Hope Writes

Can You Really Make Money Blogging?

Posted by Hope

I read a lot of blogs in a week’s time. Lately I’ve noticed more talk about blogging to make money. More specifically, there’s an interesting up-and-down trend of “yes, you can” and “no, you can’t.”

The “yes, you can” bloggers say that it is possible to make money blogging. But then there is a wide varying of opinion as to how to make money blogging. Some say Adsense is the way to go. But even more bloggers are saying to stay away from Adsense and try other things, like Widget Bucks, Kontera and Amazon context.

The “no, you can’t” bloggers say that it’s impossible to expect to earn a decent income solely from a blog. They suggest rather, to hire yourself out as a freelancer, or do something else to earn a living while you blog for a hobby.

And then there are the bloggers who say that it is possible to make money with a blog, but you have to be willing to put in lots of hard work and you can’t expect it to happen overnight.

I have found that the bloggers who say it is possible are most often those who began blogging solely as a hobby. They birthed an audience, who grew with them over an extended period of time (in most cases, years). They didn’t start out with hopes of making money, but just did it for fun. Because they carved out a name for themselves in a community of people who were also interested in the same things, they became popular and widely known across the Net. Slowly, they began to test and try new things–just to make a few bucks to pay for the regular upkeep of the blog–and discovered that they could monetize their passion after all.

Lessons we can learn from this…

Are You Passionate About The Topic?

If you’re thinking about blogging just to make money, forget about it. It’s definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you aren’t passionate about the topic, you’ll run out of things to say–and fast!

If you’re going to start a blog, be confident that you can talk about the topic extensively and often. Most blogs update daily; three times per week minimum. To build a readership, you have to be able to post content regularly, or else nobody will want to come back. If you aren’t very interested in the topic, it’s going to be difficult to keep producing content as often as you need to.

Can You Devote Time To It?

Blogging requires more time and effort than you think. Professional bloggers don’t just whip out articles and post them on a whim, then leave until it’s time to blog again.

Blogging requires things like research, networking, and traffic building. Not only are you the author, but you have to manage comments, respond to your readers, and generate an overall interest in your blog. If you can’t devote the time required to build an audience, it’s pointless to blog (unless you just enjoy reading your own thoughts ).

Are You Willing To Test And Tweak To Discover What Works Best?

When your blog grows to the point that you are ready to monetize it, how will you go about doing this? You can’t just slap a few blocks of Adsense on your blog and walk away. You have to ask yourself questions like:

• What are my readers interested in?
• What products can I recommend to my readers that will provide them with quality, helpful information they need?
• Is paid advertising more conducive than placing Adsense on my website?
• Do I want my readers to stay on my website, or is it okay for them to click away (Adsense)?

Those are just a few things you have to consider.

Can You Build A “Sticky” Blog?

Believe it or not, blogging requires more thought than just throwing together a few paragraphs and posting it for people to read. You have to consider your audience, and what they want or expect to read when they return.

A sticky blog is one that keeps the reader there for a long period of time. How do you know if your blog is sticky? Take a look at your site stats. If it shows that the majority of your readers click away after being on your blog for less than a minute or two, it’s pretty safe to say your blog isn’t sticky.

A few examples of my favorite sticky blogs are:

• ProBlogger.net
• LifeHack.org
• SelfMadeChick.com
• Copy Blogger
• DoshDosh
• StevePavlina’s Blog

Go check them out and see if you can figure out the “stickiness” of each blog.

Can you make money blogging?

Some say you can; some say you can’t. I say…it’s all up to YOU. Can you make money blogging? You tell me….can you?

I Recommend:

Popularity: 100% [?]

How To Write A Meaty Article

Posted by Hope

I got a little sidetracked yesterday, but I felt that post was important in laying a foundation to this series. Today I’m going to take an example (article) from the first part of this series and develop it even further. I want to walk through the process of creating a meatier article with you, so you can see how it’s done. Hopefully we’ll all learn something from this lesson together. (It’s just as much for me, as it is for you.)

Valerie commented on the first post:

“One of my frustrations is not being about to produce articles as quickly as I want to, and it’s becuase I’m a perfectionist, and I’m always shooting for around 500 words - hopefully quality words.”

I know exactly what you mean, Valerie, because I’m the same way. I tend to watch my word count ticker in the bottom left corner when I write. The only thing that does is succeed in driving me nuts when the numbers don’t rise as quickly as I’d like them to. Although I’m a pretty quick writer, I do tend to obsess over things like word count and quality.

3-Step Article Writing Process

First, I’m going to do a quick run-through of the 3-step article writing process I use.

Start From Scratch

The first thing I recommend you do before you start an article is to think about what you’re going to say before you actually do the writing. Gather your thoughts for a few moments. Figure out what questions you want to answer with your article. Or what information you will impart with your readers.

Starting from scratch is often scary, with the empty white page and cursor blinking back at you. But you can lay a foundation in the beginning that will help you produce a quality article in the end.

Create An Outline

Once I determine what I’m going to write about, I almost always begin my writing with an outline, as I’ve already shared here. During this part of the writing stage, I like to write by hand away from the computer, preferably outside.

Outlining is simple, so don’t make a big deal of it. Just grab a pen and notebook, write your tentative article title at the top of the page, then jot ideas as they come to you. After you lay out several ideas on paper, you can quickly and easily re-organize them as necessary, then compile the first draft of the article.

Spit-Shine

After the article has been double-checked for errors and mistakes, read through it one last time to make sure there aren’t any more boo-boo’s hiding. Rewrite your final copy and you’re good to go. You should have a nice article, ready to use.

Meatballs, Anyone?

Okay, so we’ve covered the basics of writing a simple article. So now the proof is in the pudding. What if, after all that, your article is still short and just doesn’t quite cut it? What then? Then it’s time to take a closer look at it and figure out why there’s not enough substance to it.

• Is your idea fully developed?
• Is the topic clear enough?
• Did you expand on each idea within the article?
• Did you rush to finish writing it?
• Did you cut sentences and paragraphs because you felt like you were too windy?

Since I’m my own worst critic, I’m going to take one of my own short articles and beef it up to show you how it can be done. We’ll use the article I referred to earlier: Writing Articles - You Can Write Articles With Great Speed And Ease. If you click on that link it will open in a new window for you. Reduce both windows, if you like, so you can follow along with each article as I rewrite it and make it a meatier article.

Let’s go…

Write Articles At The Speed Of Light With Article Templates (I didn’t like the original title, so this is the new one)

Do you freeze up every time you sit down to write an article? I used to. I’d sit down to write an article or two and suddenly every wonderful article idea I’d had throughout the day would disappear. Then I discovered article templates. These are great little gems that help you when you feel a case of writer’s block coming on.

Article templates are fill-in-the-blank snippets. They give you a jumping point for writing when you’ve lost all inspiration. If you’ve never used templates to help you write an article, but frequently struggle when you get ready to write, you are going to love this! Here are just a few ways that article templates make your life a lot easier:

1. You don’t have to think about a layout for your ideas. With article templates, all you have to do is pull one out and use it to create a new article. You don’t have to contemplate thirty minutes over how the article will be written. You simply write. For example, a how-to article template might spark an idea like: How To Learn Bird Calls in 30 Minutes or Less Likewise, a Top 10 Lists article template could prompt you to write an article about the top ten ways to tell your mother you’re pregnant.

2. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. When you use article templates, it really is as simple as filling in the blanks. There’s no more guesswork to writing. Example: 10 Ways to ___________ Your _____________ or 4 Reasons Why You’ll Never _________________.

3. Article templates spur more article ideas. The wonderful thing about using article templates is that once you sit down and write an article or two, you can’t help but think of a few more articles. It’s the inevitable with templates. They act as a springing board for even more ideas.

For example, if you use a writing template to create an article about the tropical rainforest, you might end up with several other articles based on the same topic, but written with different templates, like:

• 3 Worst Months For Animals in the Rainforest
• How to Save the Rainforest
• Tips on Raising Money to Donate to the Rainforest
• Rainforest Quiz: Which Rainforest Animal Are You?

4. Article templates save you a ton of writing time. Who wants to sit for hours at the computer working on the same article? You’ll end up frustrated and angry and want to send the article to your recycle bin. Right? When you use article templates, you cut out all those wasted hours. Article templates can literally reduce your writing time by half, or more.

ORIGINAL WORD COUNT: 250
REWRITTEN WORD COUNT: 467

It’s still not the best article in the world, but you can see how easily I tweaked and added to the article to give it a bit more substance. For the most part, I simply added in a few examples to demonstrate the power of using article templates. By doing those simple things, I nearly doubled the word count on this article.

The next time you draft an article, stop and take a look at it. Does it look “bony?” Find the weak spots and add more meat to those bones.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Are You Skilled Enough To Be A Writer?

Posted by Hope

Yesterday I talked about how writing extremely brief articles can leave your reader feeling cheated. Today I want to continue this discussion and look at closer at writing in general.

Deborah Ng, over at Freelance Writing Jobs wrote an excellent post yesterday about freelance writing, but it relates to writing in general so I think it applies here. In her post, Deb said that everyone cannot be a freelance writer, because:

1. It takes skill
2. You have to be able to work well alone
3. You have to be able to find enough work to survive
4. You have to have people skills
5. You have to be willing to network

I agree with Deb and I wanted to post her list to give you a wake-up call if you are thinking of becoming a freelance writer. But for today, I want to talk about #1 on that list: It takes skill to be a writer.

The Internet has given every human being a means of expression like never before. You can launch your own website or blog and talk about anything. And lots of people do. Internet marketing has exploded the market and need for writers. Internet marketers (IMers) put out calls and search for writers every week to generate content that can be used on their websites and/or for marketing.

This mad rush for the need of a constant flow of content has generated something that is becoming uglier by the minute. Some who are not writers by trade stumble upon this market and decide to cash in on it. They turn themselves into “writers” overnight, set up shop and start drawing in customers, literally charging as little as $1 or $2 for a 300-400 word article. This isn’t a problem….unless the content is crappy.

Another issue caused by the Internet marketing world is that many who are just getting their feet wet in the world of IM know they need content, but can’t afford to pay the better writers. Intead, they turn to the “new” writers, who will charge very little to write an article.

This creates a whole new level of interesting things happening. Now you have people paying for writing services, and getting junky articles in return. The IMer ends up using the content either because (A) she didn’t read it first, so she doesn’t know it’s no good, or (B) she figures content is content and uses it anyway. Imagine if 100,000 IMers are doing this….See where I’m going with this?

Hone Your Writing Skills Before You Accept New Clients

I ghost write articles, special reports, and ebooks for IMers. Earlier this year I had an extremely heavy work load, so I decided to outsource a small portion of my work. I (thought I) found a good deal through a special offer on a forum I participate in. So I snatched up the writer and sent him an assignment. When I received the content from him I was both irritated and disgusted. It was total junk.

I ended up having to rewrite almost all the content before I could send it on to the client. There was no way I was going to associate myself with the awful writing this person produced. I will never refer that writer to anyone else either. No skills = no more work.

Your writing skills are important. I’m not trying to discourage you from becoming a writer, if that’s what you want to do. What I’m trying to get across is that you must be willing to read, study, and practice writing in general to improve your skills all the time.

Sure, you could probably land a few writing gigs that pay OKAY. But wouldn’t you rather become a professional, skilled writer that has clients waiting in line for you to write for them?

So let’s talk about skills. What skills, in addition to Deb’s list above, do you need to be a good writer? Here are just a few I can think of off the top of my head:

• Good grammar
• Excellent spelling
• Effective communicator, both on paper and face-to-face
• Ability to do damage control when necessary
• Flexibility
• Organization (you don’t have to be perfect, but you need to be able to find what you need at the drop of a hat)
• Pleasant personality

What other writer skills would you add to this list?

Popularity: 26% [?]

RSS Help Needed

Posted by Hope

If you are an RSS expert, I need your help. My feed is only showing a summary of each post. I have it set (in Word Press backend) to show a full feed. I even installed this plug-in thinking it would help, plus pinged Feedburner again, but it’s still showing a summary.

Can anybody help me out with this?

Popularity: 26% [?]

Mining Your Site Stats

Posted by Hope

This evening I sat down and took some time to go through my site stats. After yesterday’s post about planning ahead, I decided I needed to truly dig down deep into my site stats to see what I’d find.

Let me begin this by saying that I’m obsessive about my site stats. I check all my site stats quite frequently throughout the day, nearly every day. One of the biggest ways I’ve been using my stats is to see what search phrases people are finding me with. (This is very interesting info, by the way, and if you’re not checking your stats, you’re missing out on it!)

So, like I said, this evening I had some extra free time and I decided to use it by digging into my site stats here at Hope Writes. I’m going to give you a peek into what I discovered so you can see for yourself and hopefully use it for yourself.

Here’s the video….

Popularity: 34% [?]

Put Some Meat On Those Bones - Part 1

Posted by Hope

I have noticed something lately that is interesting, but a little disheartening. I wanted to write about this, but wasn’t sure exactly how to approach the topic. Then my title came to me this morning, so I knew it was time to talk about it.

Here’s what is bothering me…choppy, seemingly incomplete articles. I see this a lot, and I’m not referring to blogs. What I’m talking about is in the article directories and on websites.

If you have ever taken part of article marketing, you already know the process. Sign up at an article directory, then write and submit articles in an effort to gain backlinks and, hopefully in time, more attention to your website. (That’s the short of it.)

Many of the larger article directories take their job very seriously and refuse articles that aren’t of the highest quality. This is a good thing. But what about articles that don’t really say anything?

I’ve read quite a few articles that contain the bare essential (250 words at many directories) word count, and yet seem to be just a rambling thought and not really a complete article. I make it a special point to visit certain authors’ pages just because I like their writing style and I (usually) enjoy reading their articles. But it’s getting to the point that I’m left feeling let down…like there was something more that I could have or should have learned from the article, but didn’t.

So what makes a good article then?

If you look back at some of my articles at Ezine Articles, you’ll notice that there are several in there that meet the minimum requirements, too. I’m not saying I’ve never done this myself. However, regardless of my word count, I try to make sure that each article I write and submit contains something of value to my readers.

For example, let’s take a look at one of my articles that contain exactly 250 words, which is the minimum requirement for Ezine Articles. The title is: Writing Articles - You Can Write Articles With Great Speed And Ease. I look at that article and I know that I can do much better than that. I probably could have expanded that one to at least 500 words, if not more. However this article, as is, has received 197 views (to date).

Now let’s take a look at another article that’s just a little bit meatier: Top 7 Topics People Love To Read About. This article contains 343 words (okay, but again, I probably could have written a few more words on that one, too) and has been viewed 307 times (to date).

The first article is just a general overview of article templates and how they can help you write quicker. To add more meat to the bones of this one, I could have added a sample article template at the end. To take it even one step further, I could have included an article sample from the sample article template.

In the second article, even though the article itself contains some really great information, I could have expanded it by listing a few topic ideas below each hot topic.

One of the things article marketers always say is, “Don’t give away the kitchen.” Meaning, don’t give everything away in your article. Leave your reader wanting more so they’ll click on your link at the end of the article. I do believe in doing this, but I also think we can/should provide our readers with a greater reason to want to click our link.

More on this tomorrow…

Popularity: 40% [?]

Flying By The Seat Of Your Pants

Posted by Hope

This blog post at Performancing.com got my wheels to turning. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about doing more in-depth planning for a couple of my sites in particular.

I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal. But that’s not always a good thing. I also tend to get lots of ideas. I’ve long since learned to keep a notebook handy to jot down these ideas. I’ve always had a tendancy to jump on every idea I had. Problem with that was they almost always flopped because rather than plan and think things through to the end, I just jumped on the idea and ran with it.

This post talks about doing things like researching up-and-coming trends. If you are a niche marketer, this is an excellent tip because you can get a leg up on the competition. It also recommends weaving in holiday-related stuff and writing ahead.

There’s one thing on this list that I’ve been doing for some time now, which is research your stats. This is by and far a terrific way to get into the minds of your readers. You can learn how they found you (search phrases) and where they come from (site referrals).

Something that recently caught my attention one day as I checked my stats was a graph that shows what day(s) of the week are best for traffic. This is something you should pay attention to. You can write more “meaty” posts on those day(s) of the week and do some linkbaiting in those posts as well, to attract even more traffic.

The key then, whether you’re a writer, blogger, or business-person, is to plan ahead. Don’t let unexpected surprises knock you off you’re feet. Believe it or not, these things do happen, and almost always at a time when you feel like you’re finally beginning to get somewhere.

Do you fly by the seat of your pants, or plan ahead? What are some of your tips?

Popularity: 37% [?]

Keyword Research Made Super Simple

Posted by Hope

I stumbled across an excellent video tutorial on keyword research, by NicheRockets.com today, and I knew I had to share it with you.

Scott breaks down keyword research and makes it so easy that anybody can do it. If you write for the web, or if you are thinking of becoming an online marketer, you know that keyword research is an important piece of the pie. Article marketers rely on extensive keyword research to help them write and submit articles to very targeted, tight niches.

For many people though, keyword research is elusive. At one time it was very difficult for me to wrap my brain around it, too. I couldn’t “get” it because there were lots of people telling a variety of ways to do it. There are some free keyword research tools available, which render limited results. Then there are paid programs available that make it easier to do keyword research as well, and give you the long-tail keywords.

Let me just say that once you watch this video, if you know little to nothing about how to do keyword research, you’ll learn the simplest method of digging up lots of great keywords in very little time at all. I’ve just finished my first round of research using this method and I’m loving it already. I’ve come up with a little gold mine of keywords that I’ll be able to use for more in-depth research later. There’s already some good stuff in here that is sparking article and blog ideas, too.

Go check it out! Watch the video here first (opens in a new window), then follow along. Let me know what you think…

P.S. When you do the second step, be sure to actually look at each list BEFORE you click “Add” to include them in your list. Some websites will return a lot of keyword phrases that you won’t want in your list.

Popularity: 40% [?]

4 Big NO-NOs of Online Networking for Business

Posted by Hope

If you run a freelance business or work totally online, you probably use networking quite often. Networking is a good thing, when done proper. But one wrong turn and it can all head south really fast.

I am learning all the time about networking etiquette. Just when I think I’ve got it conquered, I learn something else. This is a good thing though!

Here are the four most important business networking lessons I’ve learned. I call them the big NO-NOs of online networking for business.

NO-NO #1 - Be disrepectful to your peers. This is probably the quickest way to ex-communicate yourself from anyone who might have considered teaming up with you or offering you work. It’s also the fastest way to make a bad name for yourself. If you constantly put others down or are almost always negative in your responses, you will become known for it.

Respect is a two-way street. In order to get it, you have to give it. Be respectful of others’ opinions and thoughts. Remember the old saying: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

NO-NO #2 - Network only to find business. I have to be honest with you and tell you that in the beginning days of my getting started online, I did this way too much. I was so eager to get started earning money independently online that I neglected to nurture a lot of relationships. Instead, I spent a lot of time getting to know people then trying to find ways to get hired by them.

The problem with this is that you can become known as a leech. It is extremely important to remember that every contact you make could be a potential business prospect…but don’t treat them as such. Remember #1: Be respectful.

Over the last few years, I have met some amazing people who work from home and are experiencing great success in doing so. Some of them have turned into clients while others have become great friends. Best of all, I form mutual relationships from which there is a give-and-take action that happens on any given day.

One such colleague emailed me a couple of weeks ago, asking if I had a solid source of information for “x” topic that he was writing a short report about. I quickly returned his email, pointing him to a few good resources.

Networking online with other business owners is not just a form of advertising yourself or your services. It’s a way to interact with other business-minded individuals where you can learn from each other.

NO-NO #3 - Get on your soap box. I see this more often than I care to lately. Sometimes I get so irritated that I, quite frankly, have to step back for a week or so, just so I don’t get sucked into it myself.

The one thing that really crawls under my skin is watching a thread pop up on a networking forum from a fairly new, or maybe less experienced, member asking a question or for advice, only to get flamed by “advanced” members.This usually happens when someone with more experience attempts to offer well-meaning advice to the newbie, but somehow gets sidetracked. The advice usually turns into a rant about how newbies should know better than to ask dumb questions.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I can get on my soap box sometimes, too. But when you are socializing in an online (read: open) forum with others, it is important to remember to keep your attitude in check. Ranting and spewing hateful or mean things at someone else, regardless of your social status, just looks plain bad. It’s usually how heated discussions get started. Don’t do it.

NO-NO #4 - Always take, but never give. (This is similar to #2, but a bit different so I’m adding it seperately.) One of the cornerstones of networking is giving back to your (online) community. It’s important to remember that your community will only be as good as you make it.

Some ways you can give back include, but aren’t limited to:

• Write a detailed article for free that offers solid, helpful information to others
• Offer your expert help to others who need it
• Make a donation to the website/forum owner as a show of support
• Reply to questions others have and give informative tips to help them out
• Share business resources that could be helpful to others

BONUS TIP: I just thought of this one, so I’ll throw it in for free. Don’t spread yourself too thin. I have found many networking communities online, and boy have I tried my best to be a part of all of them. It just doesn’t work that way, though. If you try to become involved in too many networks you’ll end up spending more time trying to fit in and be a part of them all, instead of building your business.

Networking is important, but so is your business. Find an equal balance that you can maintain safely without harming your work ethics.

Do you have another tip you’d like to add to this list?

Popularity: 35% [?]

Holiday Writing: Capitalizing on the Holiday Spirit

Posted by Hope

While lots of people in the United States are celebrating all sorts of holidays through the months of November and December, it is important to remember (if you work online) that these holidays do not necessarily apply to the entire world. I recently read a discussion about this on an internet marketing forum and learned that way too many of us have tunnel vision when it comes to the holidays.

What so many of us fail to remember is that even though some celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is a huge, ripe market out there who do not celebrate these holidays. Are you capitalizing on this market, or are you sitting at home twiddling your thumbs and telling yourself that you won’t make any sales because nobody’s online right now?

Ask yourself how you can promote your business or service right now. Brainstorm several unique ways to land those new clients or break your personal sales record. Don’t use the same old hum-drum Santa-and-the-reindeer tactics. Think out of the box.

Even in the U.S., I can guarantee you that after the turkey and stuffing is eaten, people will be on the Internet in droves will they nurse they full, aching tummies. What can you do to create targeted actions towards increasing your bottom line?

Technorati Tags: business, business tips, internet marketing, IM

Popularity: 38% [?]

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