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If you’re just starting on your goal to start a small business online or make money blogging, then you’re luckier than you think. True, a spike in the number of online enterprises and money-making blogs has also encouraged a fiercer sense of competition between entrepreneurs. What works to your advantage, however, is the fact that there’s a lot of information now on how you can earn money from your site. Advice is all over the place, as are tutorials and instructional manuals on how you can put up your online store or start blogging for money.

One of the first things you’ll find out about making a profit online is that you have to draw up an effective internet marketing strategy. If you’re no stranger to blogging for profit, you would know by now that a good internet marketing strategy is indispensable when it comes to earning money from your site. This means that you have to look for a more effective way to advertise or promote your site.

What a lot of neophytes are unaware of, however, is the fact that not all internet marketing strategies will work for their benefit. Some of the internet marketing advice you’ll get will be downright unreliable or ineffective, and many bloggers who want to jumpstart their online ventures or make money blogging end up using these flawed marketing strategies. Are you also committing these internet marketing blunders? Read on to find out what you should NOT do if you want to launch a successful promotional campaign for your blog:

1. Building a website that’s great to look at – but takes ages to load:

It’s good to put effort into your blog’s appearance, to make it as attractive as possible to create a favorable impression on your visitors. What won’t work, however, is a blog design that takes forever to load on the screen, or a site that’s bogged down by too many high-end applications. Remember that your visitors aren’t behooved to be patient with your site — instead, it’s your obligation to make web surfing a rewarding experience for them. Ultimately, a gorgeous site that takes too much time to load is just as bad as an ugly template. Both of them make your readers feel like you’re wasting their time, and they’ll just end up moving on to other blogs where they can get what they want in a few seconds.

2. Expending minimal effort at keyword research:

Some bloggers and online businesspeople think that keyword research stops at finding out which search terms get the most number of hits on Google. Sure, these are all part of the whole package. But have you actually come up with a keyword research system that will really make your site earn money?

Don’t just stop at looking up keyword rankings and finding out how many people, on average, are using the search terms, “how to lose weight”. Instead, you should also watch the activity behind each keyword you put up strategically on your site: which keywords actually fetch you the most number of visits? Of these keywords, which ones actually end up with a sign-up or a sale? You should start a process for keyword research that’s more organized and more relevant in its thrust.

3. Scratching just the surface of your web stats:

Okay, so you already have Google Analytics tracking the activity on your site. It’s been running for a good while now, gathering a lot of useful data that you can use to boost your blog’s earnings. But are you really making the most out of your analytics tool? Most bloggers just look at how many people are going to their site, taking note of how much time their visitors are spending on which web page, et cetera. You have to recognize, however, that assessing your blog stats only by these factors is a superficial evaluation of your site’s performance.

A better tack would be to find out where your traffic is coming from. Are they coming from search engines? Which keywords are bringing your visitors to your site? Maybe your e-mail campaign is hauling all your visitors in? Whatever it is, make sure that you know where your visitors are coming from so you know where your blog should go.

But remember: there’s no use coming up with a great marketing campaign if your product is found to be inferior. Your best advertisement still lies in your product itself. No matter how good your promotional tactics are, a bad product will never sustain a profit for long. A good, reliable product will make its own waves when it’s introduced properly to its target market. So don’t think twice about shaping up your blog. Come up with an effective marketing strategy that will ensure the success of your site, and you’re good to go.

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If you’re one of the millions of WordPress users today, you’re probably thankful for the existence of plugins, those little chunks of code that enhance the functionalities of your blog. But these plugins don’t just give you a helping hand as far as managing your blog is concerned. Plugins can improve your visitors’ experience of your site, and some of them are even made specifically to help you make money blogging.

The only drawback about plugins is the fact that there’s so many of them lying around the blogosphere, and not all of them are necessary to the success of your site. But how will you know which plugins are worth installing and which ones are better off left on the shelf? Here’s a list of winning WordPress plugins that can breathe new life into your blog!

1. Akismet A perennial favorite, Akismet is every WordPress blogger’s first line of defense against nefarious comment spam. This plugin effectively blocks bogus comments from infiltrating your comment box and clogging it up, making comment management an easier job for you.

2. All in One SEO Pack This tool raises your capacity to make money blogging by providing you with a whole suite of features that optimize your blog for search engines. The All in One SEO Pack takes the most significant page-ranking factors that affect your site’s search engine rankings, and lets you tweak with them to make your blog shine in search engine results.

3. WordPress 2.3 Related Posts Plugin Definitely a must-have, the WP 2.3 Related Posts Plugin ensures that each of your blog posts comes with a list of links to related posts. If you’re worried that your feed subscribers might not take advantage of this, then you can heave a sigh of relief. This plugin also posts the links of your related posts to your feed.

4. Lucia’s Linky Luv This tool does a great job of managing your comments, and is best known for its “dofollow” function. Essentially, this means that people who comment on your blog are automatically rewarded with backlinks, so that their blogs can benefit from your own sites’ page rank. However, it also enforces a “nofollow” rule on comments that are likely to be spam. Brilliant!

5. cformsII Finally, a tool that gives your readers a secure way through which to contact you. cformsII is a neat plugin that lets your readers establish contact with you safely and securely. It boasts of an impressive set of features, and is even shielded against spam.

6. Tell a Friend The Tell a Friend plugin by Social Twist goes beyond the functionalities of your old “Bookmark/Email This!” button. Not only does it let your visitors refer your blog post through social bookmarking sites and e-mail – it also provides the option of sharing your blog content through social networking sites, instant messaging, their own blogs, and content management systems.

7. Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress This one is a very useful plugin that instantly draws up a sitemap of your blog in XML format, which Google, Ask, and MSN Search can pick up right away. So what’s the big deal about this? When provided with a sitemap that outlines each URL within the blog as well as their corresponding metatags, a search engine spider can crawl through your site better and come up with more relevant search results as far as your blog goes.

If you don’t already have these plugins, isn’t it time that you installed them in your blog? While it’s true that your blog can do well just by providing quality content and information, the right combination of plugins can make your site more efficient and profitable.

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When most people think of what it means to make money blogging, two words seem to come up almost automatically: “instant cash”. And yet blogging for money isn’t your ticket to quick wealth as it’s often made out to be. The truth is that today’s highest-earning bloggers weren’t even SEO specialists. Instead, they had a great product, a promising idea for a blog topic, and the industriousness to stick to the effort over the years.

One of the first things that you have to do as a professional blogger is to get ready for all the work that lies ahead of you. Keep in mind that your blog won’t be the only one of its kind that’s already up and running, which means that competition for reader’s attention is much stiffer now. Furthermore, professional blogging won’t reward you generously for your efforts in your first six months, or even for the first year! In the beginning, you’ll have to devote a lot of time managing your blog. This can prove to be challenging if you’re already holding a full-time job that takes up at least 8 hours of each working day.

Despite these challenges, professional blogging can prove to be very fulfilling once your site has gained a foothold in its own niche and readership base. It’s like getting your cake and eating it, too: getting paid for writing about the things you love the most! Before you proceed, however, take note of these basic – but golden – rules for blogging professionally. Follow these principles, and you’ll find that blogging for money can be as enjoyable as it is profitable:

1.  Decide on a niche to specialize in, and plan out your blog accordingly:

Will you be writing about sports? Or will you be running a steady stream of political commentary on your site? Are you considering putting up restaurant reviews? Whatever topic your blog will focus on, it’s important for the rest of your site to be faithful to your theme. Choose a blog template, for example, that matches your overall theme, and keep your blog posts within the bounds of your chosen niche.

You can afford to create an off-topic blog post every so often, but if you want to gain your readers’ trust and establish yourself as an expert, it’s better to be consistent with your blog entries. For instance, if your blog is about technology, don’t write at length about how you and your girlfriend had a fight the other night, or share your favorite recipe for moussaka.

Most importantly, however, you should choose a topic that you will actually love researching and writing about. It’s hard to fake enthusiasm for a topic that you don’t actually care much about, and it’s a tactic that usually backfires. For instance, don’t create a blog on wedding planning just because it’s a popular niche. Instead, choose a niche that you feel strongly about, whether it’s food, politics, religion, photography, or even something as esoteric as zoology.

Remember, a good blog is one that’s written with obvious zeal and passion, and dealing with a topic you love ensures that you won’t get sick of writing about it year after year.

2.  Update frequently:

Updating your blog regularly can make a big difference in the volume of traffic that your blog receives. Because site traffic usually translates into revenue, you have to ensure that readers are visiting your blog frequently. Encourage them to visit by updating your content as regularly as you can. People don’t want to return to a blog only to find a post that they’d already read before! Make your readers’ visits worth their time by providing them with new content as often as possible.

Frequent updating also ensures that Google and other search engines index your site frequently, making your blog more visible and accessible to others. If you don’t want your blog to fall into obscurity, you have to work at giving your readers a lot of fresh entries.

3.  Take advantage of ad networks and affiliate programs:

Once you’ve got your blog up and running, you can look into more direct ways of earning money from your site. A good way to jumpstart this is by signing up for Google Adsense, which rewards you for each click that an advertising link receives from your site.

You can also sign up for an affiliate program such as Amazon.com Associates, Clickbank, or Azoogle. An affiliate program will reward you for every purchase or sign-up that a visitor of your blog makes, as long as he/she clicked through to the product offer from your blog.

Whether or not you like it, blogging for money will always involve some form of advertising in your blog. Your revenue, however, will be dependent on the number of readers who flock to your site; the more readers you have, the bigger the chances of having those links clicked on.

4.  Write quality posts:

No matter how frequently you update your site, and no matter how many ad networks you’re part of, you can’t earn any long-term revenue unless you offer your readers a lot of quality, credible content. Nobody wants to read something that’s poorly or shabbily written, so do your best to write as well and as accurately as you can.

When your readers realize that they can rely on you to give them solid advice and credible information regarding your niche, they’re bound to return to your blog, as well as create backlinks to your site that will boost your search engine ranking. When your visitors realize that your opinions and knowledge about your chosen topic can be trusted, they’re bound to return to your site, boosting its traffic and its chances to earn money.

Although there are different ways through which people make money blogging, the best tactic is still to provide quality content to your readers. Remember, people aren’t visiting your site just to ogle at your blog template! Nonetheless, it’s also important to come up with a blog theme that works well with the niche you’re dealing with, as well as to use advertising networks and affiliate programs wisely. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’re sure to be blogging your way towards a real and sustainable profit!

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