Blogging for Dollars Blog

The blog for the ebook

Turn a Simple Blog Into a Great Home Business - 5 Tips

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Did you know you can turn a simple blog into a great home business? Others have done it, and you can too. But wishing and hoping for success won’t bring in the money; in this article we discuss five tips which will.

1. Create a Plan for the Blog, and Set Goals

Start with a plan. If you’ve already tried blogging and failed, you failed because you didn’t plan both your content and your marketing before you created the blog.

Your plan can be brief, but it should contain:

* Your goals for the blog, with milestones at six months, one year, and two years;

* Your budget;

* The time you have available to blog;

* Your marketing plan.

Does this sound like too much work? Remember that you’re creating a business. If you set your blog on a proper business footing from the beginning, not only will you make a profit from your blogging, you can also sell your blog if you wish.

2. Choose a Topic You’re Passionate About, and which is Profitable

What would you really love to blog about?

Here’s a clue: what do you discuss with friends? Do you talk about golf, makeup and beauty tips, home prices and your mortgage…? You’ll spend a lot of time thinking about your blog, and creating the content. If you’re lukewarm about the blog’s topic, your blog will die from your lack of inspiration.

Competition in a niche shouldn’t faze you. In fact lots of competition is a sign that the niche is profitable.

Other signs that a niche is profitable include: lots of advertising, many affiliate products, and big companies in the niche.

3. Research Other Blogs in the Niche - Do Something Different

Once you’ve decided on a niche, check out other blogs covering the same topic.

What can you focus on in your blog that’s a little bit different? For example, there are many “food” blogs, how could you create a blog that’s unique to you? Could you combine food and another area, perhaps? Something like… “fast and easy fat-free home cooking for busy working moms” - this blog could combine three or even four areas: recipes, dieting, parenting, and time management.

4. Build Content and Traffic - Create a Community

Three years ago, it was enough to create a blog. Traffic arrived of its own accord. That’s no longer the case. Blogging has become super competitive, but don’t let this scare you.

All it means is that you’ll need to focus on marketing your blog, as well as on creating content.

In your plan for your blog, outline some ways you could get traffic: commenting on other blogs, writing articles for other blogs and sites, advertising - your marketing options are limitless.

You need to create community, too. Encourage comments, and interact with your blog’s visitors.

5. Create Content and Market Your Blog Every Day

In the first few months of blogging, you should create content and market your blog every day. This not only builds up a presence in the search engines, so that you start getting a constant flow of traffic, but also creates the foundation of your business.

Imagine… $1,000 A Week For Just Ten Hours

blogging for dollars

You can get paid to blog. The current rate for experienced bloggers is around $1,000 to $1500 a week for from two to five posts a day - VERY nice writing income.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller “Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger — in your PJs, if you want”. It’s my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

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Blogging for pleasure, not pain

Why do you blog? Your reasons will depend on your goals for a particular blog. However, each blog is a commitment, and the commitment can weigh on you if writing a particular blog isn’t fun.

If you get tired of working on a particular blog - it’s more pain than pleasure - consider outsourcing some of the writing.

For example, my blogs are divided into three major categories, and blogs in each category have specific goals:

* “Fun” blogs

* Product blogs

* Content blogs

In the Fun category, I have blogs about my hobbies. My writing blog is a “fun” blog for example. These blogs aren’t big money spinners, because that’s not their goal. I just like writing these blogs. :-)
In my Product blogs, I have blogs for my own products. This blog for example is a blog for my Blogging for Dollars ebook package. I have sales goals for all my Product blogs.

I write all the content for my Fun and Product blogs. A fun blog exists because I like the topic, and writing in that area gives me pleasure. Since I know more about my products than anyone else, I write all the content for my product blogs too.

On the other hand, my Content blogs could be a real pain if I had to write all the content. These blogs are monetized in various ways, and each has a specific goal, which may change over the months and years. I usually hire writers for these blogs, otherwise I’d go crazy trying to keep up with it all.

So think about your goals for your blog, and if a blog is meant to bring in income and you don’t feel like writing, outsource it. Outsourcing is the ultimate pain-free way to blog.

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Blogs.com - just another blog directory?

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Six Apart (the TypePad people) have launched Blogs.com. Great name, but is it just another blogs directory?

Here’s what they say on the About page:

Blogs.com is a new service from blogging company Six Apart that helps you discover the best in blogs. You can quickly and easily find blogs by category and topic or read daily blog roundups of some of the best blog content around the Web. Top 10 Lists from celebrity bloggers and influencers also help you discover new blogs, and everyone is invited to create their own Top 10 lists to share with the community. Blogs.com also produces a free weekly email newsletter so you can get the best in blogs delivered to your inbox. To get the weekly Blogs.com newsletter, use the subscription form on the right.

My writing blog is hosted on TypePad, and over the past few years the service has been great, so since this is a Six Apart effort AND there are human editors, I think that Blogs.com will give the blog industry a much-needed kick along.

They promise new categories, and you can submit your own blog(s).

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