To The Moon And Back

I’m sure you’ve all heard about John Chow and read his blog. If you are interested in earning money online but haven’t visited his blog, then you will be surprised at how much you will learn just by reading two or three of his posts. He’s earning about $30,000 a month from his blog and posts regularly about money making websites, which puts him on top of my mentor list. He even has a free Make Money Online ebook that you can download (I have but haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet).

This morning, I saw an article in his blog - 10 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid. One of the tips caught my attention immediately.

Blogging Mistake #2 - Blogging Only For Money
If you’re blogging only for money, then you’re in for a shock. Yes, you can make good money with a blog, but despite what that National Post story on me said, it takes a lot more than “no effort.” 99% of blogs on the Web cannot make more than $100 a month. John Chow dot Com makes money because I don’t blog for money. If the only reason you’re blogging is to get rich, you will fail.

And he’s so right. The love for blogging / writing should always come first. Content is and always will be king. With regular updates and quality posts, you get lots of readers, tons of backlinks and high traffic. When you have all that, making money should just come naturally.

If you’re not crazy about seeing Ron Burgundy’s (played by Will Ferrell) white, hairy legs or watching four grown men in a bathtub, then don’t click the link below.

Both the husband and I love Will Ferrell to bits! The video below was from the movie The Anchorman, a 70’s theme movie about San Diego’s finest and egotistic anchorman, Ron Burgundy. It’s so hilarious and my stomach hurt from laughing so much all throughout the show. Some might find his humor weird but we’re just crazy about him! So click on the link to have your share of “Afternoon Delight“.

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Check out what I found from a yahoogroup today. It’s a tool, created by Dane Carlson of business-opportunities.biz that calculates the worth of your blog. You may want to check it out here.

My I AM DZOI blog is worth $273,000, can you imagine that? This one, even though it’s fairly new is worth $7,339.02 already. If this is true, I may be close to my dream of getting rich through blogs LOL.

So how much is yours?

I came across several blogs and websites who are making huge money just by placing ads. I’d like to research on this and learn if it’s something that I can do in the future. Doing reviews is good money but I still have a fulltime job and enough sidelines to keep me busy that I prefer to earn on my websites without too much action on my part. As soon as I’m done, I will post them here so we can discuss which ones are good or not. Like I’ve said on my previous post, I’m just not crazy about blogs who are overflowing with banner ads that it’s hard to read the posts anymore. But perhaps if used and positioned wisely, and with the right amount of traffic, I’m hoping these ads could bring enough cash that I can just concentrate on blogging at my own pace. I’m also looking into big affiliate programs in the future. My regular design client is earning about $40,000-$60,000 a month through these programs but he also pays thousands of dollars just to advertise. Anyway, with the right strategy and perseverance, I’m sure I can do all this.

Believe me, I have so many things that I want to share here but I’m just so strapped for time.

Yes, this is my own version of how to be a better blogger. These are just my opinion but I highly suggest you read them if you want to make your visitors stay longer or if you plan to do advertisements through blog. If you feel that only one or two people will read your blog, then do as you please.

Shall we start?

Content and Readers
1. Find a topic that you’re very comfortable with. Almost all my blogs are filled with parenting and working from home stories. I find it easy to write about parenting because I enjoy reading about it as well. And it sorts of mold together with my work from home stories. This blog on the other hand will focus on everything that you can learn in the Internet.

2. Once you have found your main topic, make sure to exchange links with blogs similar as yours. That way, you can guarantee that your readers will be interested on what you have to say. I don’t see how a 17-year-old who’s into skateboarding can relate to my mommy articles.

3. Install plugins that will promote constant interaction such as comment email responder, >commentLuv, and >subscribe to comments. Keep the comments coming in by responding to them all the time. I always feel special whenever I receive replies from blog owners.

4. Update your blogs regularly. Your visitors will surely come back everyday if they know that they will read something new.

5. Make your RSS links visible so that people can easily subscribe to your feeds. I use FeedBurner for my feeds and it’s very easy to install.

6. Add a brief but very clear description of yourself. People loves to snoop around so knowing how your favorite technology blog owner loves to watch old sappy movies will make them seem more human.

On visuals:
1. If you are using wordpress, take advantage of the thousands of themes available in the Internet. It can give your blog a professional and clean look. I assure you, your readers will appreciate it. Go to the official website for Wordpress Themes.

2. Related to #1, don’t install every single javascript or cutesy plugin that you will find. The mouse cursor effect with the trailing stars or fairy dust might look magical but it certainly giving my browser a headache especially in IE when it’s susceptible to javascript problems.

3. Refrain from using small fonts. Some of us can’t read that well and there are those who are just too lazy to go to File > View > Text Size > Largest so they will just leave your blog instead of exerting an effort to read your oh-so-tiny fonts

4. Always use a white or light background. If you feel that black will suit your blog’s theme more, then use white as the font color and don’t forget to apply tip #3

5. Add links to websites and add pictures (not too big) to make your posts more real and interesting

There’s more but I will have to save those for another day when I’m not being harassed by a client to finish his website design.

To my visitors (as if there are many), I’m in the process of organizing my links before I put them up. So if you have blogs that you want to add here, just leave a comment and I will add that to my list.

By the way, if you have about a hundred blogs on your blogroll, which I’m sure some of you have, you might be interested in the following Wordpress plugins.

Blogroll Page Plugin

WordPress Randomized Blogroll Plugin

I read this just today. To keep your blog from losing its PR, you need to avoid using a sitewide blogroll. One way to do this is move all your outgoing links to a separate page. You don’t have to manually type all your links, just install the blogroll page plugin and you can accomplish that in minutes.

Cool huh? I’m learning new stuff everyday so make sure to check back! I will definitely apply all these tricks to all my blogs.