Ready to move your blogging to the next level?

Source: herd.typepad.com

The fact is, people love advise from experts. Recall the last time you search advise on which university to choose? There are substantial and valid reasons why top sales professionals spend significant amount of time and energy in positioning themselves as experts or even ‘gurus’ in their field.

We can never succeed if we continue to portray ourselves as Jack Of All Trade, but instead, we have to express our niche topic in the most assuring manner to your audience. I started of in this blog as a novice. I understand search engines and how we can tweak them to make our  e-business to be found. I also understand that we need a blog with ever changing contents in order to achieve proper search engine optimization (SEO). However, I have never done any proper blog prior to engaging ‘HowToBlog.org’. While readers of this blog understand that I was a real novice in blogging some nine months ago; the expectation will change as time progresses.

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Link building is never easy in blog SEO. I dare say, it’s one of the least fulfilling part when building money making blogs in your niches. I hate it!

Source: verticalmeasures.com

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Do you make this mistake when you choose a domain name?

Before I go further, do you realize how many people start blogging by using a free blog or for those beginners whom are more courageous, get a domain with their name? Yours sincerely make the same mistake like 4 years ago whereby I started my first blog using Blogspot.com. I stopped after 3 posts with this name called myname.blogspot.com.

Many unsuspecting rookies built a website under the tutelage of a professional webmaster who told them nothing about the importance of a good domain name in supporting an online business or blog.

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I’ve been contemplating whether to blog about SEO tips in this post for quite some time. After pondering hard, I realized that there weren’t much changes lately with regards to Search Engines Optimization since the last time I talk about it (accept for Google Caffeine and Google Instant). The two most important thing  you gotta do for SEO is to post consistently enough and to build backlinks. By working on these two areas, you are pretty much on the right track. There are more important things than just SEO when you are blogging .

That’s when I come across Bai Ling, you know, the actress who co-starred with Richard Gere in a movie called Red Corner.  All right, it’s not my plan to get a PhD about Bai Ling from this blog post but from my observation of this actress, there are many traits about her that maybe we bloggers can emulate.

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Many of you who are following my blog deligently may have already become a blogger. Some of you have decided to blog just for fun while many others might have chosen to build business blogs. If you have chosen the latter path, I  congratulate you because you are on your way into online entrepreneurship.

Let me warn you, the worst factor about becoming a business blogger will be loneliness. Like me, you are  your own boss and nobody will be there to support you, simply because it is tough for them to see what you see and really feel the excitement that you have within the early stages of blogging. Like my wife, she kept on nagging me when I switched on my notebook to work on my blog. Only recently when my Google Adsense started to record some gains that she started to show some ‘support’ to my business. Honestly though, I’m sure she is still not convinced that I could make it one day…. yup, one day.

The loneliness may be unbearable sometimes. One may also turn out to be emotionally scarred and de-motivated right after operating in such a lonely environment. The wait for your visitors to reach the ‘tipping point’ is  long whereby the reward might be months or even years away, provided you are doing the right thing.  Sadly, the reward might not even come at all to most bloggers.

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In my previous post, I was giving you some blogging insights on how to choose  blog topics. A blog topic that you are passionate about and would not be sick writing about it for at least once a week for the next 5 years or more.

Only that day, I was chatting with an old classmate of mine regarding his passion in Facebook. You see, this guy love macho stuffs, things like body building, big bikes and  paint ball.

Ok Soon Hock, my blog post for today is going to be about your passion, and hopefully you might decide to start a blog about your hobby and maybe even earn some pocket money out of this. Remember the old saying, ‘If you do what you love, you won’t be feeling like you are working again for the rest of your life’.

This post will have more technicalities as compared to my previous post. This will be about keyword research. You see, you want to blog about your interest, no doubt about it. But, you also want to be able to commercialize your topic so that you can gain some monetary reward from it later. Remember, at this phase, the title of my blog is “How To Blog For A Living” and that’s what it’s all about. Let’s get started.

1. So You Think You May Have Found The Perfect Blog Topics

Hold on!! Don’t go about getting that domain name before reading this post.

As my friend was mentioning to me, guns that are used in the paintball game are called markers. Out of curiosity, I typed the keyword “paintball” into Google search box, and these are the keywords that come with it: paintball guns, paintball gear, paintball pistol, paintball game….These keywords come along with the singular keyword “paintball” that I typed in earlier as a guide indicating what are the phrases that are searched by hobbyist worldwide.

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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

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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

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How to pick the Best Web Hosting for your coming money making blogs?

In my previous posting, I have given you some tips on what to look out for when choosing a free host for your website.

Realize that the criterias I have listed out are usually non-existent in these free hosting services. To be safe in this industry, you just cannot afford to be penny wise and pound foolish. Just about the most important decisions that many online businesses and serious bloggers need to make is picking the best web hosting service. By choosing a poor hosting you, the blogger will have a nightmare. Deciding on the best type of hosting service could be a very overwhelming task especially for a beginner.

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A realistic look at building money making blogs.

Is there really a possibility of constructing up your blogs to a level where you can actually make a living out of blogging?

Allow me to share five truths that I would wish to share about my own, personal journey to offer a more practical scenario to any of you thinking of getting into blogging in order to make a living.

1.It Requires A Long Term Steel-Like Determination

I have already been blogging for seven months. Trust me, there is no such thing as becoming wealthy overnight just via building a blog. At the time I wrote this post, well, I’m still holding a full time job. However, make good use of whatever resource you have as an employee to build your blog into a thriving business. Apart from this blog, which I’m going to do all the writing myself, I would be hiring writers to build on other blogs as other multiple revenue earners. Therefore, guess where I would get the funds to build other blog sites??

The typical age of blogs listed in Technorati Top 100 was well over three years of age when I very last checked it. Developing a revenue earning blog normally takes quite a long time (it will require time for you to generate readership, to work through how you can monetize your blog. Be prepared for a marathon you will ever have and you will probably need these elements: self motivation, family support, peers encouragement, motivational talks and whatever that can keep you going.

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