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

Popularity: 2% [?]

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

Popularity: 4% [?]

Welcome back readers, now if your wondering where the heck did i go and why hasn’t there been any posts on Blog Me Famous since the end of June keep on reading to find out. At the weekend i decided to run a little experiment while i had planned to let it run for an extra day, the decline in my rss feed subscribers was extremely worrying so i decided to end it half way through the third day and post the results.

Let me just say that purposely not posting on your two-week old blog for three days is rather foolish, especially if your still behind the scenes writing articles and have just paid for reviewme’s and text links but Blog Me Famous is about providing information inaddition to detailing my online money making journey so inorder to gather accurate results i had to go through with the plan.

The Experiment…

• Not allowed to publish posts for three days on a blog that receives on average, 100 uniques a day.

The point of this experiment was to detail the importance of keeping up a regular posting frequency and show you the results of what neglecting your blog can lead to.

Why will an erratic posting frequency lose you five subscribers a day?

The lack of daily content is unlikely to affect a blog that has never published regulary daily content but if your publishing content everyday and then suddenly stop for a prolonged period of time your blog is going to suffer as a result losing, like the title suggests, up to 5 subscribers per day. Although the results will vary from blog to blog depending on your traffic, demographic and niche there will always be one underlying message received… Having an rratic posting frequency damages your blogs appeal and here are the reasons why;

• When a user subscribes it’s not only for the content but also how often that content is updated

Alot of things can influence a regular subscriber the main one being the quality of content and how much they enjoy reading that content but also they take into account the frequency of posts, they subscribe expecting posts to be daily if they have been for the past two weeks (give or take a day on Blog Me Famous.) So when a subscriber notices that there is no longer that regular flow of content or they are unable to work out your posting pattern, it is going to put the reader off and most probably lead to that user cancelling their subscription.

• New readers are instantly put off by the lack of structure within your blog

Although we discussed the reasons for regular visitors to drop your blog, new visitors are just as important. As potential subscribers they have to make the descision to subscribe or not to subscribe. If you’ve presented the user with various subscription options and as a new blog your not confident enough to reveal your rss subscriber numbers all you’ve got to go on is the quality of content and the frequency of which that content is being delivered. Large posting holes or droughts especially for a new blog like Blog Me Famous, will not appeal enough to convert the new reader into a subscribed reader.

The results which erratic posting can bring

• Up to 5 subscribers dropping this blog every day
• Traffic increased - Explained below
• Lack of new readers converting to subscribed readers even though traffic increased

The traffic did increase slightly over an average day last week, that was most likely due to a number of links from other blogs. My post on 5 guidelines to guest blogging has been receiving very welcomed discussions on such sites as Lorelle both in a blogosphere round up and more recently as a featured post. Also adding to the traffic was a mention on firefox facts for my post on increasing your rss feed subscribers using firefox live bookmarking feature so we can say that although the traffic did increase it did not result from the lack of posts.

Whats more interesting is that the increased traffic did not add any extra subscription numbers, it may of slowed down the rate of decline but new users where not converting into loyal readers even though the Blog Me Famous website is not only receiving traffic from other blogs but alot of organic traffic. Most longtail searches with the words Firefox and Rss subscribers seems to place Blog Me Famous on the first page in google.

So to Conclude…

If a user subscribes to your blog when your post frequency is high, having an erratic posting will lead to a large drop in subscribers as they have become accustomed to your blogging pattern. Keep the posting frequency consistant will encourage growth at a steady rate.

PS. Those that dropped my feed please re-subscribe to my rss feeds - Worth a try…

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