My Success Diary

How to Become a Better Blogger

January 9th, 2009 2 Comments

The next installment of my series on blogging will have to do with how to become a better blogger. These are some things I’ve noticed over the past few years since I’ve started blogging.

Talk to a Friend

I’ve learned that an engaging, friendly style is best when it comes to blog posts. You should be able to hear the bloggers voice, as if they’re talking to a friend or emailing someone they know very well. Now that’s not to say the writing should be sloppy. I find myself ignoring punctuation every now and then when emailing my sister, for example, but one can’t fall into that trap while blogging. The style needs to be friendly but still professional.

Don’t Overdo the Ads

I don’t like visiting blogs that have Adsense all over the place. A pet peeve is scrolling down a half a page just to skip past the ads. I don’t mind if the ads are in the posts, as long I can still see the text. In other words, I understand that you may be trying to make money from your blog – most of us are! Just make sure the ads are tasteful.

Reply to the Comments

I like a blogger who will reply to my comments – it makes me want to return to the blog. If I see that they ignore their comments, I am less likely to visit the blog often. Make the blog interactive and people will respond to that!

Build Up Your Links

This is something that I didn’t do at first, and now I am playing catchup. Building up your arsenal of links coming in to your blog is important because it helps increase traffic and also helps with the search engines. You can do it yourself by doing the following:

Article marketing using sites like ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com
Creating a Squidoo Lens – or several!
Do the same with Hub Pages
Create free blogs at sites like blogger.com and wordpress.com and linking back to your blog.

Start a List

Yes, having a list makes you a better blogger because it allows you to interact with your readers more. Plus, if they liked your blog enough to sign up, they’ll want to return – and they may need a gentle reminder. Make it worth their while by handing out something for free, like an ebook in a subject that they’ll find useful.

I’m interested in hearing from all of you. Feel free to share with me your thoughts and what you’ve learned as a blogger.

Like this tips? Check out Blogging to the Bank for even more great ideas on making money as a blogger.

Participate in my PLR Giveaway!

January 8th, 2009 Comments Off

Last night, I noticed I had 595 followers – five away from 600. Someone on my Twitter friends list, DrDollars, asked me if I was going to give anything away to the next five followrs to encourage them. I thought hmm, that’s something I hadn’t thought of. So I said yes, thought about it, and told him what I decided.

Last Night’s Giveaway

In about a month, maybe more, I’ll be launching a PLR website. When the site launches, I’ll have about fifty PLR packs available for sale. More packs will be added to the site as they’re created. But at the time of the launch, there will be 50 up for sale.

So, I decided to give these 5 people one of the PLR packs. They’ll have exclusive rights for a month until the site launches. They also get to choose the topic. It didn’t take long to get those five new followers. I woke up with ten more followers in my inbox. I wonder how many of these were attracted to my timeline because of the giveaway?

New Rules for the Giveaway

The good news is, the giveaway lives on. I am continuing it and I want you all to participate. Over the course of the next two weeks, I will be announcing randomly in various places throughout the net when another giveaway will take place and what the rules are.

All you need to do is keep an eye out on the following places:

** This blog

** My twitter timeline

** At the Warrior Forum – my sig line, anywhere in the forum, maybe as a WSO (but you won’t need to pay)

** My plurk timeline

** In Facebook – check my wall and the notes

** My List – sign up using the box to the right

** The Niche Blogger forum – if you’re a member there, I’m kohuether. Since it’s a member site, I won’t be doing a lot of giveaways here because I don’t want you to feel like you need to sign up. I just know the PLR will help a lot of people there.

Announcements will be made completely out of the blue. An example (and this isn’t real) would be “the first person to comment on this post will get a PLR pack” or whatever else I can think of. I am going to be doing this for a while because I am not stopping until all 50 of my initial packs are going to be given away.

And you’ll be guaranteed to have exclusive use for at least a month. I’ll put all the details in your pack when I send it off, including the date of when it will go live for purchase on the site.

Increase Profits with Microblogging Through Community Building

January 5th, 2009 2 Comments

: Image via CrunchBase

Are you wondering how to use microblogging to increase your profits? First of all, this concept for me isn’t really about the money – not entirely. I do look at it as a good way to promote my blogs, websites, lenses, and other we 2.0 profiles. But, I thought I’d explore the concept about using microblogging to help us all make more money online.

I’ve been a member of twitter since last summer at around this time. I now have over 1000 tweets and over 200 followers. It’s been a productive year so far. And lately, some of my twitter followers have been tweeting about Plurk – which I’ve come to think of as a site that’s similar to twitter, but with it’s own twists. Those are the only two sites I use for the moment.

What is Microblogging?

MicroBlogging is a form of social networking. People make short updates of around 140 characters throughout the day. You find “followers”, “friends”, and “fans” depending on the site you use. When I first signed up for twitter, my first thought was – why would people care about what I’m doing? When I realized that you could make it fun as well as professional, everyone wins.

Use It to Get Traffic

My top use for microblogging is to use it to help me get traffic. When I write another blog post, I have a routine. I ping it, announce that I wrote it on twitter and plurk, and then stumble and digg it if I think it was particularly good. But of those, microblogging has been the most valuable. The traffic I get from Stumbleupon is a little fleeting. The visitors don’t seem to stay as long, and they rarely comment. The visitors I get from plurk and twitter hang around longer, read the articles, comment, and they’re likely to come back. I do a similar thing for my hubs and squidoo lenses.

Putting Affiliate Links in Your Updates

I’ve heard that some people put the affiliate links they are promoting directly into their updates. I’ve heard of people doing it. I’ve even tried it once or twice – with no results at all. I personally think the best method is to write an article or a blog post about the affiliate product and paste the affiliate link within it. Then, once it’s published, include the link to the blog post or article, not the link.

I think it’s a tacky and unprofessional to put the affiliate URL directly into the updates. So I don’t do it. And frankly, it’s annoying. I don’t mind sharing an original article or website that may have an affiliate link in it, though.

Meet New People

Another valuable thing that microblogging has done for me is help me meet new people – colleagues. As someone who works from home, I miss out on the benefits of conversing and meeting people “at work”. Well, I’ve heard people call these spots a nice “water cooler” and I feel as if that’s accurate, at least when it comes to the social aspect.

If I’m feeling stuck on something, I spend some time on one of the two sites (or both). If I need to ask people a question on what I’m stuck on, such as installing a template or figuring out something else on my blog, I’ll ask my friends on the site. After you build relationships, the people are more likely to respond to you when you share a link, ask someone to stumble or digg your latest article, etc.

What is it that you like the most about twitter, plurk, or any of the other microblogging sites?

My Current Routine for Making Money Online

December 30th, 2008 4 Comments

Lately, my “make money” routine has included a bit of everything. Writing, blogging, internet marketing, revenue sharing…. I thought I’d share with you my exact schedule of events. I do this 5-10 times a week. My day is grouped into roughly four different parts.

Checking Stats and Emails

Check all email accounts
Log into affiliate networks to view progress
Check other affiliate programs to view progress
View my blog stats. I put Statcounter on all my blogs.

Revenue Sharing Sites

eHow.com – My favorite all time revenue sharing site. I love the sense of community and the fun style of writing.
Today.com – I have two blogs on the site – This Girl Cooks and Writer Girl. I am working on promoting them and posting on them each day so I can build up a nice income stream.
Bukisa.com – I just started writing with them about a week ago. It seems to have potential! So far, I’ve made about $1 but I know enough about these sites to understand that the earnings will increase considerably over time.
Squidoo.com – This site has been a favorite of mine for several years and I still work on my lenses off and on. They have a revenue sharing model plus you can promote affiliate programs on it.

Writing Tasks

I am still pursuing freelance writing. The only differences between now and the past is that I am no longer writing for clients, just for a byline.

Write in journal and do writing exercises
Work on screenplay or other current project
Write queries
Submit any finished works such as poems or short stories
Pursue travel writing
Get back into food writing
Creative writing

I don’t do all of these tasks every day. However, I do try to work on at least one or two of these.

Internet Marketing Projects

Work on my blogs
Social networking
Any other project I have in the queue

Write now, my main project is to change KatherineHuether.com into a portfolio and bio site.

How do I find time for all of this? I type very, very fast.

Easy Steps on How to Promote a Blog

December 27th, 2008 Comments Off

Learning how to promote a blog will determine whether or not you’ll find success. You could set up a blog that looks great, has wonderful content, and is monetized perfectly. But unless you promote it, people won’t know it’s there. If you want to maximize your traffic and your earnings, you’ll need to get the word out.

Article Marketing

The formula is simple. Write articles of around 350-500 words and submit them to places like goarticles.com and ezinearticles.com. At the end of the article, put the link to your blog. If you write a great article and people read it and like it, they’ll click on the link for more great content.

Social Networking

You can build up a reputation on sites like myspace.com, facebook.com, and linkedin.com. You can put a link to your blog in your profile. That way, people can find your site if they like what you have to say on the site.

Forum Marketing

The best way to use forums to market your website is to build up a reputation of being a good contributor to the site. Then, add your website to the signature. Wait until you have around 50 posts and that you like the forum community and then add your link to the signature. And, always make sure you follow the rules on the forum and don’t SPAM.

Social Bookmarking

Stumbleupon has been invaluable to my site. I get a fair amount of traffic after I stumble my best posts. I don’t stumble everything, only the ones that seem to have a great headline and useful site content. Posts like “this is what I did today” I don’t stumble. I’ll more than likely stumble this one.

Microblogging Platforms

I personally live this. I use twitter, but I also know that people use plurk and there may be some others. As soon as I make a post, I announce it on twitter. I get a handful of readers a day from this but as my friends list increases, so do my amount of hits.

Pay Per Click Advertising

This is something I have not tried but I know that some people have found this to be helpful. I may try this in the future but until then, I have no idea how to do it.

Lenses and Hubs

I use hubpages and squidoo all the time. I create a lens or a hub, add a link to my blog, and also add the RSS feed close to the end. I get a fair amount of clicks a day using this method for generating traffic. The key is to provide good content on the lenses and hubs that relates to the subject of the blog.

Great Content is Key

My advice to you would be to choose one or two methods and focus on those until you start seeing results. But remember this – no amount of promotion can help you if you’re not providing good content. If you provide information that people enjoy reading, you’ll have more repeat visitors and get free press as people talk about your posts. This happens to me – I’ve had people feature my blog on roundup type posts after posting an article that they liked.

How to Organize Your Home and Office

December 23rd, 2008 Comments Off

I thought I’d spend some time talking about organizing your home and your office. For people like me who work at home, both are equally as important. If things feel cluttered and messy, I am not as creative and productive as I’d like to be. And an increase in clutter means I’ll be spending even more time cleaning. Not good.

So, I thought I’d come up with an action plan that will whip my house into shape quickly. My husband and I are planning a major move, and I want to get rid of things and organize everything before the movers come. And, I want to be as productive as possible.

Sign up at the Fly Lady. This is someone who’s “been there, done that” and can help you get your house (and even your body!) into shape.
Get rid of all visible clutter. I know, several years of shoving things in drawers has taken its toll on my organizational system (if one ever existed). But it is so important to make the house look nice before I get started organizing or else I’ll get discouraged.
Start in one corner of the house and work my way around. I plan on starting in the cleanest corner so I can start off with a sense of accomplishment.

So, how quickly can I do this? I don’t know – it depends on how long I work each day at it. Today I would be lucky to get five minutes in but that’s better than nothing. Other days I may have several hours to work on it. The important thing is to do something each day, even if it’s small.

How to Setup a Free Blog for Profit

December 23rd, 2008 1 Comment

Before I share this article on how to setup a free blog, let me just say that I think it’s much better to have a blog with its own domain. I did the free blog thing when I first started out and it proved to be a waste of time. However, it can be a good way to practice blogging without paying for the domain and the hosting. If this is your path, you will find this article helpful.

Some Advantages to Using the Free Sites

However, there are some advantages to setting up a site on a free platform first:

You can make sure you enjoy blogging on the topic without spending your hard earned money.
Test the idea and see if you can develop an interested audience. If the idea is a good one and your traffic increases, you can move the blog over to its own site.
If you decide not to go through with the idea, you didn’t lose any money.
A great way to hone your blogging skills without losing money.

Choose a Blog Platform

Once you come up with the idea for your blog, your next step is to choose a blog platform. Here are some of them:

http://www.livejournal.com/
http://www.blogger.com
http://www.tumblr.com
http://www.wordpress.com

Of these, I like blogger the best because of the ease of use. Plus, it is simple to install Google Adsense ads and they don’t frown on promoting affiliate programs and putting ad buttons and banners throughout the side. Wordpress.com doesn’t even allow Adsense.

Write Content for Your Blog

If you want to make money with the blog, you need to learn how to write content that people will want to read. Just think about the articles and blog posts online that you like to read and mirror the style. If you write something you won’t read, chances are other people will have trouble reading it, too.

Come up with a list of topics relating to the subject of your blog. For example, if you’ve started a blog on dog training, you may feature stories of dogs who have been successfully trained as well as tips and techniques for training them.

Ways to Make Money With Blogs

The next step is to figure out how your site will make money. Most bloggers use more than one method. From the list, I use two of them – Adsense and marketing affiliate programs.

Get Paid to Blog (Advertising). Sites like Smorty pay you to blog. All you need to do is sign up, wait until your blog is accepted, and then complete the offers. The advertiser will usually give you a link and some instructions on what to write.
Pay Per Click Ads. You can build an entire blog to promote programs like Google Adsense, Adbrite, or the Yahoo ad program. When someone clicks on the link in the ad, you make some money.
Internet marketing. This is where you promote products on your site. You can either use affiliate programs or create your own products. It’s up to you.
Get advertisers. It is also possible to secure your own advertisers. Set your ad rates based on various factors such as page rank and how much traffic you get.
Donations. It’s okay to put a donation button on your site. Some people may like your content and give you a few dollars.

My advice to you would be to select one or two methods and see how they work for you. Learn about how to make them successful and give it enough time to work. If it doesn’t work, move on. If it does work, figure out how to make even more money from it.

Spend A Lot of Time Promoting It

In addition to setting up the blog and figuring out how to monetize it, one needs to spend time on promoting it and building its popularity. You can comment on other people’s blogs, participate in forums, and do article marketing – to name a few.

Like I said, I had a bunch of free blogs when I first started my writing career. If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn’t rely as heavily on the free sites and start with my own from the beginning. If you do decide to host your own, most of this article can still apply to you. Just ignore the section about sharing the blog platforms.

Working Through Discouragement – Getting Past the Frustration in Internet Marketing

December 20th, 2008 5 Comments

I’ve been working at internet marketing solidly for over a year now and I am still learning. In fact, things still frustrate me. I am simply not where I want to be yet. I am getting there, but the waiting and the work can frustrate me at times. At least, that ismy first instinct. But, I know that is not a productive emotion.

Instead of feeling bad, I resolve to sit and think about why that can be, and work on changing the things that aren’t working and replace them with the things that are working. That is what I suggest you do, too. If you are wondering why things aren’t working out, tear yourself away from the computer and grab a pen and paper and brainstorm. Answer these questions:

What are you trying to accomplish?
How have you been trying to accomplish it?
How far have you gotten? Have you reached your goals? Why or why not?

Three simple questions – but if you spend enough time on it, you should have at least a page from your notebook filled up. Most importantly, you should have some insight into how you will succeed.

Do you want to see my answers? Here they are:

What am I trying to accomplish?

Make a full time income online ($400 a day) with internet marketing.

How have I been trying to accomplish it?

This week I’ve been using the following formula:

Select a product to promote.
Come up with some keywords that relate to the product.
Start a blog with the main keyword and post it at using several of the other keywords on the list.
For each keyword, start a squidoo lens, a hub on hubpages, and submit one article to ezinearticles. All of these are pointing to the blog.

And that’s it. It seems simple enough, but maybe there’s something missing.

This is the product I’ve been promoting: Ewan Chia’s Work from Home Special Report. It’s only $14.95 and filled with a lot of great information on how to do affiliate marketing, sell your own products, and make money on ebay.

Has it Been Working? Why or Why Not?

It has not been working. I think there are several problems with my approach:

I chose a product in a highly saturated niche (internet marketing).
I am using all the main keywords. This is not good in a saturated niche because my little, free blog doesn’t stand up all that well to the better known sites.
I am not using any real methods for driving traffic to the blog, the lenses, or the hubs.

So fixing it seems rather obvious. Find good keywords. Start a blog in the niche that has its own personality. Drive traffic to the blog.

All of this work I am doing and documenting because I am creating an eCourse that I will be offering for free. But before I offer it, I need to test things out. I want to make sure that when I share the method with you, I can back it up and KNOW that it works.