Today’s Lesson

Maybe it’s just the blogs I visit, but what I see is many of these sites are naked.

Devoid of advertisements.

Although many bloggers admit to wanting to make money blogging (me, included), for some reason we don’t discuss it and certainly don’t want our sites labeled as “spammy”.

Truth be told, most fellow bloggers expect to see ads on our sites.

Like you, they also hope to make money and understand why the ads are there.

Take a look at these popular websites. They all have ads, too.

The Washington Post
National Geographic
Mapquest
Oprah
NBC
Fox News
CNN
YouTube
Amazon

Granted, the popular sites are where advertisers want their ads displayed and willingly pay these large corporations big bucks for their website “real estate”, but the ads are there, providing a passive income for these businesses.

If you look at these websites, you’ll notice the ads blend in with the copy and/or photographs.

As bloggers we can learn from that.

That said, the one thing these large websites have which most bloggers don’t, are high traffic numbers.

Without traffic, all the ads in the world will not make us rich.

So does that mean we should stay naked for now?

Or include some ads and hope for the best?

Today’s Assignment

Are you a naked blogger (no ads on your blog), or does you blog have some bling?

If you land on a blog which has advertisements, are they a distraction or have you become blind to them?

If you do show ads, are they profitable?

Care to share?

Although I don’t think about it often, I still do.

I was scared to hit “publish” the first few times, and I worried because I kept switching my theme.

I didn’t know any of the blogging terms either.

Being self taught, I spent most of my non-writing time searching for help, but even when I found help, I usually didn’t understand what to do with it.

I was pretty naive.

Today’s Lesson

When I think back to when I first started blogging, I didn’t have too many expectations except for thinking I could make lots of some money by having a blog.

• I wasted a lot of time signing up for affiliate networks and tweaking my Google AdSense ads.




• I didn’t know that without thousands of visitors a day, making a decent income from a blog was out of the question. When I figured it out (that I needed traffic to make money), I wasted time trying to get more traffic, too. Instead, I should have been learning more about SEO (search engine optimization) and spending less time looking for an “easy way”.




• I wanted comments. Little did I know I should have kicked the “If I build it, they will come” attitude and should have spent time visiting and commenting on other blogs.




• Although I worried about changing my theme so often, I should have realized without a steady stream of visitors, it really didn’t matter.




• I love numbers, so for me checking my statistics became a daily obsession. Instead of wasting time watching the numbers rise and fall, I should have spent time either writing and publishing or learning techniques which would take me closer to my goals.




• Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can be fun, but they can also be addicting. Before signing up, I should have asked myself if the benefits of participating in social networking will outweigh the investment of my time.

Truth be told, I wasted a lot of time on blogging activities I should have postponed until later or maybe not even got involved in, but that’s in the past.

What about you?

Today’s Assignment

Looking back, if you had to do it all over again, where would you have spent more time?

Where would you have spent less time?

Care to share?

Being in the construction industry, we know those who prefer to rent won’t need our services. And because we don’t have the man-power and equipment, we know those who need huge jobs done, won’t be our customers either.

Hence, when we advertise, we choose resources we believe are being viewed by the clients we are targeting.

It’s not always easy, but through trial and error, we hit the mark .

Today’s Lesson

Building a blog is very similar to building a business. First and foremost, we need to know who our target audience is.

Secondly, in order to reach that audience, we need pick our blog post topics accordingly.

Similar to advertising, by using SEO (search engine optimization) we can tighten the gap, just as we can by sharing information we feel would be beneficial to our target audience.

However, problems can emerge when we throw comments into the mix.

Truth be told, it’s often other bloggers who are commenting on our blog posts, and not the readers we’re writing for.

I believe it’s easy to start blogging with a target audience in mind, only to forget whom we’re blogging for when other bloggers begin to show up.

Bloggers will always support other bloggers. That’s a given.

However, if we inadvertently start writing for bloggers and NOT for our target audience, not only can our readership suffer, but so can the growth of our blog, as well as potential earnings (if applicable).

Today’s Assignment

In an effort to receive more comments, have you changed your writing style or blogging activities in order to attract fellow bloggers to your blog, instead of your target audience?

If you’re not attracting your target audience, what is your biggest challenge?

Care to share?

We all want our blogs found and would love to have a steady stream of traffic.

For bloggers, finding a way to meet this goal, usually tops our list of priorities.

Today’s Lesson

When I started blogging, I often felt like I was talking to myself, or just documenting my thoughts in cyberspace.

I searched “how to drive traffic to a blog”, and read about the importance of SEO (search engine optimization). What I read was above my level of expertise, and even though I knew it was important, I didn’t understand what I needed to do.

Several months ago, Catherine Lawson did a guest post on my blog, and wrote an article titled: Increased Search Engine Traffic For Lazy People.

I took her advice and began using the SEO plugin All In One SEO Pack, by uberdose. Whether I have it maximized, is another question.

Additional research on SEO recently took me to Lorelle’s site. In her post titled: Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization, she answers all of our burning questions. Lorelle takes it from the beginning and guides us through the complete process of optimizing our blogs. The post is long, but it’s filled with tons of valuable hints, links and tips. It’s a page worth bookmarking.

As I work my way through the steps she outlines, I continue to realize the importance of working “behind the scenes” of our blogs. It’s one thing to post on a regular schedule, but to get found, we must make time to learn the workings of SEO.

Today’s Assignment

Is your blog optimized for search engines?

Do you fully understand SEO?

What challenges have you met along the way?

What have you found works best?

Most bloggers start a blog with money as part of the equation. I did.

However, the truth about making money with a blog is often misleading.

Search online and you’ll find many sites, e-books, or “subscribe to this” that claim you can make big money, FAST, with a blog. It will only cost you $X.XX. Sign up, share your credit card number, and you can make thousands in a short time. It must be true. After all, they show a copy of a check(s), made out to themselves, for an astronomical amount of money.

Pictures don’t lie. Or do they?

When I started blogging, I plastered ads on my two blogs. I signed up for Google AdSense, LinkShare.com, Commission Junction and Amazon.

I then proceeded to spend countless hours adding ads, moving ads, changing ads, resizing ads, and then constantly checking the statistics to see how many hundreds I was making. HA! That was a joke. I wasn’t making anything. Months passed, some of the ads remained, but my pocketbook wasn’t any thicker.

I didn’t spend any money by joining these “companies”, but I did lose tons of time.

To recap where I am 13 months later, from Commission Junction I received a $17 check. Linkshare shows I have a $14.75 balance, but they don’t payout until you have accumulated $25.00. I haven’t seen any checks from Amazon either, although they say I’ve earned $12.39.

Google AdSense was a slow starter, but the pennies finally added up and I got my first check from them. (They payout at $100.00+). I should see my second check next month.

I was also blessed with a donation from Mark, at Creative Journey Cafe.

All in all, what I’ve “earned” (not received) has covered my overhead for my BlueHost account, domain names + renewals. By doing the math, I’m a little ahead of the “game” as long as I don’t put a value on the time I spend blogging. ((((laughs)))))

Interestingly, the money I have made was the result of my second blog. It’s a blog that receives nearly all of it’s traffic from search engines (organic traffic), and does not have a “community” of commenters. This tells me, if you can get your blog to receive organic traffic (by using SEO and keyword phrases, etc…), your chances of making money will increase.

The one problem with using keyword phrases (keywords), it forces you to change your writing style. In some ways, it can hinder your creativity.

So what have I learned?

I’ve learned, I don’t know how to make money blogging. LOL

Lesson Twelve: Money can be made with blogs. I believe search engine traffic is the key, and you need lots of it (thousands of visitors a day). Your subject matter must appeal either to the masses or to a specific niche of people (not bloggers).

At this point, the money I make is irrelevant, however, don’t tell my husband that. He believes this “hobby” of mine will pay for itself, and maybe than some. Let’s keep this just between us.

As for those pictures of the big checks, could they have been a Photoshop project? You decide.

Today’s Assignment:

Are you blogging for dollars? If so, is it working?

Have you discovered a great way to make money with a blog?

Or are you like me, and the money part of blogging has lost it appeal?