This article is part of the “Start A Blog And Make Money” series.

Simply put it, a blog is a website that is often updated with content called “blog posts”. Most often, the latest blog post will be shown at the top of the blog.

Someone who blogs is called a “blogger”. When a blogger updates his blog, he is “blogging”.

(Wow, I’m seriously not used to formal-ish writing. I’m not even good at grammar! :-))

Blogging has evolved A LOT since it first came out. Here are some types of blogs you might have heard of:

Personal blog

When it first came out, people used blogs to rant about what happened to their day, what they think of or in other words, they use it like a diary – a web diary.

Niche blog

From the word “niche market” or a very specific market, niche blogs cater specific markets. That’s why there are blogs out there specifically talking only about dogs, politics, cars, technology, etc.

Niche blogs are also the best way to make money online. We’re going to talk about this in the next post.

Splog

Since blogs are a big hit and it gets a lot of traffic, other web masters take advantage of it and make “spam” blogs called splogs. Splogs mostly contain content grabbed from other sites without their permission. Then they leverage it by posting ads.

In short, splogs suck.

Vlog/video blog

Videos – they’re a big hit right now. Well simply because, it’s easier than writing and you can express stuff better.

That’s why people have started these “vlogs” or video blogs. Instead of articles, they post videos.

Microblog

To make it short, a microblog is a blog with short blog posts.

Twitter and Tumblr. They are good examples of a microblog.

The Blogosphere

The blogosphere is the word most people use to cite the overall community of blogs. Say, “The blogosphere is growing rapidly” so when you say the “make money online blogosphere” it calls for the bloggers who are blogging about “make money online”

Why blog?

Easiest way to publish or put content online – No programming required!

From my personal experience, blogging is the easiest way to put content online. Almost all blogging softwares only requires you to fill up 2 forms, first for the blog post title and second for the blog post content – that’s it.

You can put almost anything on a blog

Articles, videos, audio, flash almost anything you could think of – remember it’s also a website.

You meet new people

This is possibly one of the best reasons why you should blog – you meet a lot of people.

If you have a niche blog, you’ll be able to meet bloggers who are in the same niche as you. Of course, you could turn those relationships to very profitable partnerships.

Quite frankly though, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people since I started blogging and I’m very thankful for that :)

Popularity

Most people blog for popularity alone. Now when you’re popular, it’ll be more easy to make money because you’ve got a following.

Do note that it’s optional to be popular. Because I know some people who just want the money but don’t want to be known. I understand that. But then again, I tell you, it’s more easy to make money when you’re popular.

Google LOVES blogs

Google LOVES websites that are often updated with content – and since with blogs, you can easily post content, Google loves em’

Therefore, it’ll be easier for blogs to battle out in Google’s search results.

Last but definitely not the least

(Since this is why you’re probably reading this post)

DRUMROLL PLEAAASEE…

You can make money.

How you’ll make money with a blog

The simple formula for making money on the internet is:

Traffic + Conversion = Money

(Sorry I didn’t make cool acronyms!)

Now since blogs are the easiest way to put content online, it can get you popular and Google loves em’ it’ll be easier for you to get Traffic – which is the hardest of the 2 in the formula.

The conversion part is how you “convert” those traffic into cash, which we will be discussing later after you’ve set up your blog.

And as always, I’d appreciate your comments below :-)

© Make Money Online

I see a lot of bloggers giving the tip “Traffic now, monetize later” then telling that it’s more important to concentrate on getting traffic and building readership first BEFORE you monetize your blog.

I don’t agree.

Now here’s the 3 reasons why you SHOULD monetize your blog before even launching it:

Yes it is important to get traffic and build a good relationship to your readers…

But why not do it while monetizing your blog?

It only takes several minutes to setup some simple monetization for a blog – or if you’re like me who can’t figure out HTML, it’s going to take a couple of hours but after that it’s good to go :-)

Why you shouldn’t monetize your blog now

There’s a downside though.

Monetizing your blog can make you a bit statsaholic and make you check your Affiliate account/Adsense account from time to time. While you see cents everyday, it drives your focus of generating good content for your blog away.

But the way I see it, it’s a matter of discipline. Time will come, you’ll have to monetize your blog. So why not start disciplining your self to stop checking your accounts and prioritize tasks?

P.S. Thru some stroke of luck, I finally got an HD cam. HOOORAAH :-)

P.S.S. Please excuse the video, it’s weird. I tried this “Youtube style” video editing where they cut stall moments so it looks like you’re continually talking.

© Make Money Online

This article is guest posted by ZK.

When I first started to blog , I thought that by posting a few articles on the blog and promoting it via articles directories, a few social network sites I would drive hoards of traffic to my blog. That did not happen, along the way I made a few mistakes. Below are some of the mistakes that I made hopefully you can avoid doing the same

Do not start on unfamiliar topics

If you are a beginner and are starting on a topic then you should keep in mind that you should start on topics which are you are familiar with. There are many bloggers who start with topics on how to make money using their blogs, they have hardly been successful. So it is better to start on topics which you are familiar with.

Blogging on “me too” topics or articles

Avoid using topics and articles that have been covered on other blogs. While starting a blog plan on it and try making it resourceful for the readers. People would visit your blog again and again only if it has something to offer for them. If your blog has something useful then it is definite to spread among the community of people who take interest in it and they would make it again and again to your blog.

Not devoting enough time on your blog

In general, blogs take time to gain momentum and to become popular among users. So it is necessary to give enough time for your blog to start off and do not give up early on it. Give it the necessary and time and effort to make it successful.

Not interacting outside your blog community

It is important to share your views with other bloggers and writing on good content in your blog doesn’t mean that you needn’t interact with other bloggers and comment on their blogs. In fact it is a part of the blogging game to stay in touch with others as this not only improves the number of readers you have but also important for your success in building your own community.

Choose the right platform

Choose the right type of blogging platform rather than choosing the easy type of blogging platform. Though it requires a person to be familiar with the type of platform he/she is going to blog on, one necessarily has to choose the right type of platform which would serve the purpose rather than making things simple. Instead of being lazy you can choose to learn and get comfortable with the one which stands the purpose. I recommend you to start blogging on Wordpress.org , it give great flexibility in building a resourceful blog.

Overload of ads

Having ads on your blog is not that bad an idea. But what one has to remember is that these ads should never hurt the content of the blog. There are many disadvantages of having too many ads in your blog. It is definitely going to hurt on your readers count because of a number of reasons and factors. First of all too many ads create loading problems and when the page loads the presence of too many is going to affect the content by pushing it below them thereby irritating many readers. So it is necessary to exercise control on the ads and widgets which you have in your blog.

Make great posts with great titles

After you have devoted enough attention to everything in the list do make it a point to improve on the titles of your posts. You might have made the best post but lack of good titles is definitely going to get fewer readers for your blog post.

What were the mistakes that you made when you first started to blog?

ZK blogs at WebTrafficROI , a blog that helps you succeed in your Web Marketing business.

© Make Money Online

This article is guest posted by Brian Garvin.

If you haven’t gotten your first blog up yet, I really need to honestly ask you why? I mean there are a myriad of positive reasons and great things that can happen to you if you would just buckle down and get on a consistent blogging regimen. I won’t have time in this article to cover all the reasons, but I will cover some of the main reasons.

There are 2 primary ways you can earn a living blogging, and one way isn’t necessarily better than the other. It’s totally a matter of personal preference. You can go one extreme to the other or anywhere in between. The beauty is you blog for yourself so you get to call the shots. You can develop 3-5 authority sites with 1000 or more posts each that make a couple grand or more monthly each within 2-3 years, or you can develop 100 or so mini blogs that average about $40.00 per month each covering a wide variety of different niche topics.

The two courses that taught me all I needed to know at least to get started in Niche Marketing was Joel Petersons The Mini Site Formula and Brian G. Johnson’s Commission Ritual. Everything from Blog Settings to Camtasia Videos was covered. These two courses gave me the technical and marketing skills to start blogging on a serious level.

Also keep in mind that the more content you put out there the quicker you will reach your goals. I also want to make a note that when I build out an authority blog covering a lot of posting, which I’ll spend months or years on, I don’t pay much attention to keyword research. My focus when building these is to cover anything and everything I can related to the industry I’m blogging about. However when I build out small nichey style blogs, I use Market Samurai and use preferred keywords to build out all my pages.

Reasons To Start Blogging Today

1.) Literally each blog post you make will get you closer to your goal. If you wait for the perfect day or some angel to tap you on the shoulder and give you the green light chances are you’ll keep missing the train. Get started blogging as soon as possible.

2.) You only have to build it once and for the most part it will last forever. Maintenance will become extremely simple compared to initially setting up and building out your blogs. The sooner you get started the sooner you’ll get finished. You should be able to get on authority site finished in about 8-10 months and if you work a full week you should get 2 mini blogs up within one week. And once you start working on these time will start flying, at least it did for me.

3.) Right now I can tell you from personal experience that with no special luck, no special connections and no special favors you can retire in 2-3 years pretty comfortably blogging if you are consistent. I have a friend that got out of the Army last year. His retirement check is about $2200 per month. God Bless our brave Heroes, he earned every penny and it will probably keep the wolves away from his door forever. But you can earn this type of residual income blogging within 2 years. This analogy I hope will put things in some perspective.

4.) Learning how to blog, market and monetize your niche blogs properly takes a few months and not years to learn. And it’s cheaper to learn than going back to school.

5.) You’ll make money blogging no matter what. And although SEO is a science, it’s also natural. You really can’t screw things up if you go by the rules. Although you can’t control what google will do, the law of averages will always win out in the end. Too many people get discouraged way too soon. You have to give it a chance and be willing to work for months without expecting any major results.

6.) You only have to build the traffic to your blogs ONE time and you’ll get paid on your efforts forever. Since you are the one generating the traffic through your marketing efforts you control the traffic. The more you blog and market the more traffic you’ll send to your sites. I always take each blog post and submit it to each of the major article directories so each post has backlinks. This is crucial and if you don’t do this you can almost halt your efforts.

7.) If you use a Blogging Theme like Carl Ocab’s Ultimate Blogging Theme, you’ll even be able to sell advertising space once you start getting large amounts of traffic to your blog. Imagine spending just one year making one authority blog that gets about 1000 visitors per day within a year. This is very realistic if you crank out 3 articles per day or 90 per month. Each of the Ten 125×125 ad spaces on the right that come with UBT can quickly be sold for $55.00 per month each. So if you sell all 10 that’s $550.00 per month just from this and from just one website!

If you are consistent with blogging it’s very realistic to expect retirement type income within 2-3 years, as long as you study niche marketing and are consistent, stick to your plan and don’t let all the “Make $87,835 Per Month With Adsense” ads discourage you. Sure you’ll make a few mistakes along the way. You might even have to redo some settings and tweek your systems a few times, but that’s what separates the winners from the losers.

The winners in blogging are the ones who decide to go that extra mile and solve problems as they arise. Remember losers make excuses as to why they can’t solve problems, winners fix them as they come about. And yes I never said this wouldn’t be a lot of work. Not just a lot of work, but at least for me it was also about a 3 month learning curve to learn the skills I needed to put up these types of sites and over 100 videos I needed to watch.

I had to learn which plug-ins to use, how to setup the blog so it was SEO friendly, how to have articles ghost written, what directories I needed to submit them to, how to create and submit Camtasia Videos. You get the idea. So the learning isn’t easy, and there is a lot of work involved. But depending on how you view it the work can be considered fun, especially if you are in love with a particular niche or have a lot of knowledge about it. I hope these Blogging Tips give you a bit more insight and focus and will give you a better idea of what it will take for you to achieve your long term blogging goals.

Let Brian Garvin and Jeff West teach you more about Multi Level Marketing and Yoli Blast Caps on our website today. See for yourself what an Ultimate Blogging Theme can look like.

© Make Money Online

This article is guest posted by Brian and Jeff.

There is a heavy misconception in the Blogging World that in order to Blog about a particular topic and turn it into an Authority Site, you need to have gone to school for years on the subject or do it everyday at work. I’d say that statement is about 10% true and I’m going to tell you why in a minute. All you have to do to create an Authority Site is learn about the subject you want to start Blogging about. But it doesn’t take that long.

You can Become a Blogging Expert in any topic in just a matter of a few weeks. I don’t see anyone writing about this, but just about each skill, trade and subject out there to create a Blog around has it’s own set of custom lingo or terms of the trade. For example in Network Marketing there are terms like jump ship, which means to go from one program to another. If you wanted to start Blogging on the subject of Network Marketing you’d want to be familiar with all the comp plans.

So to Become a Blogging Expert in a niche find out what you want to start blogging about. That’s the first step. Then do a search on google and make sure at least a few adsense ads come up. This is a 30 second test to make sure the niche you want to enter is commercially viable. Then go online and do some research and learn the trade lingo.

Another example is if you wanted to Create a Blog on Insurance you’d learn all the terms and lingo relating to the Insurance Industry. There are great clickbank programs and especially awesome CPA Programs in this field. Also go to your bookstore and get a $15.00 Dummies Book or even visit Half Dot Com and get a used book. Read it from cover to cover.

This is the learning formula for getting the required knowledge in a certain area that will allow you to blog on the subject and to create a high quality blog. After reading one good book on the subject and doing some online research you should have enough knowledge to write as many articles as you want on the subject. You will also gain critical insights into how the industry works so you can review similar articles for ideas and interject your own ideas for a blog that is 100% unique content.

I’ve personally viewed hundreds of blogs that are setup in many different niches that are totally built with RSS feeds and none of their own unique content. They are usually ranked a PR0 which means Google doesn’t really value these blogs at all. In order for Google to value your blog you have to write the articles yourself or have them written by a Ghost Writer.

Ghost Writers do have their uses. In fact we’ve used them a lot in the last couple years. But in the last 90 days I’ve made an interesting discovery and for the most part have stopped using them. We have a great repoir with the major article directories now, and what we’ve discovered is they prefer to see new content trickle in over a period of time verses getting bombarded with a bunch of Ghost Written articles all at once.

So what my program is now to build our Blog is that I will personally write 3 articles per day. Sometimes I’m feeling great and write 4-5 but as a general rule I write just three. I’ll write for other blogs in a related niche and give them unique content and I’ll also write for article directories and submit duplicate content to most of these. Personally I rarely post comments however I’m not against this as I know many benefit a lot from it, but I prefer to stick to writing since I love it so much.

There are a couple other reasons I’ve been shying away from Ghost Writers recently. One reason is the cost. If I can write just 3 articles per day at $6.00 per article, that’s $18.00 per day or $540.00 of value per month I’ve put into my business that I’ve saved. This is arguably a lot of money to save each month.

The other reason is that a Ghost Writer usually isn’t usually an expert in the particular niche you want them to write about, so the articles you have them write have a tendency to be too general. People will see this and it can negatively reflect on your business. Plus I’ve had to do a lot of editing on articles I’ve had Ghost Written, like high Keyword Density issues. I’ve had to go back and remove the main keyword so the Article Directories would accept it.

After all the trial and error of marketing over 11 years online, I’ve come to the realization that one is better off creating 1-2 authority blogs in particular niches they know a lot about and use this as the foundation of your career. Then writing 1-3 articles per day and submitting them to the major article archives. If you do this after 6-9 months, your blog will start getting lots of attention. Eventually you will get a lot of traffic and you can now start to sell advertising and make extra money with Google Adwords.

I also recommend finding the Hottest Affiliate Program in your niche and make it your main program on your blog as you build it out. You should get the Simple Link Cloaker Wordpress Plugin. Then create a cloaked link and call it “mainprogram” or something easy to remember. Then as you create each post, insert that cloaked link in all of your posts using your main keyword as the anchor text. As you create more and more posts and get more and more backlinks over time, you’ll drive more traffic to your main affiliate program.

I recommend you do this until you start making one sale per day and if it’s a CPA offer do it until you are at $100.00 per day. It’s imperative you build out your blog with one master cloaked link for your Primary Affiliate Program because if the program goes south it only takes you one minute to change the link to a competitor program to ensure none of the work you’ve been doing became a waste of your valuable time.

I think that’s the biggest mistake most Amateur Bloggers make. They don’t centralize all their Affiliate Marketing and traffic operations and structure them in such a way so they maintain total control. They will link from their offsite articles directly to an Affiliate Program, and when that program dies or they stop paying out, all that SEO work they put into promoting their main program was wasted. What’s worse is this discourages some people so much they may even quit and this is a trajedy.

If you set things up right, you can keep driving more and more traffic to your Blog until eternity and virtually guarantee your income will keep rising each month. And remember that ALL your offsite articles need to link only to your Blog, keep all links within your Blog Posts Cloaked so you can update your Affiliate Links from one centralized place in your Wordpress Back Office, and no Affiliate Program Managers can ever take advantage of you.

If you follow all of these rules and work hard, you will Become a Blogging Expert in your niche over the next 1-3 years. Remember keep posting and focus on constantly ramping up the traffic and the sales will come by proxy. We wish you the best of luck with all your future publishing.

Learn more about Simple Internet Marketing and Cell Phone Marketing from MLM Review Kings Brian Garvin & Jeff West.

© Make Money Online

This article is guest posted by Brian and Jeff.

When the subject of how to Earn Residual Income From Home comes up, most people get it all wrong. The problem is there are a lot of Internet Marketing courses that have been coming out lately that over complicate things too much. So lets break things down a bit so even the freshest of newbies can get started. Anyone can Earn Residual Income From Home Blogging but you need to be aware of the proper steps to get there.

The first thing you need to do is you need to eliminate your initial confusion by deciding what you want to blog about. Believe it or not most people don’t even get this far. What are you good at? And is your Blogging topic commercially viable? There’s a simple test to figure this out. Search for what you want to blog about on Google. If at least 4 adsense ads pop up you can Earn Residual Income From Home Blogging about this subject. Plain and simple.

The next thing you want to do is to get a domain name. This should cost you less than $10.00. Some will say to get your domain based on some keyword you want to rank for. I can’t really say I agree with this, unless the domain name also makes sense to a searcher. The most important thing when choosing a domain name is to choose one that will brand your purpose well once your blog eventually becomes an Authority Blog.

Now you need to go out and find Low Cost Website Hosting. You can build an Authority Blog that will earn you a consistent Residual Income From Home for less than $10.00 per month.

Next you need to choose a Blog Theme that makes sense. We use Carl Ocab’s Ultimate Blogging Theme for $67.00 and we really love it. We make about $1200 per month on our MLM Authority Site with it. Not bad return for a $67.00 investment. This website gets 800 or more unique visitors per day now.

So once you have your Domain Name, Blogging Theme and Hosting you will need to make sure you have the proper Wordpress Plugins installed. Here are a list of the ones we use. Don’t worry, these are all free.

• Add Twitter
• Akismet
• All in One SEO Pack
• CommentLuv
• Facebook Dashboard Widget
• Google Analytics For Wordpress
• Google XML Sitemaps
• ILWP Simple Link Cloaker
• KeywordLuv
• ShareThis
• Facebook Status Updater
• Top Commentators Widget
• Tweet This
• Twitter Tools
• UBD Ad Block Plugin

Once these free Wordpress Plugins are installed, you are now ready to start to build on your blog and Earn Residual Income From Home. I’m going to give you the formula, and this formula will be free and very simple.

What you want to do is write 1-3 500 word articles each day. You want these articles you write to include the targeted keyword you are going for once in the title, 1-2 times in the description and about once per paragraph in the article, but go a bit light on this. For example if you have a 700 word article you might insert the keyword 5 times verses 7 times. Swipe a nice free clipart image off the Internet relating to the blog post you are making. Posts look 500% better with images and even related videos.

Then you will submit each post you just put on your blog to all the top article directories. Here they are:

• Ezine Articles
• Idea Marketers
• Buzzle
• Article Snatch
• Article Dashboard
• Articles Base
• Articles Factory
• Hubpages

This is so simple but so effective it’s almost unreal. But this is my program I’ve been doing for the last 4 months. It took us from 400-800 visitors per day in just 90 days. And I don’t ever pay anything for my traffic. I think in the next 3-6 months of submitting content at this rate our website will really be at over 1000 hits per day.

The key to making this work is consistency, and I can not emphasize this enough. Do not get side tracked on the latest get rich quick plot. Do your Blogging, get off the computer for a while and get balance in your life. The Blogging Game is a marathon not a sprint. Remember, people like Yaro Starak, Carl Ocab, Rob Benwell, Alvin Phang and Darren Rowse have been blogging for years.

And the cool thing is someday you can be like them, but you have to get started. I’ve just given you the entire formula to do this. If you decide to take action, a year from now you’ll be laughing when you check your Google Analytics account and see how many places you are getting traffic from. Trust me on this. And the momentum will never stop until you stop Blogging. This is how you Earn Residual Income From Home.

Let Brian Garvin & Jeff West teach you more about Simple Internet Marketing and Cell Phone Marketing at MLM Review Kings today. And best of luck with your Online Blogging plans!

© Make Money Online

This article is guest posted by Melvin from MelvinBlog.com

Many bloggers are notorious for doing things at the wrong time. May it be trying to cash out too quick, or trying to do too much. I said “wrong time” because most bloggers follow the established bloggers too much that they tend to imitate what the latter is doing. I’m not saying its wrong but it’s not good because established bloggers have one thing we may not have yet (or Carl only does have here) and that is good reputation

A Blog Is a Good Reputation Management Tool

Contrary on what it used to be before, a blog is a useful tool for carving out one’s reputation. I know first time bloggers start blogging primarily because of money and I can’t blame them for that. But one underrated thing is that it brings a lot of good things more than just the money thing. Blogging gives out an online brand for yourself and it wouldn’t take long before it would start raking in reputations (hopefully for all good reasons).

Why not look around? Guys like Darren Rowse, Shoemoney, Daniel Scocco, yes they are making good amount of money with their blog but how has their reputation in their blog paved the way for more opportunities for themselves and their business? Because they have good reputation, a lot of people trust them. Because of their name, a lot of people are willing to do joint ventures with them and because they are famous a lot of fellow marketers respect them!

What Can You Get With Good Reputation?

I’ve always been told that before a company or a person do business with you, they search your name in search engines. This is so true. Just existing in the index of Google is not enough. You have to exist for the good reasons. You, being able to be known as a good influence can lead to a lot of good things that are way better than just making a direct income from blog. It includes:

• Getting invited to large conferences
• Being able to speak in seminars
• More business opportunities
• Irresistible Offers from some top notch companies in your niche
• Unique Brand for yourself

Those are just few things that you could be eligible with when you start gaining that reputation. These things are obviously better than just making money directly from your blog and these would lead to a lot of good opportunities that could very much make you and your business more profitable.

Wait patiently and Just Work Your Way Up

It is essential for us bloggers to be patient. It will initially take certain amount of time for a certain blogger to gain popularity, much more to gain good reputations. Sadly, a lot seemed to give up already and they just instead focus on milking their blog too much that it hurts their readership and reputation. Patience is a big factor here and it having the right mindset is essential to achieve it.

How about you? Are you risking yourself too much because you want to have that money quick? Do you also believe reputation can be your biggest asset as a blogger? I would be very much elated to hear what you guys would like to say.

Melvin is a young entrepreneur and student who has been doing internet marketing related stuffs for more than 2 years now.  He shares his experience and ramblings in his blog in w/c you can subscribe. He also uses Twitter and hopes to get followed by more people.

© Make Money Online

One of the questions I get asked most of the time is…

“How do you do it? You’ve got school, friends, (girls?) + this huge business thingy. How do you do it?”

Before I start blabbing about the “ceremonies” and “chants” that I do that help me handle all those stuff, I’d like to tell you upfront that…

I AM THE WORST TIME MANAGER EVER.

Goofyness aside, I am. I am always late at almost all stuff + I keep forgetting things (Heck, there was once a time that I asked my dad where my iPhone was and it was just in my hands!)

Here’s The Secret…

That was kinda cheesy, but here’s how I do it…

(Some are from personal experience and some are those stuff that really, has worked from the start.)

1. Get Into A “Spell”

This is probably the hardest part to do for me back then. Sounds very simple, but very hard to do.

The thing is, you should get “in” to a spell – or a “work trance”. When you’re in that spell, you can do almost anything, even if it’s the most boring task, when you’re in a spell, it’ll be hard to stop you.

Now here’s a little technique I do to get in to that spell…

What I’ll do is I’d start my day with a very easy task. A task that I like to do – say firing up Photoshop and whipping out banners or arranging computer files (hey, I like doing it. OCD?) Then progress on complicated tasks to the most boring tasks.

Now what happens is that the easy tasks will get me in the mood so as Iprogress to the most boring tasks, I’m already in that “work trance”.

I wouldn’t recommend starting your day with emails because you’ll definitely get lost with who you are talking to. Starting your day with your daily reads isn’t a good idea for me also.

2. Daily To Do List

This is probably the most overused tactic.

But hey, this is VERY crucial – without a daily to-do list, I’d be lost and probably would wander off to Youtube after 10 minutes of work.

Making a to-do list could be one of the very easy task you can do to get into that “spell” too. Takes me around 5-10 minutes.

One of the most important things you should do is to prioritize tasks, or arrange them from easy to hard if there’s no time constraint to help you get into a spell.

By the way, I use Google Tasks on gmail.

3. Cross Out Finished Tasks

I didn’t know that little things like this would matter – but when you finish tasks, it’s important that you cross them out or make a mark or something that tells that you have successfully completed it.

This will give you a sense of accomplishment, and if you’re like me, you’d feel more relaxed.

4. CLOSE Distractions

The biggest distractions that I have are Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Email and Youtube. And one of the biggest mistakes I made to avoid these distractions is to put a status message on Skype, Yahoo and Gmail…

“Busy”

or

“Message if important only”

Now what happens there is that yes, the number of people who message me reduces BUT the “temptation” (is that the right word?) to talk to someone is still there. Heck, even to look who’s online.

So here’s what I did.. I CLOSED IT.

That also applies to websites that waste your time – Youtube, Facebook, Flickr all sorts.

But there’s always a temptation to open it again right?

Block it.

You can simply block a website by going to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc then opening “hosts” with notepad. (Note: to Vista users, open notepad first as an administrator then open the “hosts” file) then adding….

“127.0.0.1       website.com”

under

“127.0.0.1       localhost”

5. The Stop Play Music Routine

I don’t know why and how this works, but it serves me very well.

The idea is, to play 3 of my favorite songs in a row to start my day.

Although I did mention before to turn the music off, I found out something better…

When the first song starts, I’d go ahead with my first easy task to get into that “spell” then when the 3rd song is in the half way, I’d stop it and just continue working afterwards – this really gets me in the mood.

I don’t know, maybe the first 2 songs gets me to that “spell” then stopping at the 3rd song helps me concentrate to the tasks instead of the song.

6. Take Notes, Don’t Act Right Away

Yes, they say that without action, you won’t get anything.

But, with action PLUS the right timing, you’ll get everywhere.

So when you’re in the middle of a task and an idea or an additional task pops out of your brain – right it down and get to it later on after you finish what you’re currently doing.

7. NO!

Learn to say no.

There are stuff that won’t really benefit you that much, learn to say no to interviews, to meetups, to speaking engagements.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to say it with an all caps “NO!” but you don’t want to beat around the bush as well. Be frank, but polite.

8. Delegate & Automate

This changed my life.

And I hope this will change their life too.

The thing is, I’m not really like the master of internet marketing. There are a lot of stuff that I don’t know how to do. I can’t even code or touch a single php script.

Not to mention, how I suck at copywriting and PPC.

But here’s the secret… I let other people do these stuff for me.

Since I got my first fulltime employee working for me, the time I spent on my business is less but I’m still able to maintain the income.

Your “Techniques”?

These stuff are just some of my personal techniques – and I can’t even say that I’m “that” productive – I’m able to do stuff nonetheless.

So if you’ve got something that really keeps you productive, I’d love to hear it :)

© Make Money Online

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.

© Make Money Online

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.

© Make Money Online