ORM ( Online reputation management) is monitoring and ‘managing’ user generated comments, review, article about a service, product or brand on internet sphere.

It is very important to keep monitoring user generated comments, reviews about its product, services and reply them. With the advent of blogs, social networking sites where people can freely and easily comment about anything, it has become more and more important to monitor and manage one’s online reputation.

Search engines love user generated comments and reviews. Also, many people try to read review by past users or existing users of certain products, services other than advertised features.

There are many websites, tools available for monitoring online reputation. Few of them are :-

1. BuzzLogic
2. TrackUr
3. Sentiment Metrics
4. Visible Technologies
5. Cision

Online reputation management is important for making money online. One should always reply any negative comments or reviews as soon as possible. Many times, people may have some grievances for lack of support, wrong or outdated information. So, it is very important to clear out any such wrong impression.

Search engines love UGC(User Generated Content)!

Many people blog for making money or have started blogging for making money. I think people who blog for publishing their thoughts or giving a creative outlay, would not be many. There is nothing wrong in trying to earn online by blogging. In fact, one has to spend some money in blogging so, it is good thing that people want some return from it, and fame or recognition are not only things people should get back from blogging, money should also come to him along with fame and recognition.

Here is a TO-DO list for a blogger to earn online, specially during the first few months:-

1. Get a good internet speed
A must, if pages do not open and updating a post takes hell lot of time, you may get irritated and lose interest in blogging. So, get yourself a good internet line.

2. Get a laptop
Get yourself a laptop. It has many advantages over PC. WIFI, Battery Backup, multimedia, less space are few things where laptop score over. Now days laptop cost is almost same as PC or little higher. So get a laptop to blog seriously and earn serious amount of money.

3. Good mobile with camera and GPRS, 3G
In order to dissuade you from not updating your blog daily while traveling, buy yourself a good Mobile Phone with camera and subscribe to GPRS or 3G. They will help you even when internet connection goes down at home and can work as back up net connection.

4. Finalize 5 keywords, 10 phrase with the keywords, 20 variants
Finalise at least 5 mother keywords with single word for your blog. Try to use at least one of them in your each post. Keep a track if your keywords bringing you organic visitors using Google Analytics.

5. Identify 20 blogs website similar to your topic which has good Alexa rank, Google page rank
Identify these blogs and read them religiously daily. Read its old articles too. Always comment on any new post if you have something say. Subscribe to them. If they are not posting for many days, send a message using their contact option.

6. Join in 5 forums
Join minimum five forums. Try to join forums which have many subscribers, active and similar to your topic or has some threads with topic as your blog. Post in those forum at least one in a day. This is required for your first 3 months of blogging. Make sure you complete your profile with your blog address, signature etc.

7. Post minimum one article a day, minimum 4 images in a week
Most important of all, post minimum one article with proper tag, category and title. Try to put image in every post with proper title of the image, description, ALT tag. If image is not possible in every post, make sure you post in every alternate post.

After following these for six months, start putting Google AdSense in your blog. If you do not earn money from your blog, do a recheck if you followed above 7 steps religiously or not. I am sure, you would start earning online from your blog.

Earning by blogging is possible and one can really earn enough to become a full time blogger. Many people have left their 9Am to 5PM jobs and started blogging full time from comfort of their home at free time or at leisure. They are able to devote more time with their families, enjoy watching their children grow up, going to school and learning!
Wow, everyone would like this kind of life style! I think everybody would jump at starting a blog and earn online! Many have done so and stopped blogging when they find few visitors coming to their site and few dollars coming from Google AdSense and tons of affiliate account!

My suggestion would be to, never try to earn by blogging or even be optimistic about earning money online by blogging if you are not a businessman or a good offline marketing guy! Here is why :-

1. Not everybody is a good writer
To be a good blogger, one must write well and in English. There are people who are good, really expert in their chosen fields, but they may not be good in putting their thought, expertise in simple, plain English. It is not always easy to make other people understand what you are trying to say. Though, one may improve with time, experience and practice, but it may take a long time before you start actually start making money from your blogs.

2. One has to be good in investment
Money attracts money. It is true for any online business or using blog as earning money too. Even though one may be expert in SEO ( Search Engine Optimization), good in writing English, still he may have to advertise his website, articles online as well as offline. So, if you may think this cost of advertising or promoting your blog as investment. A good businessman is the one who knows how, where, on what and how much to invest money for good return! For example, if your blog has earning potential of maximum $300 a month, no good businessman would invest $100 in its promotion.
So, one should have good understanding of investing and return.

3. Identify correct niche
One has to identify where one has experience, knowledge and some authority so that people take him seriously. If one starts a personal blog and then hope to earn thousands, that would not happen until he is a celebrity in movies, sports! Sadly, those people do not need to earn money by blogging in the first place.

4. Sell things with value addition
When you are trying to sell in your blog, are you adding any value addition to it? Why would a person buy from you when he has options to buy the same product from any other websites or blogs ?
So, if you are not adding any value to a product or service through your blog, most probably, you will make sales, but not many to earn handsomely from your blog.

5. Internet Technology Know how
One should learn some technical skills about blogging platform, making presentation, preparing sale pitch etc. This will help not only in cutting cost, but also increase productivity. One should also know about keywords, links etc, even if not an expert.

6. Inspirations and hard work
Yes, you need both of these to earn from blogging, too. My suggestion would be to keep reading great blogs about earning from blog, making money online and other established and famous blogs.

Finally, hard work pays, everywhere online or offline.

Continuing with the Part – I of What Make Money Online gurus have not told you, I would like to post the part -II, what a offline revenue generator think about earning online by blogging or otherwise.

1. Earning money online and earning money offline are same
Both are same only the marketing and promotion method are different. But the tricks of making money remains the same. So if you have not been very successful in making money yourself, chances are, you will not make money online too. You may be a good writer, good SEO, still you may not make money, as you may lack marketing skill as well as converting inquiries into work order. And then get the payment credited in your account. A sale is not complete, unless the goods delivered, payment credited in seller’s account. This involves a complete process and it is hard work. It may be automated like in Google AdSense advertising, but as many Make Money Online gurus have pointed out, majority of revenue comes from direct sales, not from AdSense advertising.

2. Sustaining the struggle period
It is a hen and egg situation. You may think of turning problogger ( short for professional blogger), once your monthly income reaches the same or more than your income from your present 9Am to 5PM job, chances are you will never put in enough effort or you will not have enough time to put in effort to achieve your condition for turning turning problogger. If you are expert in certain field, by writing blog or starting an website, you will get more inquiries, but still you may not be able to convert them into your revenue. And, let me tell you it has nothing to do with your expertise, SEO tricks, writing skill, it is simply that it is not easy to convert an inquiry into a purchase order and then get payment credited in your account.
So, one may have to take the plunge and become problogger leaving his job. But he may not make enough to sustain himself immediately. But all expenses would be and must go to expense account of blogging, right ? So how does one sustain say for one year period ?

3. Blogging as part time business
So, consider blogging as part time business if you do not have the business acumen in you. Internet has lot of redundancy of data already and one should not add some more data redundancy. Do not expect to become millionaire by blogging and when it does not happen, do not break your heart.

Blogging or website can act as force multiplier at best, but if it does not involve some sort selling just like the traditional way, website or blog can not earn you any money except may be some change in AdSense. Hone your selling skill as well as making money off line first, and then going online, you will make more money, easier way, much faster.

You must be tired by now about reading make money online articles in many blogs, may have downloaded many free e-books, explaining how to make money online or explaining their experience of earning 10$ a month to $40,000 a month by blogging.

You may also also read many posts why bloggers fails to make money online. Also you may have read comments on those posts by various bloggers, readers with arguments, counter arguments. Some people really argue well with facts, logic and conviction. One can learn a lot from reading them.

But I have not noticed two points so far. May be I have not Googled enough! Those two points are :-

1. Blogger earn money by not blogging in his own website or blog, but by doing something else. That something may be affiliate marketing, putting Google AdSense advertisements, AdBrite Advertisements etc. But by blogging ? who has made any money by only writing on his own blog? Making money online or offline is completely different than blogging. They use blogging as a tool to bring in visitors to their website, a lure to bring in customers to buy what they want to sell.

2. Many blogger, blogging experts, making online money experts have rightly point out that 5% of the bloggers really made money, some in millions, some in thousands! So far so good! But how many of them could actually predict that they would make x amount of money ? Many of the experts on making money online or established blogger started blogging as hobby and when they started earning some money or started getting inquiries which could be converted to money, they took blogging seriously! So, they became blogger by fluke, not by plan!

3. Blogging is not the only way of making money online, nor it is the easiest way of earning online. There are many other ways to generate revenue online and I think internet business is much bigger than money generated by in blogs!

So, if some one wants to earn money by advising or consulting others how to make money online, it is actually if he knows enough tricks to earn online or not rather than the question if he himself had made money using his own tricks or not! After all there are many professors who teach students and students become successful in life, but professors remain just professors!

Many online money making gurus are not professors, but trying to make money by using the some one else idea of making money by selling E-Book online, that too about how to make money online!

Experts on any given field can make money without writing a single article. Have you found specialist doctors writing articles or blogging to bring patients to their clinic ? If he had been doing that, most probably, he is an out-of-work doctor trying his/her luck now on internet.

So how to actually earn online money ? Wait for part – II.

Continuing with my previous post, “How to Increase AdSense Revenue“, here comes the final installment, high paying AdSense Keywords to increase CPC!

I would like to remind again that high paying Google AdSense keywords do exist! But in my opinion,they are rare and they are not displayed frequently. But once you know the high paying Google AdSense keywords, you may write your posts accordingly.

The best way to find out high paying Google AdSense Keywords is to use Google AdWords. You may study the bidding for keywords. It is time consuming and boring, but it may help you plan your blog and blog posts. Once you know and identified your target high paying Google High Paying keywords, you should start posting articles in your blog stuffing those keyword.

Here are few tips about High Paying Google AdSense Keywords:
1. Financial Sector Keywords
Normally these keywords like Loan, Mortgage, Credit Card, Credit Card payments, Banking Account etc. keywords are competitive and should earn you high CPC.

2. Legal Sector Keywords
Keywords like legal advice, city wise legal adviser listing etc. attracts high CPC.

3. Gold related keywords
Normally, gold related keywords too are of high CPC.

4. Internet and Marketing
Website Hosting service related keywords are sure shot high CPC! Everybody seems to be of the opinion that any website hosting key words are of High Paying Google AdSense keywords! Butt than, it may not be easy write many web hosting related articles! Domain Booking related keywords too have high CPC.

5. Auto Sector keywords
Auto Sector keywords like Auto Insurance, Online Car Insurance, Car Insurance, Vehicle Insurance etc. are confirmed Google High Paying AdSense Keywords.

The exact keywords may vary from time to time as these keywords are normally auctioned. And these keywords normally do not appear on low traffic as well as low Google Page Ranked websites. These are my experiences. If you have any keywords that have high CPC, lets share and be benefited from internet knowledge sharing!

Continuing with my previous post, How to Increase AdSense Revenue, I have implemented and found good result by increasing Google AdSense CTR! Nothing great or fancy actually, just I optimized AdSense advertising placements in my blogs.
Here is what I did to increase CTR ( Click Through Rate):-
1. I have decided to use ad sizes of 468 X 68, image and text ads, 336 X 280 image only ads.
2. I have decided to place them in a prominent positions, easy to see and at least two ads in non-scrolling home page.

How I placed my Google AdSense ads ?
1. Place one 468 X 68 ad, just below the main menu and above the first or latest post of the blog. Normally use image only ad, as it is visible easily and may contain useful information as per the post content and keywords.
2. Place one 336 X 280 image ad at the right side, non scrolling home page. It gives a better look to the blog as well as it will be visible to every visitor. If you are using WordPress like me, put the ad in side bar, at the top of the widgets. It should be placed just after Search, or below About Us! People tend to read About Us page to know what the site is all about!
3. Now, place one more ad ( 468 X 68, image and text ad) just at the end of post when the post is opened in a single page! It may not be easy to put, though there are themes which allow you to put an advertisment at the end of post. But even if your favourite theme does not have that feature ( which is true in most cases), here is how you can put the ad.
a. Go to Appearance, and than click Editor.
b. Look for Single Post (single.php) in Theme Files and click it open in the editor.
c. Look for “< ?php the_content(); ? >“, you may place your 468 X 68 AdSense code just after that. And your ad will appear at the end of your post!

Once a visitor finishes reading your post, he may look for further reading about the topic in your post, and Google AdSense may link exactly that and reader will normally follow the link!

With the Google AdSense optimization explained above, I could increase my CTR. Why don’t you try out as well and comment here if it benefited you too ?

“How to increase AdSense Revenue ?” must the one question, every blogger must be asking himself, or spend hours Googling or Yahooing on net! Sadly, there does not seem to be a straight answer or a list of key words for it.

Still, blogger as well as other webmasters have not stopped trying to get hold of high paying google AdSense keywords. I have my own expereience when I got $4.5 for one click in one of my blogs! So, high paying keywords do exists! Over the period of times, I have realised few niches which have high revenue per click!

What is Google AdSense Revenue?
Revenue = Traffic * CTR * CPC , Where
Traffic : Number of Visitors to your blog or website
CTR : Click Through rate which means how many visitors clicking your Google Advertisements.
CPC : Cost Per Click

So, you have three ways or parameters to increase Google AdSense revenue.
1. Increase traffic to your blog or site
2. Increase CTR.
3. Increase CPC.

The question remains, how ? I have tried to explain many times how to increase visitors to your blog. I will update with how to increase CTR and CPC in my next posts!

What is splog ?
Splog is spam blogs or automatic blogging! You install some kind of bot in your blog which will gather RSS feed from various blogs and post them on your blog as per given keywords! Easy and quick!

Is it ethical ? No it is not. Does the blog reader benefit from such blogs ? No. It benefits only the blogger. People use splog to make money by blogging, say 2$ a month using Google Adsense!

So you need minimum 1000 splogs to make $2000 a month! Doable, but is it worth the trouble ? Many people think so and that is the reason splogs are sprouting on net!

There are many plugins available for Wordpress for auto-blogging! Let us do the calculations now!

1000 domains booking cost : if you book bulk then it will cost you say, $6000 for a year. You may take a unlimited hosting plan for two years say at $200 a year, you may need to take 10 accounts like that so, it will be another $2000. Total investment $8000. You will need to setup the 1000 blogs, so you may need to setup 20 blogs a day and it will consume 50 days! It may take another 90 days to actually start earning you $2 a month, so you are left with 8 months! Your total income for the first year would be 8 * $2000 = $16000! Cool profit of $8000!

What are your risks ?
1. Google AdSense may ban you.
2. You may not earn $2 a month from each of your blogs.
3. You may not have enough time to do SEO of your blogs.

Lot of disadvantages! But it may work out too!

Now the Smart way:
Why not use blogger.com for your 1000 blogs ?