Understanding Some Useful Terms

It is important that we need to understand some useful terms while you are in the field of blogosphere. This is one of the effective tool for you to have a good strategy to produced a better result while you are making money from your blog.

Here are the useful terms:

• Indexing -This only refers to search engine. How will you know when you're blog topic had been indexed? Just simply query the address or URL of your site in search engine ( i.e http://makemoneybloggingconcepts.blogspot.com). If it happened that your blog exists, this means you have been indexed. If it tells you " no similar document on your search" that means you aren't indexed.

Some of the familiar search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. They are accounted for almost 75% of the search query each day. But among the three, Google is the most familiar one and holds for about 50% - 60% on search query on my estimate.

• Age of the Website - it simply means how old is your website. The older the site, the higher preference for Google. This is to avoid spam blogs. But I overcome this problem with some proper technique. I will cover this one on my succeeding post for this is quiet a long discussion.

• Page Content - this is simply the content of your page or the blogpost. Producing a good and original content on your blog will give a higher preference on indexing. The more content you have on your post, the better. Copywriting is not allowed for you will get in to trouble.

• Keywords - if you want to make more money on your blog, use your keywords in your entire article. This is to ensure that you're getting index by search engine. The more your site in the first page of Google for your keywords, the more visitors you have, thus making more money on your blog using your PPC ( pay-per-click) ads. But there is a rule on using the keyword density. The keyword should not exceed for about 12-24% of the entire body text. If you exceeded here, you're blog will be considered as spam. You should be careful on that because I already experienced it. How will you know if you are spam blog. Google will send you an email to your email account like this. When you log in to your account, a Google message will prompt you about their Policy on spam blog. You will receive an email like this:
  

Your blog is locked Blogger’s spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What’s a spam blog?) Since you’re an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on October 13, 2008. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

• Volume Content - Google likes website with many good quality but original contents. By the way, here are some guides for the bloggers regarding volume content of the post.
  

1. Try to write for about 250- 700 words.
2. Use your keyword in the blog title, first and final sentence.
   
3. Use your keyword in the article at least not exceeding 12-24% ( for whole article).
4. Try to use bold letter on your keyword at least once in your article.
   
5. Put link field.

Bloggers have different opinions regarding posting frequency. Others says that you have to post frequently for about 6 times to 20 times a week. For me, I just update my blog during my free time which is 3 times a week but I tried for about 500 words and above including this post that you are reading.

• Page Rank - Page Rank is also associated with the backlinks. This is to show how important your webpage is. This is just to separate the chaffs. The more backlinks you have, the more popular your page is, thus you will obtain a higher page rank. There are also rules of page ranking. For those websites with higher PR who are doing exchange links with lower page rank will get the possibility to be penalized by Google.
  

• Backlinks -This is a link pointing back to your site which is also called hypertext. This is one of the difficulty for the blogger. To get more backlinks in order to determine the relevancy of your webpages over the others. The more backlinks coming from the high page ranked website you got, the higher the page rank you will got or the more important your pages. There are 2 types of backlinks: the two way and one way backlinks. The one way backlinks refers to one site have link pointing back to your website. While two way backlinks is also called a reciprocal links which is commonly do by some bloggers including me. But one good thing to have good backlinks are to those with higher page rank website. That's my rule in this site. Those listed in my "Link Partners" have PR2 and above. There is a saying that "you should knock, and they will open for you". In the field of blogsphere, it requires more patience like what I'm doing now. Making money from your blog is not just a one step to take.

These are some of the useful terms that you should consider while you go on blogging at this time. It will take some time before I can make money on this blog. For the second part of this blog, I will be concentrating more on how to build traffic to my site.

It's enough for this week. I will come back on Wednesday night, Philippine Time. I have a work schedule by tomorrow. I hope you're learning some of my tips.


Good day to you!

Parts of a Blog

Oh... this is only my 5th post but I was surprised with the Linkworth for giving me the opportunity to become their affiliate partner in this Make Money Blogging site. I have now some source to monetize my blog to make money. But before I proceed, let me give you first some update what's going on.

I was surprised this morning that when I checked my status in Google, I was now number one in the keyword " Make Money Blogging Concepts" , " My Make Money Blogging Concepts" and appearing in the first page when I look for the keyword " My Make Money Blogging". It seems I need to work hard for some keyword like Make Money Blogging which is one of my target keyword. You may check it now in Google. Just type the keywords I mentioned above.

By the way, pardon me for my long introduction. This is second to the last basic activity on How I Started My Blog that I need to accomplish to move for some worth activities. ( How to Develop a Blog). But on my next post, I will share you some important terms to understand as we move along. So after designing my blog with appropriate templates and while continuing to make my post, it is important to understand every parts of the blog. This is the most effective way so that when the time you will monetize your blog, it will not take time for you to plan and fix everything. You can maximize every space of your blog to an equivalent money. I hope you are getting my point here.

Let's begin...

There are several parts of blog in which the readers want to see. This is also one way to drive out of some of the tips that I will give you on my succeeding posts.

• The Homepage - this is the landing page of the readers. It is important that you have to create a homepage where your readers is comfortable to stay with. As what I had mentioned before, don't be fool with stunning graphics as Google robots does not care about that. I'm not discouraging you, but just a piece of advice for you not to take too much time of making animation graphics with your homepage. A Homepage can be simply the body of your post, your background description or a page that tells the background about your website or blogs, a featured post or a featured video. This will depend upon your own preference.

• About Me Page - This page tells about you. You ca also change the title as " About the Blogger" or "About the Author". This will also depend on your own preference. Important things that must see in this page are: 1. Short background about yourself. 2. Your current work or what are you doing. 3. Tell something why are you the best writer for that subject matter . 4. You may also include immediately your contact information. But other prefer it to be separated with other page. You could also include the snapshot of your picture to recognize you better (but this optional).

• Contact Page Information - This tells about information where your readers can get in touch with you. You have options to do that. You can also just indicate on your page about your email address or your contact number. For me, I just created a page using a forms with verification code to avoid from being spam or if you want your email address to be confidential. There are many available forms there. All you have to do is to register( which is only free) then embed the code on your page. For me, I used Kontacr.
  

• Categories - This is the one that I find difficult to manage here in blogger. The only available here is the Label. See to it that you properly label every post. Otherwise, your category portion will look funny and confusing. If you can see, I indicated a Make Money Blogging Activities on my every post title, but behind that I indicated specific categories where to find a specific topic for each post. You may use your keyword here but do not overuse it for you will get in trouble if Google specify it as spam. Please observe.

• Archives - Blogger already provided a widget for archives. But if you want to have a different approach, you may create it with a different page stating each categories where to find specific topics by your readers. For me, my archives was temporarily set by monthly for I do not have enough post or contents. As I grow this blog, I will finally make a different approach.
  

• Blogrolls - this is what the bloggers like. Others may do it for exchange of links, a favorite post that you have, or a list of blogs you want to read for reference purposes which is a topic of your interest. I had mentioned about exchange of links. I just want to remind that I just allowing exchange of links with higher page rank. PR2 and above. This is to keep the quality of this blog because as what I had mentioned previously, I intend to monetize this blog.
  

• Subscription Options - In this blog I had given two options for my readers for them to subscribe in this blog. 1. Subscription by email 2. Subscription through RSS reader. I had mentioned about RSS. What does it mean? RSS mean a Really Simple Syndication which gathers all information in a single location in the form of feed and can be read through feed reader. Some templates already configure the RSS reader in default which is Google reader. There are also available widgets for Blogger. But if you want to configure it by your own. Configure it at Feedburner.

Here 's how....

• Create a google account, you can use it to log in to your feedburner account.
  
• Then its time for you to type your own URL or blog address. For example: http://makemoneyonline-donny.blogspot.com, then click next. If you are a podcaster, don't forget to check "I'm a podcaster". If not, you may not need it.
• Next, your own feed address will be created in the form as shown below. Click image to enlarge. (This is only an example). Click next.
  

• Take note of your feed address in this format: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/wordpress/Nncb. This is the one that you will put in the POST FEED REDIRECT URL on SITE FEED column under SETTINGS of blogger.com ( this will be done later after feedburner activation. Then, click next.

• Then, just check "Clickthroughs "which tracks how people click items back to your site. Then also check, "I want more! Have Feedburner Stats also track". Click next.
  

• The message show that your feedburner is now activated.
• After activation, put the feed address in the POST FEED REDIRECT URL on SITE FEED column under SETTINGS of blogger.com. Then, hit save.
  

You may also set-up your email subscription of your feedburner under PUBLICIZE column. Update will be send automatically to your subscriber once you made a new post in your blog. The code will be provided to be put on your site. If you like the RSS feed sign, just go to Chicklet Chooser of feedburner under PUBLICIZE. The code will be also provided to put on your site. Then, you may complete the settings of your feedburner. I will leave it to you. It's just easy. If you have any questions about this just leave a comment after this post.

NOTE : The above links are just for illustrative example. Do not copy or follow the links given.

• Blogpost - it should be 75% of your screen page is your blog post. I recommend 1 post display on your frontpage. Visitors would be able to track your latest 1. More powerful bloggers preferred to have multiple post display on their frontpage. This is if you are making a post more than 2 or 3 posts a day. Blogpost content is a king. Make a difference. For me, I always make an illusrative post for my readers to understand more what I mean. You should connect with your readers interest.

• Blog Comments - a powerful tool to make a two way communication with your readers. I recommend that your comment settings be set to " always moderate". This is my control in order to avoid my blog from being spam. There are many spam blog comments nowadays. Take time to read and reply with your readers comments and sharing.

• Recent Post - this is to track your latest blog for the day. This is what your returning visitors always looking for. Let your readers track your latest post in the most convenient way so that they will stay longer on your site.

• Popular Post - let the readers track what is special in your site. This is the most commented post of your site. Be sure to configure it properly.
  

• Recent Comments - This is to track the latest conversation with your readers.
  

Note : Popular Post, Recent Post, and Recent Comment can be configured as I mentioned in my previous post where widgets are available on some sites where I recommend to download your template.

• Track backs or the links in your blog contents are used to show the original source of information of your blog and the other purpose is to know where your post is linking to in the form of trackbacks.

• Blog footer- is located at the bottom of the homepage. Important elements that may see here are: copyright statement, owner or company name, blogs designer email or webmaster link. You can used this in variety of purposes. You may use this to put your About me page and whatever you think valuable to put here.

These are the important parts of your blog that you have to consider for the meantime. This is subject for update as we go along.

Have a Good Day!

Designing a Blog Now that I had my created my first blog at Make Money Blogging, it is now time to design my blog. It is already given that Blogger had only limited templates available. I'm just hoping someday they could had provide more additional templates for this free blogging software. I had set several factors before I choose this template. Since the concept of this blog is to prevent you from spending money, I just downloaded this template from eblog templates. They provide high quality templates for Blogger and Wordpress. They are the largest free blog template provider sharing top notch blog designs. You can download your template you want for free and without hefty price tag. I just made some tweaks for the design especially the banners in order to make my blog a reality one. I made some changes in the advertisement ads which is some source of my income. For the meantime, I just leave blank for my sponsor portion because my blog is just newly born. I want to make it grow until some time I got a lot of visitors to attract the advertisers.

Moving on...

Making money is not just as easy for blogging. I had mentioned that there are some several factors I considered before I choose this theme.

Cost - this is the first thing I considered. The first time I made this blog, I'm thinking of buying an already made templates or a ready made graphics. I made a research to other websites and I found out that the minimum price tag is $5.00 to a maximum of $ 500.00. This is almost equivalent to PHP 240 to PHP 24,000 pesos respectively. Not too bad for minimum price, but before you buy it you must consider other factors as what I will share in this post as we go along. Here are some recommended sites that you can download your free templates especially for those Blogger users.

• BTemplates - they provide different styles or designs of templates. They also have available 1 up to 4 column blogger templates.

• Blogger Buster - they provide different types of templates which is easy to used. One thing I love here are their widgets. They have the ready made widgets for you to install in your layout.

• Our Blogger Templates - I also love this site because aside from the free templates you can download here is that, they also provided a column for tips and tutorials on how you can customize your templates.

• Free Blogger Help - they provide very simple style templates and just like Blogger Buster, they also have widgets to provide to customize your layout.

• The last but not the least is the eblog templates which I had already mentioned above.

Know how it works - this is somewhat synonymous to the functionality of your theme you choose. This will depend on your plan. Just like I mentioned in my first post, the choice will vary on how your site will work. If you're not getting my point here, I will illustrate some example.
If you are going to monetize a certain website that talks about a variety of topics like music or entertainment, sports, news or updates. You should not choose a one column template for it will not maximize your income.

Know how to use it - it is important to know how to use the template for you are the one who will suffer first if you choose a certain template with lack of customization features and if you do not know how to customize it. First of all, I'm not familiar in using CSS code to customize my template. I just do a little research on that. It is important to choose a theme or a template with good features for you to have little effort or cost to customize your template. The more you customize your template, the more cost you have.

Know the layout or design - don't be fool with the stunning graphics. Make it somewhat Google friendly. Google robot does not care about flash animation. Google friendly which is somewhat your site know how to pay attention to both human and machines (the simple the layout the more it is more usable to both human and machines).

Know the designer - it is important somehow to know who design your layout. This is just to make sure that the designer was a reputable one and to ensure that your template will work fine when you used it.

Know if there are support they can offer - there are rampant websites now coming out that offer lots of free template designs but not all of them could offer you support or tutorials. I had encountered some websites that ignore comments or questions when you asked for support. Be sure to check the website that offer free templates and support or even those who paid or spend money for their templates.

Know what other users feedback - commonly, you will notice some comments or feedback for other users who already using template like yours. Try to have sometime to read them for your review. This will help you choosing a better template for your blog.

For those who would like to make their blogs for free that make money, this blog is good source of information to start with.

I will come back shortly...

Good day!

CREATING MY BLOG

After selecting and finalizing the niche, I will show you how I created this free Make Money Blogging site in my personal choice of blogging software at Blogger.com. The steps are almost synonymous when you create your free blog at Wordpress.com.

Here are the easy steps:

STEP 1: Sign up to start the process of creating your account.


Just go to Homepage of Blogger.com and click " Create Your Blog Now" to start the process of making your new free blog at Blogger.com.

STEP 2: Create your own Google Account

Just fill in the necessary information above to create your account if you don't have yet. This account is the one you will used when you log in to your blog.

STEP 3: You need to sign in to your Google Account

Just sign in to your Google Account if you have one by using your email as your username and password.

STEP 4 : Name Your Blog


This is where you will going to put your niche. Name your blog and your URL. It is important that you used your keyword in your name of blog and your URL. This is very important when it comes to search engines.

Hint: If it happened that your address was taken, don't worry! Blogger will give you several options available for your address stating your keywords but sometimes not. Be sure that your keywords still there as you choose your address from options available listed by Blogger.com.

STEP 5: Choose your template

I believe for the first time you will hate the available templates here. But I will tell you where you can download such free templates like mine to customize it very well. For the meantime, it is best to choose Minima Stretch. This is for the reason of simplicity.

STEP 6: Blog Activation Message will appear

In here, you may just click "Start Posting" to continue making your first post.

• Before you compose your first post. Be sure you checked the settings of your blog. From the setting button, just click it and check the following:

Select BASIC:

• Name the title of your blog.

• Be sure you had described your blog in a few words using your keyword. For instance, my keyword is MAKE MONEY BLOGGING. I'll use it in my description as " My Personal Ways to Make Money Online by Blogging"
  

• Set " YES" for Let Search Engines find your blog? If you will be asking about search engines, it will be tackled on my succeeding posts.That's a broad subject.

• Leave other settings on default then hit Save Settings.

Select PUBLISHING:

• Check if your blogspot address appears in the box address provided. It should appear the way I mentioned above.

• Write the verification code, then hit save settings.

Select FORMATTING:

• Set your settings to only 1 post on the main page.
  

• Change your time zone and language settings.

• Set your link field to "yes".

• Set others on default, then hit save settings.

Select COMMENTS:

• Set your comments to "yes".
  

• Show your backlinks to "yes".

• Set your show verification word for comments to "yes".( this is to avoid spam comments in your blog.

• Set everything to default, then hit save settings.

Select ARCHIVING:

• Set your Archive frequency to monthly. Then hit save settings.

STEP 7: Write your first post.


It's now time for you to make your first post...

Hit NEW POST. If you will notice, there's a title field and link field on your post editor. It is important that you use your keyword in your title post for search engine purposes. We set our link field to "yes" so that your post link will prompt you to your home page.

Make your first post simple. Make sure you used your keyword on your first post.

Congratulations! You are now a Blogger.

Happy reading!

This is still the continuation of Setting Up My Blog in my first post of this Make Money Blogging. Now, since I've already chosen my blogging software, the second step I did was to found a good niche that will appropriate in the concept of this site. Talking about niche, I would like to define it first since I assumed that my readers are beginners and experts.

What is niche? How will you find it?

This is the topic that you are passionate about. If you read my short profile, I mentioned it there already. Because you cannot continue this activity without knowing what to focus on. If you are technology lover it better to write more about "electronic gadgets" or "computers" than writing about "pets" or "animals". I hope everyone is getting the point here.

Niche is very important to me before I create this blog. I see to it that I have an aptitude, knowledge and skills for that. Besides, you should also consider if you can sucessfully operate it. One basis of selecting my own niche here is also by consulting my very own Google Trends . I consider this tool because this is the one would tell me if my niche will be driving more traffic to my site. From the trends below, it shows that there are many people looking for "Make Money Blogging" keyword since 2007 up to the present. The trends seems good for me start with my niche I've selected. ( Click image below to enlarge)



Looking a little bit deeper with this trend, the lower portion will tell you what regions and cities who are majority looking for such keyword. Just like my case, Philippines is the number 1 searchers for the keyword "Make Money Blogging". In my opinion, I think this is the best one and advantage for me to drive more traffic to my site because I'm just living in that region. This was followed by Malaysia, Singapore, United States and South Africa. ( Click image below to enlarge)


Important thing I did is also making a list first before I finally come up with the niche " Make Money Blogging" . List it in rank according to your abilities, knowledge and special skills and considering the one that I've mentioned above. For me, it takes time before I finally come up with my niche "Make Money Blogging". Building a better site takes a longer than unsuccessful one.

I hope you've learned something today in my Make Money Blogging blogs. Catch me again in my next post about my detail steps in creating my blog in My Make Money Blogging Concepts.

Happy Good Day!

PART 1 : HOW I STARTED MY BLOG?

Choosing A Blogging Software

This is my first post in Make Money Blogging site. Actually, I started this first activity last July 7, 2009 where I'm very busy about looking for the attractive template that I will going to use to set-up my blog in this Make Money Blogging site. I already engaged in blogging recently but I did not enjoy a lot. The blogging software that I joined was sucked because aside from diffuculty in customizing it, I have no means of monetizing it because they did not allow ads on that site. I will not elaborate more about that site, for sure you know what site I'm pertaining to if you are an active blogger.

Thanks to Blogger.com aside from its a free blogging software, it allows ad. There are many blogging software I researched recently but this is the one I think suitable for me. In the first place, I don't want to spend a lot of money just to joined in Make Money Blogging. In choosing a blogging software, you have to consider these guide questions:

• Am I going to monetize my blog or have some fun on blogging only?

• Is blogging software easy to use? Do I need some extra technical skills to customize it?

• Will I spend money for this software? Do I have a budget?

• Is the software enough to accommodate all the contents of my blogs ( i.e media, audio, pictures etc.)?

• Is the software allows multiple authors?

• What are the contents that this software allows? Do they have rules?

Here are the following blogging software for the bloggers who want to set-up their blogs:

• Wordpress.org - offers free blogging software, but you have to pay to host their blogs using a third party website like Gatorhost or 1 and 1. If you have technical skills and you need advanced customization, Wordpress.org is a great choice.

• Blogger.com - this is my personal choice for blogging software, aside from its free it also allows to monetize your blogs. This is very advisable especially for those beginners like me. I have one article I read that the downside of this blogging software is prone to outages so you may not able to access your blog when you want to.

• TypePad - this is very easy to use compared to other blogging software. You don't have to pay for hosting but you have to pay when you set-up your blog there. TypePad have 4 options of free trial when you want set-up a blog:
  

1. Basic - which cost for about $4.95 /month.
2. Plus - which cost for about $ 8.95 / month.
3. Pro - which cost for about $ 14.95/month.
4. Business Class - which cost for about $ 89.95/month.

• Movable Type - this is also called a Six Part. But it requires the users to obtain a pricey license. You will need to install the software and the features is not as good as what other blogging software have. But there are many users of this blogging software because it supports multiple blogs and you will not need to install the software again and again.

• Live Journal - requires you to pay a monthly fee. The features is limited as well as its customization.
  

These are the blogging software I know for you to start a blog like me. Just follow the guide questions above and you will not be mislead.

This is my first part of activity I made in this Make Money Blogging stuff of mine during my restday on my full time work. Please catch me on my succeeding activities on my Make Money Blogging site.

Cheers to all!