Choosing a Topic

I'd like to say I've read a lot of articles about choosing a topic for your blog. In truth, I've only read several. Maybe it's a coincidence that the articles I found all seem to say the same thing - don't pick a topic you think will make you a lot of money, choose one that you are passionate about.

I really do understand the point that's trying to be made, but blog topics have been flying through my head at the speed of thought lately and there are some that I've had to scrap because of time/money.

We all know that time=money. We all want more money for our time. In fact we'd prefer not to have to spend time making money. The less time and energy it takes me to make more money - the better. Listen to me! I sound almost obsessed - like Scrooge McDuck. (Very unlike me, I assure you.) Here is my reasoning:

• Time spent working takes away from time with family.
• Time at the office is time away from home.
• Salaries usually have upper limits.
• Working for someone else is stressful.

None of these contribute to the health of my family.

So when I'm considering topics for potential blogs time and money are key factors. Example - I have an interest in Ancient Civilizations. The Egyptians, the Mayans - I've even travelled to a several ancient ruins. But my historical knowledge of these civilizations is limited and it would require a great deal of time and effort to research and write articles on them.

Another consideration is how big the target audience is. Go to Google Trends and compare Egypt, Ancient Civilization, Pyramid and Golf.

How saturated is the market? Google Paris Hilton and Google will show you:

Results 1 - 10 of about 60,200,000 for paris hilton.

I don't know a ton about search engine ranking yet, but I'm pretty sure it takes awhile to climb that ladder.

So what have I figured out - other than don't believe every blog you read?

1. Choose a topic for which you can generate content quickly and easily.
2. Choose a topic that lots of people are interested in.
3. Choose a topic that hasn't been over saturated.
4. If you can find one, choose a topic that other bloggers have overlooked.

Multiple Revenue Streams

Something I keep reading about really makes sense to me. Multiple revenue streams. Maybe this blog will only generate a trickle of revenue. But if I create 10 blogs and they all generate a trickle of revenue it will start to add up.

Take a look at 451 Press. They must have hundreds of blogs listed - all funnelling revenue into the parent company. Of course they have the luxury of additional staff - but that doesn't mean I can't follow such a model on a smaller scale.

The other advantage to diversifying my revenue generation strategy with multiple blogs is that I will see which topics thrive with little or no effort and which ones struggle no matter how much time I put into them.

I've already launched my second blog and it's almost no work to maintain. I'll let you know where to find it soon.

Learning to Blog

Learning to blog is so easy anyone can do it. But learning to blog successfully is more of a challenge. I don't have any quams about blogging for money. If I can make money doing something I love that gives me the freedom to spend more time at home with my family it would be a sensational personal achievment.

However, I do detest the amount of misleading clutter that plagues the Internet. I will not stoop to misleading readers in order to make a buck off them.

That being said, what I've learned today is to look at those that have gone before me. I'm not the first person to write a blog and I'm not the first person to try and make a living at it. I have ideas, but why not look at some success stories and learn what has worked for them?

So far I've found two "How to Blog" sites that I find genuinely useful. Have a look for yourself.

www.stevepavlina.com
www.problogger.net

My Site is Google Indexed

Today as I was looking at Google Webmaster Tools, I noticed both my BBQ site and this Blog have been added to the Google index. Google's Webmaster Tools report that the sites were successfully accessed by Googlebot on July 2, 2007. Today is the 22nd.

There seems to be a delay. July 2nd is the day after my first post. That makes sense. But has Googlebot checked my site since? If Google indexed my site on the 2nd, why did it take so long for it to show up in Google Webmaster Tools?

WordPress vs Blogger

Should I use WordPress or Blogger?

Everybody has their own reasons for choosing one platform over another. I need a free host for my blog that allows advertising. WordPress didn't meet my needs. They gave me a free Blog but they don't allow advertising (as far as I know) with their free blogs. I was already frustrated after my first hour using WordPress anyways. Blogger's user interface is much more intuitive.

I decided to try WordPress to see if I liked it better. Part of the reason I chose it was for it's ability to include YouTube videos in my blogs. Now I have learned that this is easy to do with Blogger too.

To include a YouTube video in you Blog using Blogger:

1. Find the video you want to include on YouTube.
2. To the right of the video is a field named "Embed"
3. Copy everything from the embed field and paste it into your blog editor. (You don't need to be in HTML mode, you can paste it right into the standard editor.)

If you get it right you should see something like this - one of my favourites.



Now that I've learned how to include YouTube videos using Blogger I can launch my next experiment. A video blog without the need for me to record the video. Stay tuned.

My First Take on WordPress

So I have extra time while I'm waiting to see results from my efforts to attract visitors to this blog. One of the suggestions I came across early on was to diversify. It doesn't take a ton of time each day to update a blog. At least not yet. I decided to try something totally different - but before I get into what - I decided to try WordPress.

WordPress.com was easy to sign up for and gave me a free blog. I wanted to post videos as part of my new blog and WordPress lets me do that. (I'm not sure if I can do that on Blogger - I haven't tried yet.) It was easy to post my first message and it was easy to include a video from YouTube. However I find the user interface for managing and customizing my blog to be substantially less intuitive than Blogger. Maybe I will learn the interface and there will be extra features making it worth the extra effort - but so far I can't seem to add the necessary tracking code so I can analyze the site using Google Analytics. Maybe it's the learning curve, but it was really easy for me to figure it out with Blogger.

Can I use AdSense with WordPress? I still haven't figured that out. There must be a way, but again - it was really easy to figure out with Blogger.

Last beef. When I try to open my WordPress blog it seems really slow to load. Was it a fluke? Or does it make sense that WordPress doesn't have the infrastructure to provide as fast a loading time as Blogger?

I will tough it out with WordPress for a little longer but I'm already leaning towards learning how to post a video using Blogger.

FeedBurner

So I'm kind of excited about the small jump in visitors after listing my Blog with some directories. I plan to submit it to some more - in fact I was just about to. Then I came across FeedBurner. It's a perfect example of a technology that I don't understand, but it seems popular and widely used. What does it do? I don't know. I'll figure it out on the way. I signed up. It seems to have a lot of tools for optimizing and publicizing your feed. What's a feed? I'm not sure. But apparently I have one now. I'm not sure when I got it. But I think you're reading it.

Be patient. More to come. Before long I should be able to publish more useful information like what is working for me, how to best take advantage of some of the available tools and how to set up a blog in as little time as possible. Remember - I have a goal. I want to start generating income. My first nickel will be a huge milestone.

Visits Are Already Up

Within less than 24 hours of submitting my blog to 3 different directories my unique visitors is up. Not by much. Only 4 additional unique visitors. It could even be the directories checking for reciprocal links. But who knows. Maybe the trend will continue. Maybe having some sites linking to my blog will help Google index it faster. We'll see.

Generating Traffic

So my blog isn't getting indexed by Google. Neither is my BBQ site. It seems like it's taking a long time. One of the suggestions from Google was to make sure there are other sites linking to mine. One of the ways they suggested to do that was to add my sites to Internet Directories. So I added my blog to BlogCatalog.com and even added a little link button to the bottom of my sidebar which they say will boost my ranking. Why not. Let's see if anything happens. I'm still very new to this, so if nothing else I will learn more about Internet Marketing Strategy.

It was so easy I added my blog a BlogHub and Blog Directory too.

Make Money Online

So one of the things I start to notice now that I have Google Ads on my blog is all the ads promoting ways to make money online. I've heard a little about some of these "money-making opportunity" websites. Many of them talk about oodles of money you can make filling out surveys online. I've tried a couple in the past but never very seriously. I've been frustrated with all the scams and wasted time. But I've also seen mystery shoppers in action and I'm sure there are other legitimate opportunities to make money online. The challenge seems to be sifting through the garbage to find the gold.

One site I came across had an idea that seemed a little different. There's probably lots of others like it, but this was the first I came across. It suggests making money from home by using your digital camera. I have a half-decent digital camera and it seems like a fun way to make money - if it works. You can find the site is cameradollars.com and I decided to look into it. I was turned off by the long sales pitch and the fact that they wanted me to buy their secret tips at the end of it all, but what if it works? I've already started receiving free email tips that are helping me learn about the opportunities.

Now here's the added research I've decided to try. Many websites have affiliate programs where the referring website makes a commission or gets paid for the referral. Sort of like Google AdWords but you have to do all the ground work manually. So I looked into the affiliate program for cameradollars.com and followed the instructions. I set up a click bank account and instead of just posting their link, I made sure I followed the instructions so I would get credit for any traffic from my site.

Does their money-making program work? I don't know. It's too early to tell. But I'll continue to post what I learn and what I find as I go.

Problem #1

So my attention is back to finding a way to make money online. My BBQ site is roughed out and my Blog is started. My Google AdWords account only took a couple days to be approved and both sites now have ads from Google showing up. I'm still a ways off from being able to retire, but getting this far wasn't very difficult.

My attention has been elsewhere over the past couple weeks while I wait for Google and other search engines to index my site. It seems to be taking a long time. When I look at Google Webmaster Tools neither my BBQ site nor my Blog have been indexed by Google yet.

What do I need to do to get my sites indexed?

What I've Done in the Past 48 Hours

The first step I decided to take was to throw together a website and see how much traffic I could get for next to no work. I love to BBQ and it's the right season so I decided to throw together a BBQ recipe site. The concept is Quick & Easy BBQ Recipes. No long prep times. No long lists of special ingredients.

I looked around for a free website host. I chose www.50webs.com for a few reasons. They don't require any advertising of their own. No forced banner ads or pop-ups. They also allow me to have advertising on my site. And they will allow me to use my own domain when I get one, at no extra cost. It seems like a perfect fit to get started.

I found a free website template at www.freewebtemplates.com. I made a couple modifications to it because I wanted the menu bar on the left side not the right. Only because I have a hunch that advertising & menu navigation are better on the left.

I applied for a Google AdSense account. It says they need 1-2 days to review my application.

So far I have 4 recipes online. I found a public domain image of steak in the wikipedia commons. We had homemade hamburgers last night and I took a picture for the recipe. I'm missing 2 photos but I used placeholders so I could get the pages online and let the search engines start indexing them.

I configured Google Analytics to monitor my site.

I also started this blog.

From what I've read so far, diversification is a good strategy. Maybe a blog can bring in more than a website. Maybe a restaurant guide website or an iphone forum will bring in more than a BBQ website. My plan right now is to set up several small tests and in the process establish a trickle of revenue that will pay for a domain name for my BBQ site. $20 isn't much but it will be a start.

Goal - Make Enough Money to Quit My Job Within a Year

On Friday I returned from a holiday trip with my family. It was too short, and my next break is a long way off. On Tuesday I go back to work. I'm not looking forward to it. While on holidays I had an epiphany. I've decided to free myself from the dredges of a stressfull 9-5 (8-6) job.

I have no savings. I have no credit. I need a way to start earning money with zero start-up costs. I've decided to make money online using AdSense and other internet advertising opportunities. I grew up with computers so technology isn't a problem. However I'm completely new to blogging and haven't developped websites for anything more than time-filler when I had time to fill. How hard can it be to blog and webmaster?

I made a bet with my wife. Next year when we return from summer holidays - I won't have to go back to work. Perhaps I'm a little optimistic - but somewhere along the way I heard it's important to set goals. I've already started my first two experiments.

Project One is about Quick & Easy BBQ Recipes. You can find it at: mybbq.50webs.com

Project Two is right here. I've decided to start a Blog of my own and document my whole learning experience. What better way to document my progress, share my experience and discover the "blogoshphere."