Earnings Exposed

If you are considering starting up a blog, awesome. But, if you are considering doing it just because there is money to be made, you’re in for a reality check. The money can and will come, there is no denying that. But, if your sole purpose is to make money, it won’t come fast enough for you to have the drive and energy to continue writing regularly on your blog. Why do I say that? It takes a while to build up traffic. It takes a while to get more RSS subscribers…To get more back links…To get indexed, etc, etc. Time is your enemy.

If you are someone that wants to make money blogging, do it on a topic you like. I once got an e-mail from someone who I had asked to check out my blog and tell me what I could do to increase my SEO for it. His reply wasn’t an answer to my question, but instead, a discouragement. “If you want to make money, that’s not the right niche to be in…Go into health or finance or something.” He was right…If I wanted to make the MOST money, those niches may be the best bet. But…How long would it take and how often could I write about it?

I am passionate about: guitar, biology, making money online, history, music, books, and things along those lines. So, if I made a blog about any of those (I own blogs about two of those, can you guess which?), I’d be able to blog regularly because I find it of interest. But, a blog about parenting would not suit me because I don’t know anything about it. I want to be a Father…Just not yet.

My friend Barbara came to me once and said, “Jacob, I want to start a blog and make money blogging like you do.” I responded, “Cool…Find a topic you are passionate about and get back to me.” She came back a week later and said, “This is what I am passionate about.” And she showed me what she wanted to do. We talked about domains, I helped her with hosting and the final product appeared. Now she runs her own blog called The You Movement. Is it making her a ton of money? No.

But, she is passionate about it. Would her blog survive for the many months that I know she plans to work on it if her sole purpose was to make money? No. But, because she wants to write about the topic, loves the topic, wants to help others, she can grow and become more prominent. This blog is about making money…I love the topic, so even though there are currently no advertisers on the blog, I can write regularly because I love the topic. Be passionate and you will succeed with your blog. That’s my guarantee.

As you all know, this is a two man project. Because of that, we both post regularly (although there will be times when one can’t and the other does) and back and forth. But, what do you do when you’re going away for the weekend with the girlfriend (or boyfriend) and there is going to be no internet? For some, they have a panic attack because they are not going to have internet access. For others, they just remember that they have this great feature called a time stamp.

The time stamp is your way of determining when the blog post that you wrote is going to come up. So, if you are going away on vacation, you just need to write a few blog posts and then time stamp them. Once they are stamped, they will appear the minute that you have it set to appear. It means you don’t need to worry about your blog going without updates…That’s a relief.

So…What are some good times to make them appear? Since I am going away only for a weekend, it doesn’t really matter. But, if you’re going away for a week, you want the blog posts to appear at times when you’re going to have the greatest amount of traffic. What I mean is: if you target a ton of people who work, you want to get them during their work hours. So make your first blog post pop up at around 10AM and then your second one pop up at around 3PM. That’ll give five hours between each one, but more importantly, they can’t read all the content in one sitting and have to come back. More page views anyone?

In the end, the time that you time stamp the post is really irrelevant because of the great feature that is RSS feeds. Just by using one of those, people will get your article when they find it most convenient. Regardless, though, use the time stamp. I mean…I wrote this article on Friday and you’re reading it on Sunday. Amazing what a little bit of prep work can do for a blog, huh? Try out the time stamp the next time you go away. Your traffic won’t die and you’ll be stress free.

With the economy going up and down, there’s no denying that people are skeptical to invest in the stock market. Before I start anywhere else, I’m going to tell you what I firmly believe in. This recession, as much as it is having a hard impact on our wallets, it is also a bit psychological. And it is that psychological aspect that is scaring us into not investing like we used to. And it is because of this exact economy that I stress that people consider investing. First, though…The difference between day trading and investing.

Day trading is, as it sounds, trades that are made throughout the day. For instance, let’s talk about one stock that I own. Yesterday (Friday), the stock opened at $21.80 a share. It closed at $22.01. Now, that’s only a $.21 increase. So, if you only own a few shares, buying it at $21.80 and then selling it at $22.01 would not really be a great profit. But, if you are a huge investor and buy ten thousand shares at a time, you’d have made a profit of $2,100. Still not much…What if you bought fifty thousand? See where I am going with this? Day trading is great if you are going to buy and sell throughout the day.

But, what if you are like me and want to invest. I don’t own enough shares of Intel to merit buying and selling throughout the day, so what do I do? I invest. I make it a long term investment. I’ve actually been holding onto these shares of Intel since I turned 13 (my Grandma bought them for me). Why do I keep them? Because I have faith that the economy is going to rebound and when it does, Intel will be one of the companies I foresee as being a leader in the economy. So, when it goes up to $60 a share, I’ll sell it and make a good profit.

Day trading is a very focus demanding gig, but if you have the money, it can make a nice profit. But, if you are like me and don’t want to focus on the stock market non-stop, I suggest checking out investing. Regardless, though, really consider buying some shares of stock now. The market will rebound someday in the next sixteen to twenty four months…And when it does, those shares that you bought at an inexpensive price will suddenly shoot up. Profit anyone?

Whether you are making a blog or a content site, a forum or an ecommerce site, what you need to do before you do anything else is sit down and really try to figure out the domain name that you want to get. A domain name really is one of the most important aspects of your site because it is what people will have to remember (and what the search engines will have to find) to maximize your traffic.

What I do when I want to start a new site and I am trying to find a domain name is I sit down and write down what keyword in that particular niche I like. Once I know what keyword I want in my domain name, I write down whatever I can that relates to that keyword. So, if I wanted to make a mafia site, I would write down: mafia.com, italianmafia.com, gangstermafia.com, etc. Basically, I want to think up every last thing I can so I can increase my chances of getting a domain name.

But, what do you do if your domain name that you absolutely love is taken or you just can’t think up something? If the former is your problem, you can always contact the person who owns the domain name and say, “Hey, I am interested in buying the domain name.” You may just find that you are able to get a good deal because people don’t even remember owning the domain name or they just want to get rid of it because it might not be making the money they had intentionally expected to make from it while it was parked.

If the altter is your problem, I suggest checking out a domain name suggestion tool. If you plug in a keyword, they will tell you what domain names they suggest and then there is the many different endings. I suggest .com, but if you have to get something else, stick to .net. I don’t like anything else and for some reason, I lose repsect with .info sites. But, get whatever fits your budget.

There are a ton of other tricks out there to getting other good domain names, but for now, just stick to finding that keyword you like. In the future, I am going to write about how to create a brand around your domain name and give you a bit of a secret about our own domain name. Stay tuned!

Google has over 75% of US search ad market

Google maintained its 77.4% share of US search marketing dollars, while Yahoo captured 17.8% of spending and Microsoft Live Search maintained its 4.8% share. Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo Search still have good ROI in comparison to Google, which makes them essential marketplaces for advertisers that need to meet their increasingly scrutinized revenue targets.

Google’s Matt Cutts: the Google toolbar does not help indexing

Sometimes people think that the Google Toolbar led to Google indexing a page. Both Philipp Lenssen and Google OS did controlled experiments by visiting unlinked deep pages with the toolbar, and both concluded that the toolbar did not lead to those urls being indexed.

Why Google slows down acquired companies

Google had acquired Jotspot some 16 months earlier, during which time Jot was only available to existing customers and closed to new signups. Looking through the list of companies that Google has acquired, Jotspot would be considered lucky as many others have died, stalled or lost out to competitors because of the acquisition process.

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There is no denying that we are in the age where it is so much easier to network than it was fifteen or twenty years ago. With sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and so many others, we can figure out what is going on and who is doing what. I mean, there are even new sayings out such as, “You are such a Facebook stalker!” Hell, no longer do high schoolers ask for each other’s number. Now it’s “What’s your Myspace?” Gone are the days of making that scary first phone call…

But, because of the rise of sites that make it so easy for us to follow each other, there also comes a means in which you and I can take advantage of all those people! Now, I don’t mean take advantage of them in a malicious way. But, take advantage of the fact that they are probably looking for information and you are their source. That is, if your niche fits the niche they are looking for. But, rest easy, my friends…Someone is always going to be looking for your niche.

That means that if you want to get those people looking to find your information, you need to get them to see your site. Enter social networks. These are sites that allow people to find interesting and enticing stories and read up on them. I can say from personal experience that I have found sites I never thought existed. The way I think about social networking sites is that they are the means to make any website appear on my browser rather than the site listed #1 or #2 on Google. Wikipedia and…Wikipedia.

I’m late in my post to tell you that you need to jump on the bandwagon and get some of the traffic from these great sites, but sometimes, you need a reminder. I can tell you that when I first started on the web, I didn’t believe the others. All I cared about were the search engines. I knew if I could get the front page, I’d be set. Do you have any idea how hard that is? By using social networks, you get an increase in traffic, an increase in readers, and you know what? You get an increase in links so you can suddenly get on the first page.

Social networking is almost a way in which we can help each other. If I find a story I like, I stumble it. If I see something I enjoy on digg, I give it a digg. But, then people start to notice that I am stumbling or digging their stuff and they befriend me. Voila, I have networked. The power of social networking should never be forgotten. Over the next few days, I am going to touch on a few specific social networks that I think are incredibly important. To give you a quick rundown of just two of the ones I’ll talk about, Digg and Stumble Upon are my two favorites. But, there are others. So, subscribe to the RSS feed and stay tuned for more posts.

In this interview Matt Cutts is talking about his first encounter with spam, Google webmaster central and future challenges for search engines. If you dont want to view the 10 minute long video, the questions that were asked to Matt are listed below with parts of his answers.

Can you remember when you first came across spam?

He can. It was actually porn spam and that is why he remembered it, he said! Dirty Matt!

What do you think are the biggest challenges for search engines in the next five years?

Users expect more!

How can small webmasters compete with big players in their markets?

Be creative (oh really? never heard that before) pick a certain niche and become an authority in that niche! Become an expert of a small aspect of a big niche. Move fast and think about new techniques.

Every webmaster should know about?

Google Webmaster Central. You can find all of your backlinks there, can check for keywords that are leading visitors to your sites, checking Google crawlers, find broken links on your site and many other statistics! Matt his favorite from webmaster central: Google will tell you if you have hidden text or other spam on your website.

Do you think there is a difference in the way Google interacts with webmasters in different countries?

Yes, every market is different and they are all important! Google is sensitive with different markets.

Do you check for paid links which pass PageRank on every website you visit?

Yes, I do.

What are the funniest questions you’ve ever been asked at a conference?

How much can I get away with? Quite funny! Won’t tell.

What would you do if Google finally killed all spam and you suddenly had loads of time?

I like gadgets, open source, ubuntu, linus and esspecially plugins. Firefox extensions, photoshop extensions! I enjoy writing them and using them.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen…Even though he goes out on a purge to get rid of all link sellers, he is still a person like you and I. Pretty funny that his first spam was from a porn. Even those that go after spam get spam. Funny.

You started a blog and you picked a theme. Congratulations. Now comes the part you have been wanting to do since you first had the idea of starting a blog and that’s writing the actual blog posts. Before I tell you what I consider to be the techniques for an effective blog post, understand this: it is your blog and you write however you want.

But, if you do like to follow certain tools that I have found work effective, continue reading. These are techniques that I try to implement to increase the content. So, without me rambling on any longer, here are some techniques I urge you to consider when writing your blog posts…

The Six Tips to Making Those Effective Blog Posts

1. Please write with correct grammar. I am not saying you need to sit down and edit it for hours on end, fine tuning the grammar and the sentence structure so that it is suitable for your PhD thesis. However, if you’re using WordPress, use the spell check feature. Even if it means re-reading the content once more to make sure it sounds right.
2. Have a title that works. I used “Six Tips to Writing an Effective Blog Post.” I have found that using something like that works because it tells people exactly what you are going to provide for them. Six tips. They can relate to numbers and it makes it easier to organize the article. Which leads me to point three.
3. Structure the content. Notice Nomar’s article about Search Engine News. He titled each section which divides it up and makes it more structured. Structure to a post makes it easier to read and doesn’t intimidate people quite as much.
4. On to the topic of intimidation comes the length of paragraphs. I break this rule sometimes, but the length of a paragraph that people want to read is three or four sentences. Don’t write long, ranty looking paragraphs because that just turns the reader off. Even if your article is long as hell, if it’s broken up into shorter paragraphs, people will want to read it more.
5. Use images. I suck at this. But, a picture is worth a thousand words. By using images, not only can you break up the article more like in number four, but you can also make it more appealing to readers. Images make people happy.
6. Leave it on a happy note. Ask them to comment, leave a way for them to subscribe to your RSS feed and just make them feel welcomed. By making them feel genuinely welcomed, they’ll come back time and time again to read more of your content.

These rules are not cemented in stone. They are not the tell all, know all, most effective way of publishing the best content. But, I think that by doing these six methods, you are increasing your chances of publishing real effective content. Try it out and see what works for you. Perhaps with your niche, really long paragraphs work. But, short ones are effective in a lot of case.

What do you think? What do you do when you write a blog post to try and make it the most effective?

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Yahoo lets you build your own search service

BOSS is a new, open platform that offers programmatic access to the entire Yahoo! Search index via an API. BOSS allows developers to take advantage of Yahoo!’s production search infrastructure and technology, combine that with their own unique assets, and create their own search experiences.

Google blog: Introduction to Google ranking

The most common question I get asked about Google’s ranking is ‘how do you do it?’ Of course, there is a lot that goes into building a state-of-the-art ranking system like ours, and I will delve deeper into the technology behind it.

Google Suggest preparing for global launch?

Google France’s homepage tests a query suggestion feature based on Google Suggest. The feature seems to be enabled only for the homepage and there’s a setting that lets you disable it. In March, other people noticed Google Suggest enabled by default at Google.com.

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Yesterday, I talked about starting a blog. You want to get a good domain and get strong hosting. Then you want to pick your software. I’m going to assume you took my advice and installed WordPress. If you did, fantastic. If not, that’s alright. But, if you did, let’s continue now with the next step.

Picking the Design That is BEST For Your Blog

I find that one of the hardest things to do is pick a blog design that really looks great. I have some blogs that really look great and I have others that just look horrible. If you can’t afford to get a good blog design, that’s fine. You can get a free one. If you’re one of those people that can, I suggest checking out Unique Blog Designs. But, we’ll talk about them some other time.

The trick to picking a good design is first knowing what you want to gain from it. If you’re like some people and want to maximize your ad placement, you’re going to want to find some good adsense themes. There are some great ones out there that really can make you some good money if your traffic is click happy.

But, let’s, for the sake of this article, assume that you are looking to get a theme that suits your blog more than your pocket. If that is the case, you want to sit down and think about colors. Since we’re playing around with the idea of a MMA blog, you may want something a bit more aggressive. This is a money making theme so green just seemed to fit. You want colors that are going to enhance your readers experience.

For instance, if I was making a MMA blog, I would use reds or blacks. It makes sense to have more aggressive colors because it’s an aggressive topic. But, let’s say I was making a biology blog. I would probably use a greater array of blues. Why? It’s a softer topic, not about beating people up, and blue is a softer color. I love blues for themes, but it doesn’t fit for everything.

What you do with your theme depends on how you want to really work it to your advantage. This theme we’re using is good because of ad placement, but also because of how it looks. There are other themes out there that look great, but don’t have good ad placement. Find your balance and you’ll find that the theme compliments the content.

In the end, the theme you pick all depends on you. Check out different sites for some great themes. Go free if you don’t have the budget or spend a lot and get a kick ass unique theme. Whatever you do, though, remember the one cardinal rule: your content is why people are visiting your blog. That’s why tomorrow I’ll talk a little about writing that real good content.

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