By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines that you would if you were starting your own blog from scratch. For example, google runs the free blog hosting site blogspot and crawls its pages very often looking for updates, so if you have your site hosted by blogspot you are almost guaranteed to be listed on google’s blog search engine. This easy access to search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain a following with a minimum of marketing effort.

If your blog attracts a large readership, you may want to consider moving your site. Many people feel that being hosted by a free blogging web site gives a blog a kind of amateur flavor that is fine for a new member of the blogosphere, but is not appropriate for a high-profile blog. Having your own domain can help you make your blog feel professional, and finding a company that will host your domain is not difficult or expensive. Once your blog takes off, you will probably be able to sell enough advertising space to be able to afford to buy a domain and pay for a hosting package, and still have money left over. However, it does not make sense in most cases to invest in these glossy luxuries before you have a sizable readership.

Starting your blog on a free blogging web site is a great way to build a following before you spend any money on your blog. If and when your blog becomes popular and you are ready to take the next step and purchase your own domain, your readers will follow you to your new home. The fact that it is possible to use a free blog host like blogspost, blogger, or eponym as a kind of incubator for your blog is great news for bloggers everywhere.

Yes, there are many “step by step” online income guides…but most of the time you already need a laundry list of web skills to go along with product creation, writing skill, marketing, etc…

This is Different!!

The Income Blogging Guide is here to show you how to make it work…

Step by Step by Step (this 3rd one being the key…I’ll explain later…)

We all need as much help as we can get. Have you ever looked into a product, course, or ebook that suggested it was “easy”, “ready-made”, or “step by step”, only to find that each step needs a “step by step” to it as well? That’s where our 3rd “by step” comes in. Step by step by step…

But most sites don’t give you that extra step…in fact, most sites lack quite a bit of information…

Many sites and courses take certain things for granted…like your ability to create a web page, or generate traffic. You need to have some technical savvy in order to follow the “steps”. If you’ve never built a web site before, or have very limited experience, this can be one of the most daunting parts of starting a blog.

While a how-to may take you step by general step through the basics of setting up a blog or online product page…the steps are usually very broad. You may be told to “design a front page”, or “set up a vendor for processing payments”. You may not, however, be told how to do each of these things.

You’re on your own with the information. If you don’t understand a part of it, you can usually submit questions, but there’s not a “go to” resource for figuring out part of the process. Many e-course designers or marketers are more than happy to help…to a degree…but don’t have mechanisms built in for very involved technical help. At times, you may even be referred to alternative courses designed to help you complete these steps. Who wants to spend even more money when the course was supposed to be step by step?

There’s just A LOT to do when starting an e-business from scratch. How do you prioritize?

There are so many variables involved…it’s hard to know how or when to expect any income. Let’s face it…we’re not doing this for our health. When will you get paid? How do you plan for income from something so new to you? Continue…

But what happens when a visitor finally decides to visit your blog’s homepage; not just the preview but they actually go to the trouble to visit your site “in person” by visiting the url of your site; what then?

You have gone to so much trouble adding content and graphics in the hopes of attracting lots of visitors but then you realize your “bounce rate” is very high – that is, you realize that your visitors are simply visiting for a few seconds and then running away!

This could be for a variety of reasons; perhaps your visitor is too busy, maybe they are not interested in your content, maybe they just don’t like the look of it…we know that this happens…we have probably done it ourselves; we see the blog of the day; pay the site a quick visit and then move on.

Is there any way to get a second chance at presenting this traffic with your message? We do it all the time in person don’t we? It’s that momentary “Oh, by the way….”

“Oh by the way, can I call you later?”
“Oh by the way, how is your sister doing these days?”
“Oh by the way, have you seen this?”

You may have already guessed where I am going with this…the dreaded exit splash! Why do websites (and people) use these annoying “Oh-by-the-way” messages? For one simple reason!….

They work!

We may not like them, but we see them all the time in person, on television and on the web. They give you a second chance to present your message that you hope will provide value to your visitor.

Up until now, most WordPress blogs did not have this capability; but all that is about to change. You can now tap you visitor on the shoulder as they leave your site with your personalized by-the-way message. (Visit my blog for a sample!)

Let me know! ~ Do you love it? Hate it? Don’t know what it is? Think it is a nuisance or a valuable method to leverage the power of your blog? I want to know!

I am sure some bloggers can’t wait to get their hands on such a valuable script; other may cry in disgust…whether it’s controversial or not let’s hear from all the dedicated bloggers out there on your opinion!

See an exit splash example here or the version called Exit Splash 2

~ paddy

They give two specific examples of sites that they have created that earn them consistent monthly revenue in the range of two hundred dollars per month.

The module topic appear relatively basic such as:
-selecting profitable keywords
-site setup & building content
-selecting affiliate networks
-traffic generation

Clearly, this would be most suitable to the newbie internet marketer rather than someone who has been online for a year or more.

Their sales page and video is very low key which is a refreshing change from most of the super-hyped pitches I have seen recently in this product space.

In summary: If you are just starting to create websites online or are making less than two thousand dollars per month online then this will likely give you some good training for a reasonable low cost.

If you have already practiced setting up websites and have a good idea of keyword research and traffic generation strategies to produce solid revenue then you can probably pass on this newbie course.

~ paddy

p.s. here are some excerpts from the sales page:

My guess is you’ve probably already wasted your time and spent hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on…

I came across one that I’d like to share with you here because I believe it really illustrates the point of how someone can continually go for “the next thing” when success was right under their nose…continue…

Deciding what your priorities are in terms of ease of use versus customization. Most highly customizable writing platforms, like moveable type, are a bit more difficult to use than very automated platforms like WordPress. If you are new to blogs and to internet technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in order to find a program that will be easy for you to use. On the other hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of html or javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly platform to be frustrating.

There is no such thing as a blogging platform that is objectively the best, because every writer has unique needs. The blogging movement is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense that there would be many different platforms available that are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals undertaking different kinds of projects. This diversity is a good thing, because it means that you will almost certainly be able to find a program that suits your level of technical aptitude.

However, the fact that no two bloggers need the same thing from a blogging platform can make your search for the right platform a bit tricky. When you are reading reviews of different platforms, try to keep your priorities in mind and do your best to take into account the position that the reviewer is coming from. For example, a negative review written by an accomplished software designer who complains that a popular platform is too limited may tell you that the platform in question is ideal for a beginning blogger. There is no such thing as the perfect platform for everybody, so instead of looking for the “best” platform, look for the best platform for your specific criteria.

Click here to see a very successful blog example.

If you are writing with the goal of selling advertising, there are two basic ways that you can go about recruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site; you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or you can do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue. Within the first group, many people make money writing by selling space through Google’s AdSense program. The advantages of this program are numerous, as it requires very little effort on the part of the writer or webmaster to begin raking in profits. However, most people discover that they make less money through this method than they had hoped that their website would earn.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to put banner ads or sponsored links on your site can take quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If you have a lot of contacts in industries that are related to the topic of your site, you may want to try to go this route. People who have a strong background in sales and experienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bit of money by renting website space to interested companies. The most serious problem with this model is that you often have to build quite a sizable readership before you can attract advertisers, which can mean that you have to do several months of work before you start to make money writing.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative business, a lot of established companies are considering how they can get into the action. One way that companies are capitalizing on the blog movement is by having writers that provide a kind of friendly face for their corporation. Often, a company will employ an established writer to create a weblog designed specifically to appeal to that company’s customers and to create positive associations with the brand in consumers’ minds. More than one writer who never even dreamed that he or she could make money writing has been approached by a company and offered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig. For example click here to see a site that does very well for the owner.

Many writers dream of entering the sphere of professional writers. There are very few people who happily devote an hour or more each day to their keyboard without at least occasionally wishing that they could earn some kind of financial reward for all of their work. Several models exist for making money with a blog, the most popular being to sell advertising space through Google’s AdSense program or directly to a company that wishes to reach the demographic that your site appeals to. However, there are very few people indeed who can make a comfortable living just by selling space on their website sidebars.

A lot of the people who read weblogs are writers themselves, in part because of the fact that the people who use writing technology on a daily basis are most likely to be interested in what other writers are doing with the medium. This fact begins to explain why the people who succeed in the world of professional blogging are mostly people who have devoted themselves almost entirely to learning about, talking about, and writing about valuable topics. More than any other topic, pro writers turn their attention to the phenomenon of content itself. A lot of pro writers make the topic of writing for a living the stunningly self-reflexive ongoing focus of their sites.

Of course, professional writing is destined to become much more complicated in the future than it is today. In the current moment, pro writers who attract the largest audiences and make the most money are mostly concerned with investigating the technology movement and with offering advice to amateur writers. However, as the kinds of people who regularly read blogs changes, and the demographics of writers expand and diversify as writing software becomes more user friendly, it is very likely indeed that the world of pro writing will begin to reflect these changes. Indeed, it is very difficult to predict exactly what kinds of sites will be reaping the greatest financial rewards five or ten years down the road. The world of pro writing is one of constant change and flux, which is part of what makes it so exciting.

Today, there are an abundance of photo blogs, and there are even video blogs as well. Mobile blogging devices may well change the definition of blogging entirely by making it possible for bloggers to create new kinds of posts. Another element of the blogosphere that is starting to redefine blogging is the corporate blog. As more companies hire writers to keep blogs with the sole purpose of creating positive buzz about their brand, bloggers across the globe are arguing about whether these manufactured blogs are really worthy of the name.

Between all of these different forces that are constantly expanding and reshaping the blogosphere, it is difficult to imagine that the definition of what is and is not a blog will ever remain fixed for very long.

Writing for business owners has a lot in common with all other types of blogging, but it has its own unique pitfalls and strengths. The key to having a successful site as a business owner is keeping your goals clear and concrete at every step of your blogging adventure. It can be all to easy to get sidetracked, especially if you are just learning about the exciting possibilities of blogging technology, but if you want your blog to succeed you need to stay focused.

Write up a plan for how often you will update, how you will promote your site and retain readers, whether you will feature photographs or video, and other aspects of your blog, and then stick to it with the same kind of determination that you used when you built your company.