Beginner’s Guide: Start a blog, get 100,000 page views and make over $100 your first month

If you’re a blog reader, chances are you’re also an aspiring blog writer. Launching a for-profit weblog is extremely attractive because it has the potential for endless profit with practically no overhead. Launching a blog is a quick and easy process even for the absolute beginner. The following is what I learned from my pre-lifehack.org blog in which I earned over $100 and received over 100,000 page views my first month blogging. I did it and you can too! Make the jump to find out how.
Technical stuff
First things first, you’ve got to get the technical stuff out of the way. The “technical stuff” I’m talking about includes choosing a blogging platform, choosing a hosting service, and choosing a domain name. Chances are you’re well aware of the various blogging platforms so I won’t spend time going over them. I think the best blogging software to use is WordPress. Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net has an excellent post that describes the features of WordPress 2.0. After you’ve decided on a blogging application, you need to chose a domain name and a hosting service. If you have never blogged before (or even if you have) you will find that it is easiest to chose a domain name and hosting package from the same service provider. GoDaddy.com has 24/7 technical support (although you will pay a premium compared to other hosting providers) and it will completely automate the installation of WordPress for free. If you are not a technical person, this frees you from messing around with all the technical junk.
Domain name
It is extremely important that you think long term before picking a domain name. After you establish your blog, you aren’t going to be able to transfer your domain name without losing your readers, really! Think of your domain name as being permanently attached to your blog. Your domain name should be as short as possible, easy to remember, easy to speak, and not include any part of your name unless you’re a celebrity (which you’re not). You should avoid using any part of your name because if your blog becomes popular enough to sell, having your name as part or all of the domain name will drive down some of the blog’s value.
Get advertisements immediately
Sign up for advertisements immediately. You’re not going to make any money without advertisements. Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and many others offer advertisements that you can easily integrate into your site. I had great success using Google Adsense. Despite what you may have heard, you can make some pretty good money with Google ads. Checkout Darren from ProBlogger’s survey about Adsense income. I also recommend signing up with PayPopUp banner ads. PayPopUp pays you every time their ad is displayed, you don’t have to rely on users clicking the links. This will not make you nearly as much money as Google Adsense, however it is guaranteed money even if no visitors click your advertisements. After your blog is established, the goal should be to ditch third party advertisements and sell advertising space directly to companies.
Get Google Analytics immediately
You will want to track as much information about your visitors as possible, the easiest and most detailed way of doing so is with Google Analytics. Amongst many other things, Google Analytics lets you see the referring URL of your visitors, your top content, what Google searches are landing users at your site, how long users are staying, and their exit points. Knowing this information will help you customize your content so that you can maximize your readership. You should also consider using Site Meter to publicly display your site’s up to the hour traffic to potential advertisers.
Write 50 posts
That’s enough talk about setup, it’s time to talk content. That’s right, you need to write at least 50 posts your first month. That’s 2-3 posts per day, everyday for 30 days. It may seem tough, but it is absolutely necessary. The number one way that you will lose potential readers is to not update your site regularly. You need to establish readership, and get your Google Page Rank up, if you can’t come up with 50 posts the first month, you may want to consider finding another topic for your blog. Adding several posts per day will help increase the amount of Stumbleupon traffic your site grabs.
Submit every article to Digg
This recommendation is going to bring some negative comments, I’m sure. Regardless, digg.com is a tremendous way to advertise your site for free. Honestly, submit every article you write to digg. When you are starting a brand new blog, besides exchanging links with more establish blogs (which I recommend) there will be absolutely no links to your site. Even if you think the article is no good, submit it to digg. Let the digg community decide what is good content and what is not. You might as well let your work get some exposure. Some of my most popular posts through Stumbleupon got less than 4 diggs. Every article that doesn’t make the front page of digg will land you about 100 page views. If you do make the front page of digg (it’s a great feeling, believe me). You will get anywhere between 3,000 and 20,000 page views per day.
What would you do differently ?
I know some of you have been blogging for a very long time. What would you add that I didn’t mention? Is there anything I suggest that you disagree with? Please share your opinion in the comments.

3 Tips to Creating SEO Attractive Titles

With SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, titles mean almost everything. The title of your web post is the first thing that most web searchers will see when they search for your website. However, some people who are new to SEO sometimes overlook titles and focus more on the content. While we can’t obviously emphasize more that content is very important, the title is the second most important thing to a popular article.

With these tips, you can create SEO appeal for your articles.

1. Take Advantage of Title Tags

Title tags are found when you get down and dirty with HTML in your editing software that you use. This goes beyond the visual aspects of SEO. Title tags are the technical aspects that point search engines to your site and they result in the visual way of seeing your website in engines.
In HTML when you pick your title (i.e. <title>), it is important to sum up your page in a couple of words while still being accurate. Another important tip is to remember to follow this tip for your other pages on the website. Search engines will pick all these up.

2. Pick the Right Words

The important tip to this is to keep the words of your title short but informative. This means taking the important must-have words of the title and keeping them. This also means that filler words don’t always have to be used. For example, your original title can be “How to Bake a Cake”. The SEO attractive version can be “Baking a Cake”. In addition, title tags allow you to elaborate in the title with a dash. For example, “Baking a Cake – The Full How To From Start to Finish”.

3. Keep It Relevant

Whatever you do, don’t pick a title just for the views. This may, at first glance, seem like it’s going against everything we are saying. However, having a title that creates views and creating a title to get views are two different things. The main difference is accuracy. It is important to make sure that the title relates to the content. If it does and it’s good, then you have a title that creates views.
In addition, having a unique, relatable title will also forward quality views to the page. This is because the visitors will stay longer since that is the page they searched for.

Social Media – Getting Started With Twitter

Twitter is just another example of the light speed at which communications are catapulting forward, and corporate America (as well as home business online marketers) should do our best to keep up. Social Radar, a research group reporting on activity and trends in social media, ranked Twitter number one in June 2009. Close on their heels were iPhone, Google and Facebook. Yes my friends, there were more “tweets” (140 character exchanges on Twitter) than there were searches on Google.

Let’s start with the basics. What is Twitter? Twitter is a text only platform that launches discussion and banter with a basic question, “What are you doing?” The answers must be 140 characters or less and are sent via the web, mobile texting, instant message and or a variety of applications.

But what is it really? Depends on who you ask. To some, Twitter is a fun escape from the doldrums of the job, home life or commute; to some it is a way to feel close to friends, family and associates (divided by schedules or geography); to some it’s an instant communication and information dissemination device; and most importantly to home business professionals like you, Twitter is the one of the most powerful, real time marketing system now in play.

But, before we go any further, get it out of your head that Twitter is mysterious and complicated. It’s just a communication vehicle that allows people and companies to deliver bite-sized messages…in 140 characters or less. And where all the people are – is where those who are running a business from home need to be too.

But, you ask – isn’t Twitter just a big waste of time? Well, yes and no. Is TV a waste of time? Is listening to radio a waste of time? What about surfing the web, flipping through a newspaper, reading email, talking on Skype, checking Facebook or cable news? The answer to all of the above is – yes… sometimes – and sometimes not. Like all media, people can choose what they want from Twitter. All media can be engaged for fun, relaxation, education, major announcements, public relations and access to breaking news. It doesn’t matter what peoples’ intentions are. All you need to remember is that millions of people live on Twitter, giving you millions of opportunities to reach them!!

Unlike traditional media however, Twitter can also be used for advice, personal branding, feedback, directions, self or business promotion and marketing.

Immediately you are taken to a page that already has you email address filled in – and asks for your password. If you type in your password, the system automatically sends a message to everyone in your contact list inviting them to follow you on Twitter. If you want every single person in your system to receive this email, then fill in your password and allow Twitter’s automatic email invitation to run. This can take a few minutes. If you DO NOT want Twitter to send an invitation to everyone in your contact list, do NOT fill in your password! Just go to the top right and click “skip”. People who have both business and personal contacts in their computer may not want one group or the other to be included. You can always have one Twitter account for personal use, and one for business.

A good way to expand your following is to check out Twitter account of others you know – or people whose tweets you find interesting. Check out their followers. When you mouse over their name, a brief bio or description comes up. If you like it, begin following them. Chances are, the people they are following will be like-minded. Next, check out some groups and search for individuals who may be good prospects.

Another way to find people you may want to follow is to visit search.twitter.com. This is actually a Twitter site, but it provides more options for finding people. When you get to this site’s homepage, click on “advanced search,” and quite a few options come up that are pretty self explanatory. Similar to how you can add information in a Google search by adding the plus sign (+), you can fill in more than one of the search fields for more specific results.

Before you can accelerate you business using the Twitter platform, you need to use it a little and get a feel for how it works, what kind of tweets you like, and some Twitter etiquette. This can happen pretty fast though, so dive in and get started.

Meta Tags

The <META> Tag is a little bit different than the Tags we have already covered. The <META> Tag is known as a one-sided Tag since it requires no Closing Tag whatsoever.
Let's look at an example of how the <META> Tag is used:
<HEAD>
<TITLE> HTML Clinic - HTML Help For All </TITLE>
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="html,help,tag,clinic,free,table,form,code,">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Top-Rated HTML Resource on the Web">
</HEAD>
ALL of the <META> Tags are entered between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> Tag set. The order you put them in is not important. Enter at least these two meta tags on each page.

The Meta Tag Attributes

The Attribute and Value entries work differently in Meta Tags than in other HTML Tags:NAME=
This Attribute only serves to give the Meta Tag an identifying name. In the example, you will notice I have used two of the most common Names, "KEYWORDS" and "DESCRIPTION".
CONTENT=
All this Attribute does is define what Content is to be associated with the Name you defined in theNAME= portion of the Meta Tag.
So, now, if you look at the example above you can see I have defined my first Meta Tag as the"Keywords" Meta Tag and have included a set of keywords (with a comma after each keyword) as the Content for that individual Meta Tag.
The second Meta Tag I have defined as the "Description" Meta Tag and I have included a short, detailed description of my site's highlights as the Content of that Meta Tag.

Other Commonly Used Meta Tags

<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Your Name Here">
This tag lets you define who wrote your web page. You can use your real name, online name. or the name of your company. For example: "Bravenet Dave"<META NAME="COPYRIGHT" CONTENT="Enter Year And Company Name Here">
This tag allows you to define when your page was created. As the writer of your page you hold the copyright to the material on it. This does not allow you to claim the copyright on other people's works even if they appear on your page.
<META NAME="CONTACT_ADDR" CONTENT="Your Email Address Here">
This tag allows you to define the email address people should use to get in touch with you. For example: "webmaster@htmlclinic.com".
<META NAME="RATING" CONTENT="Add Your Rating Here">
What audience is your site geared towards? Possible values: "GENERAL", "14 YEARS", "MATURE", or"RESTRICTED".
<META NAME="ROBOT" CONTENT="Enter The Value Here">
Do you want search engines to index other pages on your site? When a search engine spider visits your page it will most likely try to follow your links and index every page it encounters.
Possible values:
"ALL"
This will tell a search engine spider to follow ALL the links on your web page and index everything it finds.
"NOINDEX"
This will tell a search engine NOT to index this page at all, but it can follow any links on the page.
"NOFOLLOW"
This will tell the search engine spider to index this page, but NOT to follow any links on this page.
"NONE"
This will tell the search engine NOT to index or follow any links on this page.
<META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" CONTENT="Enter Value Here">
This tag lets you tell a visiting search engine spider when to come back and index the site again. Possible values can be any amount of time you want: "10 days", "2 months" "1 week" or whatever.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="2;URL=http://www.server.com/page.html">
You can use this tag to set up a redirection to another page. You can send your visitors to a different specific page by including this tag.
In the value portion of the CONTENT= attribute put in the number of seconds to pause, followed by a semi-colon, then type URL= and then add the address of the page you want the visitor to go to, just like this:
"2; URL=http://www.server.com/page.html".
So, after 2 seconds I would be whisked away to http://www.server.com/page.html.

Meta Tags: why you should use them

When you submit your site to a Search Engine, it sends a little program called a spider to visit your site and gather information about your site.The spider will take certain bits of information from your coding to determine what each page is about, and where and how it should be displayed to a person using the Search Engine. Most Search Engines will use your Meta Tag defined keywords and description to perform this task.
It is important to make sure that the keywords you use are relevant to your page. It is also VERY BAD to repeat any keyword more than 3 or 4 times. Search Engines will view this as an attempt toSPAM your keywords and probably drop your page altogether from the Search Engine listings.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, yet all have the same meaning. Affiliate marketing is a enormous business piece on the Internet. It is a cooperative effort in-between merchants and an affiliate’s website.

For many years presently , affiliate marketing has proved to be a cost-efficient, measurable method of delivering long-tern results. It has become famous for Internet sites who’re trying to make some extra or additional income for their location . Every day, folks get interested to affiliate marketing and want to make money out of it. But in many cases, these unused affiliates do not fully comprehend the affiliate universe and make costly mistakes. In other words, affiliate marketing has frequently been misunderstood.

One of the common misconceptions that are being associated about affiliate marketing is “selling”, though selling is an necessary activity of affiliate marketing and the central function of a business operation. Another is that affiliate marketing is commonly linked with “advertising”. While the importance of advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the fact of the matter is, advertising like selling, is merely a part of the many functions of marketing. In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is compensated for each visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. The said compensation may be created based on a certain value for each visit. The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant’s viewpoint is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are composed of two functional bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party in-between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network too collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is any web site owner that wants or desires to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the merchant are many. First, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. If it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by researching interested affiliate websites to ensure that they are a good fit for that particular website.

Finding a fit for their merchandise would be the key to more generated income. The merchant has access to markets and customers without him spending valuable time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the location user. It might produce interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants’ website. It is also the merchant who decides how much she is willing to pay for each sale that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate. The affiliate or the affiliate marketer also sees a lot of benefits.

The affiliate is a web location owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. But this is not an easy task to accomplish. The affiliate needs to have a better understanding with the merchant what the commission will be, expected payment method and time implicated in the contract. The affiliate has too the responsibility to stand for the merchandise their user based would be most fascinated in. For instance , if the location has an user base of mainly stay-at-home fathers , then on-line job openings such as surveys would be a good match for them. This group would also appreciate direct links to children’s products and informational sites.

Merchandisers frequently provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They frequently offer sales promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate. Affiliate marketing is a great situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. If they’d work together, they can be an advantage to both. Plus the fact that it seems to make sense, it is easy and inexpensive way to begin , and you can be up and running within a several days. But there is one thing to consider, it is how to get traffic and make your offer different than all others.

Dangerous Internet Marketing Myths

There is prevalent internet marketing myth that if you get ranked highly by the search engines, you will make a lot of money. This is far from the truth, because by simply getting traffic doesn’t equal profits. You must get targeted traffic to your website by using the right keywords.

For example, if your website is about “dog training” where you have articles published about the topic, you need to have keywords related to this topic in order to get people who are interested. Don’t forget that your keywords must be very targeted and not too generic. Your SEO efforts should be targeted towards getting traffic that converts not just any traffic.

Most new internet marketers also believe the tall tale that they’re going to make lots of money in a very short period of time. There are so many internet marketing so-called experts who tout the get wealthy fast routine and people still fall for it all the time. Internet marketing is nothing more than a regular business that requires one to toil away until success is found. Sure, you can make a great income with internet marketing, but it’s not something that’s going to be automatic. The only thing that happens quickly in this business is starting out.

You will progress a little at a time until eventually you reach the point where your business can really expand. Until that time comes, however, you’re going to have to put in the work required so that you can see the results you’re after.

Last, it is a myth that you don’t have to rely on SEO anymore after you get a high search engine rating. The truth of the matter is that you will always have to use SEO in order to keep ahead of the competition and continue to rank high. So if you really want to reap the benefits of search engine traffic, then you’ll have to do the maintenance work. This doesn’t take too much work once you get a high ranking.

All you must focus on is putting fresh content on your website and making good solid backlinks. A good way to keep track of your rankings with the search engines is to utilize automated software. If you don’t want to invest in one, you can do it manually too.

There are certainly more internet marketing myths where those came from. Always do research on anything serious or major you learn about, and get in the habit of trusting your gut. The more you know about where you’re going, the higher will be the chances of your success.

Google Adsense Monetizing, Traffic, Testing Tips, Tricks And Resources

Google Adsense is the most common revenue generators for blogs and websites and probably also the most easier way how to earn money, start to make some income, if You got already niche blog and some traffic. I started with Adsense too, I am not going specifics about numbers, but income is pretty motivating to keep going and think about monetizing. Also remember not to overact, setting up too much advertisements on Your site – this article should be useful if You are just starting out, don’t know how it really works and also for people who use this service but already thinks about some optimizing and digging deeper. I just went it all through, so consider this as sharing with experience, resources and articles, which should help You understand and actually do better when You are thinking about starting to make money from what are You doing.

Usually You can really increase Your overall earning by positioning the ads wisely, choosing the most appropriate banner size and color for Your site. If You want to go to success, You must learn from successful people, who are ready to share and thankfully there are more than enough that kind of people over the world, so let’s take a look.

What really is Google Adsense?

Adsense is an advertising program, which allows You in fast and easy to set advertisements on Your site and finally start to make some money am mount directly depending on Your traffic and the way You set those ads. Once You set up Adsense, You can just monetize, test and forget about it, it’s as simple as that. Google Ads also are related to Your content, it makes things even easier.

At first You must know, how Your earnings are really counted -

1. Adsense Earning = Impression-count x Click-though-rate x Cost-per-click x smart-pricing-factor.

2. Click-through-rate (CTR) is ratio of clicks per impressions. It can range from 0.1% to 30%, but most commonly around 1% to 10%.

3. Cost-per-click (CPC) is the earning you get per click. While traditionally it refers to the amount advertisers pay for each click, it can also mean the amount publishers get for each click.

4.Smart-pricing is Adsense method to determine how valuable clicks from your site is worth. If clicks on your site doesn’t provide good value to advertisers, e.g. from visitors’ geo-location that seldom translate to sales, you will only get a fraction of the supposed CPC.

Traffic

Don’t forget about traffic, traffic actually is the key factor to success – more visitors You have, more income you make.

Monetizing, Tips and Tricks

There are a lot of tips available, I will write down just few most important of them:

1. When You set up Your advertisements, consider choosing light colors or Your website colors, which usually work the best. Also think about using the ad rotating tool from Adsense to rotate different designs for testing and against ad blindness among regular visitors.

2. Avoid using borders, if Your ads are placed between content – You don’t want those banners to be too loud.

3. Actually I can describe this all with one word – test. You’ll never know how good different ad formats, colors, sizes and position works for Your site, if You don’t test it. It takes time – but money is totally worth it. Test, but don’t forget about Your readers, overact and You’ll receive slight traffic drops.

SEO tips - E-mail marketing

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

• sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
• sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
• adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and
• sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network e-mail and FIDO).

Comparison to traditional mail

Advantages

E-mail marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

• An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
• Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.
• Over half of Internet users check or send e-mail on a typical day.
• E-mail is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292m in the UK

Disadvantages

A report issued by the e-mail services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 e-mail deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered.

Companies considering the use of an e-mail marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM),[6] the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.

Legal requirements

In 2002 the European Union introduced the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications. Article 13 of the Directive prohibits the use of email addresses for marketing purposes. The Directive establishes the opt-in regime, where unsolicited emails may be sent only with prior agreement of the recipient.

The directive has since been incorporated into the laws of member states. In the UK it is covered under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and applies to all organisations that send out marketing by some form of electronic communication.

In addition to satisfying legal requirements, e-mail service providers (ESPs) began to help customers establish and manage their own e-mail marketing campaigns. The service providers supply e-mail templates and general best practices, as well as methods for handling subscriptions and cancellations automatically. Some ESPs will provide insight/assistance with deliverability issues for major email providers. They also provide statistics pertaining to the number of messages received and opened, and whether the recipients clicked on any links within the messages.

The CAN-SPAM Act was updated with some new regulations including a no fee provision for opting out, further definition of "sender", post office or private mail boxes count as a "valid physical postal address" and definition of "person". These new provisions went into effect on July 7, 2008

Top 5 Blogging Mistakes You Must Avoid

1. Make sure your English, grammar and spelling, is up to par and can be understood by International Readers as colloquial language that is used in your local area may not be understood by some one else a few thousand miles away. Also don't use a crappy title for your blog. An eye catchy title can work miracles and is like fish bait.

2. Do not show that you are trying too hard to sell your services, products or even blogging information. Make your site look natural, organic and as easy going as you can, despite the effort you are making. No one likes a hard sell and you have to sell your wares in the most subtle way possible.

3. Do not stray from the topics in hand and wonder off into some other realm as that may bore your readers to tears. Always make sure content is both informative and relevant to what you want to put across to your readers. No one likes a blog that waffles on about all and sundry and is full of useless and tacky information.

4. If you are creating a new blog do not use the default templates that your blogging platform provides. Even if it takes you several days or even a week to find the write blogging template to express your opinion in then you better take your time as an attractive blog is one way of getting some instant traffic to your site. No one likes a tacky blog that looks dull and boring even if it has great content. The blog has to look good as well as BE good just like other aspects of our lives. Your blog is like your store front or a window to your soul and it has to look clean and fresh and most of all inviting.

5. Do not be only introspective without involving others as this will not attract lots of traffic to your blog. Involve and engage with other bloggers. Leave feed back and comments on other people's blogs that share a common goal with you or are writing in the same niche. If you don't get involved in the blogging community how do you expect others to come and be part of what you represent? The Blogging Game is a two way street so only then you can succeed as a blogger.