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 Many people spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make money using the Internet. This is no secret. However, one of the principle reasons why some people will never make money online is because they are taking the wrong approach. Let me give you an example. There are many, many, many blogs about how to make money online. The simple problem with most of these is that the people behind a lot of the blogs aren't making any money. Can you explain to me how you are going to tell someone how to do something that you yourself can't do? That's like teaching someone how to stay married when you have been divorced five times! Now some may look at you and say that it took you five times to figure out what didn't work so you must have it all together, but the rest of us are going to look at you and say who are you to tell us how to stay married when you couldn't figure it out yourself!
A lot of people start a blog about making money online because some very big name bloggers have done it and have been successful. They look at John Chow and say wow! (Look I made a rhyme!) They look at people like Vic over at Blogger Unleashed and think, if he can do it I can do it. The problem is that these guys actually have experience making money online. John built his following from a tech blog he used to run and Vic has been making money online in different ways for years. The thing that they have in common is that they have experience making money online (by the way, Vic would die if he knew that I was telling you that HE has something in common with John Chow!). They may make money in different ways, but they both have experience doing it. So what is the point that I'm making? The point that I'm making is that you have to find something that is important to you, that you know about, that you can learn about or that you want to know about to help YOU make money online. To begin the process of identifying what you need to make money online, you have to first identify some things that you may be good at that you could use. These may be things that you haven't even thought of. Before we do that, I'm going to tell you some things not to do and some things you should do. Now please understand something. I'm not telling you not to do what you want to do. I'm just presenting some things that you should think about to help you. Here are some things for you to consider. DO NOT start a blog about making money online if YOU want to make money online or if you don't know how to make money online or don't have experience making money online. I will admit that reading that free John Chow ebook may make you feel like you can go out and start instantly making money online, but unfortunately that's not how it's going to work out. You are going to start your blog about making money online, you are not going to make a lot of money and then you are going to burn out after you put a lot of effort into it and don't see the return. I'm not saying that you won't or can't ultimately be successful, I'm just saying that it takes more than reading an ebook to truly make an impact in the “make money online” segment of the Internet. If you don't know what you are doing, you are going to put up your site trying to tell people how it's done and you are going to waste your time. There are easier routes to take and routes that can make you far more successful monetarily – if that is what you are looking for.
DO NOT try to copy the style of a particular problogger. A lot of people think that if they can just have a blog like Shoemoney then they will make it. This is so not the case. You have to set your own style up. That is what was part of the attraction for those sites. They had their own style. Now every guy that starts blogging about making money thinks that they need some sort of fancy car in their header to be successful. Is that what you are about? If it is, then by all means roll with it. If, however, you have your own style, then roll with that. I'm going to tell you something. Vic over at Blogger Unleashed has a blog that is full of typos, misspellings, curse words and great information. People still read his blog. You know why? He has his own style. He isn't following anybody and his approach is unique. Some people are going to find his style offensive and some people are going to find him abrasive, but his content is interesting and he has a style like no one else. This is what I mean when I say that you have to follow your own path and carve out your own style. Another fantastic example is Maki over at Dosh Dosh. Maki, who I originally thought was a woman, is a guy who has crafted his own easy going style. My point is that you should not start off trying to copy another blogger's style. You need to be you. Trust me – being you is good enough to make lots of money online if you have a good idea for your blog.
If you are going to create a successful blog, you should try to blog about what you know or what you are interested in. This isn't a necessity, but here is why it's important. If you aren't an immediate success, you are going to face times when you ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. You are going to face times when it seems easier to just forget the whole blogging thing and move on to something else. It's during these times that blogging about something that you are truly interested in will pay off for you. The trick is to make sure that what you are interested in is something that a lot of other people are interested in, which leads me to my next point.
If you aren't going to blog about something you know or something you are interested in, make SURE you blog about things that other people are interested in. Let me give you an example. I have quite a few websites. On one of my websites, I ran an article about a particular programming language in use today. That article was one of the most popular articles I have ever written and I have written A LOT of articles. It was Dugg, it was Stumbled, it was Mixxed, it was Design Floated and it was bookmarked. I had no idea that article would be so popular, but it was something that people were interested in. Now I have to tell you the truth. I design software and websites and I am a programmer so it wasn't like this article was about something that didn't interest me. The point is that it was something that truly interested OTHER people. If you are going to do something like blogging, find out what people want to know. This is where keyword research, article research through bookmarking services and social networking sites comes in. Look and see what people Digg the most and use that as a guide for the site you will create or what you will make your site about.
Always, always, always do the math and the investigation to see if your site idea is conducive to making money online. What does this mean? Let me give you a very clear example. If you have a blog about making money that 100 people visit, you have to know that they are very unlikely to click on adsense ads, very unlikely to sign up for any of your special ClickBank programs and very unlikely to try to advertise on your blog unless your blog is large, which it won't be when you are just starting out. If you have a blog about beautiful pottery, for instance, you are going to get people who are either interested in pottery for themselves or someone they know. They are going to click on your ads if they are relevant to pottery, they are going to comment on how beautiful the pottery is and they are going to want to buy stuff. You have to think clearly about things without letting any type of ego get in the way. If you can't deliver what people want and your idea is not something that is going to make money for you, then you are wasting your time.
Now I'm going to give you a few ideas for blogging sites. These are things that I personally know to be big draws. Creating articles about these items will allow you to establish yourself, make money and promote your other ventures. People love WordPress themes like they love food. These sites are people magnets. People love to get celeb news. You can create a site that reads the feeds from a site like TMZ and displays them on your site. Now you have instant content and a site people want to see. You will have to promote your site and add great pics, but people will come to a celebrity news sites if it is well put together. People love gaming sites like they love air. Targeted sports can provide you with a great site. Programming sites offer a lot of possibilities. PHP is a great language to start with because it is very popular. These are just a few. Take time and think about sites that are important to you. News sites, stock sites, etc. Where do you go? Then do your research. Building a successful site is easy if you spend a little time thinking about what you are trying to do BEFORE you do it. Written by Kila Morton
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