is very affordable if you choose a low to mid- sized ezine (3000 subscribers or so). Visit website in your niche to find sites that allow advertising in its online newsletter. If you can afford it, purchase the solo or sponsor ad as these are the most viewed ad spots. Website advertising like ezine advertising is fairly affordable on low to mid-sized sites. Pick an ad spot above the fold (can be seen without scrolling) that is near the site's quality content. Pay-Per-Click options such as Google AdWords can be very effective, however I generally steer new online business owners away from it until they become more knowledgable about keywords and ad writing. While AdWords can be effective, it can also cost you a fortune. If you run an ad for 10 cents a click and you get 100
clicks a day, that's $10, which doesn't seem like much until you realize that it's $300 per month. You need to learn about negative keywords to avoid paying for clicks from unqualified or untargeted prospects. And you need to be able to write a compelling ad that brings in targeted traffic. I recommend not doing any PPC advertising without reading more about it. Plus you should have an email capture form so if your paid traffic doesn't buy, you can at least have the opportunity to get their name and email.
Creating a Marketing Plan The last section listed many ways you can promote your blog. You don't have to do them all, but you should do several. The trick is to pick the ones that fit your abilities and budget. Further, marketing needs to be done every day. You can rely on search engines and Twitter alone to drive traffic. You need to have a plan that not only seeks out people, but includes content on your site that will keep them coming back and referring others. Here is a sample blog marketing plan. This includes just a few marketing options. You can use this outline or develop your own. Daily Activities: Post content on the blog (at least 3x per week) Respond to blog comments on your blog. Share interesting news or tidbit from another resources through your social networks - this shows you are aware of all that is going on in your topic. Post a comment on 1-3 other blogs or forums Check HARO for interview possibilities Weekly Activities: Post a longer article or video Distribute your article (re-written) to article directories. Distribute video to video sites. Have your email list service email your blog posts or send a broadcast of site updates and news once a week. Monthly: Guest post on someone else's blog Host a webinar or teleseminar
Quarterly/Bi-annually/Annually Create a PDF book or other material (audio, video) to giveaway or sell. Have a contest or giveaway. Host a live or virtual event Speak at a conference Add a new feature to your blog Send press release to online and offline media sources Day In The Life of A Blogger Here is a sample day of a typical blogger... Check schedule Check email Check blog comments Check social networks Research and/or write content Marketing tasks Develop new ideas and projects From Now On... You now have all the basics you need to let the world about your blog. As you move forward, remember that marketing is as important as creating quality content and you'll build successful blog. If you enjoyed it, you can do it again. Many people have several blogs. To launch a new blog, you simply need to re-do all the steps you just did. But don't start a new blog project until you've got your first one up and running. Once you've developed your schedule and settle into your first blog, you can create another.