iMark Interactive

Over the years, I have come across many different people in the online world.  People that are dedicated to their cause, people that just want to make a buck, and others that just learned how to use email.  I tend to not really deal with too many people that have just learned the great wonders of the internet, but still come across them.  I know that they will catch up with technology at some point.  My main concern is with the people that are just online to make a buck through blogging.

There are so many different ways to make money online that it tends to lean toward ludicrous.  A good majority of people start blogging online just to get their feet wet and then find out that they enjoy it.  These are the people that I applaud.  If you are working on a project online that you enjoy, then go for it and keep doing what you are doing.  The reason why most people fail to make a name for themselves or make any money is because they are trying to make money doing something that they do not enjoy, or know nothing about.

There are thousands of sites out there that will show you the “secrets” of making money online, but most are just sites that are making money off of you.  Will you make money with their software or idea?  Most likely not.  The main reason this is true is because you are looking at this with pure dollar signs in mind, not if you actually enjoy it.  The thought of making money is on the forefront of minds these days with the massive US recession, but doing it online is very difficult.  There is so much competition to contend with that you will quit before you make any money.  Most people that I have spoken with spend more starting up the website or blog than they ever will make.  This is just not a good business practice.

Creating blogs based off the most popular keywords or highest margin adsense topics will only result in failure in the long run.  There are millions of sites that are already established and running for the same thing you are.  Starting in this type of environment is a leading cause of failure.  If you want to succeed online, the one thing I ask you to do is stay true to what you love.  Blogging was created in order for people to voice their opinions, concerns, and views about anything that they pleased.  After a while, people found out you could make money blogging.  Then everyone tried to cash in and the industry became over saturated.

If you want to make money online with blogging, then stick with a topic that you are knowledgeable in and you actually enjoy.  If you can do this, then blogging will become fairly easy.  Remember that it can take a year to start getting good traffic to your blog and then you can start monetizing it.  Once you build a solid reader base, then you can start showing them ads for things that are relevant.  People respond better to ads if they know the site well and understand the topics that are being discussed.  Knowing the topic that you are blogging about will keep you blogging for a long time because posts will be able to be created with ease.  If you try to make a blog just to make money, you will spend more time researching, then writing.  Keep true to passions and the money will come in later.

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With so many blogs being created each and every day, what makes your blog any different?  Are you blogging for personal reasons, or blogging in order to make some extra cash?  What is your understanding on the topic that you blog about?  These are just a few questions that you need to ask yourself as you continue to blog.

Most of us blog in order to provide a resource to others on the internet.  It might just be for personal reasons and you just want others to have information that they have gathered over the years.  Some blog in order to provide a resource, but to also make some money online while blogging.  Either way, there are a few things that need to be done in order to keep your blog active and growing.

The most important aspect of blogging is deciding which topic you want to blog about.  If you are blogging for personal reasons, then it becomes a little easier.  Most people that are blogging just to be blogging decide to pick their topic based on their experiences or which topic excites them or what they might be passionate about.  If you are blogging to make money online, make sure you are choosing a topic that you have experience in or that you are also passionate about.  There are many people out there that choose a blog topic based on how much money they could make or which topic is most popular among internet readers.  This is a large mistake because most people that choose these topics cannot keep up the blog without the proper information on the topic.

Another important aspect of blogging is that you continue to write quality posts throughout the life of your blog.  A lot of new bloggers that start a blog never continue after a month or two because they run out of topics to write or they just stop writing all together.  It is wise to come up with topics to write about, but schedule them to post at different intervals to keep your blog current.  This is easy to do when working with most blogging software.  If you come up with a few topics at once, then write them up and schedule them to post a day apart, so it looks like you are updating and refreshing your content.  Remember, Content is King and search engines love it.  Without new content, your blog will become stale and your readers will drop off.

If you continue updating your content, then you need to make sure that you continue to add new readers and visitors.  Without new readers and visitors, then your blog will become useless and no one will even know your opinion on your topic.  You should update your RSS feeds and make sure to have a way for your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed via email.  You have to constantly market your blog for new visitors especially if your using your blog as a way to make money online.  Many bloggers use Feedburner as a way to publicize and monetize their RSS feeds for everyone to use and keep updated on your blog.  There are many blog directories where you can list your blog as well for visitors to find.  This will also help with SEO purposes.  Think about making an aboutus.org page for your website.  This is free and like a wiki format.  There are many ways to market your blog, but you have to continue doing it in order to succeed.

So if you are blogging for personal or commercial reasons, you have to remember that content is king and keeping it updated is a must.  There are many ways to add new content to your blog, but you have to just do it.  Leaving your blog updated is the most important way to keep it going.  You can also let guest bloggers write content for your with their ideas about the blog topic.  Choose a topic that is important to you, but that can make your some money if you choose to go this route, as well is a topic that has a lot of information available and is easily updated.  Good luck with your blog and keeping it going and hopefully it will become useful to readers and visitors.

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