Profiting from Your Blogging Efforts

Blogging can be a lot of fun or it can be a lot of work. Usually, it is a little bit of both. But the main reason most people get into blogging is to make money at home by sharing their knowledge and experiences with the world.

The thought of finding a niche topic that you are passionate about or at least somewhat interested in and have some knowledge about, then finding a way to earn money blogging about it can be a very intriguing idea. But you need to remember that consistently writing blog posts, building traffic, gaining readership, and ultimately making money from it takes a lot of work.

So, what do you need to do in order to profit from your blog? There are many things that need to be done at one time or another and some more often than others, but here are three things that should be done on a regular basis from the start…

1) Write Awesome Content

Writing great content will help you get readers and keep them coming back for more. Great content gets shared and linked to, crappy content doesn’t. One of the best ways to grow traffic to your blog is through great content on a consistent basis.

2) Build Your Email List

Many bloggers do not understand how important it is to collect email addresses from their visitors to build their email list of opt-in subscribers. Using an auto-responder service such as Aweber is a great way to start building your email list. You put an opt-in form on your blog, offer something of value to entice people to subscribe, send out a periodic newsletter, and watch your list grow. Then, from time to time you can send them resources and useful products that you are an affiliate of and make money from the sales.

3) Market like a Madman

If you want to make money blogging then people need to find your blog. Building traffic and readership is extremely important and to do that you need to market your blog. This can be done many different ways (and should be) but it basically falls under two general steps…

* Making your blog SEO friendly.
* Marketing your blog to potential readers/subscribers.

These two things go hand-in-hand. For example, if you are marketing to individuals on a forum or in an article with a link to your blog then search engines are also going to pick up on it.

Making your site SEO friendly is very important because it allows more individual readers to find your blog by searching on search engines for specific keywords and information within your niche. The main way to SEO your blog and build high rankings on the search engines is to get backlinks. There are tons of ways to do this and some of the more popular ways are through article marketing, guest blogging, blog commenting, directories, forums, web 2.0 sites, social media, video marketing, press releases, and several others.

Marketing to potential blog readers is mainly done through social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and many others. It is also done through engaging in conversations with other bloggers in your niche via comments on their blog posts and helping each other on forums. Your goal here is more to build relationships with people so they get to know and trust you and want to become a subscriber to your blog and purchase things you recommend.

Once these three simple steps are in place and part of your regular routine, you can expect to start profiting from your blogging efforts sooner, rather than later.

Don’t Fall for Get Rich Quick Schemes and Products

There’s a lot of so-called internet marketing guru’s out there coming up with new “get rich quick” products on a daily basis. They like to call them “blueprints” or “secrets revealed” or whatever else sounds cool, and tout them as the next best thing for making money online.

That sounds great at first, but the problem is that most of them are flat out lying to you and getting rich by tricking you into thinking you can do the same if you buy their product while they sit back and collect your money. It isn’t as easy as they make it out to be on their fancy sales pages. Think about it, if it was that easy everyone would do it and everyone would be rich. The simple truth is that you can make money online but it’s not easy and it won’t happen fast. And you definitely won’t get anywhere if you keep buying into all these new schemes that pop up all the time.

These money making schemes come in all shapes and sizes but they are all basically doing the same thing… Giving you false hope so you will buy their product. For example, there are programs that claim you can earn $10,000 in a week or some other insane amount. The problem is that in order to do that you need to have a lot of internet marketing experience, friends in high places, an already successful online business, an established email list, the right business plan, time, money, and who knows what else. The average person buying into these programs doesn’t have what it takes right away. It takes a lot time and effort to build up to a good online income, and even then $10,000 a week is rarely attained by anyone.

Building an online business and making a living from home is a lot of work. Putting in several hours of productive work every day is necessary. But the pros do eventually outweigh the cons once you start getting a nice income coming in.

Anyway the point of this post is basically just to warn you to beware of make money schemes, especially the ones that cost a lot of money. If the information is really that great then why would someone let everyone else know about it by selling it for a relatively low amount when they could keep it to themselves and really become wealthy from it? If you think about it something just doesn’t add up.

When I started my online home based business I got sucked into several get rich quick schemes and ended up wasting thousands of dollars along with a lot of time I can never get back. This was all while I was in college so I didn’t have much money to be throwing around like that. It was hard to swallow at first but I learned my lesson, moved on, kept working hard, and eventually became a successful internet marketer.

There’s plenty of FREE information on blogs, social media, and forums that will teach you everything you need to know about making money online. No need to spend all your money on product after product because they will keep on coming and you will never get anywhere except deeper in debt.

3 Fundamental Ebook Writing Tips

When it comes to writing an ebook, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of tips, tricks, and advice that can be found online. It seems like everyone knows how to write the perfect ebook in record time, yet so many people are still struggling to get their first ebook actually written. One reason that so many people have problems completing there ebooks, is that they ignore the fundamentals. Here are three fundamental ebook writing tips everyone needs to know.

Don’t Get Fancy

Ebooks are simple tools, there is no reason to complicate them. Some people will spend hours trying to add nifty borders, images, and unique formats or colors (both background and text). None of these will add much if any value to your ebook. In fact, it can actually detract from your content. You should want your readers to focus on the content and avoid the bells and whistles if they do not add anything of value to your reader.

Along the same line of thinking, it is important to manage your whitespace. It can be difficult or even overwhelming for your readers to actually read your ebook if there is not enough whitespace. Whitespace makes people feel comfortable and makes your content easy to read, so take advantage of it.

Create a Simple Structure

While your ebook is meant to be read, some readers will simply scan it and only read a paragraph here and there. The best way to make sure that people scanning your ebook will read as much as possible, create an easy to follow structure that highlights important points. The easiest way to do this is with the use of headings AND subheadings. Headings will let people know what areas of the ebook might interest them, and subheadings will ensure that they will be able to find everything that might interest them with ease. By using this simple structure, people who would rather scan your ebook than read it, will still read a larger amount than they otherwise would have. Additionally, by using headings and subheadings, you will automatically create additional whitespace.

Profitable Practice

Some people are simply not natural writers. In fact, not many people are. Fortunately, there is way for you get practice writing ebooks and profit at the same time. If you have looked into outsourcing, then you may have noticed that getting an ebook written can become expensive. Additionally, it can be frustrating to practice and practice without getting any profitable results. One way to get the practice that you need, plus create profitable end-products is to hire a freelancer to write a set of articles, or to find a good source of PLR articles. These articles can then be used for article marketing, website content, blog content and the like. You can also use these articles as a framework for your ebook. Use them as a guide or even use them as part your ebook. By having professionally written articles as a guide, you can quickly practice writing ebooks, while still generating a profit.

These three fundamental ebook writing tips that everyone needs to know, will help you create ebooks that are easier to read, higher in quality, and even help you practice, while also making a profit.

3 Big Work From Home Scams To Stay FAR Away From!

These days work from home scams are all too common and have become a very sad fact of life. A lot of people blame them on the internet but the truth is that many of these scams have been around since long before the internet was even thought of. They used to be run by mail, out of a post office box, by phone, with advertising in newspapers, magazines, bulletin boards, by leaflets through your door, or any other way the scam artists could think of. The internet just makes them a bit easier and cheaper to spread.

These days the false advertisements often arrive in the form of email because it’s free and very easy to send out millions of emails without any work. There are no direct mailing costs or other costs or time involved. You can still find work at home scams in newspapers and all the other traditional places every day, but mainly they have moved onto the internet. Even so, the ads themselves are often the same old thing that they always have been.

Here are 3 of the biggest and most common work from home scams that have been around for a long time and are still going today…

1. The Stuffing Envelopes Scam

Filling and addressing envelopes for direct advertising was something that used to be outsourced to homeworkers decades ago, before the invention of word processing and mass mailing machines. These days it is virtually all done by mailing companies. They can print addresses to look like handwriting if that is what the advertiser wants, and they can do thousands of envelopes quickly and cheaply.

If you see an advertisement telling you to send money (usually around $5 to $10 or so) to find out how to make money at home by stuffing envelopes, it will probably be a scam. All you will receive is a letter telling you to put up ads similar to what you just responded to and have people send you money to find out how to work from home by stuffing envelopes, so that you can send them the same letter. That is if anybody even replies. Do NOT ever fall for one of these!

2. The Pyramid Scheme Scam

Pyramid schemes are based around the idea that you pay a sum of money, say $20, then recruit 10 people who pay you, so you make $180 profit. For example; you have probably seen a chain letter or email that tells you to send a certain amount to the person at the top of a list, then add your name to the bottom of the list and send the letter on to everybody that you know. That is a pyramid scheme that you should avoid. Pyramid schemes are illegal and can get you in a lot of trouble and some hefty fines. They are not worth it!

These are different from multi-level marketing (MLM) programs where you may again aim to recruit a certain number of customers but they are buying a product. Often they are confused with each other but they are not the same thing (usually). If people are buying a product or service that is worth the money, it’s generally OK. If they are just handing over money for nothing, it’s an illegal pyramid scam.

3. The Computer Software Scam

This is an updated version of the old work from home scams where you would be sold expensive equipment that would enable you to do some highly skilled job that you were told was in high demand. For example, when doctors began having to submit claims electronically in the USA a demand grew up for people to do that for them. They didn’t want to have to buy the special software themselves and then have their skilled nursing staff waste time entering data.

So companies that made this type of software began marketing it as something that you could do at home. A lot of people fell for it, bought the software and then found they had no clients. The doctors were all giving their business to large, reputable data entry companies. They didn’t want random home workers to have access to their patients’ confidential records. The aspiring home workers were out a lot of money and wasted time. Be suspicious if you see an ad that says something like, “Buy this and make $XX,XXX amount of money by using it” or whatever. Is there really a demand for the skills that you will have? If not, it could be a scam.

The above work from home scams and variations of them are very common so keep your eye out and don’t fall for any of them. The are many versions of these scams so don’t be surprised if you get pitched one that isn’t exactly the same as described above, but you should still be able to spot it by the similarities.

How to Become a Certified Life Coach

If you’re the type of person who knows how to listen and give credible advice, then becoming a certified life coach can be a great way to make easy money from home. The work is extremely interesting, particularly if you enjoy working for yourself from home but miss having daily contact with other successful people. A benefit of being a coach is that you are always pumping people up, elevating their expectations and helping them see what is right with their world. This type of enthusiasm is infectious, and everyone I know who has become a life coach reports that they are happier and more productive than ever before, on account of being so intensely focused on motivation and performance.

There are a few different accrediting bodies that offer life coaching certification, but the most widely recognized is the International Coaching Federation (ICF). The ICF does not, however, provide any kind of life coach training program. You will have to take an independent training program that prepares you for the ICF certification exam. Keep in mind, certification is not necessary in order to practice in the United States, since life coaching is not yet regulated by any state or federal licensing body. However, this may change, and even if it does not you will find that consumers and professionals alike have greater trust and respect in individuals who have gone through the certification process for this career path.

Many people begin by enrolling in a university psychology program, but this may be a mistake. Those programs tend not to be very relevant to the specific business goals of your coaching practice, although they can provide some good background information on human behavior and motivation. However, a more cost effective method will be to enroll in a specialized life coaching certification program.

Secondly, you’ll want to focus intensely on establishing your own support network. It would be much easier for you to pursue your career if you get full support from your family and loved ones, particularly if they are able to offer a financial buffer while you get your practice off the ground. More importantly, you need to make professional contacts who can provide you with some early professional experiences in providing life coaching services and send you referrals when their own practices are full. Training programs are probably the best place to make this kind of connection, as you can work hard to impress your instructors, who will tend to be practicing life coaches.

You will not be able to apply for ICF certification until you have completed your training program an logged 75 hours of practical experience. Fortunately, there are some techniques you can use to market your practice that will actually yield revenue in and of themselves. There are complete tutorials that can be found by doing a simple search online what will help you with completing your life coaching certification and launching a lucrative coaching practice out of your own home.