It’s all in the crystal ball. You will going to make money blogging, no doubt about it!

You have what you think a killer domain name at your disposal. And the best thing is, you know you are going to love this niche, maybe not passionate but you don’t mind learning more about it so that you won’t run out of ideas for your blog. Therefore, the little gungho newbie started doing everything listed in HowToBlog.org…getting a great web host; installing WordPress…. If you happen to be new to this blog, feel free to download my free eguide I created about 6 months ago for reference. Don’t expect perfect grammar ok

After 4 months, with a new post for at least every week, surprisingly you still find your visitors to hover around 10 to 15 a day. Oh oh… Ok let’s  go through a checklist of all things possible.

1. Your Domain Name

There are two possibilities here:

a. You have gotten yourself into a very competitive niche. Check the keyword. If it is “Mesothelioma” for example, you can see that the cpc in Google Adwords for this niche is around USD 200. Impressive but only God and Google will know how long you would have to slog before you see yourself in the first 20 pages of any search engine. Too much competition is bad for your staying power and mental health if your main intention is purely to make money blogging.

b. Your niche is too small. The niche may have a small following or it is so new that years maybe needed for it to pick up momentum. “Digital Amplifier” for example. Even if you make it to the top of Google, don’t party yet. 800 searches per month would only translate to about 10 visitors in the first 3 months and maybe another 30 in the following 6 months.  And it’s so easy to get to number 1 spot in Google if your domain happens to be DigitalAmplifier.com or DigitalAmp.com.

2. You Don’t do SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The secret here is keywords. Produce articles with different keywords early in your blogging. For competitive niche, aim for long tailed keywords. On examples above, “mesothelioma prognosis”, write ten articles about this. Then another ten on other keyphrases ( the number of articles really depends on the competitiveness). By the way, “mesothelioma” or even “asbestos poisoning” are bloody fierce niches and I won’t advise you to start anything on these. For less competitive niches, it should be easier. Start targetting on other keywords like “auto digital amp” and more so that your visitors come in via various channels.

Keywords are branches in the brick and mortar world. In online business like money making blogs, you can branch out with only one single blog or if you have the resources, buy other domain names.

The next is backlinks. If content with proper keywords is king, building links is the queen. Forget about soliciting links from other bloggers if you don’t have the time. Just use directories with high page ranks and articles submission. Do it slowly.

3. Wrong Mentality

I could never coach you on “How To Make Money Blogging Overnight”. I doubt anybody could. It’s a marathon. Build it and it will come does not echo in blogging money. The little money I earn from affiliates and other cpc programs like Google Adsense, Infolinks are all hard earned cash. Some will make it faster, I don’t know but my advise to you is to be prepared for the long haul.

4. Bad Business Plan

Remember I shared with you once on free online blogging tools. Use these tools to determine what you wanna do for your niche. Some niches are highly commercialize, hence their strong potential in e-commerce. Others are more about information and service marketing. The rule of thumb here is, “Don’t Go Against The Trend”. If it’s meant to sell tangible goods, don’t divert yourself away from merely Chitika and Google Adsense.

5. Writing For Your Audience

Famous bloggers always preach about writing contents for your audience and not the search engines. Let me advise you about this. If you want to make money blogging, you have to write for your audience and at the same time keep your contents searchable in Google and Yahoo. You need both new visitors and old supporters. A good ranking in search engines would put you in a promising position to receive new clients. Therefore, if you just thought about your audience, you will fail.

6. Unfocus Topics

I preach this again and again. If your niche is about mesothelioma, don’t write things about carpentry and your dating conquest in the blog. You are wasting away the earning potential of your killer name domain. Google and gang do not look kindly on blogs that feature about all things under the sun. These are personal blog and they are what we call weblogs or online diaries. If money making blogs is in your mind, don’t waste your time and start focusing.

7. Burnt Out

This can be cause from various reasons. One primary reason is greed. A lot of newbies failed in their venture because they took on too may blogs at one time. Start with one blog and continue with the second only when you know what you can potentially do with the second one. Start thinking like a business man when you want to start the third blog. The question in mind is, why waste your grey matters by diversifying into so many niches. You can focus better when managing less.

8. Duplicate Content

Many new bloggers, who in their midst of enthusiasm decided to copy other bloggers’ contents, thinking that they can get their blog up Google search this way. True, they are all contents and you will have loads of them in no time. However, they are all junks in the eye of search engines. You might still get your site through if you are in a low-competitive niche. However, if you are in niches that are even fractions as competitive as “mesothelioma”, you are in for disappointment. And the last thing you know, you’ll be telling people that making money blogging is pure hoax.

A guru once said, only 1 in 99 bloggers managed to make money from blogging. Get one to two money making blogs running, and milk their income by hiring others to write for you. Now, we are talking business here.

How to make a blog in profitable niches? A niche like “mesothelioma”. Come on, type in this keyword in Google Adwords Keyword Tool and see how much the cpc cost.

Choosing a profitable internet marketing niche is essential for achieving the best results in creating money making blogs. Many newbies started by blogging about their pets, children, about themselves…Let me assure you, the pet niche is one of the most searched topic online but unfortunately this crowd is also the most stingy. They don’t like to pay for advertising and therefore, you’ll be wasting your time if you insist on blogging about your pet Chihuahua instead of mesothelioma. Why do I know? Guess!!

Here are some blogging tips that you can consider when choosing the best internet marketing niche:

Blogging Tip 1 – Stay clear of Obscure Subjects and Short-Lived Issues Like Micheal Jackson

Stay clear from short-lived news topics, trends, small genres such as kids, animals, daily life, or unknown pastimes, avoid obscure subject areas, state policies, and religion. While these topics can sometimes attract filthy large traffic due to the niche following. You get traffic fast because they are not competitive commercially and Google just don’t give a damn. These blogs will often be over quickly and you will simply waste your funds and time if you get too persistent in running them.

However, money making blogs frequently give useful suggestion to daily life. Some do so well that they even affect opinion in political  or religious landscape. More often than not, personal websites concerning the private affairs of the religion, family, pets, or perhaps young children will not do well other than among close friends.

Blogging Tip 2 – Make a List of Niches, And Go Over Them Twice

Before you start spending your lifelong savings in building money making blogs, make a list of subject areas you are personally passionate about which include money management, financing, search engine optimization, personal development, fitness, weightloss, going on a diet, health concerns (but not your medical illnesses), natural medicine, cosmetic, draperies, crafts, cooking, gardening, or possibly other hobbies or work.

There are certain niche topics that are suitable to be built into Google Adsense Blogs and there are others which are more suitable for e-commerce websites. Get some advice and remember blogging tools like  Adlabs to strategise on your next step.

Blogging Tip 3 : Perform An In-Depth Analysis On Your Niches

Research everything about your niche by comparing against popular blogs in similar keywords. You will require to work quite a bit if you are really serious to make money blogging. Again employ blogging tools such as Google Adwords, keyword finders, niche blog finders, and the daily top blogs in blogging platform sites such as Drupal, WordPress, or Typepad to get the primary keywords for your niches. Compare the site visitors pertaining to these and choose one market for yourself that you feel might offer you the best chance once you start to build your money making blogs.

Blogging Tip 4 — Broad or Long-Tail Keyword Niches?

Choose how wide or thin your chosen niche is, for instance, should it be Pet.com or PetFoodForDog.com (ok…this is a lousy domain name). Remember, a broad keyword will no doubt bring you a lot of visitors if you perform your Search Engine Optimization properly. However, there is a catch. These visitors to your site all carry different search motives. Therefore, what we are looking in visitors is about quality and not quantity.

Avoid duplicate contents and identify the best business model.  If you have a passion for health supplements, house brewed drinks, stitching designer dresses, following trends with the season, or even following financial market, decide which position and direction you want for your blog. Do you want to take the similar pathway as other popular blogs, or do you have other ideas.

There are different school of thoughts when deciding on how to make a blog for a living. You can get advise from different experiences but what you really need to develop is your own insights on what is best. Work in synch with your own strength.

Choosing a topic for your new blog is easy, or is it?

I am fortunate — I have located my passion, and I’m living it. Imagine blogging about the things you love day in day out. Therefore, with this post, I would want to assist you to begin determining what you love to blog about. This happens to be just about the most common problems of the many new bloggers— including a few who recently responded to me on Facebook and Twitter.

This should be the matter that provide encouraged to wake up at dawn, to cry out, “I’ve finally found what I want!”. And also to shock your family members or anyone who is dear to you.

My guide probably won’t be complete, and yes it won’t find your passion to suit your needs. However it can help you to discover the topic that would keep you going and going and going…. Here’s how.

1. Do you know what you are good at? Unless if you are only starting out in  life, you should have acquired several talent and skill, and exhibited some sort of abilities. Even if you’re only starting out, it’s likely you have have some talent while you were young, even when your elementary school days. Ever remembered being a good writer, speaker, artist, organizer, builder, teacher, friend? Do you recall being proficient at ideas, linking people, martial art, sports? Let’s ponder for a moment. Take at the very least half an hour, going through these questions — generally we overlook things we are spontaneously good at. Recall, as far as you could, to jobs, projects, hobbies. This might be your passion. Or perhaps you could do this. List down a scroll of potential possibilities.

Source: thesun.co.uk

2. What turns you on? It could be something on the job — a small component to your work that stimulates you unknowingly. Maybe it’s a little something you are doing after working hour— a hobby, moonlighting, your volunteering work or a parent or a spouse or a friend. It may be something you have not done in awhile. Again, you need a bit of time to ponder through these questions.Coz in case you don’t, you could be doing yourself a disfavor. Think up answers to your list.

3. What kind of books or reading materials are you interested on? What kind of topics do you follow when you log into the internet? Go through the magazines that you read? How about blogs that you follow? Which section of the bookstore do you peruse? List down as many topics as possible.

4. What do you day dream about? You may have some preposterous dream job you have always aspired to do — a novelist, a clown, a diver, an architect, a doctor, an entrepreneur, a programmer. However certain fears, have held you back, has led you to dismiss this idea. Maybe there are several. Add them to the list — no matter how unrealistic.

Source: silverwoodhypno.co.uk

5. Start learning, ask question and take note. Right now, you’ve got a list. Choose the one thing from your list that excites you the most. Here’s your first candidate. Take a reasonable amount of time to review it, speak with people who have been successful on the field (via their blogs,should they have them, or email). Build up of notes of things you have to find out, ought to improve on, skills you need to master, people to speak to. Study deep but never wait too long. Begin diving into the next step.

6. Try and experiment. Here is where learning really comes about. Stop studying those theories, start to do the thing you’ve chosen. Remember what Nike says— just do it. It might be while in the privacy of your own home, but as soon as possible, publisize as soon as you have started. In this way, you are always motivated to improve, it gets you feedback, plus your reputation will improve as you do. Give thought to your emotions doing it — could it be something you see yourself doing daily, that gets you stimulated emotionally, that you love to share?

7. Start shortlisting. I would recommend that you pick 3-5 things through your list, if it’s longer than that, repeat steps 5 & 6 with them. This may take month, or possibly you have undoubtedly learned all about and tried them out. As a result, here’s what you should contemplate: which gets you the most turned on? Which of them could generate something people is willing to pay for or get excited about?What can you see yourself doing for years or decades without feeling burnt out (even though it isn’t a conventional professional route)? Decide on one, or maybe two at the most, and concentrate on them.

Source: faqs.org

8. Put your fears aside. Fear is actually the biggest obstruction for many –and not forgetting self doubt. Tell yourself, you are going to confront and banish it. First, accept it instead of ignoring or denying it. Second,write them down (your fears!!), to externalize them. Yeah, bring them out into the lime light. Expose them. Third, get yourself to acclimatise with them. Fourth, ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Usually, one would realize that they are not as dreadful as one think. Fifth, get yourself prepared for going ahead with it anyway, and just do it. Take small steps, imagine yourself a toddler taking that first step. Celebrate your success, no matter how small they are.

9. Allocate time for your new venture. Don’t have the time to pursue your new found passion? Just make time for it! Make this your priority right now knowing that it will change your life for the better— go back and rearrange your schedule even if it means less TV time, less night life. This may mean waking up earlier, or blogging about it after work or during lunch, or on weekends. Do what must be done.

10. How to blog for a living. There are said to be overnight legends but I haven’t really heard of them. You must focus on your topic and work on your blog deligently, get proficient at it, be passionate about it. The open secret is to get enough targetted traffic into your blog and this could take months or even years. You need to find the fun out of this. The incoming traffic would reach a point where someone would pay you for it. Once the traffic comes, you must start focusing on different ways on how to monetize on your blog; be it Adsense marketing, affiliate marketing,banner advertising and whatever that can help you to get out of the rat race.

Source: visualparadox.com

It’s important that you try to get the right topic for the very first time. Let me remind you that blogs about blogging and making money online are practically saturated as narrated by many gurus. I am going to tell you again that don’t expect to get rich overnight. I have been with you since Nov 2009 and I’m still not wealthy yet. It requires loads of self-reflection and soul-searching, in the beginning, followed by iron like courage and persistency in learning and experimentation, and finally steadfast commitment.

But listen to me on this, it’s all worth it— every second, every ounce of courage and effort. You will reach milestones that you never dream about. Remember I told you that HowToBlog.org is a joint venture between my mentor and me. Well, it’s mine now. The new earning milestone from my Adsense had convinced me that blogging is the way to go and I’ve decided to buy it for a mere USD 700.

I hope you would be able to find success by following this guide, coz I wish you all the best in finding your true passion. Open this link on learning How To Set Up A  Blog

I run this blog as a business. Like any other business, this blog could be my escapade into entrepreneurship success or, it could make me to be so disillusioned  that I may just give it up abruptly one day. You know, I’ve been trying to find inspiration from my daily encounter, be it with the people I meet, the books I read, the blogs I digest….nothing come close to what I could gather from my daily driving experience while commuting to and fro from my office.

Let’s face it, when human get themselves behind those wheels, this combination collectively creates a simulation that reflects whatever your earthly journey might be. Don’t believe me. See how I relate driving to blogging.

Blogging tip 1: The Porshe Cayman vs my Nissan Sentra

There is a speed limit imposed on all Malaysian roads. In town and inner cities, it’s usually limited to 80 km/h. In highways, it’s always 110 km/h. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether your Porsh or Diablo could go up to 220 km/h without the slightest shiver, my little sedan would still reach her destination as long as I stick to my final destination.

Source: Flickr.com

Likewise, it does not matter whether you are using a free WordPress theme downloaded from WordPress.com or if you prefer to buy a premium theme like Thesis, both options would work well as long as you the blogger know where you are heading to.

Blogging tip 2: Taking Public Transport vs My Own Car (even if it’s a small car!!)

Ever experience taking a public transport to work or to your client’s place? You tell the cab driver where you want to go, he switch on the meter, you reach your destination, you pay the fares and that’s the last time you see the taxi. Sometimes, you are standing alone and no taxi or bus turn up…imagine it’s raining and you are drenched. The thought of buying a car could be daunting to some individuals. “Anyway taking a bus only cost me a few dollars daily”. But imagine the autonomy you possess when you own that first ‘stallion’, even if it’s just a ‘mule’.

The taxi is like free blogs like Blogspot, Bloggers.com and your own transport is like your own domain.  Whatever links that you build in your own website belongs to you. Guess who owns the backlinks that you build in myname.blogspot.com??

Nobody can question you when you want to fix an extra muzzler onto your own car. You decide what you want to do with it.

Blogging tip 3: A Good Technician To Tend To Your Car

How often do you send in your car for check up? Do you go to a reputable workshop endorsed by your vehicle’s manufacturer or you don’t really mind who the technician is as long as it’s cheap? My question is, how sure are you that your friendly neighborhood workshop is using original parts for your mobile asset?

You got yourself a nice domain. You can’t decide whether to use a free host or a paid web hosting service?

Imagine the nightmare when you are travelling at 120 km/h on a federal highway and all of a sudden your car engine died off abruptly?

Blogging Tip 4: Switching Lanes And Getting Nowhere Faster

You are stepping on the accelerator because you are late for an important appointment. Damn! The car in front is road hogging.

You swerved your V6 to the right lane to overtake the inconsiderate snail and a whole new world opened up in front of you. 50 meter or so, a traffic congestion stopped your advances. Stuck, you glance to the left lane again. Isn’t that the bloody hogger who had just passed you by, you even see a smirk on the chap’s face!! If only you have listened to the radio about the massive pile up turning into Holland Street, you would have stuck to the slow lane and you might be able to meet your client on time.

This happens to new bloggers occasionally. You started your blog full of enthusiasm. You even worked day and night working on your blog because Chris Brogan said you have to post content at least 3 times a day. After 3 weeks, you still don’t see your site indexed anywhere in Google, not  to mention Bing and Yahoo.

If only you have some basic knowledge about SEO, on how to use the appropriate keywords in your post, maybe you wouldn’t have given up on your blogging so soon.

Blogging Tip 5: Oooh! No policeman!

Ah…it’s 5 am in the morning. Red light? No problem. Those goons are still probably sleeping in a cool morning like this. Whoosh…..

F*** another slow coach blocking your way. Double lines? Nobody will see you overtaking this car, it will only take you 6 seconds.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Ever heard of Black Hat SEO? Keywords stuffing, buying links from link farms, doorway pages etc. Never mind those Search Engines. They won’t know. Google is too busy to monitor what’s going on with my site…;)

Blogging Tip 6: My Car is Japanese made. So What?

As long as you keep your car in tip-top condition, who cares whether it’s made in China, India or Japan. Even a continental car from German can breakdown and leave you high and dry if you don’t take the trouble to take care of it. A Mercedes will carry you to Singapore, so is my Nissan.

All blogging gurus would ask newbies to get a .com domain whenever possible. Of course, if you compare camera.com with camera.biz, you definitely should take the former if you can afford it. However, if you would compare camera.biz with camerabloggingsite.com, I don’t know about you but I would go for camera.biz. To me, as long as the domain name is a good one to two words generic, good name and non-copyrighted by somebody else, the TLDs do not matter unless of course you are a domain speculator.

The point is, I just want to develop the website and hopefully it will bring in recurring income in a few months time. The domain name will determine the SEO, not the TLD. A dot mobi domain should be able to rank as high as a dot com if the webmaster spend ample time and passion in developing it.

Blogging Tip 7: It’s Alright To Take A Rest When You Are Tired

You have been driving non stop for 4 hours from Penang to Kuala Lumpur. Take a nap if you are tired. You need the rest to continue on the journey safely.

Do you ever feel tired blogging? It happens to me all the time. If you are feeling overwhelmed, disillusioned, discouraged or whatever emotion turmoil at any time of your journey, just take a break will you. Blogging like any other business is a marathon. You need endurance to ‘walk’ the journey and if you want to be big, there is no destination at all. You tweak your approach along the way and learn whatever you can to sharpen your acumen.

Source: all-funny.info

Blogging Tip 8: Enjoy The Scenery

I have experienced my share of ups and downs when I drive. But you know what I observe? The days when I prepare early for my journey and stop focusing on the destination are usually the best. Make short glances to both sides of your car and enjoy the floras that wheez by. Come on, we don’t drive a Delorean which zaps from one place to another after reaching 90 miles an hour.

Source: centex.com

You will bound to learn some new skills and experiences when you think about your next content. You don’t have to stick to a silly schedule of blogging at least once a day to drive visitors to your blog. It’s utter absurdity!! Putting contents and learning the right things to incorporate into them for twice a month consistently for the next ten years is better than burning yourself out daily with lousy posts. There is something you have to understand as a blogger. Search engines especially Google will reward you for updated posts, regardless of whether its on daily or monthly basis.

Planning to be a problogger? Here is a list of blogging tips to see you through at least for the first 6 months

Tip 1- Prepare For Early Dissapointment

“According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.” – New York Times

Don’t be part of the statistic!

Tip 2 -A Bloody Good Topic Helps

To have a great topic, you have to blog on your expertise or on your lifelong hobby. You cannot just hope to monetize on a blog, telling stories about 3D television if all you know about this niche comes solely from Avatar!

Tip 3 - Think Up The Best Domain Name

A good domain name will help your blog rank highly on the search engines. Learn how to do keyword research properly early before you begin your blog. Contact me or continue reading my blog if you want to learn more.

Tip 4 – Learn How Search Engine Works

If you don’t understand search engines, at least learn the basis on how Google robots crawl a website. Getting your website or blog to rank highly in Google is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

Sign up for a Google account and sign into Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Using this blog tool do need some training and research. Therefore, allocate some time to do some reading on this wonderful blogging tool

Tip 5 – Familiarize Yourself With At Least One Blogging Software

In the early days of blogging, you have to learn up HTML or XML to set up a website. Later, blogging softwares began to improve and one of the more popular wares to hit the market is called Dreamweaver.

Fast forward to the present. Currently, even non-programmers can easily set up a blog using excellent softwares like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. Learn how to set up a website here.

Tip 6 – Start Having Practical Experience

Now you have learnt the basic in SEO and WordPress tips, it’s time for action. Subscribe to a good web host with reasonable pricing. If you are a beginner, it’s best to engage a reputable host which can provide you  excellent technical support.

Source: automopedia.org
Tip 7 – Learn How To Write Great Blog Content

Good blog contents do not come with a blink of an eye. It comes from years of passion and research on a particular subject maybe related to your profession or hobby.

You can put in a few pages of a particular topic probably just by researching the internet. However without prior studies and in-depth focus, you would probably plough through only for the first few days.

Blog about a niche that you are really interested about and continue studying so that you can churn out content after content for months to come.

Tip 8 – Write Regularly

Read Tip 7.

Tip 9 – Use Social Medias To Promote Your Blog

I’m sure you know about Twitter and Facebook. Depending on the topic of your blog, they may not be the best marketing tools available.

For me, I started finding success in using LinkedIn. In fact, there are various other sites that may be useful to your blog marketing campaign like Ecademy, Bebo, Zing…I’ll talk more about those  later!

Tip 10 – Articles Submission

Apart from social medias, you could also write unique articles related to your topic and submit them to sites like Ezine, GoArticle, Article Dashboard and many more.

Tip 11 – Press Release

Another piece of tool you can use to promote your blog or website is via press release. However, you must learn the proper way to write a great press release for this to be effective. There are many templates available in the market just for this purpose.

Tip 12 – Marketing Through Social Bookmarking Sites

Also considered to be part of your blog marketing tools. Social bookmarks like Digg, Stumble Upon, Propeller, Mister Wong and many more can sometimes provide great backlinks to your landing pages.

Tip 13 – Put In Adsense Early

Don’t leave the money on the table. Introduce at least the most basic monetizing tool early in your blog.

Your early posts, coupled with promotions and marketings could occasionally initiate a sudden surge to your blog’s traffic. Even a few dollars earned this way could boost your morale and prepare you for the long haul.

Tip 14 – Make Blogging Your New Hobby

Instead of watching TV, why not make blogging your main pursuit after your 9 to 5 job. After all, you will reap more from it in the long run.

How To Blog For Newbies Day 25

Apart from Digg, Stumble Upon and Reddit, there are many other social bookmarks that we bloggers can utilize to market our blogs. Apart from introducing these sites to newbies and seasoned bloggers, I would also be conducting some experiments on SEO using this post, so just bear with me. In the mean time, make use of these fantastic blogging tools for free promotion to the internet.

Source : www.doublejdesign.co.uk

1. Technorati

2. Slashdot

3. Digg

4. Reddit

5. Newsvine

6. Squidoo

7. Stumble Upon

8. Ask

9. Propeller

10. Mister Wong

11. Mixx

12. Folkd

13. Diigo

14. Connotea

15. Jumptags

(How to blog and Blogging tips for newbies. How To Blog dot Org)

How To Blog For Newbies Day 21

Blogging is tough!

During my pursuit, I loved spending time in reading on other bloggers’ writing. By reading through their archives, I have managed to find strength and inspiration when the going gets tough. My tribute goes to great bloggers like Problogger, John Chow, Steve Pavlina and Chris Brogan for making me in believing in what I’m doing. They inspire me to persevere. I shall share with you the 18 blogging tips that I’ve picked up from observing and reading their blogs.

1. Don’t Resign From Your Full Time Job Yet

When you are all fired up, thats where the danger lurks. The first blogging secret applies to all of us who blog part time. We need the stable income from our job to probably to tide us through the first and second year of our new blogging business.

Imagine the stress you would have to go through if you resigned from your job spontaneously. How long could you last through the drought? Inspiration and stress do not correlate. The sad fact is, if you resigned from your job prematurely, you would be forced to look for a new job again.

2. Only Focus On One Blog At Any One Time

They all do it. Problogger, DoshDosh, John Chow and Chris Brogan don’t stray from one blog to another!

They all share a common trait called ‘focus’. Focus would give you the strength to strife on because your mind won’t need to strain on different genre of blogs or websites. Another thing about focus. When our mind focus on a particular object, we give life to it.

I used to tell you to try working on  two blogs instead of one. The reason? So that you could continue to work once you run out of subjects for any one blog. After working on two blogs simultaneously for 3 months, I realized that I might actually be wrong. If you happened to blog part time, it’s best that you concentrate just on one blog.

There is so much to do even when you are working on one blog. Do you know what else am I doing apart from writing on my post? My Tweetdeck is on, and I’ve logged in to my Facebook to engage my friends and building rapport, all for the sake of my How To Blog.org.

3. Be Active In At Least One Social Media Network

At the moment of this writing, John Chow has 3,998 friends in Facebook and oops, surprise surprise, only 398 followers in Twitter. Problogger (also known as Darren Rowse) has 3 Fan Pages in Facebook and 88,038 followers in Twitter. I could not find DoshDosh in Facebook (maybe you can help me out on this!) and Maki has 14,874 followers in Twitter. Top blogger like Chris Brogan is a superstar in Twitter, boasting a whopping 120,273 followers!

When you tweet about your latest blog updates, your followers may link to your post. Some may even retweet and help in spreading the word around. Such action will create inbound links from Twitter to your blog. Building links is one of the most important part of creating traffics to your website.

4. Comments On Other Bloggers’ Post

Problogger  said this many times. During the initial years of his blog business, he had spent an equal amount of time creating contents and commenting on other people’s blogs. The reason; to get backlinks.

The best link building effort comes from getting a prominent blogger to put your url into his blogroll. Tons of backlinks will be created via such effort. I was fortunate enough to get a PR6 blog called Dr Shock to add my site in this way very early in my blogging effort. As a result, my ‘How to Blog.org’ just leaped from a PR0 to a PR2 website within 2 months!

However, your request for a link exchange from the big brothers are usually futile. By this, you just have to do the next best thing. You put comments on their post. Remember only to put smart comments and not just any spammy phrase like ‘Great post. Thanks!’

5. Use Pictures And Videos

Google and many search engines favor the using of videos and pictures in your blog content. The best videos come from your own recording effort whereby you put in your own keywords for optimization. However, you are still able to use other people’s work provided that you give due credit to that person.

6. Build Genuine Relationship

Your readers are intelligent human beings. They know how much effort you have contributed just by reading your content.  Once you assumed your role as a blogger, you focus on your effort in adding value to your readers’ knowledge.

Ask yourself, how could your content change your reader’s outlook. Would your work open up a new perspective or would it just invoke a ‘what’s new’ response? Think about how you would advise a dear friend when he or she hit a snag?

7. Love What You Are Doing

Only make blogging your business if you really love writing valuable contents for your readers. Although building a blog business consumes very little monetary cost, you invest your time in the building process. To me, time is priceless and no amount of money can really replace the time that you have spent. So, only spend this limited resource in something that you love.

8. Your Blog Is Serious Business

Look at these prominent bloggers’ site and tell me what you observe? It’s not just paying lip service when I said you have to treat your blog as a business.

Darren Rowse of Problogger started of as a lone ranger like most of us newbies. Look at his website now. He hires feature writers for Problogger.net and I’m sure he has accountants to keep track of his ROI as well.

9. Build Original Content

Writing original content is difficult. Since most of us do not write for a living, the urge to just link to other people’s post is quite alluring.

Steve Pavlina always preaches about having our own original contents. You could just look at the comments readers make in his blog to gauge how much they love his contents. Creating your own original content would pull traffic to your blog. Linking would push your hard earned traffic to other people’s website. In other words, you became the middle-man that creates free inbound link to other bloggers.

10. You Don’t Have To Post Daily

Do you know when was the last time DoshDosh did his post? 14th December 2009! Now, who says you need to post every single day to bring supporters.

I can’t really quote myself as an example for this but let’s use our own common sense when we decide whether to blog daily or not. Is it wise to force ourself to routinely carry out something that we love, even if we are dry of ideas? I could just put out a post just to fulfill the quota of one post per day. But would that be fair to your readers?

Furthermore, if we force ourselves to write, we’ll force the passion out of blogging. Once the passion is gone, we are back to square one.

I got this from one of Problogger’s article :

“Here’s the thing – daily posting is not essential to grow a successful blog.”

11. Understand How Your Website’s Design Can Affect Traffic

There is more to your website’s color and layout that meets the eye. Apart from Steve Pavlina, observe how the rest of the top bloggers place their advertisement, make their color combinations and design layouts.

For example, John Chow, Problogger and Chris Brogan always have their advertisement affiliates on the extreme right column mostly to cater to the majority of netizens whom are right-handers. Steve Pavlina probably wanted to show us how his ‘superb’ contents can be relied on to overcome any SEO strategy.

12. Update Your Family On Your Blog

Ok, this a bonus blogging secret I added myself. Update your spouse on the progress of your blog religiously.

When you run your blog, there is more to only updating your blog contents. You have to do backlinking, commenting on blogs, article submissions, social bookmarking,  interacting in your social media portfolios like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin. These actions would at times hamper your communication with your family. Worse things might happen if your spouse started to suspect that you are hitting on one of your pretty friend in your Facebook.

Imagine this, would Darren Rowse start Problogger.net if V does not exist?

13. You Don’t Need A Generic Domain To Make Your Blog Big

Generic domains means domains that come with highly searchable keywords or keyphrase. For example, Blog.com. The keyword ‘blog’ is being searched 2.7 million times per month globally.

By giving superior contents to  us, Steve Pavlina has managed to create a huge following at 18,000 searches in one month. Therefore, who ever said that you need a killer name domain to be successful?

14. Don’t Ever Waste Your Time On Free Blogs

I have emphasized the evil of using free blogs before. There are cases where some professional website creators who use free blogs to showcase certain products, get them optimized and earn fast bucks from them. If you are in for the long haul, follow what my mentors do! Register or buy your own domain.

15. Make Up Your Mind To Improve

Determine to improve from post to post. Just goto any of the big boys’ website and look at their archives. Reread the earlier post when they first started and then, read the current ones. You can spot the improvements from the grammar, flow of sentences to their experience in presenting their points.

16. Forget About Being Anonymous

This should be obvious. Do you know of any anonymous bloggers who make it to the top of the blogging league? I am able to relate to Problogger, Chris Brogan and Steve Pavlina because I could relate to their feelings in person when I read their blog.

If you are afraid of backlash coming from your employer, just don’t drill into anything about your work place. If you follow this principle closely, you should be safe to expose your identity to the mass. Another thing about your blog, don’t give out your phone number!

17. Stick With Your Blog Through Thick And Thin

No matter how bad it goes, always stick with your blog  through thick and thin. There are times when you really feel like giving up and just find another job that pays higher.

With your blog, you are an entrepreneur. If you switch to another job, you remain just that; a miserable employee.

18. Read, Read, Read

Expand your horizon. Good quality contents only come from knowledgeable bloggers. One of Chris Brogan’s 50 ways to take your blog to another level is asking us to read as much as possible.

” Read. Read. Read. Get outside the blogosphere. Find sources of information that span far beyond what your competitors are covering.”

(How to blog and Blogging tips for newbies. How To Blog dot Org)