Six Tips for Beginning Bloggers

My blog is less than three months old, but I already feel like I have written it for a long time. There are many things that I wish I knew before I started writing this blog. I have summarized my experience into six tips:

1. Pick a personality for your blog

One of the mistake I made is that I didn't use a believable pen name and a real photo. Blogging is about sharing your personal viewpoint, and a popular blog has to associate with a person. You also need to develop a personality for your blog. All successful bloggers has its unique personal style.

Having said that, you don't need to use your real name. You only need a name that is "real" enough for your readers. For photo, you can use a photo that only show part of your face. The most important point is that your readers can associate your blog with a person with an interesting personality.

2. Pick a strategy and sticks with it

It is a lot more difficult than it sounds. When you become a blogger, you will start to read other people's blog. When you read other people's blog, you will be influenced by it, and you will not able to follow your initial plan.

Dosh Dosh is a good example where a blogger choose a strategy and sticks with it. Dosh Dosh reviews money making resources on the internet, and he keeps cranking out posts after posts of high quality reviews. Maki Dosh will not ask his readers to vote for Sanjaya in American Idol. Maki Dosh will only review online money making resources. A simple strategy, but yet very effective. Dosh Dosh has an Alexa's ranking of 34,585.

3. Use MyBlogLog

Although ShoeMoney has found lots of bugs in MyBlogLog, I still consider MyBlogLog as a great social networking sites for new bloggers. Most blogs have MyBlogLog's avantar. Hence, if you visit someone's blog, the owner of the blog will know and he/she may visit your blog. This is a great way to build up your readerships.


Many MyBlogLog's members use near nude female photos in its avantar. This strategy could bring some traffic to your site, but you better make sure that the photo looks good in 48x48 pixels.

I have seen a blog that starts in Feburary but already broke into the top 200,000 in Alexa. One of the secret of its success is using MyBlogLog. About a month ago, the owner of that blog asks almost every member in MyBlogLog to join his community. His community grows quickly, and his blog ranking rises. If you are a MyBlogLog member, you will know who I am talking about.

4. Quantity is more important than Quality

It is better to have a lot of interesting posts in your blog than a few high quality posts. Each post serves as an entry point to your readers, and with more posts, you have more channels to get new readers.

The blog that ranks in the top 200,000 in Alexa in less than a month has average more than two posts per day. His posts are interesting, but you can find similar content from some other blogs. However, since he has many posts on his blogs, he is able to attract many readers in a short time.

5. Comments

Leaving comments in other people's blog is a great way to make friends. I made lots of blogger friends through comments, and I have discovered lots of interesting blogs from other people's comment on my blog too.

If you leave comments in a popular blog, like John Chow dot com, it will bring some traffic to your blog. However, if you leave comments in some less popular blogs, the blog owner may notice you. It is important to leave comments in both popular and less popular blogs.

6. Be patience and be prepared for your opportunity

It takes time to build up readers. You need to be patience. At the same time, you have to be prepared for your moment to shine. There are times that your blog will get noticed. When it happens, you better write a lot of quality posts immediately because you will able to get lots of new readers for your blog.

I have followed Kumiko's blog for a while. Her breakthrough comes when her controversial post about AGOLOCO got noticed by Probloggers and ShoeMoney. She immediately able to follow up with another interesting post about how Britney Spears can teach you about Blogging. I have seen many people have become regular visitors to her blog since. No matter you like her or not, she is very good at seizing her opportuntiy.

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The Quickest Complete money maker on the internet

I found this interesting search on my site statistics.

1. Go to Google.
2. Search "The Quickest Complete money maker on the internet"

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of March 19)

	John Chow: Clever Blogger… Dare I Say Internet Marketer? I have mentioned John Chow's blog many times. This is a slightly negative review on his site. It analyzes John Chow's clever (deceptive?) Internet marketing tatics.
	How to Create Web 2.0 site? A wonderful article that shows you how Web 2.0 sites are different from traditional web sites.
	Top 40 sites according to Feedburner stats? This is a list of the top 40 sites according to the number of RSS subscriptions. I am planning to write a post about how to increase RSS subscriptions. This list gives me a list of sites to research on.

Steve Jobs introduces iRack

This is a very clever social commentary on the Iraq War in Mad TV. At first, you will think it is a parody on Steve Jobs, but you will soon discover it is not what you think. It is originally aired on Fox on March 10, 2007.

Become a more efficient blogger

I have a really busy week at my nine to five job, and I am only able to complete one post for the entire week.

It is time to rethink about how I can continue blogging without putting too much stress on my daily life.

I will set up a set of rules for myself to follow:

1. Spend no more than one hour a day on blogging.
2. Reply all of my comments and emails everyday.
3. Sent a thank you message to all the new members in my myBlogLog community
4. Keep a list of blogs to read. Visit the blogs on the list and comment on them everyday.
5. Keep an eye on interesting posts for Johnny's weekly blogmark
6. Keep a list of blog topic to research on.
7. Keep an outline of post that I prepare to write. When the outline is completed, make a new post on my blog.

Hope I can follow my new plan!

Feel the Link Love

Have you ever do the wave when you are in a stadium? My blog friend, Mike Scott, in the "Bit Bucket" has recently started a "Feel the Link Love" campaign. It is my turn to spread it out!

To Continue this Link Love list:
1. Copy and paste the list below into your blog post. Hopefully your blog editing software will be smart enough to copy the links over. If not, you can always look at the page source to get the HTML.
2. Add any blogs you want to the list, including the blog that listed you (this blog).

That's all there is to it, if the list continues, then everyone should get a bunch of links from other blogs, and everyone will be happy.

The List:
Making Money on the Web
Steve Wilson Marketing
The Thinking Blog
Affiliate Marketing Wave
Your Blogging Guide
The Bit Bucket

My addition:
If Ya want to Make Money
Successful Online Money Making
Kumiko Suzuki's Money Quest

Selling T shirts online

Are you bored with your job?

Do you think you are creative?

Do you think your artistic talent is underappreciated?

Do you want to start your own business?

Then, why don't you sell your own custom T shirt online!

Thousands of people are making good money by selling T shirts online. For example, CollegeHumor.com is a site that offer jokes and pictures from college campus. It makes roughly $200,000 a month.

Threadless is a community-centered online t-shirt store. It grosses over $20 million in revenue in the year 2006.

There are many ways that you could sell your own custom T shirt online. Indeed, you don't even need a printer to start!

CafePress is a site that this blog has mentioned before. Not only you can design an sell T-shirts, you can also sell Mouse Pads, Mugs, Prints, Magnets, Ornaments, Keepsakes, Hats, Aprons, Stickers, Buttons, Clocks, Cards, Books, CD's Calendars and more.

Zazzle offers a free gallery that you can make a 10% commission on plus a 7% referral for a total of 17% commission. It is also the first company to offer custom postage business.

DesignAShirt.com is another company that let you design t shirts and other custom merchandise for yourselves.

CafePress charges a vendor a base price of $8.99 for a T shirt with a customized logo on it. If you have access to a local apparel printer, you can get it for a cheaper price, and thus raise your profit margin.

John Chow's effect

How much traffic did you got from a link in John Chow dot com?

Here is my experience.

My review on John Chow dot com makes it to his review batch 23. I got 32 unique vistors, and 51 page views from his blog within the next 24 hours. On average, my blog has about 40-50 unique vistors per day.

My Technorati problem -- resolved

My prayer has finally be answered! Technorati finally able to find my site. Check this out:

My blog has 62 links from 54 blogs, and is ranked 74,150!

Thanks for the outpouring support from everyone. My post, "My Technorati woe", has 9 comments from 6 different persons. Many of you have given me a lot of suggestion on how I can get Technorati to ping me.

Based on this experience, it seems like the best way to resolve your Technorati's problem is to leave a message to their forum. I logged my complain in here: http://support.technorati.com/topic/144?replies=3#post-606 , and my problem is resolved about a week later.

Mike Scott's blog also got pinged by Technorati. (Click here)

Since Technorati has officially recognized my blog, hence if you got a link from me, it will increase your technorati link count. If you are interested in link exchange, please leave me a comment.

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of March 5)

Here comes Johnny's weekly blogmark:

Love Letter by a Web 2.0 Nerd

A really funny love letter.

10 Most Beautiful Blog Designs

I am thinking about changing my blog design. This gives me some inspirations.

Your Blog's Got No Friends???

Shirlene has several interesting posts recently, but I like this one the most.

Internet Mafia

ShoeMoney and a number of high profile bloggers have got extortion email from someone who threatens to knock down their Adsense account. While the email seems more like a pratical joke or prank, it is quite possible that we will see some real internet crimes against bloggers soon. There are some bloggers who have made good money from their blogs, and it is a matter of time when some criminals want to step in and claim their shares.

If you want to sell your T-shirts on a busy intersection, it is very likely that someone will ask you for "protection racket". I wish that we will never have to worry about organized crime when we are selling T-shirts in CafePress or eBay.

My Technorati woe

"Dear God, please have the Technorati spider visit my site tomorrow. Amen."

If you have read my "Top 10 signs of blog addiction", you should know that I pray to God everyday for my Technorati rank to rise. The reason is simple. My blog has never got pinged by Technorati. Never Ever.

You can see my technorati rank in this URL:

http://technorati.com/blogs/http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com

I first noticed the problem about a month ago, after my blog got reviewed by the Ruminator. Although my blog got a review by another blogger, my blog still had zero blog links according to Technorati. I immediately did what most people will do: Use the Technorati ping service to ping Technorati. I ping Technorati at least 10 times a day, but Technorati ignores me.

Then, I brought my problem to the wisest man on the Internet, Google! I found a web site called, "Ping-o-Matic" that let me ping Technorati. Some people in online forums even claim that Ping-o-Matic had made special deal with Technorati, and sites that are pinged by Ping-o-Matic will got updated quickly. I use Ping-o-Matic to ping Technorati multiple times everyday, while I am using Technorati ping at the same time. Technorati still ignores me.

I check my blogger's configuration, and I have "Add your Blog to our listing" set to public. This should be fine, but my blog still never got pinged. I submit a support ticket to Technorati. I did get an answer from them, but my blog still hasn't got pinged.

One day, I came across Mike Scott's blog, "The Bit Bucket". I found out that Mike has the same problem as me! Indeed, his blog hasn't been pinged for 626 days. I leave a comment on his blog. Mike immediately let other readers know about my problem. One of his readers suggested us to post to the Technorati forums, which I did. The Technorati administrator told me to submit a support ticket, but I had already did that.

My blog still hasn't got pinged!

WHY ME?

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And thou shalt know thy name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee"

The AGLOCO List

My neighbour Matt, in Successful Online Money Making, invites me to join his newly created AGLOCO list. After being rejected from 2,000 bloggers (because I am not using real photo), and miss out the Z-List (because I was on vacation during the first week of Feburary), I am not going to miss out the AGLOCO list this time!

Here is the list:

To continue The AGLOCO list:

1. Copy and paste the list of sites below into your blog post.
2. Add any AGLOCO blogs you want to the list, including the blog that listed you (this blog). Remember, the more you add the faster it will spread
3. That's it! Sit back and feel the networking love

AGLOCO Little Guy
The ClubFreedom Blog
BobBuskirk.com
Blog-Op
Blog About Money Online
Making money on the web
How to Earn Money Blogging
The Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog
ADESBLOG.com
My life! - boring but I love it
Dominate AGLOCO
Successful Online Money Making !

My addition:
Make Money On The Net
How to Make a Million Dollars

Text version:

<a href="http://aglocolittleguy.blogspot.com/">AGLOCO Little Guy</a>
<a href="http://club-freedom.blogspot.com/">The ClubFreedom Blog</a>
<a href="http://www.bobbuskirk.com">BobBuskirk.com</a>
<a href="http://blog-op.com/">Blog-Op</a>
<a href="http://blogaboutmoneyonline.blogspot.com">Blog About Money Online</a>
<a href="http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com/">Making money on the web</a>
<a href="http://how2make.blogspot.com">How to Earn Money Blogging</a>
<a href="http://the-ultimate-make-money-online-blog.blogspot.com">The Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog</a>
<a href="http://www.adesblog.com/">ADESBLOG.com</a>
<a href="http://ladylike4.com/">My life! - boring but I love it</a>
<a href="http://www.dominateagloco.com/">Dominate AGLOCO</a>
<a href="http://matt608.blogspot.com">Successful Online Money Making !</a>
<a href="http://making-money-on-thenet.blogspot.com/">Make Money On The Net</a>
<a href="http://howtomakeamilliondollars.blogspot.com/">How to Make a Million Dollars</a>

For rule and more information, please visit Matt's original post

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of Feburary 26)

Here comes the second edition of Johnny's weekly blogmarks

1. 10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That made someone Rich
   See how people make money by selling pixels on the web, send out emails as Santa, or creates googles for dog!
   
   
2. Bloggers Faces-off: Darren Rowse vs Jeremy Shoemoney
   Bloggers Faces-off is a new section on Daily blog tips. The author asks the same set of questions to two famous bloggers and post their responses side by side. The first edition features Darren Rowse and Jeremy Shoemoney
   
   
3. 34 Reasons why Readers Unsubscribe from your blog
   A post from the problogger discussing the reason why readers will unsubscribe from your blog feed.
   
   

Review of John Chow dot com

John Chow dot com -- The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul is one of the most popular blog in the web, and is ranked 3,881 in Alexa. He got interviewed by the Vancouver Sun in early Feburary and his blog has generated $7011.05 in Feburary alone. Many of my blogger friends are his fans and has commented on his blog frequently.

John Chow is a Chinese Canadian who lives in Vancouver. He is the founder of TheTechZone. Five years ago, it was reported that John Chow has turned down an offer of $1.3 million for TheTechZone. It is interesting to see how much the site is worth right now!

I have followed his blog for a while, and I summarize his success for the following reasons:

1. Reputation :- As the owner of TheTechZone, he is well known by internet marketers before his blog started.
   


2. Prolific:- He consistently posts four to five posts per day, and he has at least one full page length post daily.
   


3. Effective use of Advertising:- John Chow knows which internet advertising channel to use, and he knows how to use it effectively. Recently, he has a "Make Darren Rowse Money" ad on Google Adsense. Since most bloggers start blogging by reading the Problogger blogging tips, this ad caught the attention of thousands of bloggers almost immediately.
   


4. Effective Marketing Campaign:- John Chow loves to award prizes to his readers. When he joins MyBlogLog, he awards a 1GB Lego Flash Drive to one of his MyBlogLog members. Recently, he has a Guess My Feburary Blog Income contest, and Matt608 from Successful Online Money Making has won. He knows how to create buzz among the blogger's community. If you want to get a link from his blog, all you have to do is write a 200 words honest review to his blog, and place two links on your posts: one to his homepage, and one to review my blog. He will add your site to his "Review My Blog" section.
   


5. Breadth and depth:- His blog covers a wide range of topics that ranges from investing to fine dinning, but at the same time, he gives in depth analysis on topic like, "how to make money from a blog".
   


6. Good Blog Layout:- Some reviewers of his blog said that he has too many ads on his blog. While this may be true, it doesn't slow down the loading speed. His blog has a very effective layout.
   

Dorm Check -- Another paid to post forum

Dorm Check is another paid to post forum. At first glance, the site is very similar to MyLot, but has a lot less posts. This site seems to be targeted toward college students.

It paid about 1 cent per post, and you will get your payment when you reach $10. It used to be paid monthly, but according to some other blogs, it will pay you whenever you hit the $10 limit now. At present, it has less than 15,000 posts, thus, I don't think anyone has received a check yet.

Payments are made through either PayPal or e-Gold.

DormCheck's UI looks more professional than MyLot, but is not as easy to navigate. I still can't find my referral URL in their site. I prefer MyLot's UI over DormCheck because it is more opened.

For bloggers, you can use DormCheck in a similar way as you use MyLot. You can use DormCheck to promote your blog and get paid during the process. You can also use DormCheck to get referrals.

Update: DormCheck has deleted my account. Several bloggers has suffered similar fates. For detail, please check my new post.

Update on Blogvertise

My account did got approved, and I got assigned tasks. Unfortunately, I don't realized that there is a five days time limit. Thus, I am not able to finished my assigned tasks on time.

So, if you join Blogvertise, please remember you have to finish your assigned tasks within five days.

DotMySpot.com has several articles on Blogverise.