My Journey to Blogging Riches Pt 2

Ok so recapping where we left off last time. My goal was to generate 100 visitors a day and my dilemma was how was I going to do that? Also, I needed more content for the blog.

First thing I did was to join google analytics. Google analytics allows you to view how many people have visited your site and where they are coming from. Furthermore, you're able to see which keywords were punched in that resulted in a visit to your site.

Secondly, I joined Technorati. Technorati is like a google for blogs. You submit your site and they index your blog on their site making your articles available for others to link to. The more high ranking pages that link to you, the more visible your blog is which means more visitors and hopefully more money.

So far, this has been ok. I have had 3 page visits, all being unique so something must be working for me.

I'll leave this for a few days and see what sort of traffic I get but I'm pretty sure I'll need to keep submitting my blog to similar sites for better traffic.

I've also started a facebook group! Please Join my Facebook group and let me know how you're going with your own project or offer some advice to the readers.

This Made Me Laugh

This is a video I found on YouTube of a kid after the dentist. They must of given him some funny gas or something. Unless you regularly see kids drunk, this is the closest you'll get. Hilarious!

How to Make Extra Income by Blogging - My Journey Pt 1

I'm going to do a series of posts on making money from blogging. Now, as I'm new to this myself, you'll be going on my journey and hopefully learning from my mistakes.

So firstly, what do we need to get started?

1. A blog - I've used www.blogger.com but there's wordpress, twitter and a heap of others. Find one that you're comfortable with.
2. Figure out what your niche is. Without a main theme for your blog, nobody will read it and you are less likely to be found with relevant keywords by the search engines.
   
3. Domain name (optional) - A domain name could make your blog look more professional and help people remember you. Dotster.com offers some great deals on domain names.
4. Content, content and more content. If you don't have at least 10 self-written articles before you go online, wizz off and write them. Search engines and humans look for original content to keep them interested. Would you buy the newspaper if the same articles appeared day in, day out? I didn't think so....
5. Pictures, video, feeds and podcasts - these are optional but it gives your site a better overall look and feel and if you want to make money blogging, you have to make your visitor feel a certain way.
6. Open a Google Adsense account - Google Adsense is a pay per click advertising banner that sits on your blog or site like the one to the left. It scours your page for keywords and displays relevant advertising for the visitor based on what they are searching for. Every time they click on one of the ads, YOU make money. Best of all, it's free to join.
7. Did I mention content?
8. Last of all...a goal. My goal is to get to 100 visitors per day to start with.
   

I now have all these things as of 5th February 2009. I didn't take my own advice about having content. Right now I am writing my 3rd article for the blog and really, it's not enough. I think I'll need to go away and right at least 5 more before I start distributing my site.

Until then, work on points 1 to 8. Remember, the most important is number 4.