Well today i’ve decided to take a blogging break.  Although quite foolish and it’s going to set back my blog growth quite a bit i fell it’s worth the sacrifice.  Thursday i leave for a weeks holiday and the days leading up to Thursday are filled with organising my house aswell as my business to ensure everyones informed and able to cope.  Blogging for me is a long term goal but things at the moment are just to hetic to actually sit down and write good informative articles, something i feel my blog has lacked since my intial posts.

New direction.  Blog Me Famous was ideally only suppose to be about  myself and my journey, i started writing articles that where a little offtopic but brought in alot of visitors and they expect that to continue but for the reasons stated above it’s difficult to continue publishing alot of the time especially when you don’t want to monetize your blog.

Fear not although.  Once i have all my projects up and running and i’m back from holiday. I will be returning here to update everyone on whats happening aswell as a new lick of paint for the blog and a new direction.  moving away from my personal journey into a more mainstream blog.

Signing off from the Blogoshpere,

Chris,

Why not checkout the following blogs - BloggingDosh, BlogGrrl, BenjaminCass, Blogging Tips

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Well, as you’ve probably noticed the lack of posts - it’s a shame but something i can’t avoid at this time.  I’m decorating my house i just moved into aswell as trying to launch my new companies website and get that up and running, on their own quite doable but together….ahhh.

 Why am i rushing? 

Well i’m away for a week on Thursday for a holiday and i’ve not scheduled anything for this blog, so im trying to write, work on a clients website and keep that whole area informed, build and finish off my own companies website aswell as my marketing campaigns ohh and i got a new job today -  let’s discuss the job another time.  On a sidenote i’ve hired two designers to help me on my day to day tasks as i can’t keep up with demand at the moment.

To keep you all entertained here are a few articles i’ve not had the time to read but their title interested me.  So go have a read and bring the news back.  Is it worth a read? 

• Blog Hosting Domains and Blogging Platforms
• Are Social Bookmarking buttons useless?
• 10 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Content Creation
• Sell Your Background

So have a read and post some feedback.  I’m off again to build my new bed up - Why on earth did i move again!

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Today’s topic is about the right time to monetize your blog, while taking a look around Blog Me Famous you will be hard pushed to find any monetizing techniques other than a limited number of affiliate links creeping into posts. I decided when starting Blog Me Famous that i was not going to Monetize the site until it was ready to earn an amount that matched the work i put in.

Why not to monetize a new blog and the reasons for this…

• Encouraging readers to appreciate the content

Adverts can be obtrusive and that may disturb a readers time on your site, even though the point of adverts is offering something that may interest a user, gaining the visitors attention with overcrowding adverts will not allow the reader to digest the content that interests them and will lead to nothing being accomplished.

• Gaining the trust of new readers

Gaining trust is extremely important, it converts readers to subscribers and that is what, as a new blogger you should be aiming for. Don’t spoil the chance of gaining new readers to earn as the title suggests; a couple of pennies. Welcome new readers and direct them to your best content and tomorrow they will return.

• Establishing the site in your blogoshpere niche

Not monetizing your website early on will help gain the respect that brings you traffic. It allows fellow bloggers within your blogosphere to quickly identify quality content that they enjoy reading without having a valid excuse not discuss it on their blog. Being linked from similar blogs and websites will bring you the majority of traffic received within the first couple of months, so aim to please.

• Presenting readers with a good first impression

Make your blog presentable and usable. The addition of ads when a user first hits the page can be off putting so first it’s important to give the look of a busy blog, so encourage comments and discussions. Then once your site is displaying adverts the appeal of an active blog will attract the user without the adverts interfering.

• Everything is in the interest of the reader

Don’t give the user any reason not to like your blog. Give them what they are looking for and without confusion - Adverts can sometimes be mistaken for content which can lead to the user navigating away from the page never to return.

When is the right time to monetize?

• You have a high level of traffic with a good percentage from search engines

Organic traffic, a loyal subscriber base and high traffic stats is the perfect scenario for monetizing your website. While organic traffic is more likely to read then click off through an advert a subscriber base loyal to you and your blog will ideally signup for items you recommend such as; Hosting, Products and Adnetworks through your own affiliate links.

• You are confident in your writing

You are confident in your writing and feel that the adverts displayed alongside your content will not reduce the quality of the users experience while browsing your website. It’s important to ensure your content is enjoyed by the majority and the adverts are not seen as a distraction but add value to your topic of discussion by displaying an additional path to take in the quest for more information.

• Received backlinks from a good number of related blogs

Backlinks increase the reputation of your blog while bloggers can transfer trust from their blog to yours. Networking is an important technique that brings awareness to your blog and increasing the reach of your articles will only benefit it further bringing in more and more targeted readers.

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Well as you know June’s over and i’ve been working behind the scene to diversify my earnings and to branch out so that i’m not heavily relying on one stream to bring in the majority of my earnings. From the people I talk to regarding blogging and general money making schemes the thing that interests me is their adsense earnings. The reason is that they usually account for upto 80% of their monthly income while mine are nowhere near that level.

I do implement adsense ads on two of my websites, one is relatively popular but the visitors it attracts are ‘ad smart’, not to mention i prefer Auction Ads over adsense on my gaming websites - return has proven to be much more - so adsense usually gets the less appealing ad space.

Here’s a breakdown of what i earned during June;

• Template Sales: $3,800 - Templates i created for a software product aswell as affiliate template programs (template monstar ect..)
• Private Sales: $550 - I sold one of my websites in June for a really low price, just didn’t have the time to keep it going.
• Custom Webdesign: $500- Being a web designer i like to use my creative side often. While it doesn’t pay the best it keeps me sane.
• Affiliate Sales: $100 - Webhosting pays extremely well!
• Auction Ads: $100 - Auction Ads prove to be a good earner on videogame websites
• Adsense: $90 - All my other sites, i just stick adsense on them

Total for June: $5140

While May came in at $1400 for my online earning activities June has completely blown the previous months stats away so to carry on increasing my plan for July is to focus on service sites and affiliate marketing putting in around $1000 in promotion just to test the water, after reading Kieron Donoghue i’m beginning now, to understand what brings success.

If there is one tip i can give you, it’s learn a skill. If your in the online arena to earn money my bet is that you’ve got so many ideas coupled with a distinct lack of funding and without the know-how to bring them to life - it’s a vicious circle. Put your ideas on hold, buy a book on how to design, code or market, alternatively you can find free resources and tutorials through google and spend a month learning how to build a website or make wordpress your own - it’s a great tool. With this new knowledge you will be able to bring your ideas to life.

If you would like to become a regular reader of Blog Me Famous, Why not subscribe to my rss feeds through a reader or via Firefox Live Bookmarks

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As mentioned on an earlier post, my five guidelines to guest blogging has been extremely well received, not only being featured on lorelle’s blog, author of the Blogging Tips book but it also inspired J.T Dabbagian to write a response over at jtdabbagian.com.

One of the things we learned in journalism is the basics of writing what’s known as a Query Letter. A Query Letter is a letter that proposes that a writer writes an article for a particular media outlet. We will be using this to get the point across in blogging.

The article discusses the way to approach a blog inorder to secure a guest blogging post. If your interested in guestblogging you should check it out here.

If you would like to become a regular reader of Blog Me Famous, Why not subscribe to my rss feeds through a reader or via Firefox Live Bookmarks

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