Are we Making Money on Blogspot?

I am speaking specifically about Blogspot here, not talking about making money with blogging in general.  I am talking about "making money with Blogspot". And I am here to tell you I do make money with Blogspot.  Not getting rich from it of course.  But comparatively speaking, Blogspot is my biggest earner on the internet.  That is not with one single blog, I have, oh, more than four but less than ten Blogspot blogs.  With no overhead, anything made is pure profit, and Blogspot is geared toward the entrepreneur.  The platform is very strongly driven to help its users earn money online.  In the process, Blogspot, or Google makes money themselves, well, sometimes they do.

Blogging for beginners, please help me name my blog!

Okay, okay.  If you really want to know this, I will teach you in the ways of developing a name for your blog.  I cannot outright give your blog a name, I don't want that kind of responsibility, if your name fails you, I do not want to be held responsible.  But, I can help you understand, I can give you some of the principals I use to name my blogs.  It is really nothing so fantastical, it will just take some knowledge and study. 

This is a beginner blogging tip.  It may seem inconsequential, but it has value.  Your blog name offers a key location to creatively pack as many keywords into a single phrase as possible without being grammatically correct.  All you need for it, is to sound catchy or make it easy to remember.

Of course, for some out there, you can take the easy approach and use your name as your blog name.  Problem with this is it really does nothing for you in the search engines, unless you happen to have some good name recognition, and more than likely, if you are hear, learning how to blog, you do not have that yet.  So, that brings us back to the real process of giving your blog a name.

What I mean is this. Depending on your blog topic idea, you will most likely have 3-5 primary keywords that you intend will generate the bulk of your search engine traffic.  These keywords and the traffic they will drive are directly related to your blog topic idea, and the amount of effort you put forth to ranking well in search engines.  So, here, we are not going to talk about actual traffic numbers.  only that you should have your set of primary keywords already established before you name your blog.   If you ahave not yet figured your keywords out you may want to check out this post.  Understanding Keywords and Phrases.

Anyway, this process of building your blog name is aplicable to any size of the blog you intend to create.  Whether you are expecting one visit a day or ten thousand visits a day, you will determine your blog name by the same process.

Now, look at your list of keywords.  Find the primary "action" words within that list.  And try to use as many of them in your title.  And if you can pepper in some of the lesser important words as well.  Using filler words to make sense out of the new blog name.  The goal here is for the search engine to place you in as many of the search queries as possible through the name of the blog alone.  Don't get too carried away, the name is not a short story within itself, you will have the chance to give a brief overview of your blog in most blog platforms that you use.  But, make sure you use as many as reasonably possible, and if the same word appears in all of your primary keywords, you really only need to use it once. 

That is pretty much the trick.  It may be easier than it appears by my poor excuse for an explanation, so, lets make an example.  This is an example I use for many things because I have no intention on using this for a blog of my own any time in the near future.  Lets use fishing.  Lest say you want to start a blog about fishing.  So lets begin how I would begin.

I open googles adword keyword tool. and type "fishing" in the word or phrase box.  And I would click the only show ideas closely related to my search terms.

You will learn a few things about the keyword fishing.
1.)It is searched over 9million times per month locally.  (always use the local number as a point of reference)
2.)It has low competition, relative to the amount it is searched.
3.)But this is the important part, you are going to get a list of relative keywords below this one.


This is where you are going to refine your idea for your blog.  You will want to find about 5 keywords below that will be your primary focus of your blog.  You will most likely choose keywords that have less monthly searches, in fact I would recommend that you find a couple that are below two thousand monthly searches and have a low competition.

Here is what I have chosen.

1.)Fishing Buddy
Low competition
22,200 monthly searches

2.)Carp fishing tips
Low competition
1,000 monthly searches

3.)Take me fishing
Low competition
5,400 monthly searches

4.)Fly fishing tips
Low competition
4,400 monthly searches

Ok, so I ignored my suggestion here about picking a couple keywords with less than two thousand searches, but I instead looked at the words and how I would use them.  I would stay away from keywords that incinuate that I am going to sell a product like fly fishing hats or free lures or anything like that, your competition is much more ruthless in those markets.

I also have Carp and Fly fishing listed, but I am not really sure if they are related in any way.  This is for illustration only.

Now with my words let me see what I can come up with......

1.)Take me fishing, Buddy - Fly fishing tips from a average Joe

And as far as a URL, I would try to go with something like BuddyJoeFlyFishing.whatever

So, with this, I have three of my four keywords within my title.  I think that is solid.  Does this help you name your blog?  Okay, there are some more steps involved in choosing keywords, but this is not an article about keyword research. 

I am sure, that for anyone who needed help with their blog name that this will give you a fairly decent idea as to what is involved with naming your blog.  I know that this blog does not follow those lessons, but I started this blog at a time before I really considered the importance of my blog title.  I assumed I would be able to add on new keywords to the blog as I went, but I think I would have been better suited with a name that included more of my primary keywords. 

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners.

Blogging Tips to make blogging easier

Here at blogging for beginners, I have made it my point to bring my readers as many blogging tips as I can possibly think of.......

Okay, I lie sometimes also. I have a treasure chest of information that I continue to hold to myself. I have reasons. I have been saving the good stuff for the book.  Yup, gonna be releasing a book.  I still have a bit more writing to do, I am expecting it to be a rather lengthy thing, one that covers a lot of ground.So, until then, I figure I will give up some more of my blogging tips I use to make my job easier.

But, before that, I have to tell you, Do Not Use Automatic Backlink Generators for any of your blogs you care about!  Let me elaborate, the backlink generators do create links.  Depending on the service you find, there are many different types of backlinks they create. But from what I have found, they are junk links, search engines will not like them, and, at the bare minimum, they will look at them indifferently, and if they want, they can and will deindex your blog, for using spammy links.  So, if you use these blackhat blogging tactics, you are taking a chance.  Its better to play with these tools on properties that have less value than your blog.  I just wanted to get that out there, I had said I would go back to the topic. But don't think its worth its own post.  So on to the blogging tips to make your job easier. And these tips will be revolving around keywords and how they can help you find new blog topic ideas.

I use Googles adword keyword tool religiously. It is one of my favorite tools. And what makes this tool so valuable is the suggested keyword ideas the tool gives you when you enter a specific keyword.  This is how you can find some new post topics. This is a great tip for those bloggers who are suffering from writers block. Topics that this tool will suggest are related to your primary keyword, or the keyword you enter in the space provided. And if you select the box that asks you to only show suggestions that are closely related to the keyword you entered, it will give you strong options for keywords that are related to your primary keyword.

So, in some of my previously written blog tips posts, I have talked about the different types of posts you can write on your blog. One of these is a pillar blog post. Which is a very large post with a lot of information and lots of words. Some of these pillar posts would be well suited to be keyword articles that are highly related to your primary keywords, or only slight derivatives of your primary keyword.  An example would be something along these lines:
Primary keyword for your blog: River Fishing
Derivative of that: Fishing in rivers

This creates articles that can drive large amounts of traffic all on thier own to your blog.  They should be keywords that are as popular as your primary keywords and that will give you the opportunity to highly increase your traffic.  Of course you will still need to market this post in order to get it to rank well in the search engines.  But the first step in the battle of adding a highly popular to your existing blog is to write a keyword rich pillar blog post.

So is this enough blogging tips for the day?  I think not.  I have more to give.

Now lets look at the less closely related keywords that the tool can give. If you type this new keyword into the Google tool, you will get a new set of suggested keywords, from this, you can choose another, fairly popular keyword, that is a more focused search term, say, saltwater river fishing.  And from that, write another blog post on your blog, not the same day, maybe a few days later, and link back to that pillar post, using a properly anchored keyword backlink.

Now, from that secondary keyword, the saltwater river fishing, enter that into the adwords tool.  What you are doing now is drilling down through your keywords.  So, now from this list. Now with that list in hand, choose three or four keywords for new articles.  These should be even lesser popular, but still be searched terms, and with these write articles.  Now one or two of those articles as a new hub or lens.  And link back two the pillar post and the secondary post that are your blog.  Using, again, properly anchored keyword back links.
 .
After you have that done take the last of your articles and submit them to article directories,  adding backlinks to that article that point to the hub and/or lense.

Wow, did you get all that?  The reason I would consider this a blogging tip that will make your job easier is, all these articles and posts will be related to a very similar topic.  That means you will be in the mindset, and the writing will be much easier than sporatic writing about random topics. 
Its a lot of writing but blogging is, by nature, a whole lot of writing.  And this is just thr tip of the iceburg in blogging well. 
Yeah, this blogging tip is not something that makes your job as a blogger simple, but it does make your job easier
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners.  And again, look for my first book, coming soon.

Can blogging be a successful home business?

Cents add up to a successful home business

It is a really good question to ask. Can I successfully blog to the end of a strong home business?

Personally, I have not yet succeeded.  I have tried and tried.  Probably not hard enough yet.  And because of this, I continue.

Blogging is not always the easiest path to take, for sure.  But, I have to believe the possibility of a successful business.  I have to because I am so heavily involved.

I know,  I seem to be all negative.  It is by design.  I am giving all the nay-sayers fuel for their fires.  It is important to give everyone what they want, right? In fact, the less people that attempt to become a blogger is all the more space for me to succeed. I do like a little competition.  But,  there is plenty out there.  So, no, blogging cannot be a successful home business.

Now that I've got that out there, and probably ran off about half my readers, lets us get down to business.  So-to speak that is.  I do believe in Blogging as a business.  I do and I will find my own success with this business.  With time.  I see rewards now, and I am slowly, but surely building a place online.

You want to use blogging as a home business?  What do you need to do then? How can you be successful? And how long is this going to take?

Here at blogging for beginners, I have covered a lot of issues.  I have tried to teach all I can.  About how to blog.  And I have always done so, even though I know I am doing nothing but creating more competition.  But there is a certain benefit that comes with competition.  It requires you to work harder, write better, and focus.  All good attributes for a successful business.

Truth is,  you can create a home business from blogging, and truth is, it can even be successful.  But truth is, you have about the same chance of success as you do in creating any personal, or home business.  Its not a great rate of success.  Blogging is by no means a slam dunk.  You have a very large audience, but you have to be able to find ways to get that audience to find you.  That is the tricky part.

The great thing about the internet and about blogging is, you can just keep adding to the pile.  Every post you write, article you submit and backlink you create, can add value and income to your home business.    So, in a way, its all about quantity.  I may fail a little bit in the quantity area right now.  I do a lot of writing but I still cannot say I have a successful home business in blogging.

But it is possible.  There is a tried and true formula I follow and in doing so, I always generate more income every day.  The increases are measured in cents instead of dollars though and that is what makes blogging so frustrating sometimes.

So, what is MY system?  Well it is nothing so special.  I do whatever I can think of to create my own web within the web to snare people.  And in the process, I try to use revenue sharing sites to do that.  Hubpages and Bukisa. Redgage, and yousaytoo, to name a few.  Every single one of these sites offer some sort of revenue sharing, along with helping my link building.  It is through these properties I am able to supplement my income and create a constant stream of money coming in. I do use sites like Ezine and GoArticles to, but more sparingly.  In situations where I have trouble ranking for certain keywords.

Even though I fancy myself as not just a blogger, but a writer.  All the writing required ca. Be wearing.  I am constantly working on articles and stories and descriptions of stories, in order to create a larger presence on the internet.  This is the key.  You can try your hand at easy backlinks and backlink generators and the like, but you will find the results less than pleasing.  And chances are your sites will not just grow in popularity on their own merit.  People have to find you.  And that requires your constant attention to detail. 

If you start a Niche blog about a very specific topic, and even if your competition is nearly non-existant, you will nevertheless be required to make sure the search engines are aware of you if nothing else.  And this too requires you to write and to build quality backlinks to your blog.

So, bottom line to my ranting for the day.  If you have decided that you want to try to make blogging your home business, and if you want that home business to support you.  It is going to require a lot of time and a lot of effort.  If you have a product other than knowledge to sell, your efforts may produce better results.  but for those of you who will base your income on ad revenue, be ready for a very long journey.  You will need thousands of page hits and you will need to have hundreds of URL's that are all collecting income in order to find financial freedom.  This is the truth, this is not me trying to scare people away anymore.  This is cold hard reality.  You cannot expect that just because you write and write and have a steady stream of readers, that you will find success.  You have to expect that you will constantly need to build up your readership, find new places to grab your readers and find better topics to write about.  All along, perfecting your own SEO and internet marketing techniques in order to generate the income stream you will need.

It will not be easy, it may not even always be fun.  But, if you succeed, it can be one of the most rewarding things you ever do.  To know that by sharing nothing more than knowledge, you can generate a worth while income and live happily.  I personally cannot think of a better feeling of satisfaction.

So, read and read and learn all you can.  read every single page here at blogging for beginners.  And then search for more information and make educated and knowledgeable decisions and maybe, just maybe you can create your own successful home business.

A Blogging Beginners Guide: Automatic backlink generators...LOL

I have decided, that today I am going to use this blog to give vent to some frustrations.  I figure, that in a round about way this is a blogging beginner guide.  And in another round about way, it is about the so called, AUTOMATIC BACKLINK GENERATORS.  So, hence, the post title.

The reality is, I am pissy.  I am sick and tired of every Tom Dick and Darren out there in the blogging world peddling their NEXT GREAT GIFT to the blogging industry.  Letting unsuspecting people like you and me, drop dollar after dollar on these great new breakthroughs on "how to build a better blog." 

Stop it!  Stop letting them take your money, stop it, stop it, stop it.  And Stop, for the love of all that is holy, using these automatic backlink generator services.  Because they are nothing more than a waste of time.

So, I am not here to call out every service or "blogger" by name.  I may even sound a bit like a spoiled child not getting my way.  But I can, without any question in my being, state for a fact, that anyone trying to sell you something, does not have your best interests in mind.  None of them really could give a damn, whether or not YOU succeed. 

All they are really trying to do is wet your appetite.  If you completely succeeded, who the hell is going to go and buy their next product, or "Upgrade" to the pro package.

Nobody

Maybe I have gone about this all the wrong way.  I have really tried to make a point of not "Selling" you products, in my effort to Make Money online.  Maybe it is my fault for not cramming a book or two down your throats, in the attempt to line my own pockets.  But it has been something I have been against since the beginning. 

Since I first started blogging here at blogging for beginners, I have made a conscious effort  of bringing you information without any real catches.  True, I have occasionally dropped in a referral link with the hopes of catching a couple referrals to some of the services I have subscribed to over the years, but for the most part, I have steered clear of that.

And where exactly has it left me??

It has left me wanting a whole hell of a lot more, I have to admit. 

So, really, what does this all mean for the average blogger, or to the folks out there who would like to start blogging, and to make money blogging, but don't know where to begin?

Would it be terribly disappointing if I told you that I didn't really know?

It feels like to would not be that far off.  I have spend my dollars on books, and I have tried my hand at a hand full of the automatic backlink generators, and have basically ended up exactly where I started with this little experiment of mine.  I have no more links than when I began.  Truth be told, I have a few less since I stepped away from the hard work backlinking I have always prescribed to.  YUP!  You heard it right, and when it gets right down to it, that is why I am so pissed off today. 

Easy Backlinks?  Ha!  I laugh at anyone who throws that term around.  It is a load.  Completely.  Its so easy to be a successful blogger, when you are hiring others to do the work for you, when you can throw countless dollars at a problem to make it go away.  And you think THEY are going to share that wealth of knowledge they have been so fortunate to be blessed with?  No.  Why would they.  Why would they want competition?  All they want is more dollars.

Ok, so now I am just bitching, I know.  And you know what, it feels kinda good.  It is nice to not be so PC for a change. It is just really, really frustrating, and I do believe that anyone out there who has tried blogging in a fairly competitive market, with a very small budget, knows exactly what I am talking about. 

I do have to give a hand to the big giant search engine.  Over the years they have set a lot of rules in motion to help curb individuals who use unseemly methods to build countless numbers of backlinks.  But, in the process, they have created a situation that makes it ever more difficult to build a presence on the internet for smaller people, like you an me.  I know it is in order to stamp out all the riff raff and I completely appreciate that.  BUT!  It has made my job so much harder.  And it has left me wondering, to what end?

I appreciate the fact that along they way I may teach some people a thing or two, but what I really, really want to do is to quit my job!  And that is just never going to happed at the rate that I am going.

Maybe I am just not that good at this.  Maybe.

But what I really believe is, I am good at this, I have a lot of stuff to say, and I just have to work harder at getting those words into the hands of the individuals who really need it.  Having it just float out there in limbo is doing nobody any good what-so-ever. 

So, I have until October 6th, working on this secret little experiment I have been working on, using methods and services that I have, up until recently avoided.  And if I do not see progress by 1 month after I stopped using these so called "methods"  I will unceremoniously get on this blog and start blasting these people, one after the other.  And I will do so with a friggin smile on my face.

So,

What has been the point of this little rant?

Mostly, all I am really trying to tell you, is.  It is more than likely a losing effort, if you are relying on others as your primary means of building backlinks.  Automatic backlink generators have not proven anything to me yet.  I will give them more time, but I do not have very high hopes. 

And the people who are willing to sell you something in order to help you are more than likely only going to spew out what you can find for free on the internet.  The idea that any of them have a new thought is fairly humorous to me.  In fact, if you have a specific question, please feel free to ask me, right here at blogging for beginners, and I will attempt to tackle the question.....FREE OF CHARGE!

I am done now.

Thank you for listening. :)



Oh, and look for my E-book, coming soon! See, I peddle too.  Actually, there is no book in the works at this moment.  I have other things to do.

Blogging for beginners: Blogging tips from a now seasoned veteran

I have now been an official pro-blogger for about a year and a half.  I have spend countless hours scouring the internet and any other source imaginable for any possible blogging tip or trick you could even begin to think of.  And for the most part, I have given many of them a test, to see what works and what does not.  To see if there are any blogging shortcuts.  Any way to convince the search engines that I deserve first place is SERP amongst the most competitive keywords.  And Amazingly enough, I have nothing to report, other than write, write, write, write, until your mind hurts and your fingers bleed.  then write a little more.  Then backlink, backlink, backlink, until everyone under the sun is completely annoyed by you.
This may or may not get the job done.  Real "Pro-Bloggers"  don't do that much work anymore.  A real "problogger"  does not need little blogging tips or tricks to take their blog to the next level, because they succeed at this point by sheer numbers.  They may or may not write anymore, many of them are now nothing more than a vessel for guest bloggers to post on their site.  And they use a team of well trained individuals to strategically place links all over the internet.  And they have this down to such a science, that the chance of us, lesser bloggers to achieve their success in their particular niche is virtually impossible.

I know, I spend an awful lot of time nay-saying on this blog.  Telling you how you can't do this or that, that you will never succeed with this or that.  And I do not mean to squash anybody's hopes or dreams here.  I am just dishing truth.  This blog, the one you are reading, blogging for beginners, is just over a year old, it has something like 50 blog posts on it, and it does fairly well, for an array of search terms.  But, none of the very most important search terms.  And it never will.  And as long as certain "pro blogger" individuals are up and running, I can confidently assume that I will never hit number one in the terms I started this blog for.  And I am ok with that.  With time comes a form of complacency maybe, but also the reality of what it would really take.

And that brings me to my number one blogging tip for all who stumble upon this blog.  Every topic, niche, keyword, or keyword phrase has a scalable amount of success attached to it.  And there are enough tools out there in the world web, to figure out how much effort it will take to achieve certain levels of success.  To work as hard as you can, and to be a realist about what you are doing. To not get disappointing, because you sometimes need to let a blog age and marinate before it will actually start to build steam.  And to cut your losses if no success comes.

I have started built and walked away from dozens of blogs.  And at this point in time, I have learned to accept the fact that some ideas will work while others will wallow and fail.

I have learned that passion about a particular topic helps.  But logical keywords choices well outweigh passion.  And for every niche or keyword that has a PROBLOGGER, will also have about a million other bloggers following in his or her tracks to pick up the scraps. 

So, to all you budding bloggers out there.  If you have not been able to figure out my cryptic blogging tip from this mess of a post.  I can sum it up to a single statement.

Do your Keyword Homework

And write to entertain.  Not just to teach.  Writing can be a colorful and magical painting if you choose your words write and if you write them with style and grace.  I am not telling anyone to do or to write like I do, because I really do not know how much my style is enjoyed.  you all may find me annoying, I really do not know.

As some final author notes.  I am still looking for guest bloggers.  I am surprised that I have not really had any interest.  Maybe I am overvaluing myself, but I feel that guest blogging is a really good way to build awareness. 

And also, I am working on a very large and involved project, I hope you will all check it out soon.  I is going to be something a little different than anything I have ever done before.  It is called the Books of Lineage.

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, and I hope you have found something about blogging tips in my random ramblings.