Make Money Online With A 13-Year Old

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3 Simple Tips To Make The Most Of Unproductive Days In Blogging

By rdilipk1 On June 11, 2009 2 Comments

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This article is guest posted by R Kumar.

Are you tired of writing a post a day for your blog? Do you sometimes feel down and out? Do you feel like not writing any post on some days?

You are not the only one if you answered any of the above questions in “Yes”. Blogging can be a de-motivator many a times, especially if you do not have enough traffic or, you have just started out on your blogging journey.

A study says that 98% of people, who were successful in what they did, succeeded just because they were persistent. 95% of the people who failed in their objective were much qualified and skilled that their counterparts who succeeded. So what is the mantra to success – It is ‘Persistence’.

I can hear you groan and can also see that sarcastic look of yours. You are feeling as if I am preaching like one of those positive thinking motivational speakers. I might be, but the fact is that it is persistence that will help you in your objective. When it comes to “making money online”, it is nothing different. Making money online is something that is going to give you a lifestyle that you would never have imagined and so it is the never-say-die attitude that will help you achieve it.

How can you overcome the let-me-quit situation? It would require some conscious and deliberate effort from you if you are to do it. Follow these simple tips and you would be able to achieve everything that you have always wanted from your online business.

1. Write down your dream – You had a dream in mind when you first decided to start your online business. Howsoever small or, big the dream is, write it down on a chart-paper. Write it big enough for you to see it from the door of your room if you stick it on the opposite wall. Then stick it somewhere near your computer so that it is always visible. Whenever you feel de-motivated and down, just look at it and read it aloud.
   Also make small stickys with the same dream written on it and stick it at places where you normally go to when you don’t feel like working.
2. Get the picture of the most valuable person in your life – Most of the time we do things for our loved ones. Keep a picture of the most valuable person in your life on your table. Just look at the picture when you don’t feel like working on your blog and think about the things that you have promised them, when you become successful.
3. Write down you goal – You can only succeed if you have clear and legible goals in life. So write down the goal that you want to achieve from your online business or, your blog. Once again follow the same process as earlier and stick it near you computer. Break it into small objectives and stick it at anything and everything that you come in contact with.

When I started blogging my objective was not make a million dollar in the first month. Instead I had an objective of earning $1500 in a month because that was what I wanted as an additional income. I broke it down into day-wise goals and I knew that I had to earn $50 everyday. The initial 7-8 days saw me getting frustrated because I was not achieving my goal. But the first 2 steps above kept me going and to my surprise when I finished the month I had earned $1610 which was more that what I had set as a goal. Such is the power of goals that are written down.

There is no surefire means to success. Success in anything that might improve your lifestyle needs an extra 10% than what is required in other things. At the same time you need to bear in mind that success in anything that you do will surely bring about a change in lifestyle.

Decide that you will write a post for you blog every day, irrespective of if you are going to publish it or, not. Write out a time-table for an entire week and strictly follow the routine. There would be some days when you will not feel like doing anything. Push yourself to do something on these days and you will see your objectives being achieved.

R Kumar is a part-time blogger authoring blogs on making money online blogging. He is a career-counselor and has a couple of blogs on career-couselling and job-guidance as well. His interests include SEO, Wordpress theme development and blogging, of course in addition to affiliate marketing.

5 Ways To Stand Out as a Blogger

By Plug On June 4, 2009 5 Comments

This article is guest posted by Glen.

There are over 120,000,000 blogs (that’s 120 million) and thousands of new ones created every day, making it increasingly different to stand out from the crowd and having your online voice heard. Blogging has literally taken the world by storm over the last few years, meaning that everyone seems to have become a writer and most major industries are literally crammed full with bloggers.

You can’t change how many fellow bloggers there are out there, but you can still work to get your voice heard and make a real name for yourself. And, in this post, I want to look at five ways you can do just that.

1. Switch Up The Post Style

You’ll find that in most blog niche’s out there, there is a certain post style that bloggers tend to adopt. For example, in the make money online niche you see many bloggers write short, list posts that are packed full of value, such as this post.

In an industry like technology where there are hundreds of gadget blogs, posts tend to pour in at a much higher volume, but are very short and light on text-based content. The fact of the matter is: most industries have a way about them.

Luckily for you, you can use this to your advantage.

If you love technology, why not write more detailed, in-depth posts on gadgets including video reviews and photos. If you write about blogging, why not post less frequently but with longer detailed posts. Or, in an industry like politics, write short pieces that get to the point. If you can switch things up from the common standard and still pack your posts with value, then it won’t take long before you build a following.

2. Perform Your Own Experiments

I have mentioned very broad industries so far such as technology or even internet marketing, but they can be split up even further. You could write a blog on mobile phones in the technology niche or even just write about SEO if you enjoy internet marketing.

You’ll find that most of the knowledge in any industry is regurgitated; most people have seen the same tips a million times before and they don’t want to see them again. What really set my blog apart from the rest was when I started doing research into the statistics of the top users of Digg and StumbleUpon. Nobody had done it before and my readers wanted to see what attributes a “power user” had that set them apart from the rest.

Similarly, in an industry like SEO, you could do tests that nobody has done before. Even if you scaled down a love of gadgets and wrote about mobile phones then you could see how tough phones are like the viral success that was “Will it blend?”

3. Create a Resource on an Important Topic

There will be some topics in your niche that people really want to find a genuine resource for. However, this is usually for things where even a 2,000 word blog post wouldn’t suffice. Sometimes you have to push the boundaries and your own persistence to give your audience what they are looking for.

I write about personal development and knew that a lot of my visitors wanted to know something that comes naturally to a lot of people, how to make friends. Therefore, I wrote a 24-page eBook on the topic and it became a huge hit. Nobody had previously taken the time to write an excellent guide on the topic, just basic ones with practical points.

Find out what your audience wants and see if you can go the extra mile to give it to them.

4. Be Radically Honest

Honesty is a quality that is sorely lacking from the internet. People who make a couple of dollars on adsense make blogs about how to become rich online and claime they are living the dream. Some people write about finances and how to save money when they are in debt themselves and haven’t even adopted habits to help them get out.

One thing that people can really relate to are acts of honesty. If you can be really honest with your readers you’ll realise that it opens up a whole world of content ideas and trust with your audience. If you only make a few dollars per month online, be open about it and make it clear that your blog is a case study to your own success. I know I would read a site like that.

If you’re writing a blog on personal development, be honest if you’re marriage is failing or at least don’t pretend it is perfect. With honesty comes great trust and you’ll find that your readers can relate to your situation much more than if you were putting on a front.

5. Challenge the Norm

Just like there will be a common posting style in your industry and common advice given, it doesn’t mean it is the best way to go. See if there are popular beliefs that you can disprove, not just for the sake of disproving, but to help you stand out as someone who does their research and writes based on fact.

If there’s 10 blogs writing the same information on your chosen subject, do you really think the world needs another one? If they each write 1 post per day that’s 300 posts your target audience has to wade through to find some real gems. This, incidentally, is where you come in.

Are there popular beliefs you want to challenge? Are there certain ways of blogging or increasing subscribers that everyone has adopted? Can you make it even easier for your audience to get in touch and get to know the real you? Some things are the norm for a reason, but other things are the norm because nobody has bothered to really look into them.

If you can follow these five steps and regularly post informative, useful content, you’ll soon be on your way to a bright future with blogging.

Glen writes for PluginID on the subject of Personal Development. Help him help you by subscribing to his feed, here.

WEIRD – Interview With The Bond… Paper

By Carl On May 12, 2009 24 Comments

First of, I had a hard time putting this thing up. It’s a BIG video and took me an hour to upload on Youtube. Unknowingly they’d delete it after because it’s more than 10 minutes long. So yeah I screwed.

Second, the quality is not that cool because I’m using the built in 1.3 megapixels webcam of my Vaio – not cool (compared to those sweet HD’s) but OK.

Third, I like this interview personally. I did the interview with trusty bondpaper, goofed off around a “bit” and gave some good stuff (I can’t quite decide if this video is about me goofing off or answering interview questions)

I’m pretty sure you’ll like it nonetheless…

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Questions asked by bond… paper (actually they’re from Ben Pei)

1. Hi Carl, you have been the well known kid guru around the block who makes money online at the age of 13. Could you tell us more about how did you get yourself started and where did your main inspirations come from?

2. Everyone knows it isn’t to get on Google’s first page for keyword “Make Money Online” but you manage to keep your throne even up till now. What are the exact methods you use to reach this position?

3. When I first visited CarlOcab.com, your RSS subscriber count was at 8,000+ and now it has climbed up to 14,000+. (Even while you were away from your blog for awhile). How did you manage to keep this up?

4. I know selling ads hasn’t been a problem for you because I always see new ad placement on your blog. Do you go about contacting businesses or do you only wait for companies/personal to contact you?

5. Following up to the question above, does the blog theme really affect your ad sales?

6. Carl, you have created one of the most practical and converting theme for monetized blogging. Would you like to use this chance to tell my readers why they should use your Ultimate Blogging Theme?

7. If they were to buy your Ultimate Blogging Theme, how can they make full use of it and ensure they are really able to start making money from their blogs?

8. Besides blogging, you make money from affiliate marketing too right? Do you make use of any other marketing methods besides blogging and mailing list?

9. Finally the last question Carl. While many of your peers at your age are still hanging out in shopping malls or at gaming parties, you are raking 4 figures every month. Can you give some words of encouragement and advice to help them succeed as well?

9 Things To Do With A New Blog

By HQHow On April 27, 2009 11 Comments

This article is guest posted by DJ who teaches people How to Make Money Online

There are thousands of blogs created every day, and while you may not be planning to create a new one soon, somebody out there certainly is. With this statistic in mind, shouldn’t there be a checklist that new bloggers can go through to make sure they have all their bases covered?

That’s exactly what I want to create with this post, and of course with your participation in the comments, so hopefully we can help build an excellent resource.

1. Optimise Your Permalinks

The permalink options for Wordpress can be found by going to Settings >> Permalinks. Basically, this is the formatting that your URL’s will take on. There are lots of different options for this, but personally I like to keep the most optimised format and in the ‘custom’ field enter:

/%postname%/

Additionally, you can change the ‘base’ name for your categories. So if you use the structure above your categories will look something like:

http://example.com/category/categoryname and you can make this

http://example.com/anything/categoryname

I like to keep the category name short as well as the URL’s in general. It’s a good idea that this is one of the first things you do with a new blog so that you don’t have to setup redirects later and potentially miss out on some backlinks that were pointing to your old URL’s.

2. Set-Up Feedburner

Just like how you don’t want to be changing your page URL’s at a later date, it’s a lot easier to stick to one RSS feed URL as well. Feedburner hasn’t changed much since being acquired by Google for $100m but it is still a very useful service.

Such features include:

• Being able to see how many people subscribe to your feed
• Being able to see what people use to subscribe to your feed
• Easy option to allow people to subscribe via email
• Links for voting buttons in your RSS feed
• …and much more

Once you have your feedburner link, make sure that you change all references on your site to the new RSS feed.

3. Change the RSS URL in your Header

I added this separately because if you are using Feedburner then this is important and needs a point on its own. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of bloggers forget to change the URL to the RSS feed in the header of their site, so when people subscribe via the address bar (shown below) they get the wrong URL.

To do this, go to your header.php file for your theme and find something that looks like this:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> RSS Feed” href=”<?php bloginfo(’rss2_url’); ?>” />

The part in bold is what you will want to change to match your RSS feed, so for my site I would put this:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> RSS Feed” href=”http://feeds2.feedburner.com/hqhow” />

Alternatively, you could use this feed to feedburner redirection plugin.

4. Stats Tracking

This is a relatively simple and obvious step, but needless to say, you need to know where your visitors are coming from. For stats tracking I use free services from both Google Analytics and BLVDStatus. BLVDStatus allows for live tracking of my visitors, while Google is better for more advanced reporting and in-depth stats checking.

Both sites will give you some form of javascript code which you should ideally place just before the end </body> tag in your code.

5. Optimise Titles

There are quite a few plugins out there that allow you to optimise your Wordpress titles; some of the most popular include the All-in-One SEO Pack and SEO Title Tag by Stephan Spencer.

Currently, I don’t use a plugin and actually changed my code manually, so in between the <title></title> tags in my theme header, I have the following code:

<title><?php if(is_home()) { echo ‘How to Make Money Online ~ HQHow‘; } else { wp_title(”) ;} ?></title>

The part that is in bold is for the homepage of the site, so you could change this to whatever you want. The code is then saying that if we are not on the homepage for the blog, just use the title of the post and nothing else. If you would like more control over this though, I recommend one of the plugins above.

Speaking of plugins…

6. Install Your Favourite Plugins

Everyone has their favourite plugins, but if you’re buiding a site for the first time it might help to get to know some of the ones available. A few that I like include:

• Brians threaded comments – this allows replies in comments, although newer versions of wordpress enable this
• Feed Footer – this allows you to add text to the bottom of your feed, I include a link to a free eBook but you can put anything there
• WP-Contact Form – created by Joost Devalk, this plugin lets you see the pages people visited or how they found your site before they contacted you, a good way to know if an email is just spam

Installing plugins can be tedious on older versions of Wordpress but it’s nice to see your site come together how you like it.

7. Subscribe to Your Own Feed

This is simple so I won’t rant on, but it amazes me at how many people don’t do this. It took me over a year to realise one my RSS feeds was severely broken and included no line breaks, occuring because of plugin conflict.

Subscribe to your own feed so you can see that things are getting formatted to your liking and you can test that it is actually working.

8. Put Together a Traffic & Income Strategy

This won’t be for everyone, but there are a lot of you out there who are looking to perhaps become full-time bloggers someday or at least earn some nice side cash from blogging. With this in mind, get 2 sheets of paper or open a word document and put a list of the things you plan to do in order to:

• Building Website Traffic
• Earn Money

If you don’t have a list then you have nothing to follow, and the chances are you aren’t going to be as efficient and effective with your goal as you would like to be. I now do this for every website and it’s worked out well for me.

9. Tweak Your Design

Of course, I couldn’t write this post without having an option to improve your design. While it’s great that there are so many themes available out there for the likes of Blogger and Wordpress, it’s still best if you tweak things a little. Even getting a nice logo can be the difference between a site that looks generic and a site that the owner really cares about.

That’s it! I would love to hear your additions in the comments…

DJ writes for HQHow, teaching people How to Make Money Online. He also offers a free eBook that you might enjoy, here.

Catching Eyeballs: 5 Steps To Transforming Visitors To Loyal Subscribers

By chetan On March 28, 2009 4 Comments

This is a guest post by Chetan Chauhan.

We, bloggers, are normally so busy writing articles and finding new traffic sources for our blogs that we forget that we already have some traffic coming to our blogs. And these visitors should be treated well so that they subscribe to our blogs.

Over 90% of bloggers find it difficult to increase their blog readers just because they don’t concentrate on converting their visitors to subscribers. So I formulated a 5 step plan that shows how to convert your visitors into readers.

#1 Attention: Draw Their Attention To Where You Want

The moment a visitors arrives, his attention should be drawn to your articles’ Titles. Its the articles that would make them your subscribers, not some Adsense or other type of advertisements.

#2 Interest: Show Them You Can Solve Their Problems

The visitor would only subscribe if you are able to clearly show how you can help him/her. This can be done in the following ways:

• Focus On Benefits, Not Features: In the article Titles don’t stress on features or the information, but the benefits. More people would read your article if it’s Title shows how the article can benefit him/her.
• Keep Them Glued To Your Articles: Long paragraphs look really boring, so keep them short. Enlist the benefits or information since lists are far more easy to read than paragraphs. Also, don’t forget to use Bold and Heading tags wherever necessary.

#3 Navigation: Give Them A Reason To Stay On Your Blog

You should make sure that your visitors find what they are really looking for. The navigation structure of your blog should be user friendly. Make sure all your popular posts are easily visible to the visitors. This would give him more helpful information and thus a reason to stay on your own blog.

#4 Trust: Make Them Understand You Are Behind The Blog

Trust is another factor that would give your visitor a reason to subscribe to your blog. In order to gain his/her trust, make sure you have an About page or an About widget on your blog, preferably with a photo of yours. Knowing that the blog is run by a living person and not by some script, he/she is more likely to subscribe.

#5 Action: Tell Them How To Subscribe, Simple

The last step, give your visitors easy options to subscribe. Remind them that they can easily subscribe to the future updates of your blog. Try to include subscriptions options right below the articles so that they see it every time they visit any of your article pages.

Also, don’t just put a link saying “Subscribe To RSS”. Many visitors might not know what is RSS. Instead, try something like “Subscribe To Our Future Updates” or “Get Future Posts Free”.

Bonus Tip

To summarize all this, don’t make your blog for search engines or for advertisements. Make your blog for your visitors. Trust is what would make them subscribe to you and, probably, buy from you. And trust is gained by giving your visitors what they want, by truly

Chetan Chauhan is the author of Page Rank Gameplan, a report on how to increase page rank.
how to increase page rank.

Five Reasons You Aren’t Blogging Correctly

By Leon On February 17, 2009 10 Comments

This article is guest posted by Leon from Monetize My Web.

The Internet is overflowing with useful information. No matter what you blog about (unless its personal), I can almost guarantee you that there will be at least 10 different articles somewhere that are about the same thing.

It’s not easy getting your blog noticed today, considering all of the options for readers out there. That’s why your first impression is your most important, and will determine whether the reader will ever return.

Presentation in a blog post is one of the most important things. If you cannot organize your thoughts and ideas correctly, people will have a harder time reading and interpreting them.

1) You aren’t using headings and formatting.

Headings in posts are one of the most important things. They provide a way for content to be divided up into sections. It also gives readers an idea of what they are going to read. It’s almost like a table of contents.

Formatting can be used to make certain information stand out. If a post is all plain text, a user won’t be able to tell exactly which part is more important. Use bold text to make text stand out, but remember,

IF YOU MAKE EVERYTHING BOLD, NOTHING IS BOLD.— Art Webb

2) Line Heights – It ain’t rocket science.

A lot of blogs that I see tend to not believe in line height. Lines of text are piled on to each other, line after line after line, all in one big chunk of text. It makes me claustrophobic!

I suggest that line height be at least 1.5em or something like that (50% more than default). This gives your eyes a little space, and it allows your brain to rest for a second or two. It’s like reading those long classics with small letters that are all jammed together, it makes your intention span last for about 10 seconds.

3) Every idea needs a paragraph

I don’t care how short your idea is, if its one sentence, or five, it needs its own paragraph.

Paragraphs, just like line heights, allow your eyes to relax a little before starting to read again. It separates chunks of information into short, easy to read blocks. Would you rather read this blog post the way it is, or would you rather read it all in one paragraph? I thought so.

4) The ‘list’ icon is there for a reason, silly!

Lists are one of the best ways to organize text. Plus, all humans just love to read lists. Why do you think there are all those ‘Ten Best WordPress Plugins’ or ‘Top Twenty Artists’ or whatever. As Carl said in a recent post, if you didn’t like lists, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

Another example, read the below two chunks of texts (Taken from the Advertise page.

This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online,’ has 5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily, is highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche, is one of the Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati, and is the top 68,013 website according to Alexa.

or…

• This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online
• 5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily
• Highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche
• Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati
• Top 68,013 website according to Alexa

Now, which was easier to read?

Should it be long or short?

Here’s the thing, why does it really matter? As long as your post is interesting to read, and gets the point across, then it could be 100 words, or 1000. As long as you use the above methods to organize your thoughts, it won’t really matter.

The problems however, are these:

If your post is short, it may be harder to get the amount of information that you want to. Your post may not be detailed enough, and be incomplete.

If your post is too long, then you may start repeating yourself. If you write a 5000 word essay, there’s a pretty good chance that you said the same thing in paragraph 7 as you did in 24. Also, I would rather read 200 words of information than 500 words of fluff. If you are going to give me fluff, then please, well, don’t.

So in the end, as long as you are giving details and information, and do not repeat yourself, it does not really matter. Just make sure that you post consistently. It’s better to post once every other day than post four times in one day, once two days later, and then not post for a week.