Blog To Great

Write an eBook for Added Blog Revenue

     Blog Tips - Many bloggers with a deep well of good content have turned the content into eBooks (and revenue).  Writing is usually the most difficult part of blogging for most bloggers, so if you have the posts, you're already well on your way to your first ebook !  And an eBook can help drive traffic additional traffic to your blog as an eBook is a great marketing tool.

Quick Tips for Writing an eBook

1. Write about a familiar topic. Use your knowledge/experience/expertise into an ebook.  It's important to organize your posts, develope an outline for your eBook, and start a readable format for the book.  If your "niche” is rock music, you’ll be able to market your eBook online to a specific audienc. Having a “niche market” is important, it’s easier to promote your eBook that way.
2. Write about a topic that is not familiar to you. Go the opposite direction, break away from your current blog and write the book on another area of interest.  You'll enjoy the research and bring a new attitude to the topic.  What else interests you?
3. Create Your eBook. The hard part to many, dig in a either write new material or gather up prior blog posts.  An eBook can be as many pages as you like.  Just keep in mind that most eBooks are compact and make their point quickly, 50 to 60 pages should do it fine.
4. Edit your eBook- re-read and have a friend, associate read through it for errors and make necessary corrections.
5. Market Your eBook. You'll certainly want to market your eBook on your blog.  For your first eBook, you may want to consider giving it away  free or a nominal amount to attrack readers. If you’re a “music buff and created an “opt-in” option for a newsletter, you could give the first three chapters of your eBook away for FREE for visitors who agree to receive your newsletter.  (use basic blog SEO techniques to spread the word of your release, especially thru your blogger network and forums).

Good luck on your new adventure.  Don't hold back and don't hesitate... the longer you wait, the less likely you will actually do it.  And make sure to send BtG a copy, we'd love to read it.  If you've already eBook'd, share your experiences.

Ad Click Fraud Sees Big Increase in 2008. What Happens Next with PPC ?

      Blog News- One sure way to get bounced from Google Adsense and other ad networks is thru fraudulant clicks (clicking your own ads, getting friends to click, click arrangements with other bloggers, clikc farms, etc).  And, no surprise, with the increase of new bloggers and the bad economy it seems more folks are leaning, mistakenly, to PPC fraud.   The PPC fraud rate climbed to 17.1% in the last quarter of 2008 versus 16.6% a year earlier, according to stats released by Click Forensics today reports the On Line Media Daily.  Read the full story.  My advice is for bloggers to promote their blog and make it appealing to readers through engaging content, helpful advice and great design to increase your ad revenue.  And, if PPC is not giving you the desired revenue, try other means to monetize your blog, such as affiliate programs !  PPC fraud impacts all bloggers, the more money that goes to pay fraudulant clicks, the less attractive the programs will become for legit bloggers as advertisers will need to reduce payments! 

Keep advertising and Blog to Great !!!

Writing Tips to Increase Blogger's Revenue

     Blog Tips - Once your blog is established and you regularly update with fresh content, consider other ways to obtain revenue from your writing.  Many blolggers have found that it helps their writing skills too and brings in extra $$$.  Here are a few blog writing tips, consider;

    Write for other blogs - Many bloggers want to pay for your quality blog posts!  Some blog entrepreneurs don't have the time, interest or skills to write good posts.  They need knowledgable writers to write for them so they can continue expanding there blog's reach.  Promote yourself and your writing interests on your existing blog and on blog forums in order to connect with other bloggers.  Extablish a rate card based on the topic, the blogs reach and frequency (make sure you get writing credit too)

    Write as an expert - With an established blog on a perticular topic, and/or your professional skills & history you should make every effort to distinguish yourself as an expert in your field!  Contact trade websites and organizations to offer your skills and services.  You should also be in contact with local newspapers and tv stations about hiring out your "expert" information.  Many top bloggers make more income from the speaking engagements than from their blog.

    Write as an affiliate - This is a great way to begin getting extra income!  You should start by writing articles and posts to generate sales. If your blog is about sci-fi movies, for example, look for products (books/dvds/collectables/clothing) that you enjoy, and find ways to become an affiliate for the piece, write articles and reviews about it and direct readers to a site with your affiliate link on it to earn revenue. One of the best known, is Amazon.com.  We also like Affiliate Future, with a more unique selection of companies to choose from .  But there are many others, and often you can work directly with a manufacturer when you find an interesting item.

    Promote your writing - A great article & post needs a great audience to be most effective.  Don't let your information get pushed to the corners of the web and forgotten.  For your best stuff, turn it into podcasts and videos (put them up on YouTube) to increase readership.

More Adults Joining Social Networks Shows New Pew Report

    Blog Tips- We've talked about the need for you and your blog to be visibly involved in social networks, now, a new story in Business Week reveals that there has been a steady influx of adult Internet users on networks like Facebook, Myspace, etc .  And, the growth is altering the network's  makeup at a surprising rate, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  Now, over a third (35%) of adults have a profile on a social network, quadrupling from 2005 !  Once the province for teens and young adults, social networking is being embraced by all.  That's huge news and a good indicator of the opportunity for bloggers to reach an audience through social networks.  You'll see more advertisers and marketers promoting on these networks, so get in now and widen your circle to gain readers/subscribers to your blog.

See full story at Business Week.com.

New PRINTED BLOG Newspaper to Launch, A Way to Gain Readership for Your Blog

     Blog Tips-  A post on Wired.com today talked about a new media venture in print/blogging/news.  With old media trying to hold ground against new media/internet/blogging and how to make money doing it,one publication is about to take a different approach: web to print.  The Printed Blog, a startup company founded and funded by former business  software entrepreneur Joshua Karp, will launch a twice-daily free print newspaper in cities across the country utilizing localized blog posts.

“Why hasn’t anyone tried to take the best content and bring it offline?” said Karp, who thinks print media is far from dying.   “[For] people around the world, who need to and want to consume information, whether it be in developing countries or emerging countries, newsprint is still going to be a main mechanism for information for years to come,” he said.

He hopes that the local content will attract local advertisers who are willing to spend less to reach out to their target audience.  Ads are reasonable ($15-$25), compared to other print ads and the paper has already lined up a number of Chicago-based businesses for its debut. It will also run classified ads.  The first issue is expected to launch on January 27, and will be handed out at three CTA stations around Lincoln Park and Wicker Park in Chicago and one location in San Francisco. A New York edition is in the works.  Check out theprintedblog.com for more info and to sign up your blog and the Wired.com  blog post for the full story.   What do you think?  Will you sign on your blog and expect this venture to last???

Tips from a DIGG Power User !

   BlogTips- Just finished reading an Interesting post on How to Become a DIGG power user.  Note:  the writer is currently banned from DIGG and BtG has never tried these techniques, so I can't comment on the effectivenessof their recomendations.  But, there are some good tips on how to best use social networks for blog promotion.  Remember though not to do anything unethical with the networks, they will catch up to you and you will be banned!  For more, read the full aszx.net post at, Digg Power User Tips .

Good Digging ! 

Anchor Text for Internal Link Building a Blog

     Blog Tips - In your SEO drive, anchor text of links between pages of your blog is often overlooked. Our first tip is not to use links with the words “click here" you're completely wasting the opportunity.  This seems obvious, but is often ignored by many bloggers.   Beyond this basic advice, we'll review other ideas on how to improve your existing content quickly and with ease.  You might wonder if internal anchor text actually matter to Google and other search engines?  Yes, they do!  Backlinks (links from other sites) are extremely important to your best case SEO, but, internal links also have an valid role in showing to search engines what is important on your blog and what is related.  Keep this point in mind:

     An excessive numbers of links is not better than the appropriate amount.  You must always keep your posts and entire blog "reader friendly" and easy to read/understand.  Don't stretch the logical read, simply to include better keywords!  You'll lose your readers, and they won't return!

Link With What You Have Already-
Use the content you already have on your blog too. Here's an easy query that will help you to find where on your blog you’ve already used certain keywords:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mydomain.com+”my+keyword+phrase”

So if I were writing about blog tips then I would first do this search :

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:blogtogreat.com+"blog+tips”

to see which page mentiones the phrase “link building”.  I should see many pages that do, but the top result has the keyword in the title tag and in the URL, so that's the page I am targeting for that keyword.

Begin by reviewing your top 20 keywords and see how many more links you can create to them from  the content on your other pages. In-content links have value because they have context (text around them) and are thought to be more “editorial” than site-wide or menu links. (Google is pretty sharp, they can tell which part of your page is the content and which is the menu).

Link While You Write
While writing a blog post, an article, or a new page for your blog, bear in mind your other pages that you've previously written (and you can use the same query above).  If you're writing a new post and you refer to something related to a product, service, article, or blog post, consider using the keywords for that page in the sentence and make it a link.

Let us know if this helps and your link ideas.  Blog to Great !!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to All from BtG !!!

  To an even better 2009, thanks for a great 2008 !!!

Google Pageranks Updated This Week

     Blog News - Google was expected to update page ranks later this month, January 2009, but the Mountain View, CA team moved it up.  Many Google Pageranks started changing this week, and by now you should already see some update values.  An easy page rank checker can be found at PR Checker.  Take a look to see how your blog did, and comment below on your changes (if any) .  Keep in mind that a page rank is only one of many ways to measure a blog and does not make a blog more valuable or not.  But many folks seem to live and die by page rank, so it's something you should be aware of.

To a great 2009 bloggers !!!!