Ten Commandments for Bloggers

Often it is hard to know what is the right thing to do, or what not to do in the world of blogging. Here at the Million Dollar Experiment Down Under we have attempted to put together 10 Commandments for Bloggers.

1. Don't lie, trick or try and deceive your readers into clicking or signing up for anything - if it is an affiliate link mark it as so, or at least mention it in your post.

2. Announce a sponsored post as a sponsored post. Unless you would have written about it anyway. If the sponsored post requires that you do not say this, don't do it. (Its like selling your soul)

3. Give back to the community. Remember when you started out how bigger and better sites did you the favour of linking to you, do the same within reason of course. (i.e if they only have a couple of posts its a good incentive to promise them a link if they work on their content)

4. Be open - use your name and your picture. Think of the best bloggers out there, everyone knows their name and what they look like - if you want to play with the big boys, you need to follow their example.

5. Post regularly, at least 2 or 3 times a week. Readers will soon give up on a blog that is irregularly updated. We will however give you a week off at Christmas! Otherwise get in a guest blogger!

6. You shall not steal. If you are intent on borrowing someone else's idea or text, make sure you link back to them and preferably ask their permission first of all. Stealing content from other blogs is the lowest form of low, so don't do it OK!

7. Treat your fellow Bloggers with respect. You will find that if you do this, and take the time out to learn and participate in your fellow bloggers sites, it will return to you tenfold.

8. Learn from your mistakes. If you make a post and get flamed for it you are probably upsetting someone. Change your tact. If somethings not working change it. If it is working enhance it and keep it.

9. Honour your family. Blogging is cool however it is also time consuming. Remember at the end of the day your family is more important so make sure that you spend time with them and remind yourself of that everyday - without the support of your family you are nothing.

10. Be true to yourself. If its not working give it away. There is nothing worse than slaving away for less than minimum wage if its not really performing for you. Don't be afraid to say enough is enough. If you don't enjoy it, stop doing it.

If you found this site to be helpful or inspiring you are welcome to donate to Robs Experiment!

Time for a change

I have come to the conclusion that for this particular site, Google AdSense is not extracting the maximum value out of the space it is taking on my site. One of the reasons is I believe that the audience of this site are to web savvy to think that a Google advert is anything other than a Google Advert. I really need to find products that appeal more to the sites visitors.

I will continue to use AdSense on this site, however are going to cut down on the amount and try out some other forms of advertising - this may include books on Blogging,Blogging software and other things that directly relate to the kind of readers I am likely to get.

Naturally I will be reporting on how successful or unsuccessful these things are. If you have any suggestions of Advertising that has really worked for you, please let me know, I will trial it if it stacks up.

I signed up for PayPerPost approximately 5 days ago, however are yet to hear whether or not my blog has been accepted. I am not sure how long it takes them to review a blog, hopefully it does not take to much longer. I am very keen to do a review of their operation as part of the Million Dollar Experiment Down Under.

If you found this site to be helpful or inspiring you are welcome to donate to Robs Experiment!

Building your Online Empire - One Day at a Time

As you begin to publish more and more information on your website, plus perhaps increase your online presence via multiple websites and blogs, it can become quite a juggling act to keep everything ticking along. - If you have a few sites on the go then you know where I am coming from!

And not only do we want to tick along, most of us are very motivated to keep the growth graphs heading upwards as fast as possible.

One way to cope with this (if you are working full time as well) is to make sure that you make a minimum of one significant contribution to some part of your Empire every day - If you are working on your sites full time you will obviously have a lot more time to work on your sites.

This contribution can be activities like spending time working on a new or existing site , promoting your site(s), or creating useful and value filled content. As long as you spend an hour or two a day and do something worthwhile you will make great progress. If you stagnate, unfortunately the growth of your Empire will slow and begin to wilt as well.

It is possible to create ongoing growth and improvement, even if you are not a specialized writer or website builder, however it is very hard work maintaining the consistency that eventual success will require. By committing this time and making sure you do it over and over again after a month you will have made 30 valuable contributions to your Empire. After six months you would have made almost 200!

Think of any large achievement or structure, there are not many overnight wonders out there, so most of us need to build gradually one block at a time. You cannot expect to start up a blog and make a living after a couple of months, but by taking small steps and working your plan you can attain visible growth that after a few years could see you making enough to support yourself quite comfortably.

I mention it a lot and that is because so far it is working very well for me and that is Exponential Growth - you can see my initial post on it here. Set your budgets on what you make this month and increase it 20 percent per month thereafter. Then work your butt off to ensure that you succeed - chances are you will blow it away!

Thats all for today - Just a day at a time, make at least one valuable contribution to your empire.

image-www.cgca.org.uk/magazine/spring2003_skytower.php


If you found this site to be helpful or inspiring you are welcome to donate to Robs Experiment!

The Bloggers Octet- 8 Proven Methods to get your Blog Earning!

This article assumes that you already have a blog set up and a reasonable amount of regularly updated content within your blogsite. If not you need to set yourself up with a blog site from somewhere like here . Then revisit this article in a couple of months.

Method 1 - Money4Blogs
This site is quick and easy money, just go to the site and register your interest, they will check out your blog and if appropriate make you a very reasonable offer to place a small text link on your site.
Payment: They pay promptly via PayPal aff: which you will need to set up first.

Method 2 - GoogleAdSense
If your site gets a reasonable amount of traffic, it is simple to create a relatively passive income from running GoogleAdsense on your site.
Payment: Once your account has reached $100 US they will send you a check or direct credit the amount into your bank account the following month.

Method 3 - Blogitive
Blogitive offer paid blog posts and it is quite possible to get say 5 - 10 of these posts per month. Certainly a lucrative way to earn extra money from your blog.
Payment: They pay weekly via PayPal aff:

Method 4 - LoudLaunch
LoudLaunch is a brand new site that offers paid blog posts, the prices that you get paid tend to vary a bit more than Blogitive, so far I have seen posts offered for 0,3 or 5 dollars. It depends on your blog so if you have a highly ranked blog, you may of course get offered more. I am not sure how many people would offer to do sponsored posts for no money at all. Certainly not me!
Payment: LoudLaunch pay via PayPal aff:

Method 5 - Blogsvertise
Another site that I have used, I actually received the highest pay per post from this site ($10) however the catch is that you need to wait until they email you with an offer, whereas the previous two payperpost methods let you log-in and as long as there are sponsored posts available you can do them.
Payment: They pay a month after your post has been published via PayPal aff:

Method 6 - MyLot aff:
MyLot is an interesting one, basically it is like a forum discussion site, where you create discussions for other people to join and comment on, as well as comment on discussions that other people have created. You can also upload photos and you get paid, both for getting involved in discussions as well as uploading images.
Although the money paid out is small, you need to think outside the box with this one, money can be earned via referrals and you can also refer related discussions back to your own site, so the opportunity to get extra traffic should not be ignored.
Payment: They pay monthly, if your balance has reached at least $10 via PayPal aff:

Method 7 - Amazon aff:
Amazon offer a number of ways to make money from your site, you can set up an Amazon AStore of your own, or display adverts that you can modify through the Amazon site to suit your blog content. Amazon have been around for years so offer a wide variety of methods to monetize your site.
Payment: Amazon pays by check or gift certificates.

Method 8 - HubPages aff:
Hub Pages lets you write articles (Hubs) and then you will receive %60 of the revenue generated from the advertising displayed upon them. You can associate your Google Adsense Adverts with them, as well as Amazon and Ebay Affiliate ids.
Payment: You will be paid by the Advertisers directly (Google, Amazon, Ebay)

Given the 8 methods above as well as a certain amount of time and effort to dedicate to your Blog you should be able to make a reasonable amount of money online. Depending on the quality of the content of your blog, as well as the time that you are prepared to commit to it you will at worst make a little pocket money, at best you could make a very good living!

If you found this site to be helpful or inspiring you are welcome to donate to Robs Experiment!