Slowly, the Google Update feature is picking up!

Presently, it looks like, Google update displays updates from twitter, myspace and Google buzz. Most probably, they are displaying updates from social networking sites. So, the people I have interacted with are using it to check recent buzz about themselves on the social media world as soon as they update something related to their field!

Google Update and Google Buzz

Incidentally, but not surprisingly, Google Update quickly displays updates from Google buzz! Most probably, the time has come for you to update your status on Google Buzz too, specially when you want to be displayed on their Google Update search results.

So, when you post a new article, be sure to buzz it as well as check on Google Update results if its showing. It may pick up big time soon.

This may become an very effective tool for monitoring online reputation for any brand or product.

For popularizing as well as getting visitors, both inbound and outbound links are important. While many people would like to have more and more incoming links while ignoring benefits of outbound links too.

Not all inbound links are important. Also Google God may penalize if it experiences sudden increase of inbound links for a particular website. I had recently had an experience where one of my websites was features in an online magazine. Now that magazine had almost 250 subdomains with same domain. The article was visible in all subdomains and the link was inside the article! All look very useful, but Google penalized thinking that I had bought those links. My website was slipped to 7th page in Google search result immediately.

So, one should be careful about inbound links and keep an eye on it.

It is said that getting penalized by inbound link is murder and getting penalized by outbound link is suicide. One should never link out to any unrelated website or do multiple link out using different anchor text the the same domain. This kind of outbound is sure to attract penalty from Google god.

Quality outbound link can increase authority and authenticity of any website as well as it increases credibility for website visitors. So, it is useful when a blog gives out prominent and important authoritative blogs for further readings.

Which days to post an article in your blog to get maximum visitors ?

Blogs which are updated daily, or four five times a day by different writers, may not worry about updating their blog. But many blogs, specially the technical blogs, it may not be possible to update daily. So, it becomes important to think and learn which days are best for updating the blog with new posts which make both visitors and search engine crawlers happy.

My recent experience shows, blog posting frequency surely influence number of visitors to the blog. And days in a week plays an important role there. Here are few findings from my own stats:-

1. It is best to post on working days. For example, article that is posted on Tuesday gets maximum visitors.

2. Article that is posted on Saturday gets minimum visitors.

3. Sunday, my blog gets the lowest visitor count.

I think, #1 above is because many people visit my blog during office hours and from office. Also, my maximum visitors are from India and many people in India access internet from office only.

For #2, I think, my blogs or blog postings do not fall into leisure or fun reading, so people do not visit my blogs and waste their holiday!

As for #3, I feel, many blogs and websites suffer the same fate!

So, according to me, for any technical blogs, it is best to update the blog with new posts on working days. For leisure, movies, gossip etc, it is a good idea to update on Friday.

Regularly updated blogs attract regular visitors, and this is well known now a days as it has been repeated in almost all MMO(Make Money Online) blogs as well as every online marketing blogs in different languages. Most probably, one would say, I also have done just that now.

While benefits of updating blog with new and quality contents helps increase both visitors and blog earning, finding new ideas for next blog post is not easy, at least for me. First point is, it may not help updating blog with any kind of post, just for the heck of it! It may work other way around, even regular readers would stop visiting the site! I have been using few tricks for getting ideas for my future blog posts:-

1. Writing down every idea that comes to mind anytime during my waking hours

• I have started noting down every idea that comes to my mind whole day and night. I use my mobile ( well, I find it in my pockets everywhere I go including bathroom.) to note down the thought or idea. More specifically, I type the idea in “NEW TEXT MESSAGE” and save in the draft.
• I read them back when I have time to write a new post for my blog. This has helped me never lose an idea as ideas may come and go any time during the day.

2. Search Google, Yahoo, Bing with keywords those interest me

• I regularly search Google for keywords about which I decide to write in my next post. I normally search the same term in more than one search engine. I also search in Bing, Yahoo, in Digg, Forums etc. They give out different sites which gives many ideas.
• I never copy contents from those search results, but I surely read those articles. And then try to think what they have missed out. I note down those and plan to write my next post.

3. Read comments on my blogs as well as others

• I read comments on my old posts. Some times, they supply me with interesting ideas for my next blog post.
• I also read old posts in others blog, normally in blogs similar to mine and read their comments. Comments surely provide many ideas which are easier to convert to article.

I have been using these tricks for last few months and I have not faced a situation where I have run out of ideas for my next post. It takes some time while searching, but it helps in keeping blog updated.

Almost all blogger start making money at one point of time or the other, or at least they try to make money from their blogs. And then, there also some blogger who start blogs just to try making money from blogs and then give up quickly. But, nothing wrong in starting a new blog with sole purpose of making money, in fact, I would agree that, this is also an interesting and important reason why one should start blogging.

But, starting a new blog does not mean only buying a domain, installing WordPress and then start posting articles! One must be very clear about the “niche blog” that one is going to blog! In order to be very clear, one must do a “research” on his “niche blog topic”.

So, researching should be the first important task in order to start a new blog for making money with it. Now the question is, how to do research step by step :-

1. By researching, one should mainly aim to find already existing blog or website with the same topics. Easiest way is to think about keywords, phrases related to the “niche topic”. One should write down the list of keywords, phrases in all possible ways, interchanging words if a phrase, changing spelling, even making spelling mistakes!

2. The next step is to search those keywords, phrase in Google and visit top 15 results, note down the websites, compare how they are faring for which keywords/phrases in the list #1.

3. Read the contents of the blog or website which are ranking top 10 in majority of the keywords/phrases in the list as in #1 above. This content would give you right direction, help you plan your own content, position your niche blog!

Many of the times, people start blogging without doing much research and that is one of the reasons why one runs out of ideas, feel frustrated for not ranking well for targeted keywords. Researching one’s competition is one of simplest and widely used tricks to beat and stay ahead of competition.

While visiting others blog, many would find a page “Advertise” or “Sponsor this blog” where blogger writes about “achievements”, “importance”, “authority” of the blog with various blog statistics like visitors per day, page views alexa ranking etc.

In order to make money from blogging, advertising is the best way to earn regularly and much more than any of those PPC( Pay Per Click) advertising like Google AdSense, AdBrite etc. It may not be easy to advertising during initial period of blogging or if the blog traffic is not impressive! But, for earning with direct advertising on a blog, creating a “Advertise” is the first step.

Existence of Advertse page make visitors to the website aware that the blog is open to having advertisements about products, services related to its topic. So, if some one wants to make money from blog, he must put one “Advertise” page in his blog.

How Advertising page should be organised

1. Blog statistics

One should display blog statistics at the beginning of the advertisement page as this is exactly what an advertiser looks quickly! Only if the blog statistics suits or impressive enough, one may look for other contents in the advertise page. Alexa ranking, page views per month, per day, search engine ranking, number of posts, number of email subscribers etc helps.

2. A sales pitch how advertising on the blog may help a product

Next section should be a few “killer points” why one should advertise on the blog and get return on investment. This section is very important as many advertisers may not remian indecisive, and this section can help them take decision, in favour of advertising.

3. Type of advertisements size, page

One should write details about advertising sizes, area of the website and pages where the advertisements would be displayed.

4. Rates and payment details

Rates for advertising as per size, duration, page, location should be clearly written.

5. Contact

Finally, a contact form for quick mail for any doubt or order confirmation.

So, have you put an advertising page on your blog ?

When one is unable to update update his blog with some good content, one should get back to few evergreen topics, articles and which can be posted easily without much effort.

Here are few of the topics which are always evergreen and could be posted 3 times a month:-

1. New Wordpress release
Thankfully, WordPress keeps updating their software frequently with important bug fixes as well as new features. Most of the blogs are using WordPress, so one may always post about new WordPress release, its new features, bug fixes and your opinion about it.

2. Google AdSense announcement

I think, many of us blogger, use Google AdSense. Google AdSense too comes out with new announcements, rules etc. periodically and their announcements could be made a blog post in any niche blogs.

3. Best of the year

This is one post which could be written any time of the year! Though, many people write some best of the year at the end of year ( that is last week of December) or early weeks of the year, but according to me, it can be written any time of the year.

4. Some breaking news

There is always some news which are important and could be shared with readers in any kind of blogs, be it technical or religious! After all, even a computer blog could write an article about Tsunami victims and pay homage to them.

5. Your travel announcement

One can always write about her travel announcements or recent trips to interesting places, seminar of related blog niche or any other. This adds not only variety, but also serves as important log of activities by the blogger.

So, do you have your own list of ever green articles ?

It is common to see that many blogger stop blogging after 6 months after updating or posting regularly in the initial period. Like many other endeavor, when blogger do not see any “success”, they tend to stop writing or becoming irregular in posting!

Here are few reasons, according to me, why many blogger stop writing:-

1. After writing few “great articles”, if the blog fails to generate many visitors or fails to top in search engines. This normally leads to disappointment and losing interest in doing more research for writing good articles.

2. Many blogger try to earn money by putting Google AdSense advertising, affiliate links. But they fail to generate any respectable money from those. So eventually, they lose out enthusiasm as well as motivation to keep writing.

3. There are some blogger who start blogs to write about some niche topics, but soon run out of new posts as they can not keep reading or spend enough time. This eventually leads blogs being orphaned.

4. Many people starts any blog without any long term plan. But they start a blog after seeing or reading on internet that a lot of money can be earned by blogging. They also run out of ideas quite quickly and stop after few months realising that writing quality article is not easy!

5. Some blogger simply get tired of blogging as it is not rewarding for various reasons. One may not get enough encouraging comments or feedback one hopes while writing great articles.

So, in order to continue blogging, one should get some rewards for writing quality articles, publishing in own blog! The reward may be fame or money. Internet is such a world, no body rewards if some one does not work for it or let the world know that he wants some reward! For example, if you want comment or feedback, you must put easy ways to comment as well as feedback! If there is no option to put provide comments or feedback, nobody will comment or send feedback to your blog! There would be very few blogger who would blog and want to remain unknown as well as getting no reward!

So, what reward have you got so far for blogging ?

One may earn money by writing reviews in their blogs. And this seems to be one of the most used, tried and tested method for making money from blogging by blogger community all over the world. But, one should write reviews of products, services related to their blog niche, as it has many benefits!

Recently, I experienced that! In one of my blogs, I wrote review about a product related to my niches, not only I got many comments, visitors to that post, but also few proposals from competitor of that product for reviewing their products too!

So, I think reviewing products, services related to our niche actually benefits blogs in terms of SEO, authority! Here are few points how writing reviews ( not paid reviews) may help a blog :-

1. People love honest reviews which are not paid
Yes, people do love honest reviews of products and services. They also love it when the opinion or review matches their own. They tend to agree or disagree about the review and tend to voice their pinions too. So, review posts once in while could become very engaging post for blog readers.

2. It helps getting back links
Review posts are bound to generate few back links. Normally, the website of the product gives a link back to the post in their news section! This could be very beneficial in terms of SEO ( Search Engine optimisation) as well as more valuable than paid links.

3. It helps readers knowing you are a serious blogger
It is not easy to write a review without actually using the product or service. Or one must test the product, service to give honest opinion. Reviews are normally original and it is easy to spot if it is copied and modified from other review post. So, by writing an original review, the authority of the blogger increases.

4. It will gain email and RSS subscribers.
Expect some increase in your RSS subscribers. It happened with my review. Some competitor of the product and people from the manufacturer of the product signed up for email updates form by blog! So, I think review posts may help you increase RSS subscribers.

5. It may increase visibility.
Review posts increase the blog visibility for above four reasons. This is very important specially for new bloggers who need visibility in blog sphere.

So, it is good idea to write a review posts about product, services. If one can not find any product or services, he may review a popular blog!

There are two kinds of advertising one can use in a website or a blog. Signing up any Advertising Publisher network ( Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, AdBrite etc.) and then use their advertising is one, while the other is advertising a product or service directly. In the first case, blogger earn when a blog visitor clicks any advertisements or some advertising publisher network may pay for number of impressions. But in a direct advertising, one gets payment for putting the advertisement banner according size, shape, duration and location of the ad. And normally it is paid upfront. While in case of APN, they payment is made after a period of time, say one month, if certain amount is accumulated in terms of ad-click revenue.

So, one may wonder what is better way of earning money in a blog, using APN or direct advertising ? Most probably, that question is meaningful for those blogger who has :-

1. A niche blog
2. Has many visitors
3. authority on the topic he blogs about
4. has built up online reputation

But sadly, not many blogger can have those qualities to get direct advertising. So, new blogger, blogs with less traffic, low quality contents has no choice but to opt for APN for earning any revenue from advertising on his blog. And getting APN application rejected is high for new blogs without many contents.

But, if some one does get direct advertising, it helps the blog three ways:-

1. It earned money for the blogger which can be a good amount.
2. It has created an impression among its readers and visitors that, the blog blog has certain reputation due to which people are advertising their products directly.
3. The company which is advertising, they also keep visiting the blog and do a research how their advertisement is performing in that blog. They also spread out-word-of-mouth promotion to others about the blog.

So, once one gets a direct advertising deal for his blog, he may expect some increase in blog traffic too.