Great Blogging Resources

    The amount of blogging resources on the net today is unbelievable, and can truly make any average blog a special one in no time. There are millions of resources for you to tap into when it comes to blogs, a few of the best ones are highlighted here for your consideration.

    Blogger.com (this one I'm using) is a website owned and operated by Google that allows users to post blogs for free, and make money with AdSense.  

    Wordpress.com is another blog publishing software that is known on the net as a powerful, and sophisticated blog publisher out there.

    Ultimately the best blog resource is the one that caters to your needs, and thus must be sought out by you according to what you are trying to achieve. Seeking out your own best blog resources will certainly help you profit from blogs in the near future. 

    For me, Blogger.com is still the most user-friendly blog. Especially for a grandma like me. :)

Directing Traffic to Your Blog

    No matter what the website, in order for it to be a success one needs to have a constant and steady stream of traffic to earn a profit, and this is certainly the case for those creating blogs. There are simply too many factors to ignore when it comes to getting traffic, and thus people that are able to harness traffic to their blog are known as masters of the internet. The interesting fact is that getting traffic to your blog is easier than you might think, and just takes some creative thinking, and a few hours a day of shameless promotion.

    So after you hit up your family and friends, who else is going to read your blog? The answer is likely nobody unless you give them a reason to read it. This is where the traffic driving secrets come into play when dealing with a blog. The best way to get traffic to your blog is by using free promotional methods. The key is to have something on your blog worth checking out once they get there, but for this part, we’ll simply focus on getting traffic.

    Start out by joining all the forums, and social networks in your niche. If you have a blog that is aimed at giving dating advice, make sure to join all the dating forums you can, and any free dating sites possible. The first thing to do is find out where your link is allowed, and post your blog link in your signature. Once this is done take a few hours each day to make posts, eventually people will start considering you an expert, and gladly check out your site.

    Next it is important to start submitting your blog posts as articles to free article directories. The free article directories will help promote your blog by distributing the articles to thousands of resources, which will also get your blog and your article higher search engine ranking at the same time.

    Finally start to collect email addresses and set up your blog for RSS feeds. Allow the membership to enjoy your blog in the comfort of their inbox by choosing the option on your blog software to email the blog post every time a new one goes up. This will be a way to attract daily traffic to your blog for free and keep the traffic you receive from your expert forum posting coming back.

How and Where to Place Your Ads on Your Blog

    In making money with blogs there is one element that trumps all the rest in importance, advertisement placement. The actual spot where you put your ad is as important to your profits as any other thing you do with your blog, ever. The most successful people that blog for profit utilize special placement for their advertisements so to best get results from the site visitor, and from experience I can tell you this works like a charm. 

    Putting your advertisements at the top of the blog isn’t good enough anymore. Many people have been using computers long enough to train themselves to ignore the advertisement banners at the top of a website, or blog, and thus you the publisher must find new, and unique ways to get the advertisements read, and clicked by your visitors. 

    One place to put the advertisements for your blog is direct to the right-hand side of the daily blog post. Research shows that the human eyes tend to gravitate to the upper right-hand side of any page, which is where your advertisement should be in order to obtain maximum exposure. The more the ad is put in this spot, the better rate of clicks that you will get on the ad.

    Another great place to put the advertisement is in the body of the text. This is commonly done by highlighting, and adding hyperlinks to some of the more popular keywords. By adding such keywords one can simply click on the highlighted word to learn more about a product, or service you might be promoting. In-text ads aren’t ever very big as not to disrupt the text, but can pack a serious punch in terms of sales because of the natural curiosity of the reader to check out whatever it is you are promoting.

    Finally one can place advertisements at the bottom of the blog, with more information about you, the author of the blog. Since blogs are typically personal, people enjoy reading about the author, and thus it makes sense to include a few ads near your profile, to capitalize on the profile-checking nature of your visitors. 

Amazing Advertising Tips (Part 4 of 5 parts)

16 Use pictures or graphics on your web site that

support the product you're selling. They could give

your visitors a clearer vision of your product, the

benefits of the product, people's emotion when they

own the product, etc. You could also use ‘before’

and ‘after’ pictures.

17 Create a friendly, long-term relationship with all

your customers. Practice good customer service

and follow-up with them on a regular basis. You

could follow-up with gifts, greeting cards, free things,

coupons, special offers, reminders, your e-zine,

helpful advice, etc.

18 Create strategic alliances with other web sites.

You could exchange banner ads, sell each other's

products as back-end products, cross-promote, etc.

You could also create a web site together and

promote it on your separate web sites. You would

both just split the costs and profits.

19 Increase the perceived value of your product to

skyrocket your sales. Add on free bonuses, after-

sale services or an affiliate program. Other factors

that would help are: your own domain name, a

professional web design, a good-looking product

graphic and persuasive ad copy.

20 Give customers a discount on their total order

to increase sales. You could give them a discount

for ordering over a set dollar or product amount.

For example, you could say, "Buy over $39 worth

of products and get a 20% discount on your order!"

Another example, "Get a 15% discount if you order

3 or more products!"

Can't wait for the final part???? Be patient...