5 Skills Every Blogger Needs to Excel

On the surface, writing a blog and maintaining it may not seem like that hard of a job. You set up an account, pick a theme, write some posts and hit “publish”. Pretty much anyone can do it so long as they know how to use a computer and understand the basics of the Internet.

However, there is a difference between just blogging and blogging well. If you want to do the latter, you’re going to have to learn a few additional skills to help you excel.

The good news is that the skills you need are not great and, even if you don’t have them at all, you can probably pick them up quickly with a few books and some practice.

Still, if you’re looking to move beyond merely hitting the send button and hoping for the best, here are a few skills you might want to pick up or improve on.

1. Writing Skills

This one seems fundamental but it is still often overlooked. Even if you’re a podcaster, a photographer or running a video blog, you’re going to have to write something, even if it is just descriptions.

You don’t need to be a poet in order to write a blog but you need to be able to write clearly, concisely and in a manner that doesn’t sound awkward or forced. Search engines strongly favor well-written content (because people spend more time on pages with it) and the easier your content is to read, the more people will enjoy and the more visitors you’ll have. It’s that simple.

If you struggle with this, it might be worth your time to pick up a few books on writing or even taking a short writing course. A little bit of time invested here can go a long way to helping your blog.

2. HTML & CSS Skills

Sure, every major blogging platform comes with themes that you can just click to install and use, but what happens if you want to make it unique or fix something that’s broken? If you don’t know at least a little bit of HTML, you may be in big trouble.

Knowing the basics of HTML and CSS is the difference between having a site that looks like everyone else’s and having something that is truly unique. You don’t need to change much code to make a very big difference but you do have to know what to change.

If you’re weak in this area, pick up a few basic HTML books and practice with them. Also, you may want to learn the basics of PHP if you’re using a platform that’s based on it, such as WordPress, so you can fix minor problems with plugins and themes.

3. People Skills

Blogging may seem to be a solitary activity but you have to deal with other people all day long. Though the interactions may not be face to face, instead being via email, comments and social media, the rules for how to treat others doesn’t really change.

If you treat people good and trust those who are trustworthy, you’ll probably have no trouble with you people skills, However, if you are struggling in this area, it is really about practice more than anything. Though being shy is understandable, getting out there and talking to people is crucial.

Besides, if you can comfortably talk with and work with strangers face-to-face, working with them online should be easy.

4. Image Editing Skills

For most bloggers, the primary medium is text, but, at some point, you are going to want or need to work with an image as well. Whether it’s a logo you’re adding to your site, images you are inserting into your posts or just a new avatar for Twitter, you will likely find yourself manipulating images.

As such, it’s important to understand the basics of image editing including how to crop, resize, correct, reformat and do other simple changes to an image. It doesn’t require a Photoshop wizard to be able to run a blog, but if you can do the basic changes yourself, life does get a lot easier.

If you’re weak on your photo editing skills, the easiest way to learn is usually to just download a photo editing program, such as Paint.net, and practice or read through the provided tutorials. For the most part, this is something best learned by doing though there are great books available as well.

5. Social Networking Skills

Though I am loathe to agree with the army of social media and social networking “experts” who add me on Twitter every day, they are right that a blogger, or any business for that matter, needs some basic social networking skills. To be clear, this shouldn’t be an obsession but learning how to use Twitter and Facebook as well as other relevant services can be a major help to your site.

Part of social networking is the aforementioned people skills but it also plays a role in promotion and encouraging others to spread around your site as well.

Once again, the quickest way to learn if you need some help is to simply dive in but, with a simple search, you’ll find that there are literally thousands of tutorials and guides on this topic. There is no shortage of information out there.

Bottom Line

You’ll note one of the skills I didn’t mention is computer skills. The reason is that it should be assumed. If you’re on the Internet and running a blog, you have a certain amount of computer knowledge already and the additional skills you need are more specialized (and mostly listed above). You don’t need to know how to work on a computer of replace a hard drive to be a good blogger, but knowing how to use one well helps, obviously.

In the end, the skills you need to be a good blogger are not that great or numerous. Though there are some not on this list, these are some of the big ones you definitely will need or want. If you don’t have them, it may be time to brush up on them and, if you do, there is always room to improve.

After all, one should never stop learning, especially when it comes to the skills at the core of something they love. You can always take things to the next level through practice and education and there is almost never any harm in doing it.

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Why Choosing a Blog Niche Might Not Be a Good Idea

There are a few pieces of advice that tend to come as standard when you look for help with blogging. “Write compelling content”, “network in your niche”, and “stay consistent” are probably the most common words of wisdom you’ll receive. “Pick the right niche” ranks right up there with them as well.

Choosing the right niche, in the case of blogging, usually just means that you should pick a topic you’re passionate about, which also happens to have a large audience. It’s advice I’ve given myself throughout the years and I still see it on many blogs today.

Yet, I just don’t think it’s relevant anymore.

After more than 15 coaching calls in the last month, I had the realisation that this advice just isn’t helping people, especially with 10 of those calls involving my client stressing out about which industry they should be blogging in.

“Should I define myself as a blog on Lifestyle design or Personal Development?” and “Will people know what I mean by Creative Marketing?” were just some of the related queries that I received.

I instantly replied with “Don’t worry about it” which not only helped bring these people some relief, but also touched upon something that I think everyone should think about. In my opinion, choosing your blog niche – in most cases – just doesn’t really matter anymore.

Defining yourself is a waste of time

I used to run a blog which covered my journey of going from college dropout and leaving England at 18 to working for a big marketing agency in Cape Town where I didn’t know one single person. It was a site that not only grew to thousands of subscribers very quickly, but a site where I worked very hard to define what it was about.

I wanted everyone to know that my blog covered the topic of personal development. Yet, the only place I actually mentioned personal development was in the title tag (to increase search engine rankings for that phrase). The sites’ name, PluginID, didn’t really give much away, and neither did the “Plug into your identity” tagline.

Looking back, my focus on just writing about “personal development” actually hindered me in a number of ways.

The first way being that defining myself was a total waste of time, and probably is for you too. There are simply far more important important aspects to blogging which should be occupying your attention. The most important thing you can do is get the essentials out of the way and then just start writing.

A blog is nothing without its content.

Whether you define yourself as a personal finance blog or a financial advice blog doesn’t really matter. It only matters if you would change your content based on that definition. Nobody is going to look at your blog and think it’s about health if all you write about is money.

Your content is going to show what your site is about; you don’t have to stress about defining it.

Thankfully, there is…

A much better alternative

I can’t write an article which takes out one of the most recommended fundamentals of blogging and not replace it with what I believe is a far superior alternative. Instead of stressing about which direction you’re going to take your blog and the angle of your content, just simply ask yourself “in which way do I want to help my audience?”

That’s it.

Do you want to entertain people?
Do you want to give them the latest news?
Do you want to help them make more money?
Do you want them to become better copywriters?
I can’t answer this question for you, but it should be pretty easy for you. After all, your blog wouldn’t be much without an audience. What do you want to provide for them?

With this one question, you can accomplish a number of things a lot easier.

Content

No longer do you have to worry about whether a certain article fits under the category of ‘personal development’ or whether you’re writing something that your audience doesn’t care about. You simply focus on whether the information you’re providing helps you help your audience.

My aim with ViperChill is to give people the best advice I can about internet marketing and building remarkable websites. I don’t stress if a topic choice is going to be relevant to my readers because I’m always publishing content with that aim so the majority of the time, it just naturally will be.

This question gives you more content ideas, helps you decide if an idea is right for your audience and allows you to twist content ideas from other industries and make them more relevant to your readers.

Audience

Another reason people worry about which blog niche they choose is because they want to make sure they’re attracting – and keeping – the right website visitors. The great thing about this question is that it allows you to build an audience that is laser-targeted.

And as most of you know, a laser targeted audience is exactly what you want if you ever come to monetise your website. Although there are other factors besides what you write about that attract a readership – such as your content length and post frequency – it’s still the biggest factor in growing a blog which can make you money.

Value

The only reason people ever read a blog is because of the value that it provides. That value can be in one of hundreds of forms, but it always exists. For instance, the value I receive from Daily Blog Tips is information which helps me become a better writer, which in-turn helps me to grow my business.

Another blog I love, TechCrunch, provides me not only with boredom relief when I’m not sure what to work on next but also information on the newest social media sites I may be able to utilise. Knowing how you can help people through your site is the exact value that you’re providing to them.

As long as you continue to put out content that is inline with your aim, then you’re constantly giving your audience what they want. That’s true providing true value.

If you’re still not convinced, answer me this: Is it easier for you to tell me how you want to help people, or easier to tell me which category your blog fits under?

About the Author: Glen Allsopp is the owner of ViperChill.com. If you liked this post, you may also enjoy his guide to WordPress SEO.

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Shut Up and Podcast

Last week I attended Affiliate Summit in New York. While I was there I was able to attend the Podcasting 101 session with my Geek Dads Weekly co-hosts Daniel M. Clark and Joe Magennis. They were part of the session along with Trisha Lyn Fawver of Affiliate Marketing Fanatics. Trisha is on the Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast with Mike Buechele. The panel was moderated by Lisa Picarille, who has such a fantastic voice and who is the co-host of the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins. What I learned from this session was that podcasting is such an easy way to get your voice out there and gain an additional audience.

Basically all you need are a few things to get started podcasting. A voice, a mic and recording software. Luckily every since computer has the last two pieces and if you are blogging you should already have a voice. If not then why are you blogging?

A Voice

As a blogger you have a unique voice in your writing and because of that you have a unique perspective on things that can translate to the spoken word. Do you review blogs, how about an interview series with the bloggers that you review, you can review the blog in writing and then do an interview with the blog owner via Skype as something extra to add to your post. Then make that an actual podcast and you can tap into a whole other audience.

A Mic

Many laptops have an internal mic that you can use to record your voice. It isn’t the greatest but it works. If you want to step up you can get an external mic and record better sound. You can even use a telephone to call into sites like Blog Talk Radio. There are many ways to record your voice.

Recording Software

If you are a MAC user then you have it all set with Garage Band but as a PC user I use Audacity to record my own voice. I also use a program called G-Recorder to record my own voice and the people that I talk with with Skype. When I record on Skype I can download the MP3, open it with Audacity edit it. This is a very easy thing to do.

Get it on Itunes

You also need a way to get your podcast onto iTunes. If you are using WordPress then you have some great options like PowerPress and PodPress. These plug ins will help you get your new content uploaded into iTunes. Once it is there you can use all your blogging and SEO skills to get that show seen by an entirely new audience and also give your existing audience something new and fresh from you.

Practicing what I Preach

Personally I am working on a video podcast. I am learning how to do this correctly and in the meantime I am creating the content anyway and posting it to Vimeo and Youtube. Once I figure out how to do the video podcast the best I can it will go up to iTunes and it will be an enhancement to my current blog.

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How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these.

Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money.

Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money.

Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task.

Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did.

How to make “not getting paid” pay off

I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike.

See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company).

To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing.

Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into.

It works like this:

Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff.

Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing.

Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients.

• Information products? Yep.
• Software and services of all kinds? Yep.
• Hats? Maybe.

Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot.

Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything.

This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course.

I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?”

Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy

And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google.

When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment.

You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free.

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Become a Playful Blogger and Inject Some Energy into Your Blogging

Is your blogging getting a little dry? Perhaps it is time to become a bit more playful as a blogger.

One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that the more I ‘play’ and experiment with my blog the more I learn that helps me to make my blog better.

Experimentation helps you not only learn what works in the blogging medium – but also what works with your audience.

Notes

• Watch the full sized version at Become a Playful Blogger
• Video shot on a Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1 (aff) – here’s why I use that camera to shoot my videos.

Become a Playful Blogger Transcript

I’ve had this video transcribed below for those who prefer to get it that way. The transcription provided by The Transcription People.

Today I want to talk about being playful. I’m standing in front of some of the artwork that my four year old has done at Kindergarten. It’s been interesting to watch the progression of his artistry over the last couple of years. He’s a very artistic, creative little guy and he loves to paint and he loves to make things and he loves to basically create stuff.

But, the development in the quality and intricacy of his work has been fascinating to watch over the last few years.

What I’ve noticed is that the more he does it, and the more he experiments with different mediums and different ways of holding a brush and using his fingers and different types of paints and cutting up stuff and sticking them on, the more he experiments, the more he learns and the more he develops.

I think this is really true for blogging as well.

One of the things that I’ve learnt over the years is that the more I try and use stuff, the more I discover what works and what doesn’t work for me in my style, but also for my readers, for blogging and the medium itself.

So, I’d like to ask you today:

• how have you played on your blog?
• How have you experimented?
• What have you tried?
• What has worked and what hasn’t worked?

I’d like this to be a discussion. For me, I’ve tried lots of different styles of writing over the years.

For example, I’ve done a few rants on my blogs. I discovered that, you know, me ranting doesn’t really work. Occasionally it does because, I guess I really believe in what I’m ranting about, but as a rule, ranting doesn’t really work for me.

I’ve also tried writing in the third person at times that sometimes has actually worked for me. It’s had a real impact upon people.

I’ve also found asking questions like this video post itself works for me.

It’s just about experimenting with different ways of communicating. With using images, with your design, it translates across your blog in lots of different ways.

So, what have you played with on your blog? How have you been a bit playful? How have you experimented? What have you learnt? What has worked for you in your style and what doesn’t work for you in your style?

I’d love to hear your comments in the comments below this video.

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Philly Is Not the “City of Blogger-ly Love”

Imagine you live in Philadelphia and you have a blog. You are like about 99.9 percent of the world’s bloggers so you make no money and the blog is a labor of love.

Now imagine that you are going to be charged $300 for the privilege of having your blog start from the City of Brotherly Love. Yup, that’s right, Philly is hitting bloggers with a this and other measures. If you haven’t had enough of the government on every level getting into everyone’s business this may put you over the top.

This comes from NBC Philadelphia’s web site:

Taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of “the greater good,” the city of Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for the privilege of writing on the Internet.

This $300 “business privilege license” is for all local bloggers – even the ones that make no money off their words.

The city doesn’t stop there. In addition to the $300 for the license to write on the World Wide Web, bloggers must pay city wage taxes, business privilege taxes and taxes on any net profits — on top of state and federal taxes — even if the blogger only made $11 over two years, reports the City Paper.

Blogger Marilyn Bess, whose Ms. Philly Organic Blog has made her a whopping $50 over the past few years, went to the city’s tax amnesty program to explain that she makes pennies on her hobby. They told her to hire an accountant, she told the City Paper.

I know of more than a few bloggers that call Philadelphia home and I wonder what they are thinking about this approach.

I just want to go on record as saying that this is completely ridiculous. I get that things are bad. I get that the government provides services (how well they provide them is a completely different matter for a different place). I get that it takes money to do things but taking this action?

My hope is that other regions are not as desperate or ignorant to do this as well. Although I live in North Carolina where our governor thought it was a great idea to tax all Amazon affiliate sales in the state and Amazon basically said “Screw you!”. That eseentially closed that door on people who were just trying to bring more money into the state that would be spent in the state.

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Why Your Blog Doesn’t Make Money

Darren Rowse doesn’t make his money from Problogger.

Brian Clark doesn’t make his money from Copyblogger.

Chris Brogan doesn’t make his money from his blog, either.

Neither does Sonia Simone.

Not a single founding member of Third Tribe earns the bulk of their income from the blogs that are practically (or in Chris’ case, literally) synonymous with their names.

Yes, they make some money directly from those blogs. But revenue directly from the blog doesn’t represent the bulk of their income. Not by a long shot.

So why do so many bloggers equate blog success with financial success?

Many, if not most, of the bloggers I see are hoping that their blogs will make them popular. They are also hoping their blogs will make them money. This isn’t exactly surprising. Fame and riches are supposed to go hand in hand, after all.

But when you need a new stream of income tomorrow, you don’t write ten more blog posts.

You create a new product. You launch an email campaign. You make a special offer. You network. You find a great new JV partner. You ask for referrals and check in with your current clients.

Similarly, when you want to get more subscribers for your blog tomorrow, you don’t launch a product.

You write better content. You get more active on social media. You guest post on other people’s blogs. You link to other good articles. You improve your SEO.

Building a profitable business and creating a popular blog are two different things

Related, yes. But different.

The most popular blogs you know do not make most of their money simply by racking up the subscriber numbers. They make their money with products, consulting, services, and advertising.

They make their money by running a successful business. The fact that they run a popular blog facilitates that business.

If Brian wants to launch a product tomorrow, he has a big, engaged audience to whom he can launch it.

Having a huge audience who will listen when you launch a product isn’t the profitable part, though.

The profitable part is that Brian will create a product that his audience wants and needs. He’ll run an informative and compelling launch. He’ll have an affiliate program that works and a sales sequence that converts prospects into buyers.

Does the large subscriber base help with that product launch? Absolutely. But the blog itself is not the thing that’s making money.

If Copyblogger, with its magnificently large platform, were to launch a terrible product with a really weak campaign and only promoted it with a few blog posts to this vast audience of readers, they wouldn’t make enough money to pay my grocery bill.

Having a popular blog is not enough. You still have to build the business.

No, of course you shouldn’t neglect your blog

There are many, many virtues to a popular blog: social proof, credibility, enhanced visibility. They’re good for forging new business contacts and partnerships. They’re good for attracting potential customers for the products you’ll make or services you’ll provide.

They’re brilliant for creating relationships. I don’t know my dentist as well as I know some bloggers. And I trust my dentist with my teeth even though he comes at them with a variety of pointy things with hooks on their ends. Blogs help us make those trusting, potentially valuable connections, and for that reason alone, they’re worth pouring time and energy into.

But no matter how hard you try, your subscriber numbers are never going to magically transform themselves into your bank balance.

When it comes to making money, simply having a blog isn’t enough. Now you have to take all the things the blog has given you — visibility, authority, a reputation for knowing your industry, social proof — and put them to work building you a profitable business.

Because it won’t happen on its own.

If you want to use your blog as a jumping-off place for that business, though, Third Tribe has got you covered.

The seminar you’ll want to listen to is the 4-part series on Building a Business Around a Blog, which features interviews with Sonia Simone, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, and Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. They cover a lot of ground, including:

• The three factors your blog must have if you want to make serious money with advertising
• Brogan’s two favorite ways to start bringing in revenue by using a blog
• The specifics about where the bulk of their income really comes from (you may be surprised)
• Why “blogging about blogging” isn’t the way to go
• How Darren uses surveys to build his business (and why Brian doesn’t)
• A quick creativity technique to develop the next killer idea for your business
• How to handle pushback if your customers respond negatively to your products

I listened to all four of these interviews. And not once, in hours of discussing techniques, business-building ideas, and marketing strategy, did any of these bloggers say that the best way to make money was to get more subscribers.

They’ve got a few ideas for how to do that too, though. Because blogs are valuable — just not in the way you think.

You can get instant access to all four seminars (and a dozen more), as well as Q&A sessions and the web’s best networking forum for internet businesspeople, by joining the Third Tribe today.

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You Need a $300 License to Blog!?!?

Yes, it’s true my friend. The cash strapped country is now taking to the blogging community for their next source of funds to blow. The first city on the list is Philadelphia, which has already sent out an undisclosed amount of documents to bloggers of all sizes to fork over $300 for a lifetime blogging license. To make things worse, a great majority of these bloggers aren’t even making over $300 with their blogging efforts. Many only making a few dollars a year, but are still required to fork over $300 for their blogger license.

In an article released by CityPaper, Bess is interviewed about her minimal blogging with eHow.com and her own personal, and the $300 blogger license letter she received from the state. Bess says:

“The real kick in the pants is that I don’t even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous,“.

Don’t think your blog is making enough money to be considered a business? An interesting statement from the article states:

“According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers.”

While a $300 blogger license may not seem like a lot to full time established bloggers, how about the millions of bloggers hosted on free services like Blogspot and Wordpress? Both of these services use ad serving on their sites, so all of these bloggers are potential targets. There is a wide range of speculation and questions to be answered here.

I’m sure this is only the beginning. Once the other states and law makers get wind of Philadelphia cashing in on bloggers, it will spread across the country like wildfire.

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10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization & Profit – Part Two

If you missed the first post on 10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization, click here to review the first five topics discussed. Today we will showcase the last five topics of discussion for maximizing profits through blogging.

Paid Forum / Membership Areas

One of the growing trends in the “make money online” blogger area has been to create your own membership based forums. I’ve actually joined a few of these forums and found they are well worth the dollar or so it costs per day to access them. From a blog owner point of view, if you can get enough paying members, it’s a great side income and really adds value to your site. From a forum user view, some of these forums offer quality advice and case studies for the low membership fees of around $30 a month.

Google Adsense

Yes, the dreaded and hated Google Adsense made the list! As much as Google Adsense is hated among the “smart” marketers, it is still a great starting point for a new blogger. For a new blogger or site, Google Adsense can quickly show your page stats while giving you a taste if people are clicking on your site, and just visit your blog to see what ads are showing, and you will have an idea on what they are clicking. Whether you stick with Google Adsense and make a few pennies per click, or decide to monetize and sell your own advertising or find relevant affiliate programs… that’s up to you.

Self Promotion & Consultations

Why are most of us blogging in the first place? For many of us, we want to grow our name recognition and our brand. Blogging is one of the cheapest, easiest and fasted ways to get noticed. Once you blog is established, so is your name. With everything now in place, you are in a position where you can start to sell yourself and your expertise. Throw up a “hire me” like page on your site and offer services like public speaking, attend your event and consultation services… see if anyone bites, you may have a whole knew source of income your never thought existed!

Paid Blog Post Reviews

Everyone wants more exposure for their blogs and business, whether it be through text links, banner ads or even review posts. Not all blogs offer review posts, but many do. There are also many “paid post” services available, such as SocialSpark, ReviewMe and many smaller independent companies. You also always have the option to handle review requests yourself. It’s best to only review services and sites on your blog that are relevant to your audience.

Established Blog Flipping

Now that you have a great list of ways to monetize your blog, your last option can be your most profitable. There is a whole industry of single person businesses building up small niche blogs, then flipping them for a quick profit on sites like Flippa.com. Small sites will only bring in so much money, but at the same time I’ve seen blogs sell for over six figures on these sites. Continually build up your blog with quality content, grow your RSS and subscribers, and creating legitimate revenue sources almost always results in a high interest blog sales auction.

There you have it. Ten tips for better monetizing your blog and bring in profits. If you’d like to add anything to the list, feel free to leave a comment. You can also download my free 130 page guide on Six Figure Affiliate Blogging and how 25 other well known six figure affiliates and bloggers are making their money online.

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Content Is Still King.

These days anyone who has a job that pays the bills should be grateful and that includes those of us who are lucky enough to working at blogging or freelance writing full time. One of the things I’ve noticed since I’ve been working at this and editing full time is the difference working on the Internet makes to the routine of your life.

I know. Right now those of you who are reading this and work at blogging are saying ‘What routine?’, and that’s just the point. While it’s really cool to be on the cutting edge of where at least some of the future economy is going, it’s a real juggling act at the same time.

Here’s a bit of a timeline for me and how I’ve been able to pay my bills sitting in front of my laptop.

When I first started, I thought I’d just discovered gold and usually after just a bit of time away from my computer I feel the same way today. Still, I can remember that first little contract I got and how excited I was to think that in no time at all, I’d be living on a lake in that part of Canada that Neil Young wrote songs about.

I was sure that the harvest would never end and that my work cup would be brimming full at all times. Gladly, just a few short years later, that prophecy seems to have some true, but I still live in a city.

I’ve seen a few things come and go in just a little time and more than a few news ideas on the Internet that were supposed to put content writers out of work.

Remember when the technology first came along so that you could place video on your site? I could hardly type at all because I was sure that people would stop reading all together and the whole Internet would start chattering with a million never ending videos like a crowded bus terminal.

That may have happened with the advent of places like YouTube, but so far video hasn’t been able to topple the written word. At least as far as I can see.

Then there was the social media craze that still seems to be in full swing. I suppose that has taken a chunk out of  some of the advertising that you need a writer for on the Internet, but I don’t think places like Twitter and Facebook will  present a future threat.

People still go to the website when they need to know about a particular good or service and while they might even watch a video there or be directed to the site from Facebook or Twitter, the real info is in those web pages.

Even when a good seo campaign gets you to the landing page of the firm that you want to look at, you need to be sure that there’s good content to read once you arrive.

What do you think ?

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