Making Money With Your Blog

I’m sure you’ve heard before that it’s a possibility to make money with your blog and you may be wondering how this is possible. And were they really meant for making money or just for journaling your personal thoughts? I’m not sure what they were intended for but they are great ways to make money.

I have a personal blog which is just my own private little place to go online and jot down my thoughts, but I also have my business blogs.

Back In The Beginning

Now to be honest with you in the beginning of my blogging experience I really wasn't sure what I should do with my blog. I knew I wanted to make money with it, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I could do to not only be a value to others so they would come back to my blog, but that I would still enjoy writing it.

So it was really important to me that I find a topic in which I would be excited about, and have enough to offer so that I could blog every week or so. After starting a blog that was meant to just be an add on to my business, I came across one of Alice Seba’s blogs. Which she used to write about her experience through a traffic product.

Every couple of weeks or so she would update her progress through this course. She would tell us all about her successes with this product and how great it was for her business. And it made me think of how I could do something similar.

Product/Service Focused Blog

This is when the light bulb moment went off in my head. This is when I realized what I should have been doing all along.

Since joining this program my business has seen great success. My income has increased more then five times what it was before I joined and my traffic has increased even more then that.

I enjoy and believe in this program and it happens to have an affiliate program. I often got email from others who wanted to know my thoughts on this program.

Taking a cue from Alice’s blog I decided to start my own such blog.

I used this blog for the purpose of documenting my successes with my business. My projects, new content added to my website, keyword phrases I was ranking for…etc. Basically anything that had to do with my business.

Not only was this the best move I could have made for my promoting this affiliate link it also served as a great way to really see for myself the successes my business was achieving and also to keep me on track.

This is one way you could make money with a blog. There are other ways you could make money with a blog if you don’t want to devote a blog to one service or product you’re promoting.

Side Kick Blog

For instance, the blog at http://www.mommyworkingvirtually.com is a side kick to MommysPlace.net. This is a blog in which is updated by members in addition to the website, newsletter and forums. Updating any important telecommuting or business news and can promote adsense and any other affiliate programs.

So this blog serves more then one purpose. My main goal with this blog is to get traffic to certain sections of my website. I have a large website and it’s not always easy for people to find my information. So this is a great way for me to keep certain new pages or sections of my website in the public eye and get traffic to those pages. It also serves as a way to make money with adsense and affiliate programs. And lastly it gives exposure to my forum and my newsletter.

There can be many ways and many topics in which you can make money and gain exposure to other businesses you may have or can help in creating you as an expert in a certain field.

You may also get paid for blogging by joining a program such as Smorty.com. They will match you with advertisers who are willing to pay you for your opinion and a link back to their site or product. You may keep doing what you are doing anyway, but get paid for doing it.

Search engine marketing explained

SEM stands for search engine marketing, this is very basically a combination of promotional techniques and tactics to improve a website's ranking on search engines. There are two elements which deliver effective search engine marketing, which are SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) advertising.

Search engine marketing has become imperative to the success of online businesses mainly due to the growth and popularity of finding your particular website, products or services by using search engines. This means that most people use search engines to find their desired information regarding products and services. In fact it is true that 80-90% of online users are directed through the internet using search engines. So, now you can see that it has become important to get effective search engine marketing tactics to ensure that search engines and online users can find your website.

Search engine optimization is also sometimes referred to as website promotion, search engine promotion or website marketing. This is basically a process which naturally achieves search engine rankings and ensures that search engines find and include your website on their listings. SEO is basically a tactic which improves the levels and quality of internet traffic to your website. SEO techniques are generally made up of web design and development, content writing, link building, research and term analysis and other tactics such as website submissions and more. All these techniques is basically directed at improving the quality of online traffic to your website by raising the ranking level of your website on popular search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

So, if you have a website that you want to promote and effectively market on the internet, choose a leading search engine marketing company to deliver expert SEO and PPC services, ensuring you receive the benefits of successful internet marketing for your online business. A professional SEM company will deliver innovative and successful, expert SEO tactics to ensure your website gets maximum marketing exposure on search engines. Find a professional company on the internet, review services and compare with other SEO companies. Get online quotes and find more information on innovative and high-tech SEO tactics from chosen SEM Companies. Promote your website and allow your online business to grow through expert SEO tactics from a professional SEM company. Create a successful online business and market your website on the internet, allow a professional SEM company to harness the marketing power of the internet.

Panic Over Spyware

I'm chatting with the CEO of a spyware company and he tells me that he knows for a fact that Dell support lines have been getting 70,000 calls a week regarding machine performance and anomalies. Dell has been referring the callers to Web sites discussing spyware. It's spyware causing the problems. I'm thinking to myself that if Dell is getting 70,000 calls, then Microsoft must be getting 700,000 calls, since the smart money would always assume that it's a software problem. Whatever the call volume, this situation with spyware is now officially out of control.

This subject is near and dear to me, since my laptop was infected via a hotel network connection recently. The culprit is the webrebates.exe Trojan horse. Like many of these pests, once it gets on your machine it starts installing loaders all over the place. These are essentially spyware spies. They all look to make sure that the spyware stays in place. If you manage to erase it one of the little drones will reinstall it. You cannot erase the drones and the spyware fast enough to prevent this simple process from continuing unless you use special software to ferret out all the drones first. Many of these pests also contaminate the Registry, and many of the drones are in subdirectories that cannot be seen using any normal process.

As an aside I should mention that I've always wondered why Microsoft Windows has weird deeply rooted directories that cannot be seen in Internet Explorer, DOS, or any tool. They are scattered all over the place. The nasty spyware drones often end up buried so deep that finding them requires lengthy deep searches by antispyware tools.

Now, if you think that the free antispyware programs are going to help with the nastiest of infections, you are kidding yourself. I've chatted with four spyware vendors over the past couple of weeks and they all agree that it's gotten so bad that the public is only partially aware of the problem. Few users know that their machines are infected.

Now that I've gotten the machine cleaned, I've installed Spy Sweeper. Spy Sweeper is the most award-winning antispyware software. I feel better knowing that this piece of software is going to be protecting my computer, especially when contecting to unknown networks.

There is now a firm belief that organized crime, including the Russian mafia, is behind much of this activity. The scene is no longer dominated by kids out for fun.

So what is the spyware used for? There appear to be four primary uses.

Market research. Yes, it's true. A lot of spyware is used just to track browsing and other online behavior for market-research companies. This was one of the two initial uses.

Employee and spousal monitoring. This is the second initial use for this stuff. Key loggers and other systems that are usually installed directly onto machines by the person or institution doing the spying. The FBI has been known to capture passwords using such software.

Spambots. The more recent use of spyware has been to create legions of spambots for spammers to rack up big numbers without taxing their own servers. There are probably millions of drone machines, sometimes called zombie PCs. At night they are brought to life to serve spam all over the world. Yet another reason why the 24/7 always-on Internet is a complete disaster.

Identity and credit-card theft. This is the latest twist and the fastest-growing trend. Last week, a new combination scam somehow got through my spam-filtering mechanism and tried to install a Trojan horse loader onto my system through the preview window of Microsoft Outlook Express. (Wasn't this supposed to be fixed?) My Kaspersky antivirus software saw the loader and stopped it cold. But what I found interesting was that this was one of those "Your account is temporarily closed" scams designed to collect personal information.

The notable thing about spyware is that because it isn't virulent like a virus and seldom spreads from your machine to another, it manages to stay out of the spotlight. The national media pay little attention to the problem, and many mainstream media tech writers are Mac users, so they don't get it. Who knows what will happen when the Mac community gets hit? They feel immune, and are for now. But when they get hit, there will be few resources to help them, since the antispyware community is busy with all the PC-related problems.

Since spyware has not spread quickly and tends to be installed via browsers one computer at a time, we are seeing slow—but relentless—growth. We can expect it to continue. This will be the number-one topic in the year 2005, guaranteed.

Second group sues Chiquita

Now here is a good example of why you do not negotiate with terrorists. If any of you have ever wondered why we have this policy in place at the Federal level it is quite simple. Terrorists are evil, and will never just let you be. Also, if you admit to dealing with terrorists, there will be the sue happy people here in the US that will now see you as a target and attack.

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Chiquita Brands International Inc. faces a second lawsuit filed on behalf of families of victims of terrorist violence in Colombia, a Florida law firm said in a press release today.

Chiquita has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that it paid more than $1.7 million to a Colombian rebel group that had been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department, and to pay a $25 million fine. A similar lawsuit was filed last week.

The law firm of Conrad & Scherer did not specify requested damages but said it would ask for damages for “the tragic deaths caused by a terrorist group that Chiquita has admitted it financed.”

In a statement, Chiquita responded that “Chiquita and its employees were victims, and the actions taken by the company were always motivated to protect the lives of our employees and their families.”

“Chiquita has already been the victim of extortion in Colombia,” the statement continued. “We will not allow ourselves to become extortion victims in the United States.”

Switching To Digital Picture Frames

When you stop to think about it, it's amazing just how much trouble our parents went to, to get photos of us when we were kids. Back then -- and we're only talking a few years here -- you had to get film for the camera, take the photo, send the film to the developer, have prints made, then put the print in a frame.

The entire process involved lots of driving around, a week of waiting, and quite a bit of expense. And all for just ONE photo in the frame that would sit on the table, desk, or hang on the wall.

Today, as digital photography has swept the industry and changed our daily lives in the process, a digital picture frame is completing America's transition from old film-based photography.

Now you can have your favorite photos display on a digital picture frame that can hold and display up to hundreds of photos. The photos can change from one to another at the rate you choose. Your digital picture frame can also show movies and play music.

Keep in mind, your hundreds of photos fit on a small card, replacing the drawer or box that once held all your paper photos. It came to my mind one day, why take all those pictures if you can't display them? The digital picture frame solves that problem by letting you display a vast selection of photos.

Digital picture frames have become wildly popular with everyone from grandparents separated by distance to Moms and Dads who are traveling. Many of the frames are small enough to fit in a suitcase or even a pocket. Frames can sit on a desk or be mounted on the wall for vertical or horizontal viewing.

When choosing a digital picture frame, keep in mind various factors like clarity of the picture, display stability, reliability, and the reputation of the manufacturer.

It pays to shop around when buying your digital picture frame. Quality, selection, and prices vary widely between retailers. I usually find the best deals are to be had online.

Often you need several items to complete your digital picture frame setup. Your system may require a memory card and card reader. You'll save money by purchasing these items in a kit where all items have been discounted.

Finally, make sure your digital picture frame is easy for you to use. Some people are perfectly at home configuring computer systems and may want a more complex frame setup. Dealing with the complexity can give you more options.

But chances are, you probably just want to plug your digital picture frame in and have it work with as little fuss as possible. Many of the top systems have been designed with simplicity in mind.

It may be time for you to make the switch to digital picture frames. In short, they're a revolution in the way we enjoy photos of our loved ones.

Portune: Banks deal likely Thursday

Yesterday I posted about the Reds and Bengals making improvements and bringing crowds to downtown Cincinnati, but I mentioned that there needs to be more for these crowds to do than just go to the game.

Well, it seems that some progress is being made on the banks project. It is looking promising, but it seems that there still needs to be a major financial backer to step up. Please do what you can to support the banks project to give downtown Cincinnati the boost it needs to grow and prosper.

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County Commissioner Todd Portune says he hopes to announce a deal with developers tomorrow for the Banks, a proposed multi-million riverfront development.

"We hope to be able to announce a deal tomorrow on the long-awaited project," Portune said this morning. "But that's still 24 hours away so let's cross our fingers."

The Atlanta-based Carter Real Estate is expected to partner with the minority-owned Harold A. Dawson Company for the project.

The team still will need to find a financial partner, but hopes to break ground by the first quarter of 2008.

The developers came into town yesterday to continue discussions. The Banks Working Group, a city-county panel charged with recommending a development deal is scheduled to meet publicly for the announcement at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Portune also expects to announce a broad city-county policy involving minority inclusion and workforce development.

28 Day Rehab Program in Michigan

Many of you may have noticed that I have made many posts about Drug and Alcohol Rehab Programs.

I just want to say that this is a personal thing for me because I used to have a pretty bad drug problem. I have been clean for over 7 years now, but every now and again the temptation comes up.

If you are located in the Michigan area, and are looking for addiction treatment please visit StopYourAddiction.com. Whatever your addiction is they have programs that can help you kick the habit, and start to deal with the underlying issues with your addiction. Please visit their site and start the path to recovery.

How to Encourage Repeat Web Traffic

Doing business online is a completely different ball game, and there are some aspects that all business owners must grasp. The first, something you should know by now, is that a site is not worth much if there is no traffic on it. It makes it hard to sell when no one is looking at your website. Most likely you have already addressed this issue by paying good money for web marketing services, Pay-Per-Click campaigns, or search engine optimization. These are all great ways to increase the traffic on your site, but let's take it one step further - By learning how to make customers return to your site over and over, you can gain much greater profits. This article will show you how to keep them coming back!

Research has shown that the cost of getting a new customer is eight times higher than retaining an existing one. It is also easier to sell to that customer since you have already established trust. So if you have spent money on attracting new customers, your best investment is keeping them around and offering more services or products tailored to their interests. Just like in traditional business, establishing a relationship with an online customer is surely going to increase your chance of repeat business and referrals. Internet marketing can be a pricey endeavor, depending on your budget, so it is wise to get the most out of such an investment by capitalizing on repeat business opportunities. With an established customer base you want to encourage them to continually return to your site and do business with you in the future.

We can all agree that repeat business is what we want, but how do we go about encouraging return traffic? The first thing to understand is that a customer's first impression of a site is important, but we must offer them good reason to visit again, the sooner the better. One great advantage of web business is that the statistics of sales, click-throughs, and general traffic trends are instant. Instead of creating a website and leaving it stale, use these stats to your advantage. Take a look at what pages and items are popular and cater your site to that.

There are three main attractions that keep visitors coming back for more online. The first is pure information; if someone can learn from the information you provide, and they trust you as an expert, they are more likely to return again and again to your website. The best way to provide information is to publish articles related to your website's business. The more information and content the better, granted it is well organized. An aggregator of fresh news stories related to your business is also another way to attract repeat visitors. Many other website visitors want more than just information. Promotions or discounts, only available to online visitors, are another great way to lure repeat visitors. Update the promotions for each month, so they have a reason to check back at least once per month. Testimonials can also be a great way to lure visitors back to your site. A testimonial section will help establish credibility with newer customers, and those who have given you a testimonial will want to return to see their name posted on your site.

As long as your website is continually updated and offers good content or valuable discounts, you are in good shape. But how do you let people know that all of these updates are taking place? An effective strategy that fits into the budgets of even the smallest companies is an email marketing campaign. In fact research done on email marketing has shown that it yields the highest return on investment when compared to search engine marketing or direct mail. Email marketing is relatively inexpensive and can reach a broad range of potential customers. Email marketing is a great way to inform people of updates to your website, current promotions you are offering, or show off a new product. The best part is that the majority of your email marketing list is made up of customers who have shown interest in your business in the past, making them more likely to at least check out the new developments, or better yet buy one of your new products. Keeping the customer informed about the latest happenings is a good way to keep your business at the forefront.

Many business owners also assume that potential customers will come to their site the first time and buy right away. Some do but many don't. Have a strategy to capture their contact information. Many will give you their email address if they feel they will get something of value. Offer a tip sheet or entry into a monthly drawing for signing up. Always have a clear privacy policy and also explain what you will do with their information. What you will discover is people come to your site, think its great but then lose the address or forget to put it in their favorites. If you capture their email, then you have a chance through email to remind them to rediscover all your great products or services.

Staying on top of current customers will give you a great business advantage, and save you time and marketing dollars. Offering fresh content, new offers, changing products, and following up with marketing emails will undoubtedly increase your sales. You might even run a survey occasionally and see if any customers have some good input or ideas for the website.

PayPerPost Raises another $7 Million

If you have not joined PayPerPost yet, now may be the time. They are the current powerhouse of matching advertisers and bloggers to advertise on blogs.

If you are not familiar with them here is a brief synopsis. You have a blog that youi post on whatever topic you choose. You decide you need to monetize your blog. PayPerPost will show you advertising opportunities, and you can match the topic of your site to the available opps. When you take one of these opportunities, you post a blog entry to the specifications of the advertisers request. Once that is done your post will be reviewed, and when it is approved it goes to a pay pending sort of status. Once the post lives on your blog for 30 days you will receive payment.

Now for some new news from PayPerPost. They have raised another 7 million dollars in funding. They are know asking for opinions on what should be done with that money. I know that many people will say "Pay us more money", and hey I think that would be great. However, I think they should really use that to approach more (and possibly larger) advertisers as this will grow their business and create more opportunities for everyone to make more money.

If you have an opinion on this feel free to comment here, or better yet use the link below to get paid to post your opinion.

Report: Dunn on the market

Will we finally say goodbye to one of the Reds who has been here for a while, but has never really performed where he should have? I hope that the Reds start to build a team that can at least make it into the playoffs. I have to say that I am a football fan first, but I think that professional sports of any kind can only help a city make more money by bringing people in. But in order for that to happen people have to have a reason to come. The Bengals have started to take the steps to turn around, and hopefully they and the Reds will continue to improve.

Now that we have teams that are drawing people, we also need to find a way to keep people downtown before and after games. AIG has pulled financial support for the Banks Project, but the city has a developer now. Hopefully we can find a way to start getting this paid for so that we can have a thriving downtown community that people will feel safe coming to, and bringing their families to.

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GM mum on story that says Reds want to trade slugger

Reds general manager Wayne Krivsky on Monday declined to comment on an SI.com report saying the Reds have put outfielder Adam Dunn on the market.

The story, written by Jon Heyman, cited league sources.

When contacted by an Enquirer reporter on Monday, Krivsky said he hadn't seen the SI.com report. When told about it, he said, "I'm not going to comment on that."

Dunn, who is hitting .250 with 15 home runs and 38 RBI, would be an attractive asset for teams who need a power bat.

But Dunn's shaky defense and contract could be an issue. Dunn is making $10.5 million this season. He has an option for 2008 for $13 million with a $500,000 buyout.

A trade would void that option, making Dunn a free agent in 2008. The Reds likely would have to let Dunn negotiate with the club he's being traded to, so that club knows Dunn would be with them after 2007.

"There's a 48-hour window that allows you to do that," Krivsky said.

Also on Monday:

Krivsky said reliever Bill Bray could be throwing off the mound by the end of this week. Bray took a ball off his left ring finger in spring training and suffered a small fracture. Bray had been expected to start the season in the bullpen.

Bray was examined Monday by Reds medical director Dr. Timothy E. Kremchek.

"It was really good news, just some shoulder inflammation," Krivsky said. "He could be throwing off the mound by this week."