5 Powerful Ways to Make Money Online with a Website

There are many ways to make money online and the best way for you is to simply be creative with your skills, knowledge, and abilities. However, the following five options are powerful ways to make money online with a website and definite something you should consider.

#1 Knowledge
You can always sell your knowledge, which many times is the best way if you are an “expert” of any type or subject matter. People are looking for your knowledge and input, regardless if it is self taught, learned in college, or wherever. People are always looking for answers online, so if you sell your knowledge you can simply make money from what you know.

#2 Affiliate Programs
Become an affiliate for products based on your website theme and then simply promote these programs where you earn money from referrals. It is easier than it sounds and only takes you creating a website full of rich content.

#3 Hard Goods
Selling hard goods is a traditional way of making money and it transfers to the online forum as well. No matter what hard goods you have to sell you can certainly find a buyer online. Create a website that focuses on your goods, have a good shipping plan in place, and then start selling online.

#4 E-books
Selling e-books, articles, and other written materials is also a powerful way to make money online and if you are good at writing it is certainly something you should consider. You can have your own website selling pre-written topics or else you can also write on demand, whatever works best for you and your web business.

#5 Auction Goods
Auction web sites are also very powerful ways to make money. The reason for this is you can sell a wide variety of products, do not necessarily need your own website although it helps, and can change your products from time to time as you need to. Many people enjoy working and selling via auction sites because any number of things can be sold from old personal items to new products as well.

The best way for you to make money online is for you to do something that you like and enjoy. When you do some thing you like and enjoy you will be able to commit yourself to doing it fulltime. The reason for this is working online can be difficult at times and if you do not enjoy it then it will be difficult for you to be successful making money via your website.

5 keys to making money online

Would you believe there are tens of thousands of people who have found ways to make money online? Not only that, but their incomes are significant and growing, due to little competition and low cost of entry. If I can do it, then there is no reason why you can't. You can literally begin making money right away.

There are many, many, opportunities online, but here are the 5 factors you really need to consider, to guarantee your success:

1. Set your goals.
As with any business you need to set goals. Goals help you visualize where you want to go, and keep you motivated when you get up in the morning. You goal may be to earn $500 or $10000 a month, it may be to take that dream vacation, or it may be to give up your job. These are all great goals. It is imperative that you write them down and reread them often. You need a short term goal - e.g monthly goal, to keep you motivated from day to day and a longer term goal 1-2 years - to keep you on track and prevent you from chucking it in. I am confident that if you adopt a positive attitude and embrace your goals then you will soon be making money online.

2. Take time to research.
As I alluded to earlier there are many people making money online - and there are thousands of different businesses that you can try. The internet is a mine field of information and “making money online” opportunities are not difficult to find. However you will need to decipher the genuine opportunities from the scams. Many online promises are just methods to extract money from you. Some do's and don'ts

DON'T fall for the “get rich quick schemes” that promise huge returns in record time
DO try and email or telephone for more information
DO search online for feedback on the opportunity e.g. try name of opportunity + scam
DON'T part with money without consulting a friend you can trust and/or sleeping on it.

3. Find something that you like.
You're the boss now - so do yourself a favor and choose something you enjoy. This will greatly enhance your chances of success. A few things to consider:
Do you enjoy writing?
Do you enjoy talking to people?
Do you enjoy working on the computer?
Do you have a flair for sales?
Are there particular things that you are passionate about e.g sports, music?
Do you want to be contactable 24x7?
Do you want to have flexible/fixed hours?
Personally I like to work on my computer on my own time and my choice of internet business matches this. Find out what suits you, and you can weed out the business ventures which are not for you. Don't settle for second best - choose something you are comfortable with.

4. Find something worth your while.
While it is a good idea to avoid the sales pitch that promises the sun, moon, and stars; it is also important that you don't take the safe option - that guarantees $5 an hour for sending emails, filling our surveys, or licking stamps. These amount to you underselling yourself, because the opportunities of making money on the internet are so much greater. Look for systems which offer a good monthly return for a few hours work a day - if you find something with a residual income all the better.

5. Anything for an easier life!
One of my motivations for venturing into internet marketing was to create an easier life for myself. As I sat in my day job I used to think - “There must be easier ways to make money” - and there are! Earning a living online means that you have the luxury of working from home and choosing your own hours. It is important that you can exploit these perks, by being able to take time off, take extra vacations and spend more time with your family. You need to avoid the 40-50 hours a week for the sake of your sanity.

You have taken the first step by reading this article - you now just need to act upon it. I wish you the very best in your online endeavors.

Why Wordpress is now my Blog of Choice

The more I use Wordpress, the more I love it. It has 2 very important features that Blogger doesn't yet support.

Number 1, you can set up Wordpress to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of traffic right away. On top of that, you'll be quickly developing backlinks to your blog almost automatically.

Think about how long it can take you to build a regular site, get the search engines to index it, get backlinks to improve your listings, and then start getting traffic. A blog like Wordpress can do all that "grunge" work for you automatically.

Number 2, Wordpress allows the use of Categories. Categories are a very powerful way to improve the structure of your site both for human visitors and for the search engines.

Let's say the topic of your site is Widgets. You could create a Category for black widgets, one for orange widgets, and one for green widgets.

Now when you add posts to your blog, you can choose which of your categories your post belongs to. Now your blog will archive your past posts not only by their month and date, as Blogger does. But also by Category.

So if you have a visitor who is especially interested in green widgets, they can easily find all your posts on green widgets. They don't have to go through your entire archives to find them. With a blog that has been around for awhile and has hundreds of posts, that would be pretty discouraging. Using Categories makes it very easy.

Categories are also very search engine friendly. When you use Categories in your blog, there is a link on every one of your pages to your categories. Think about this: would you rather be #1 in the search engines for March 2003, or for green widgets, one of the main keywords of your site?

By using the Category feature, you will eventually have hundreds of pages on your site with links to green widgets, black widgets, and orange widgets. All those backlinks to those keywords can result in much higher search engine rankings.

Another neat feature is that you can easily create an RSS feed for each of your categories. Then every time you post to your blog, it could be pinging the Blog/RSS directories for each feed!

Compare that to putting up a new page on a traditional website. Even if the search engines find your new page right away, it might be a month or two before it actually gets indexed and starts drawing traffic. It might be a long time before it enjoys a first page position for its keywords.

It's almost amazing how easy all this is with a well-structured blog like Wordpress with Categories enabled!

Web Blogs, Defined, Explained and Understood

What are Blogs?
Having heard the term previously but not having paid much attention most are just to afraid to show their ignorance and ask the question, what is a blog? Lets face it; the term blog does not conjure pleasant images.
Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. They contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people's personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.
Where Did Blogs Come From?
The roots of blogging can be traced back to the mid 1990's. Who the very first blogger actually was is unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until 1999. The original "weblogs" were link-driven sites with personal commentaries. The very first blogs were human guided Internet web tours. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.
The Future of Blogs
A buzz word in techie circles, "blogging" is the wave of the future. Whether its a fad, or proves to be a new way to communicate with existing and potential customers it deserves at the very least a cursory look.
Why is Blogging Helpful to Businesses or Individuals?
Just as animated .gifs were once cool, blogging is the trendy thing to do. That does not mean that it is not beneficial to businesses. Webmasters struggling to keep fresh, attractive content on their websites to lure visitors back, have found blogs the answer. Content is a necessity for online businesses, both for purposes of being found by search engines but also because it gives visitors a reason to come back.
Now that we have established that blogs are not only trendy but also beneficial to businesses, its important to understand how they can be used to your advantage.

This professional business blog allows us the opportunity to tell potential, or existing customers industry news, updates, or generally how mobile or paging software can be used in specific situations to alleviate problems. The bottom line is we control the content. Its updated daily, which increases the chances that search engines will spider on a regular basis and it helps with page rank because it's been submitted to all the blogging directories. Initially started on a whim we've found it beneficial to report tips, tricks or make visitors aware of new regulations related to the mobile or paging industry. 

This blog is less formal and contains marketing tips, or promotional advice for software developers or online marketers. We found that we had overflow from our monthly newsletter. Generating a daily blog would require very little effort and would assist us in creating fresh content which our readers told us was of significant interest.
Blogs & Your Business
The bottom line is you need to determine how a blog will benefit your business, determine a schedule and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it. Blogs provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of your business that you want to showcase; you direct the content but let your readers guide you.
Creating a Blog
There are numerous online tools that can be used to create a blog. We found that because of security concerns, it would just be best to use a standard html program. In our case we used Dreamweaver and create daily posts. Its really not much more complicated than typing an email. The content is then sent via FTP to a web server. If you want to test the waters there are online web-based tool that helps you publish to the web instantly. The most popular web based tool is likely Blogger http://www.blogger.com.
Other Advantages to Blogs
While you may initially create a blog for your existing customers, you may find that you can attract new customers by illustrating your expertise in a specific field. There are numerous websites that act as "blog search engines", be sure to submit your sites to these websites to increase your exposure. This will also help with your page rank and possibly increase the likelihood you will receive decent ranking with Google. You can also create an RSS feed in order to syndicate blog content and gain additional exposure.

Use Blogs to increase traffic to your web site

How Can You Use Blogs to Increase Traffic?

I conducted my 1st customer appreciation webcast on April 12th 2005 to answer my subscribers' most pressing question on Blogs and Rss.

Here's one of the questions I have:

How can you use blogs to incease traffic?

Blogs can increase traffic through the following:

1. If your blog has valuable content, this will attract readers to your blog who will visit again

Most people who perform searches using search engines are actually looking for information, for solutions. The more helpful and relevant content you have, the easier it is for you to attract visitors and also to turn them into loyal readers and subscribers.

2. With a Blog, you can submit to the many Blog directories that exist online.

By submitting to the many blog directories in the proper category, you can expand your reach to targeted subscribers or readers who wants to read your posting on your area of specialisation.

3. Blogs promote relationship building and trust with your readers, as it allows you to interact with them. Your readers can refer a friend and imagine the traffic power that can be generated if each one of your reader make a referral.

For example, if you have 500 readers and each one makes a referral, that will be an additional 500 new subscribers, giving you a total of 1,000 subscribers/readers.

4. By attracting search engine 'bot's to visit the site more often

All search engines have a program known as a 'search engine bot' which basically 'spiders' or searches web sites and bring back the results they have to the search engines.

And 'search engine bots' love content, especially pages with related keywords.

The more frequent you update your pages, the more frequent that search engines

A Blog is actually a content management system. If that sounds too technical, a Blog is a push-button publishing system.

There is no uploading of pages to web host accounts, unlike web pages

For example, with Blogger, you just set up a free account, write what you want, and press "publish".
Your Blog posting will be instantly published and is automatically hosted for you. The hosting is also free by the way.

5. Blogs can be easily turned into an RSS Feed, for syndication.

With RSS Feeds, your Blog contents can be published by other websites that pulls RSS Feeds based on targeted keywords or content automatically.

By turning your Blog into an RSS Feed, you can also submit to the many RSS directories out there, again expanding your reach you otherwise will not have with a normal web site

6. You can add "podcasts" or "videocasts" to your Blog, and reach out to even more people, Audio learners especially "Ipodders", people who own Apple Ipod and likes to download audio from the Internet and listen; as well as Visual learners.

Use Blogs and RSS Feeds to get your New Sites and Pages Indexed

Use Blogs and RSS Feeds to get your New Sites and Pages Indexed Fast!

They say it's a dog eat dog world out there. Everyone is fighting for their right to lead the pack. Cyberspace has its own virtual rendition of this cliché...search engine optimization. Marketers around the globe are struggling to get their products at the top of search engine listings. They go to great lengths to produce material with high keyword density in an attempt to entice robotic spiders to visit their sites.

Robert was in over his head. He'd posted projects on freelance websites hoping to hire writers to supply him with keyword dense content. This was his fourth attempt. Good writers were worth their weight in gold. The only problem was that he didn't have much of the gold stuff to throw around. He'd taken a chance, and accepted the bid of someone he knew wasn't top-quality, but hey, they fit his budget.

Two weeks later he was still editing and rewriting...and grumbling and growling. Where did these people learn to write anyway? The ring of the telephone interrupted his fuming. It was his long time friend Dave...excited and ready to talk. Dave had discovered the backdoor into search engines...

Imagine yourself an old-time bank robber appearing at the bank's back door only to find it wide open and a welcome sign attached. Wow! How much easier can it get? ...no risks, and nothing to keep you from making a quick getaway with lots of cash. RSS feeds and blogs are exactly that...an open door to search engines like Yahoo! They costs you nothing and present a no-risk invitation for quick results!

Did I mention quick results? We're talking really quick results! Compare the time and effort Robert invested into getting his site recognized by search engines to what RSS feed and blog users are spending...minutes, yes minutes! Bloggers spend a short time creating a few paragraphs of content that is quickly broadcast around the world with RSS feeds, and get better results than other SEO methods. People everywhere are saying, "WOW! MY site was indexed within hours after I employed RSS feeds!"

How much time have you wasted in your attempt to increase web traffic to your site? That's what I thought...too much. I won't bother to ask how much money you've wasted - we'll try to keep things on a more positive note. You really don't need to employ an SEO company, or - like Robert - attempt to do it yourself. You can have your site indexed and sending traffic your way today!

Hang on just a second...before you get started, there are a few secrets to making your blogs and RSS feeds more effective. SHHHH...if you can slip keywords from the news headlines into your daily blog...nod, nod...your blog will be sure make more appearances around the world. Now, go make it happen!

Top 10 ways to get people online to read your Business Blog

There are many advantages of running a blog, on top of your business website. A blog is an online diary, whereby you can easily posts clips about yourself, your thoughts and your personal life. If you publish a business blog, you posts good content, articles, breaking news or just about anything to build awareness of what you are selling.

Publishing a business blog gives your subscriber or prospect a chance to get to know you better. Through your blog, you can explain how your life has changed due to the product or service that you are selling. A blog can also be highly interactive if you also allow comments and for all to see. For sure, blogging provides a good avenue to establish some level of trust and security for an online prospect who has never met you.

Here are top 10 ways to get people to read your business blog:

1. Have a general theme and state this theme at the top or in a prominent location in your blog. Creating a general theme helps attract a group of targeted readers. However, do strike a balance. You don't also want too narrow a theme. Otherwise, you may find yourself having difficulty finding new things to talk about in your blog every few days.

2. Be current in what you post. Don't report about events that happen one year ago. You can refer to the particular event if relevant and/or via a link. For these past events, assume that people already know about them.

3. Keep a regular schedule. When readers return to your blog, they want to read about something new. Be sure to manage your readers' expectations.

4. Post frequently. Search engine spiders love sites that are constantly updated with fresh content. At the very least, posting once every few days is a good idea.

5. Keep your posts short and clear. Don't post long essays. Blog readers are known to like to zip in and out of online diaries. Keep your long essays to articles that you can publish on a separate webpage or in your newsletter.

6. Make your tittle keyword-rich. This helps in getting your posts better ranked by search engine spiders via the keywords that you use.

7. Post interesting content. No one is going to be interested in what you ate for breakfast. Not unless you are maintaining a food blog and you want to post your breakfast recipe!
Making your content interesting will ensure that your readers continue to read your blog loyally.

8. Have a unique perspective. Readers are interested to know what you think. If you are offering your opinion, be sure that you are able to qualify them.

9. Take note of your language and grammer. Even if you are posting an opinion. It is always safer to write in proper English if you are hoping to monetize from your blog.

10. Don't forget to have a RSS feed. RSS means "Rich Site Syndication". To increase readership and distribution, this is one thing that you must not omit in doing.

Top 10 Tips for Blogging

There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines.

1.) Stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won't care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

2.) Stay informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. If you are endorsing a product or voicing an opinion, be sure to check your facts; your reputation is at stake. If you are offering an opinion, be sure to qualify your post, making it clear that the content is intended as an editorial.

3.) Old news is not news.
While blogging every day can be a drain, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate, writing an article or blurb about something that happened 6 months ago, will not be of interest to many. Telling your audience that Martha Stewart was convicted and will be going to prison, after her sentence is completed will make people question the value of your columns.

4.) Adhere to a schedule.
Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication.

5.) Clarity and simplicity.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Remember, the web is global and expressions, idioms and acronyms don't always translate. Sometimes a little explanation goes a long way.

6.) Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post should have a title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words.

7.) Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

8.) Frequency.
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

9.) Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so.

10.) RSS.
RSS will increase your blog's reach. It is important that you include your blog's content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say.

The Secrets of Corporate Blogging

Web logs, popularly known as blogs, have become one of the hottest communication tools on the Web. Offering the opportunity for anyone to create their own free Web site, encouraging opinions and interaction, blogs provide forums for individuals to create their own highly personal presentations to the Web audience, and for consortia of all types to experience the sort of online community feeling that was pioneered by early newsgroups and by the phenomenal success of AOL in the 1990s.

Blogs have reached into the corporate and government sectors as well. A prominent federal magazine suggests that some company employees spend more time blogging than on personal e-mail, an average of over an hour a day. What started out as an outlet for teenage expression and grassroots journalism has turned into a lucrative communications tool for small and large businesses alike.

General Motors' Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz, turned to the company's blog when rumors surfaced about the discontinuation of the Pontiac and Buick brands. It became a means for a direct response, a way to talk to their consumers unfiltered.

Other companies such as Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are also recognizing the impact of blogging in their relationships with their customers and employees. In an article dated June 5, 2005, The Washington Post proposed that there were more than 100 official corporate blogs in existence, with hundreds more on the horizon.

Although the a major newspaper called blogging "ephemeral, fast-paced and scathingly opinionated," blogs continue to grow steadily in the corporate world and companies are realizing their value.


Corporate Blogging

Internal Communication

Corporate Blogging refers to a company producing or supporting a blog that it uses to accomplish business objectives. A blog can serve many purposes in a corporate setting. Internally, a blog can be a forum for discussion about work-related issues. The informal atmosphere is encouraging to internal corporate communication. From small-scale discussions to virtual "town meetings," in which employees at all levels feel that they can be heard, blogs promote collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Blogging can help establish a company or employee as an expert in their field. By posting information about a certain topic, a person exhibits their knowledge of the subject matter, setting himself up as an authority. People will come to equate the site and the author with that topic. This reputation for subject mastery and expertise can boost your sales and consumer opinion.

A blog can be an interactive addition to an intranet or e-mail newsletters. Since automatic update notification is possible on blogs, people are more likely to stay on top of the latest postings.

Public Communication

Blogs can be used to communicate to prospects, clients, employees and the media. Press releases and project updates can be posted, as well as job opportunities or information that the company wants to distribute outside of the normal news channels.

A blog can strengthen the bonds between the company and its customers. When a company presents itself honestly and transparently, it not only builds trust, but instills loyalty as well. Customers are more likely to work with a company they feel they know better than another. Blogs allow for that informal communication. They create good word-of-mouth among customers who don't read the trade magazines or business pages. The nature of a blog fosters that image of transparency and openness for a company. Most people prefer companies who are honest in their dealings and frank about their issues. As seen in the media with the Dan Rather case, a blog can illuminate the truth through encouraging people to share what they know.

Blogging also reflects forward thinking. By staying current with the technological trends, you give your company a fresh image.

A blog can serve as a recruiting method. Interested job seekers can examine the company by reading its blog.

When testing a new product or service, a blog is an excellent place to give more detailed instructions or receive feedback.

Although, comments can be negative. Not everyone will agree with what is said on a blog. Instead of preventing them, welcome the constructive criticism and edit comments only to remove profanity and personal attacks.

The Down Side

There are some drawbacks to blogging. It is not a magic solution to your business needs. Many people feel that blogging popularity is much like the Internet in the 90's, a promise of money, but not necessarily delivery.

Blogging can lead to legal issues as well. Companies have real concerns about liability, exclusions and limitations, and indemnity. Although there are laws that protect against libel, misappropriations and other injuries suffered as a result of posts on the Web, companies can be held vicariously responsible for statements made by employees that are harmful to others.

In any medium where an employee is sharing information, there is the possibility of leaking trade secrets or financial information. Former Google employee Mark Jen was famously fired for gabbing about life at the company on his personal blog, not sanctioned by Google.

Like all essentially unfiltered communication, blogs can get personal. Many bloggers feel the need to discuss their personal lives as well as their professional ones. Companies must be careful not to stifle communications by keeping personal lives out of the workplace. By doing this, they risk closing down the lines of communication entirely.

Inevitably, a disgruntled employee may use this as an opportunity to badmouth the company. This is not limited to blogs, since an unhappy employee has a variety of mediums through which to vent his disapproval. Blogs just make it easy.

The content may not have enough substance to warrant or hold an audience. Some companies fill their blog with marketing fluff. People can see right through this and will most likely ignore the site. Blogs should be used for transparency, not shameless self-promotion.


Best Practices

Fine Print. Since there are so many legal issues surrounding blogs, it is imperative that the site has some sort of disclaimer and limitation of liability.

Know What You're Doing. Senior management should be educated by the corporate communications and legal department about what blogs are and how they might affect business.

Create blogging policies. A company should have a list of policies regarding blogging to ensure that trade secrets are kept secret and personal lives do not become public. Policies may include keeping financial information from being posted, as well as severe consequences for anyone using the blog for negative publicity.

Avoid the Marketing Blog. Making your blog into a blatant marketing campaign is a bad idea. Customers are looking for real answers and honest opinions. They will pick up on insincerity instantly.

Keep It Fresh. Make content relevant and timely. Update the blog as often as possible with the most worthwhile news. This will encourage people to come back.

Reinforce the company's core values. Then, make sure the content fits these values and supports the business strategy.

Encourage employees to use it, but remind them of the ramifications of their actions.


Free versus Paid Products

When creating a blog, there are hundreds of services and software from which to choose. The first decision to make is whether to go with a free service or pay for one.

For paid services, the cost varies depending on the features used. The basic hosting fee for a domain is anywhere from $5 to $15 a month. The domain name will need to be registered yearly, which can cost $5 to $35. This does not include the software, which may also have to be purchased.

While free services offer the basic necessities of blogging, paid services are usually more desirable since they have more to offer.

With a free service, the company offers a free site, but it may contain advertisements to offset the cost of maintenance. A paid site will not have any advertisements.

Most free services have a variety of templates to choose from for the look of the site, but paid services offer highly customizable designs.

In addition to the basic functions, paid blogs offer the ability to upload photos and images and tailor links on the site. They also offer better security and allow the creator to censor or control comments. Paid sites normally lead to a higher search engine ranking. They enable the creator to configure search output and there are fewer restrictions placed on paid sites.

Paid news aggregators will often keep a list of recently updated blogs and will rank them, showing new sites and newly added photo albums.

For a simple blog, any free service will do, but to get a truly customized and highly functioning product, it will take paying something for it.


RSS Feeds

With the rising popularity of blogs, it has become increasingly time-consuming to keep track of ones that are of interest. No one has time to check each and every favorite blog every day to search for new content. RSS feeds have become the solution.

RSS feeds are small XML files that contain a headline, date/time and description and link to information published on a blog. When used along with a feed reader, or news aggregator, they give an update on the newest content that has been added to a blogging site to a subscribed user.

RSS was developed in several different versions, each with a different meaning. RSS can stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, depending on the version used. All versions do the same thing, though. They provide a summary of information. They send a blog's highlights to subscribers instantly upon publication. RSS feeds save the user from having to visit the site for updates.

To receive RSS feed, a user must have a feed reader, also commonly referred to as a news aggregator. This can be software, a Web-based service, extension or built into a browser. It essentially takes the XML code and translates it into readable information. When the "update" button on the feed reader is clicked, it searches all of the subscribed sites' RSS feed for new information.

Having a RSS feed greatly increases the traffic to a blogging site because it provides an easy way to keep an audience abreast of the latest developments. Once someone is a subscriber, he will continue to be involved in the site. RSS also makes it easier for someone to add a site as a link onto their own site.


Blogging inherently encourages communication and the transfer of ideas. Blogging lets businesses extend their reach and strengthen consumer loyalty, as well as get people talking about their product. It's a matter of perception, encouraging integrity and strengthing relationships in the corporate world. Blogging has become the trademark of forward thinking companies, willing to suffer a few stings in order to get to the benefits it has to offer.

The Right Blog Software Can Make A Blog Stand Out from the Crowd

Blogs are an easy way to get your voice out onto the Net. For the Web-It-Yourselfer, custom blogs are a great way to learn about web technologies and create something from the ground up.

With a little bit of tech savvy anyone can create their own custom blog. When choosing blog software or a blog service consider the following:

Support -

Implementing new software will create a lot of questions. Does the software have a support site/forum? How large is the user community? Is the user community helpful?

Is it Free? -

There really is no need to pay a lot of money for either the software or a service. Free doesn't mean cheap. There is quality, free software available.

Easy Customization -

Is the software flexible enough to allow for customization? Can the colors be changed? Can style sheets be used? Are there custom plugins available that are developed by the user community? Is there a robust set of functions that can be employed to accomplish simple tasks? For example, some software offers one simple function that will produce a long list of links. This saves on the need for a lot of coding.

PHP based-

Don't worry, it is not that scary. The combination of HTML and PHP can create a highly customized blog. Especially for those who like to dig around in the code, PHP driven software can provide a valuable learning experience.

Links -

Is the software able to manage links? Maintaining links manually in HTML is a tedious task. Any software that makes this easier is at a definite advantage.

Posts and Pages -

If you are familiar with blogs, you know that an entry in a blog is commonly known as a post. Can regular pages be created from the software as well? This allows for ultimate flexibility.

Content Management -

Can the software control elements for most or all of the website? Now, most blog software is not meant to accomplish this task. Search around and see if the blog software can be used to be a basic content management system. Some software is incredibly flexible and can accomplish this task.

It is said that a new blog is being created every second. Why not take the time to investigate blog software that will enable a blog to stand out from the crowd?

The Real Bloggers Must Come From Another Planet.

What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I'm concerned the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity. The other day I decided to do some research on the Web and try to connect to some blog writers out there that interested me. Let me tell you it was not an enjoyable task as I had envisioned. I spent four painful hours surfing through around a thousand on-line journals, and I found only a few that interested me. What are we doing out there people?
First of all, just getting to a blog can be a pain in the arse. For example, you type in the words 'Philosophy blogs' and a whole bunch of sites come up. Some are conglomerate sites with thousands of journals, but the area you're searching for may have only one blog in it! This is because they separate the blogs into a million different categories, like 'love', 'lovers', 'lovable' etc. Why not have just a few main categories to choose from?
The next problem is the content. People with 'philosophical' blogs are having personal chats with their mates about the local dance competition on Tuesday! Why not go to a chat room if you just want to talk to your friends? Blogs are supposed to be a personal viewpoint expressed to the whole Web community. Wouldn't you actually like to meet more people like yourself? How is this going to happen if you talk in strange uncommon slang and acronyms that you and your friends can only understand? Please stick to the subject at hand, and take it at least half seriously.
Another major problem is the fact that you can find a really cool blog that sparks an interest, but then find that the writer hasn't added an entry in over a year! What's it doing on the Net? Have these people passed away? I seriously doubt it, as there are so many blogs in this 'lost' state. Having a blog is a responsibility; it's a shared diary for the whole community. How can someone form a relationship if you only write in your blog once a millennium?
Back to the subject of content: These on-line journals are a real chance to communicate regularly with others with similar views to yourself. We can learn a lot from each other, as each human is an individual with special traits and skills that only they have. So why do we see so many blogs just talking about trivial nonsense like 'Who the coolest movie actor is.' Humanity is an intelligent species evolving everyday towards a higher consciousness. So where are all the thinkers out there, the people who have taken us to the next levels of spirituality and scientific exploration? I'd really like to hear what you've got to say, but all I can find are philosophical beliefs on why died pink jeans express one's true inner self.
The issue of making comments on someone's blog is also a controversial one. Why have comments sections if you're not going to reply to people who have expressed an interest in what you've had to say? How is this community going to function if all the conversation is one-way! Come on people, wake up and smell the onions! Let's change the blogging community into the awesome structure of shared knowledge that it was intended for. Please don't let it turn into the small-talk world of chat rooms.

The Problems with Blogs

What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I'm concerned the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity. The other day I decided to do some research on the Web and try to connect to some blog writers out there that interested me. Let me tell you it was not an enjoyable task as I had envisioned. I spent four painful hours surfing through around a thousand on-line journals, and I found only a few that interested me. What are we doing out there people?
First of all, just getting to a blog can be a pain in the arse. For example, you type in the words 'Philosophy blogs' and a whole bunch of sites come up. Some are conglomerate sites with thousands of journals, but the area you're searching for may have only one blog in it! This is because they separate the blogs into a million different categories, like 'love', 'lovers', 'lovable' etc. Why not have just a few main categories to choose from?
The next problem is the content. People with 'philosophical' blogs are having personal chats with their mates about the local dance competition on Tuesday! Why not go to a chat room if you just want to talk to your friends? Blogs are supposed to be a personal viewpoint expressed to the whole Web community. Wouldn't you actually like to meet more people like yourself? How is this going to happen if you talk in strange uncommon slang and acronyms that you and your friends can only understand? Please stick to the subject at hand, and take it at least half seriously.
Another major problem is the fact that you can find a really cool blog that sparks an interest, but then find that the writer hasn't added an entry in over a year! What's it doing on the Net? Have these people passed away? I seriously doubt it, as there are so many blogs in this 'lost' state. Having a blog is a responsibility; it's a shared diary for the whole community. How can someone form a relationship if you only write in your blog once a millennium?
Back to the subject of content: These on-line journals are a real chance to communicate regularly with others with similar views to yourself. We can learn a lot from each other, as each human is an individual with special traits and skills that only they have. So why do we see so many blogs just talking about trivial nonsense like 'Who the coolest movie actor is.' Humanity is an intelligent species evolving everyday towards a higher consciousness. So where are all the thinkers out there, the people who have taken us to the next levels of spirituality and scientific exploration? I'd really like to hear what you've got to say, but all I can find are philosophical beliefs on why died pink jeans express one's true inner self.
The issue of making comments on someone's blog is also a controversial one. Why have comments sections if you're not going to reply to people who have expressed an interest in what you've had to say? How is this community going to function if all the conversation is one-way! Come on people, wake up and smell the onions! Let's change the blogging community into the awesome structure of shared knowledge that it was intended for. Please don't let it turn into the small-talk world of chat rooms.

The Power of the BLOG

Can a Blog earn you a prison sentence? Ask Mojtaba Saminejad. He is an Iranian whose Blog, published in the Farsi language, earned him a two-year prison sentence in June 2005. The online community is fast waking up to the power of blogs which have spread across the internet like wild fire. If you are still grappling with the word BLOG, these are online websites which are diary-like in approach and people are free to publish news or their ideas and thoughts. Blogs are very popular as they are simple to use and in most cases, free. 
However, professional bloggers (people who have a decent no. of hours of blogging to their credit) will admit that blogging is not as easy as waking up in the morning, checking out some posts and putting together a few witty lines before you brush your teeth. You do need to be knowledgeable about the subject you are writing on or you are likely to be torn apart by people who are. 
Having a Blog has its own set of inherent advantages which are obvious and some which are not so obvious. The better known advantages are:
Freedom to express: If you like to build a chain of communication and use that as food for thought and for your existence, a BLOG is the best way to create this outlet. You can express your opinion openly and you just might be surprised by the number of people who would agree with you. Such communication channels also help build momentum for a particular line of thought. 
Networking at its best: If you own a blog which has genuine exchange of ideas it can evolve onto a good platform to network and grow your business. It is easier to impress potential customers with a strong and valid point of view rather than a price quote.
Excellent advertising platform: The sheer size of community generated at a popular blog provides an excellent advertising platform for advertisers. With the hunger for new advertising platforms which is both innovative and cost effective, blogs seems like the next location for the big bucks of advertisers.
Gauging public opinion on products and services: Bloggers post comments at a fiery pace. It is not uncommon to see a couple of comments posted within a few minutes of the original post. The topic and title of the blog needs to be alluring enough to get such quick responses. Blogs thus become an excellent forum to gauge public opinion on products and services and even political and business events.  
Useful tool for inter-company communication without the red tape: IBM recently started a blog for its employees on the intranet. Reason? Simple, to get employees interacting with each other and building up a knowledge based community for putting together new ideas as well as provide good human resource practices. More and more companies are ignoring the naysayers for blogs and going ahead with using this tool for fostering better employee relations within the company.  The knowledge sharing is also excellent and HR personnel can monitor comments to get an idea about new policies or identify troublesome issues head on and well in advance. 
Other benefits which are worth mentioning if you own a blog is search engine optimization due to the high volume of content featured here, updating yourself on the latest trend in the marketplace which subsequently helps you identify new opportunities which helps you stay ahead and allows you to be tech-savvy in your social and professional circle. The benefits outlined above should be enough to inspire you to start a blog at the earliest!

The Monetization Method of Make Money Blogging

There could be many reasons why a blogger think of blogging for money. Maybe for the purpose of compensating hosting and domain registrar cost, passive income, or blogging as a full time job. When it comes to the topic, "make money blogging", it doesn't matter what is your purpose. Just apply the methods or programs that make money with your blog.

 
To make a long story short, the ways of making money with blogging can be understood with two streams.

• pay-per-click scheme
• pay-per-performance scheme

Pay-per-click means that you earn commission whenever your reader click a link you provided. Google Adsense is the best example of this scheme.

Pay-per-performance means that you'll not earn any commissions just by click. You can get commission only when your reader purchase something from the web site that you provided by means of a link. Most of affiliate programs, for example amazon associate program (by the way affiliate program and associate program are the same term), are in this scheme.

While pay-per-click scheme seems easier to perform than pay-per-performance, the latter has sound reason you may have to consider:that is, the amount of commission is much higher than that of the former.Most of case joining an affiliate program is free, so no risk and no catch is involved. But certainly you have to put more effort than you do with Google Adsense. You can regard 'more effort' as a cost of 'free' and 'more commission'.

The bottom line is always to consider running Google Adsense on your blog and if you are looking more income, consider joining some affiliate programs and placing affiliate link on your blog. Though that web site is not aimed to bloggers, you can find lots of information about how to implement affiliate program.

When you choose an affiliate program, the most important thing you have to keep in mind is that that affiliate program must be related to your blog topic. For example, when you're talking about "car", an affiliate program about "how to make an e-book" does not make sense and won't generate any click through.


As a final word, it can not be overemphasized the importance of your blog content and traffic. Why I suddenly raise these two subject while I'm talking about how to make money blogging? Because...

• it is or must be the content that finally lead your readers click the links
.
• the more traffic, the more chance you get clicks.

To sum up, always provide quality blog with your reader, then add Google Adsense on your blog, join a few affiliate programs and provide those affiliate link on your blog. And the key of choosing an affiliate program is the relevancy to your blog topic.

How to Make Money with Your Blog Site

1) Google AdSense

Google AdSense is by far the best, most rewarding monetization resource for blogs, news sites and small, content-rich information sites.
Google AdSense, lets independent publishers, bloggers and news site owners to publish text-based, context-relevant ads next to the content on their sites. This is done automatically without you, the publisher, having to worry about anything else except putting small-sized code inside each of your web pages.

For every click on Google AdSense contextual ads, the publishing sites receives credit for a small amount of money, while Google keeps an undisclosed amount of the total advertising share.
Though many lament lack of relevance for the ads and little return for the increased info clutter on their pages - many silent publishers - probably the ones who consciously make less noise about this, are indeed making money on the web with this program.
What few understand, is that to make money with AdSense involves strategic work. Just placing the code on your pages isn't enough.
The focus of your site, the way the content is organized, the way web pages are coded, the titles you use and the color and position you select for placing your AdSense ads on your web pages all make a difference to the results you get. Significant.
What is important is that different rules apply to different types of pages and content. So no set of rules equally apply to all sites.
The key is for the publisher to keep questioning the integration of contextual, text-based ads by doing systematic, ongoing testing, experimentation and optimization.
For a focused blogger, this can mean from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month. For a dedicated publisher covering high-paying information areas, it is possible to get into the five-digit range without any major investments and with a relatively short time-to-market.
I am not talking about a blogger in the traditional sense, but rather to focused and very professional independent information resources like Search Engine Watch or paidContent, for example.
Google AdSense offers also the opportunity to monetize site searches while providing a powerful, lightning-fast search engine for your own site at no extra cost.
By providing search-relevant ads on your site's search results pages, Google AdSense adds another great opportunity to monetize premium service and access with relevant text-based information about products and services.

Other contextual advertising services:

• Chitika,
• Kanoodle,
• Yahoo! Advertising for Small Businesses.

2) BlogAds

BlogAds is an effective solution to make money online with your blog that allows you to take control of your advertisers and comparing your profit share with your online ad agency.
As the name clearly implies, BlogAds is an advertising service for blogs that offers a great opportunity for small, independent publishers, blogs and news sites to sell their ad space in a direct and useful way.
BlogAds keeps 30 percent of your net revenue and sends you the rest by PayPal or check as soon as you reach a predetermined amount.
For your advertisers BlogAds provides a great bonus in terms of speed and simplicity:

"Ordering an ad takes just two or three minutes. Submit your image and / or text ad. Define its duration. Pay with PayPal's secure forms. You are done. After the blogger approves the ad, return to tweak and optimize clickthroughs, renew or order on new blogs."

With BlogAds, the publisher has total control over which ads to accept and which ones to reject.


Other self-serve ad platforms:

• Crispads is an advertising network focused on blogs. Crispads allows publishers to place ads in blog entries so that they're included in their RSS / ATOM feeds to generate revenues for syndicated content.
• grokAds - an advertising clearinghouse for both buyers and sellers which works with any type of site. The service offers quick and easy advertising to a specific market.

3) Amazon Associates

The Amazon Associates program lets independent online publishers make money online by advertising product inside Amazon's inventory as affiliate agents.
All it takes is adding a small, identifying code to the links that take your website visitors to a specific Amazon product page (books, DVDs, electronics, etc.).
If the visitors who clicked on your link buy an item - even if it's not the item you point to - you earn a small commission.
Though the amount of return with the Amazon Associates program is small, nonetheless it is another way to make money with your blog without adding clutter or not-relevant disruptive information to your valuable content.
References to relevant books add to the user experience as it helps those who want to search for more information on a topic to see immediate and hand-picked recommendations.
As a matter of fact, it is possible to earn as much as 10 percent per sale as an Amazon Associate.

4) Text Links

Text links are controversial for some purists, but for those seeking a way to make money online without adding clutter and intrusive ads to their content it is an interesting opportunity to explore further.
Text links are an advertising market that brokers small, text-only links, which often don't need prominent placement (the payback is not on the clicks) on your site pages.
What the advertisers want is a link presence on your site to gain extra "authority" (like the Google PageRank indicator) in an artificial way. This is why you may have noticed many of these text links being placed at the bottom of content pages or in other non-premium positions.
The goal of text links is to increase a site's value in search engines. The good thing is that the independent publisher has more and more options from which to select. Also, the publisher can approve and accept text links that are complementary and relevant to the site's content.

Though many text links point to second-rate services and products (online casinos, poker, Viagra, etc.) - this marketplace is becoming more visible, therefore more advertisers of mainstream products and tools are popping up in numbers. Since you are the one accepting such advertising contracts, the selection of what you display is up to you.
To play this game, it is helpful to have a Google PageRank of 4 or more.

5) Premium Content Sponsorships

Selling sponsored space is another option for the independent publisher to make money online. While this was associated with prominent flashy banner ads, this is changing and expanding in many ways. In my view, the successful strategy is to use selected and relevant sponsors to introduce, give access or extend the value offered by premium content.
A relevant product or service can sponsor a news channel or RSS feed. Sponsors can also promote a rich section of additional related content to a standard article. Having a resourceful bibliography or annotated resources section in your next ebook or mini-guide is also fertile ground to effectively showcase relevant sponsors.

6) Related Reports

Another opportunity to make money blogging should see more in the near future is affiliate marketing of related research reports.
For sites that cover specific industry or niche topics, this is an opportunity to play an effective marketing role for research clearinghouses and large publishers of intelligence reports, analyst insider briefings, white papers and research findings.
 These types of reports usually carry a higher price tag than normal ebooks and physical publications. The reason for the high price tag is because their content is focused on specific industries and topics and it has information that's hard to find elsewhere.

7) Affiliate Sales

A good way to make money online with selected products and services is affiliate sales. This approach involves signing up to become an affiliate reseller of specific products.
As long as the affiliate products do not affect the publisher's credibility and provide pointers to useful, high-value products that the publisher fully endorses, affiliate sales are a rewarding monetization channel.
The commissions received for these sales vary depending on the product and the original vendor sales and marketing strategy. LinkShare and Commission Junction are two of the largest affiliate program brokers. Check out their catalogs to get a good idea of what products and commissions are available.
If you write and publish your own ebooks and other premium content publications, you may want to consider using an affiliate sales program to give your products greater reach and exposure.

How to Make Money with Your Blog

If you are putting hours into writing content for your blog, you may want to make a few bucks (or more) to help pay for hosting charges and other costs associated with running it. Some bloggers find that they can make more than just small change, but most not enough to quit their day job. In any case, here are a few of the more popular methods.
Several ways by which you can make money with your weblog include Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, various other affiliate programs, advertising, and donations. Keep in mind that the success of these programs is highly dependent upon your content and the level of traffic you get to your site.

Google Adsense
Since its launch in the spring of 2003, ads by Google have proliferated throughout the world of blogs and other sites, making it easy for thousands of website owners to make money from the content on their sites. Usually it's not a lot of money, but the ads are easy to implement, relevant to the content on your pages, and unobtrusive compared to the blinking banners and seemingly self-propagating popup ads on many sites.
To be able to put Google Ads on your site, you first need to be accepted into the Google Adword program. Go to https://www.google.com/adsense/ to apply. Google will monitor your site to see if you have the traffic and the content that would pull in sufficient clicks to make your participation in the program worthwhile to Google and to you. Sites with focused content make the best candidates. If accepted into the program, all you need to do is place a bit of javascript on one or more of your site templates to create the ads.
How much money can you expect to make from Google Adsense? Google doesn't allow its participants to publicly share their clicks and earnings data but you can make a rough estimate. The average click-through rate for online advertising in general is around 0.5 to 1.0%. With that rate, if you get 1000 page views per day (pages with Google ads on them), you should expect anywhere from 5 to 10 clicks per day. What will each of those clicks pay? Well, that depends on your content and the keywords on your page that are triggering the ads being served. You can see what ads might be served on your site by entering your URL at the tool on this page or by installing the Adsense Preview Tool. When a visitor clicks on a Google Adsense ad, the hosting website gets a small fee, ranging anywhere from 3 cents to $12 per click or more. You can sign up to be an advertiser on the Google Adwords program for $5 and see how much advertisers are paying Google for various search word click-throughs.
Unless your weblog is about some obscure subject, about which advertisers are willing to outbid each other, thereby driving up the amount paid per click, you can count on an average range of 5 cents to 50 cents paid per click. A thousand page views per day, at 1.0% click-through rate and 10 cents per click will yield you a whopping $1.00 per day. Not much, but it should certainly cover your hosting fees, or if you use a hosted blogging service like Typepad, your service fees.

Google also has the WebSearch tool to its Adsense program. Place a Google search bar on your site, either for searching your site content or the web (or both), and if someone clicks on the sponsored search results, you earn a commission.

Affiliate Programs
Another popular way to generate income from your weblog is through signing on with an affiliate program. Here's how they work. A company lets a website owner place a link or button on your site promoting the company's product. When one of your site visitors clicks on the link or button, the visitor is taken to a landing page to be induced to buy something. If the visitor buys something, you get a commission from the company. Sometimes the commissions are for leads, but most often they are for completed sales.
The most popular Affiliate program in the blogosphere is Amazon's associate program. If you are an Amazon associate, when you place a link to a book on Amazon from your site and someone clicks through that link and buys the book, you get a commission. Typepad is integrated with the Amazon Associate program so that you can automatically earn a commission from your Reading and Music Typelists if you are an Amazon Associate. For Movable Type users there is the MTAmazon plugin which can simplify the process of linking to Amazon. You don't need to use the plugin however. All you need is the ISBN number for practically anything that Amazon sells and you can look up the correct link to use from Amazon.com's website. For estimating potential revenue, multiply your expected click-through rate by an expected conversion-to-sale rate. Amazon used to post the average conversion rates, but I don't think they are doing that anymore. As I recall the average conversion rate is between 2 and 3%. Assume an average commission for books and CDs at 75 cents per sale. You'll probably find that the resulting expected revenue is much lower for the Amazon associates program than for Google Adsense. But, once you set up a link you're done. I'm still earning commissions off of links I set up 5 years ago. It's not much, but it does help offset my book-buying habit.
Other affiliate programs can help pull in revenue to your site, especially if they are for products that have something to do with the content on your site. Commission Junction is the leading affiliate network, making it very easy for individual website owners to participate in affiliate programs. Ebay, Barnes & Noble, Match.com, IBM, Dell, Expedia.com all offer affiliate programs through Commission Junction.

Advertising
In addition to Google and various affiliate programs you can also take advertising directly from advertisers for your site. Tom Hespos outlines the steps in Yes, Blogs Are a Great Advertising Environment. One company that operates as a network of bloggers that accept advertising is Blogads. Blogads will take a very reasonable 30% commission of ads it places on your blog. To host BlogAds on your site you need to be invited by someone already part of the BlogAd network. Another blog ad network is CripsADS which will switch to text CPC ads when there are gaps between advertiser purchasing cycles.
Donations and Tip Jars
The fourth method for generating site income that I want to mention is the Tip Jar. By opening an account with PayPal you can make it easy for people to give you money by placing a simple button on your site. Here's a tip jar for Learning Movable

I honestly don't know how well these Donate buttons perform. I would imagine that the more useful the content is on your site to those who read it, the more likely they are to offer up a donation.

Driving Traffic to Your Weblog
The more people that come to your site, the more who will eventually click on a Google ad or an affiliate link. This topic deserves much more explanation than I have room for in this tutorial, but here are the highlights.
Content - The more focused your content, the more you will attract visitors to your site who are interested in the same content. Sites with focused content also encourage more inbound links from other sites that will connect to your site as a resource for their visitors.

Search Engine Optimization - The single most effective thing that you can do to increase traffic to your site is to help people find your site through search engines. To do that you need to follow good guidelines for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). See Optimizing Your Blog for Search Engines for more details of the steps you can take to help your entries get high rankings from search engines.

RSS - By releasing your content in an RSS or Atom syndication feed, you make it easier for people to keep up with the changing content on your site. Make it easy for your site visitors to learn about RSS by posting a link to an explanation.

Subscriptions - Some people would rather get an email announcing an update to your site than use an RSS newsfeed program. Make it easy for people to stay connected to your site by having them sign up for a subscription to get email announcements of your updates.

Following the steps and programs outlined above may not make you rich, but it may help support your blog habit. I'm trying to keep up with developments in this topic area, so if you have a link of interest or know of a company that is successully operating in this space please let me know about it in the comments. Thanks!

The Huge Marketing Potential Of A Simple Blog

A Blog (also known as Weblog) is traditionally a webpage where pre-surfer or a blogger "logs" all pages he/she finds interesting. In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically arranged items of information. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Weblogs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening on a particular website and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blogs can be used to introduce products to potential customers.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blog as a marketing tool:

Blogs offer huge marketing potential. They are highly strategic tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Besides, blogs can represent the real voice of the website.

A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service (or summaries of and links to current news items on a topic), a collection of links to other Web sites, a series of book reviews or products, reports of activity on a project, the journal of an expedition, and much more. Businesses can use this tool to effectively advertise their products or services.

One of the most interesting ways to use a weblog is by allowing it to function as a discussion forum for customers of your products or services. In this case, the webmaster can give posting rights to other people - visitors and customers, and their posts may or may not be reviewed before they are published to the Web page. Customers, in such a way can post favorable comments about the websites offerings. Some weblogs are set up in such a way that only the owner or the owner and certain other people have posting rights, but anyone else can add comments to the posts.

Weblogs when used with newsletters present immense marketing opportunities:

- Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation.

- You can offer a bidirectional forum to customers to get true, personal opinions on your products and services.

- Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.

- The beauty of this interplay is you can layer your blog with editorial controls.

How to create a Weblog?

The majority of weblogs are now created using software or services designed specifically for this purpose. Some of the software is free - and some of the organizations that provide weblog software will also provide free server space to house a weblog so that it is publicly accessible on the Internet.

There are also commercial versions of some of the free software; these commercial versions often provide more features. Some weblog software is available only as commercial software. Alternatively, bloggers can create and maintain their weblog using free software or a free weblog service, but use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to load the resulting weblog to their own Website.

There are many blogging softwares available easily on the Internet. One of the most popular weblogger is "Blogger" which can be used for free at http://www.blogger.com. Most webloggers simplify the process of Website creation. However, they do require basic knowledge of FTP, Website structures and a few technical terms. Besides, creating an advanced weblog requires knowledge of HTML.

So get out there and start your own Blog.it's free, easy and can work seamlessly with the rest of your website or newsletter.

The Future of RSS is Not Blogs

Blogs vaulted RSS into the limelight but are unlikely to be the force that sustains RSS as a communication medium. The biggest opportunities for RSS are not in the blogosphere but as a corporate communication channel.

Even now, businesses that were initially reluctantly evaluating RSS are beginning to realize the power and benefit of the RSS information avenue. The inherent capacity for consumers to select the content they wish to receive will be the driving mechanism for keeping advertisements to a minimum and content quality consistent.

Like the Internet when it first started, blogs were emboldened by the "cool factor". As the novelty of being new and cool wears off, Internet webmasters and bloggers alike are realizing that maintaining a website or blog is time-consuming. "Coolness" often wears off if a channel is not monetized. With the ease of blogging and the array of blogs available, only a handful will be able to sustain fresh, constant, unique content and generate any sort of reasonable or significant revenue. As a result, blogs as we know them today will fade into the background, with many blogs being abandoned.

RSS, being a tool that saves Internet surfers time and allows webmasters to re-purpose and re-package existing and new content will, in my opinion, continue to thrive. A business effectively using RSS can bring new site visitors, increase search engine positioning, and generate product interest. The flexibility of RSS as a communication medium and the expansion capabilities of the enclosure tag will allow RSS to flourish as an online marketing tool. Each day businesses are adopting new uses for RSS, and users are becoming accustomed to skimming content that *they* choose in a single centralized location.

As businesses adopt RSS and consumers experiment with feeds, the popularity of RSS will grow. Ultimately, consumers are the driving force behind technology. The convenience of RSS and increased popularity will set a precedent for consumer expectations. Businesses using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers.

The big consumer benefit to RSS is that consumers opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply remove the feed from their RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.

Consumer expectation will drive businesses that are slow to adopt. Ultimately, RSS will be a standard, like email addresses and websites are now a "must" for businesses. RSS feeds will join their ranks.

Unlike blogs, businesses can easily justify RSS feeds, as they will be increasing customer and corporate communication. RSS will create new revenue channels. RSS has the potential to help companies develop strong relationships with consumers and create brand loyalty. RSS Feeds will draw existing customers and prospective clients, translating to a new or renewed income stream. Businesses using RSS feeds as a communication medium to notify interested customers of specials, discounts, product announcements, technical support tips, news and industry studies will ultimately sustain RSS as a viable and valued communication medium.

The Future Of Next Generation Weblogs

In the earlier days having a blog was an instant hit. People who embraced writing web logs from the beginning, did get a lot of extra exposure. Now the mass is jumping on a train which already left the station some time ago.
The success of the first blogs explained
The first blogs on the web were non commercial and that was the first ingredient for their success. Second, web logs are quality content and can be made really easy. As we all know search engines like Google really love good content. The first blogs could be on top of search results in mayor search engines like Google in a matter of days, where other (big) websites struggled to get the same result in years. This could happen because web logs contain loads of text which is related to quality content. Other traditional websites tweaked their sites with tricks that did not compete with the awesome power of blogs: honest quality content.
These days loads of people have their own blog and I must say 90% is not even worth reading. Because the amount of people having a blog is exploding, search engines which finally were able to find some good content related websites, now have to struggle with the millions of blogs with absolutely no good content at all. Many blogs are not updated on a regular basis, they are often made to sell products or used for marketing the thousands "get rich quick schemes" around on the internet. They really lack the power a good blog can have.
Next generation blogs
But there are really good blogs around and web logs will definitely stay around for a while. Beside that there is a new generation blogs on their way. Blog techniques are changing fast, many people start to put photos and pictures on their blogs. This caused a very interesting phenomenon. The first pictures of the London bombings where spread by blogs so fast, that they did beat the big television networks and news agencies. People actually submitted their pictures made from the scene with their mobile phones on their blogs. Other blogs picked up the news with the photo material in minutes and spread them around with lighting speed. I think this is the evidence that blog are really powerful things and earned their place on the internet. With the implementation of video on blogs their importance and popularity is even growing. This makes us consumers of news and multimedia much more independent from big commercial TV and news agencies. Those guys have other interests to consider then provide us with objective news, quality TV and radio programs.These advertisers and investors want everything to be a commercial success, rather then not so commercial quality content.
If you want to start your blog then here are some tips.
These days you can't make any money from having a blog. You are way too late to do that at this stage. Use web logs for their own purpose e.g. provide quality content. This is the only way to attract people to you web log.
Pick a quality blog hosting provider on the internet where to host your blog. There are free providers like blogger.com and Bloxster.net, both of them are free and provide features for your blog you really need. There is no reason why you should go for a paid service. The bigger the blog community not always means this is the best choice, because the servers of these providers often can't handle the hughe amount of traffic and need to be shut down for maintenance very often. So bloxster.net would be a good pick
Post pictures with your articles to enhance your blog. If you have a startup band or you want to be the new rising pop star on the block, place a link to your demo (make one in mp3 format), and place it on your blog. This is called pod casting. While traveling submit travel stories and photo's to inform people at home or fellow travelers about your adventures. You can even stream video on you blog!
Most important write and provide quality content and update your weblog on a regular basis. Also take the time to promote your blog and rss feed to web blog directories because the competition of other blogs is fierce!

The Fearful, Ignorant Guy Has Got A Blog On The Internet.

Of all people in the world I was easily one of the most pessimistic about computers, the Internet and now that I even know they exist-blogs. I think blogs are pretty cool but I never thought I could have one. I thought the processes of getting a site; domain name and the actual building of the blog would just be out of my league. I'm a complete novice when it comes to technology, but I do like writing a journal, and I thought having a journal on-line would be both fun and make life simpler for me. No more writing with pens, other people can read my stuff and comment on it, and I could add pictures to illustrate my points and make things look more interesting.
Well, now I've got one! It's awesome. I won't lie and say it was easy, but I think if you hook up with a good web hosting company it's not such a daunting experience as you might expect. I got a few work mates to help me. I went through a couple administrative hitches when filling in my personal information forms for the registration-just because I'm a bit silly in the head. We had a little trouble with the blog program we used, but these challenges were eventually overcome. My boss says he's going to make a simple program that people can hook up easily.

I just want you to know the great feeling I got when I first typed in my domain name and my site came up! It was the equivalent to a person who's afraid of heights being accepted into an astronaut's mission into outer space. Or maybe it was like a turtle driving a Ferrari 300km per hour. Possibly it was like all the ants in the world getting together for peace talks.
It's a real blast having this blog. I can write on it any time, anywhere, from my laptop, at an Internet café etc. I can write as much as I want, and I'm hoping one day my writing may inspire others to communicate with me about the subjects that I'm interested in.
Look, if you like writing about anything, and want to have your thoughts and opinions on the Internet, maybe meeting others similar to yourself in the progress; you have to get a blog and get it now. Don't be afraid any longer, the world is in the palm of your hands; it's time to get on!