There is really no secret of earning money online. All it takes is right information and guidelines, coupled with massive action.

It doesn’t matter how much you have learned if you cannot venture out of your comfort zone and get things rolling. So, take the time to learn the basics and then get your feet wet if you want to succeed really bad.

Stop looking for that magic pill! It doesn’t exist. Just get started with what you have already learnt, implement the strategies you have learnt, test to see what is really working and replicate your success time and time again.

All the best

Related posts:

1. How to Make Money Online In Kenya Writing
2. How I Made $220 in One Day
3. How to Make Money Online in Kenya Selling Physical Products
4. How to Make Money Online in Kenya Affiliate Marketing
5. How To Set up A Profit-pulling Blog in Less Than Five Minutes

You should as well not overwhelm your blog visitors and readers (traffic) with a truck load of options and call-to-action(s). You should instead focus on increasing the user experience of your blog.

One things you must do is to define your most important goals out of the literally hundreds of actions that you could want your blog readers and visitors to take.

Among the choices to choose from are:

• Read your posts
• Read your most popular posts
• Purchase an affiliate product
• Share your content on social bookmarking sites e.g. Digg and Stumbleupon
• Leave a comment on your post
• Subscribe to your newsletter
• Subscribe to your RSS feed
• Visit your social networks e.g. Twitter and Facebook
• Bookmark your blog on their browser
• Share your posts with their friends via email
• Download your free eBook
• Purchase your product
• Visit the blogs in your blogroll section

These are all options that most bloggers would wish to accomplish with their blogs. But it is just plain impossible to achieve all this without overwhelming your visitors and making your blog cluttered.

If you try to accomplish all these on one blog, you will only end up creating a horrible user experience.

For that reason, you need to narrow your focus to a few, carefully chosen options. Ideally you should identify five top priorities for your blog and design your blog to accomplish them. Any other elements not directly leading to accomplishment of these goals should then either be done away with or moved to a less intrusive location e.g. to the footer section of your blog.

But of course this is not a rule cast in stone. If you have to push a more than five goals on your blog, you can as well do that. But remember that the lesser the actions desired for your readers and visitors, the more likely they are to actually do them.

Of all these options, there is one that cannot be overemphasized; that is, getting as many blog subscribers as you can. Why are blog subscribers important?

Well subscribers are people who have given you the permission to send them updates of your blog when you have published something new. Subscribers become your frequent readers and blog visitors and whether via RSS feed or email, you can keep in touch with them regularly.

Ideally you should have two call-to-action(s) for subscription to your feeds and/or newsletter; one should be above fold at the top of your sidebar or in the header section of your blog, and the other should be at the bottom of your posts.

And if you offer an incentive for subscription to your blog newsletter, you should mention the benefits of downloading your incentive in your call to action.

For instance, since I offer a free eBook on this blog, I explain the benefits of downloading the eBooks in a huge dotted box at the bottom of single posts as you can see in the following screenshot:

Are you ready to start your own blog? My Plug n Profit System will show you all the steps you need to take to start your blog and make it popular. Order your copy of Plug n Profit System now!

If you have any question, comment or suggestion, feel free to drop a comment below. It is always appreciated.

Related posts:

1. How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog For Free using other Blog Communities.

It is one of those amazing experiences that make you feel like marching on, on and on…

Two of my students have already started their own blogs in different niches and they are fairing very well.

Here are some of the feedbacks I am getting from some of my students:

We are very pleased to get an Adsense account, Thanks to this site, makemoneyonlineinkenya.com. In the past I had tried but could not. So anyone who wants to make extra cash must sign up to various courses taught by these guys.
Moses.
http://belionvisiteastafrica.com

Here is yet another comment left by Moses…

Our Travel website is only 15 days old but we are so amazed by the comments we are getting. Readers as far as Brazil have given us positive response from our posts. By simply following the Plug & Profit system, we have seen tremendous progress.

Moses,

http://belionvisiteastafrica.com

And yet another one from Dennis who wants to start a blog too…

Thank you Kevin for this amazing course. I want to start my own blog and incorporate affiliate marketing into it. Your plug n profit system has given me the right direction and I am just about ready to make that first stride into the world of blogging and internet business. God bless you,

Dennis Kiarie, Nakuru

It is your turn to benefit from the Plug n Profit System! Get your copy now!

And if you act fast, you can still catch up the 50% discount offer and save half the ordinary price for this entire package. You will also get an opportunity to sit with me for uninterrupted thirty minutes and ask me everything you ever wanted to know about internet businesses and earning on the internet. Get your copy of Plug n Profit System now while the offer lasts!

This simplified guide will show you all the steps involved in starting your own internet income stream. So, if you are looking for a way to earn a living online or want to start an extra income to supplement your day job earnings, this is the course you need.

This will shed years off of your learning curve and lay a solid foundation for your success online. You don’t have to follow the trial and error approach that made me struggle for so long. Just learn from my experience and get started on the right path. Get your guide now!

If you have any question, feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email here

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In today’s post I want to share with you some secrets of successful blogging. These tips are for all of you looking to start a successful blog.

1. Post Great Content

This is in my opinion the most important element of successful blogging.

I know this is subject to debate; some people will argue that traffic is the most important element of a successful blog, while other will argue that an all round-consistency is the key to successful blogging.

But if you had to single out the single best secret of successful blogging, what’d that be? Well, I’d die with great content. Why?

Here is the reason…

Good content is at the center of the whole equation. To make god money blogging, you need lots of blog traffic and good conversion rates. And quality, informative content is the best catalyst for all these.

Just mull over this…

If you managed to generate lots of traffic to your blog, but your content just literally sucks (maybe you have a junky blog yard full of random, 50 words, useless articles), you can be assured that you wouldn’t fair so well in the long run no matter how promising your initial progress is.

Ask most successful bloggers what factors contributed to their immense success and I can bet that pretty much of them if not all will talk of quality, informative content.

To be a successful blogger, you need to create quality content that is so damn good that people just can’t ignore it. After all that is how you get other bloggers to link to your content.

The internet doesn’t forgive anymore, only informative content fair well on the web today. Gone are the days when you could slap half-assed articles daily and shoot up to the league of successful bloggers. To be a popular blogger today, you need to create content that is so fabulous that people feel inclined to share it in their social circles aka facebook and twitter.

2. Blog for Love

Before starting your blog, make sure that the topic (niche) you choose is something you are passionate and/or knowledgeable about. Of course you can learn along but going for a topic that you are not at all passionate about will most likely show in the quality of your posts and you will lack the motivation to stick long enough to make it work for you.

This is one mistake newbie bloggers often commit. This normally happens when someone sees a blogger making good money in a certain niche and they decide to imitate them even though they are not passionate about that specific topic.

Blogging on a topic you are passionate about on the other hand makes the experience a lot more interesting. It just won’t feel like a lot of work when it is at your heart.

3. Inject Personality

One outstanding element of blogging is the ability to establish that personal connection with your readers. The approach may vary from one blogger to another but the concept here is to make your readers feel as though they know you one on one.

Ask yourself…

Are you more likely to trust the opinion and recommendations of a stranger by the roadside or a trusted friend you have known for years? Of course you would in most cases trust the latter especially if it is on a topic you know they are knowledgeable about.

At the very least you should consider connecting with your readers on facebook, twitter, etc. or even sharing your photos with them.

And even if you are a faceless blogger, you should consider injecting personality into your blog posts such that your readers have fine clues on what kind of person you are. Sharing a personal anecdote and personalizing your posts are some of the ways to achieve this.

4. Install Google Analytics on Day One

As a blogger you should not leave monitoring the performance of your posts and blog to guesswork. You should have in place a way to collect and analyze your visitor stats and one free, yet powerful tracking solution you should consider integrating on your blog is Google Analytics.

You can easily add the tracking code to your blog using the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin for wordpress.

5. Network with Other Bloggers

In the majority of professions, whom you know is as important as what you know. This as well applies to blogging. Most successful bloggers have good relationships with many other bloggers and website owners. If you have a good relationship with other bloggers and webmasters, they are very likely to link to your posts (assuming they are good) or blog, and even help you sell your products; sometimes a mention on their blog is all that is required.

What does that imply?

Networking with other bloggers is an important element in your success as a blogger.

Don’t be selfish! At the very least, link to good posts from other bloggers in your niche if you come across them.

It also doesn’t harm to introduce yourself to the other bloggers in your niche. For example you may send them a short email introducing yourself.

A golden rule to remember here is, give before you ask. If you link to other bloggers, they may as well link to your blog in the future.

6. Be Realistic

We are all used to seeing newbie bloggers launch their blog, fade within a couple week and just plain slip off the radar and never get heard of again. This is a serious problem in the blogging world.

This often happens as a result of unrealistic expectations perhaps driven by the thousands of stories of successful bloggers scattered all over the internet. If you are hoping to start a blog today and start making thousands of dollars from it within the next three weeks or couple months, you are better off not going for it.

I don’t intend to mean that you can’t start making from your blog within a few weeks, but your expectations should be realistic.

Remember it takes time to produce quality content and make people know about it. On the same note, it takes some time to generate sizable traffic and generate a following for your blog.

Apparently, there is a load of stuff on the net today and people need a reason to check out your content. It is not at all hard if you are continuously publishing quality content. Your readers will start coming back to your site for a “refill”; it just might take some time.

For me, I only got a few readers and subscribers in the first one month or so of launching this blog, but six months later, the traffic to my blog started rising gradually to the point where I am today. I came close to losing the motivation in the first six months when I felt like I was ranting to myself in a small ghost town (It is like those moments when you strongly feel like dropping the “L” in “Lover” ), but I promised to myself that I was gonna focus more on promoting my blog and I truly stuck to that.

A couple years down the line, I am grateful I stuck to my guns and didn’t get disappointed in that first phase of my blog.

7. Get Your Own Domain

I have already mentioned the importance of having your own domain name in a previous post titled “what is the cost of starting a blog?”

Having you own domain name not only makes your blog appear more professional than yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.wordpress.com, but also eliminates the restriction normally placed on this shared domains.

I always recommend Namecheap for domain registration and it costs only $10 per year.

8. Focus on One Topic and Stick to It

One of the most common mistakes I see being committed by inexperienced bloggers is trying to blog on a whole range of topics. This is okay if you are a huge company with lots of ghostwriters, but if you are a one man show , you should try narrowing down your focus to one topic per blog.

For example, makemoneyonlineinkenya.com is focused on the topic of earning money on the internet in Kenya and related topics e.g. PayPal.

You might have many interests and hobbies, but if you write on all the topics in the world, the marketability of your blog will suffer accordingly. A blog on random thoughts of Peter Andrew is just as bad as they come.

If you blog about weight loss, politics, and technology on the same blog, you won’t be able to develop a core audience for your blog.

The narrower the focus of your blog, the easier it is to attract and retain readers, and make money from your blog. This will also help you harness your blog into an authority site in your niche.

9. Post Frequently

Posting frequently to your blog will give your audience a reason to visit your blog often – to catch up to your latest story. As important as this is, though, most bloggers (including me) struggle to maintain a regular posting schedule.

The general rule here is to post as frequently as possible but I would like to add a note on this:

Posting frequently to your blog is very important, but if I was to be asked, no post at all is better than a gibberish post that makes your readers feel as though they have been conned of their precious time.

Period!

10. Don’t Go Ad-dget Crazy

That is a phrase I coined myself, to stand for ads-widgets. Many bloggers think that to make good money with their blog, they need to slap every little corner of their site with ads. That’s just plain wrong.

It is offensive to your readers when they have to struggle reading the posts they came to read on your blog.

You will especially want to keep away from aggressive pop-up ads, ads with sounds, and video ads with autoplay turned on. These are pretty annoying to your readers and may cost you in the long run. Even more annoying are those ad programs that will make your readers wait a few seconds or minutes before they can access your blog.

That is not a proper way to treat the very readers who have made your blog a success. It is like telling them “Thanks buddy for making my blog a huge success. In return, I want to serve you this aggressive ad of Peter Jones hanging out with talking wild animals”

Don’t get me wrong!

It is okay to serve ads on your blog, but just don’t go ad-crazy.

You must maintain a balance between advertising and user experience. This is subject to your judgment, but a nice mix may be comprised of around five ad spots in your sidebar, with no autoplay videos and sounds, a right or left aligned ad spot at the top of your posts, an ad spot at the top of your blog, and no pop-up ads whatsoever.

This as well applies to those fancy badges, buttons and widgets you come across all over the web. Don’t choke your sidebar with all manner of widgets and buttons just because you can and they are easy to add.

If a badge or button doesn’t add value to your readers or improve user experience, do away with it. It will just clutter your blog with no equivalent return on your side.

Here is the last bit of advice on this:

Focus on authority first and money will follow!

Before worrying about monetizing your site, focus on adding top notch content, increasing the traffic to your site, building an audience, and establishing the authority of your blog.

Once you have enough authority in your niche, you may now start monetizing your traffic, and that is pretty okay. People won’t mind a few ads if you have a reader-focused blog with loads of useful articles.

But they will surely mind an abuse of their time with those aggressive, desperate pop-up ads.

11. Have a Thick Skin

Believe in what you are doing and stick to your guns and good results are bound to come your way. If there is a single piece of advice I wish every blogger could hard-wire in their brains, this is it: don’t give up.

This image from SEOmoz sums it all up…

Click image for larger view

This is how it goes…

You start a blog and after some few months, you begin seeing some results. People are clicking your ads here and there but the results are not anywhere close to your dreams. And the immediate impulse is to give up and quit blogging. Maybe you are not a talented blogger, you think.

The truth is…

That is the biggest mistake you will ever make.

If you find that you have been blogging for a couple weeks but you haven’t been able to get more than three subscribers to your blog; you, your grandma, and your dog, don’t give up.

If you believe in what you are doing, stick with it, and stay true to your dream, good things are bound to befall you.

Just let your mind out on your blog, focus on marketing it even more, and someone is bound to come and read your content. And if it is informative, they will feel inclined to come back again to read it. And again. And again. Heck, they will even see the reason to tell their friends and social circles about your blog. And that is how you build an audience and grow your blog.

When I started makemoneyonlineinkenya.com in 2010, I had some good understanding of online marketing and Search engine optimization, but it was some months before the blog could be termed as anything close to success.

Getting people to visit your blog (traffic) is not rocket science, but it takes some time, perseverance, and consistency.

So stick to your goal and schedule. And remember that not all your posts will be instantaneous hits. Every blogger has a few blog posts that suck (no matter how promising they thought the topic was) and it is only by posting such flimsy posts that you eventually grasp the art of irresistible content writing and transform yourself into the league of successful bloggers.

Remember that the initial figures may fall short of your expectations, but once your blog grows and starts getting repeat visitors, and mentions on other sites as well as social networks, your effort will pay hundred or thousand folds.

You might be getting a few things wrong, but you will learn along the way and adapt you marketing and writing skills effectively.

Let nobody lie to you. The big bloggers that you read about online everyday started with nothing. Do you think that their first blog enjoyed an audience of 10,000 people? Of course not. They worked hard to reach that stage and so should you.

Keep motivated and match on, one step at a time.

12. Avoid Comment Fights

It is one sad reality of blogging. No matter how great and well researched your content is, you will occasionally get some “Fuck you a**hole” and “can’t you find something to do, jerk than writing this bullshit” kind of comments.

It’s downright annoying to put in hours of hard work to write a well researched, informative blog post only to end up being insulted with comments like these. But it is the reality of the ‘trade”. It’s sad!

So how do you respond to this type of comments? Simple:

Don’t fight back!

If you do, you are bound to lose. It is like engaging in a game where you know you can never win. When someone tells you “fuck you a**hole” take it to mean “Okay man, I ain’t sure I completely agree with your opinion on this, but your points are quite good” and move on. Don’t labor over it.

You have better things to do than getting engaged with such jerks.

13. Market Your Blog Aggressively

Writing quality content is not enough. You as well need to let other people know about it. The “build it and they will come” philosophy doesn’t work in the world of blogging. You need to market your blog aggressively and factor in SEO in your writing.

The approach here will vary from one blogger to another depending on each blogger’s marketing plan. Blog marketing strategies vary from SEO, blog commenting and guest posting, to link exchange, social networking and social bookmarking to name but a few.

If you need a guide on blog marketing, check out my Plug n Profit system! This training program will not only show you how to start a blog, but also show you how to market it effectively for maximum exposure and profits. Click here to learn more now!

14. Get Good Blog Design

As much as content is king when it comes to blogging, blog design is as well an important element of successful blogging. Study has shown that site design is one of the most important factors informing the decision of site visitors to either click away or continue reading.

In other words, site design is an incredibly important factor on whether a site visitor trusts the information contained therein or not. The decision on whether to stay or leave your site is initially affected by site design and then content.

I don’t intend to mean that you must hire pro graphic designer to design your site for several hundred or thousand dollars even though it is a nice move if you have the funds, but rather that you must focus on ensuring that your blog has easy navigation and is inviting to new blog visitors (e.g. by placing the most important posts somewhere your visitors are very likely to see).

There are many free WordPress themes online that will help you achieve these goals.

In other words, your design should make it easy for your readers to get what they are looking for. And remember not to goo ad-dget crazy . You should as well not flood your readers with a load of options.

15. Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential aspect of search engine optimization and as a serious blogger you cannot discount the essence of it. The idea behind keyword research is to figure out the keywords and phrases that your potential readers are using when searching in the search engines especially Google.

Google has a free, yet so powerful tool that is enough for this purpose.

With the tool, all you have to do is to type in a root keyword(s) related to the topic you are researching e.g. “weight loss” and Google will return a list of related phrases and a count of the number of times this root keyword and the related phrases has been searched for.

Keyword research will help you craft better optimized titles and headlines for your blog posts; titles and headlines that are aligned to your target visitors’ mindset. For step by step instructions on keyword research, check out my Plug n Profit System now!

16. Allow Easy Subscription

Getting people interested in your blog is one thing and retaining them is another. With so many blogs online today, they could easily forget your blog and never come back.

For that reason it is always advisable to offer them a mechanism for subscribing to your blog such that they can be notified whenever you update your blog.

The easiest way to do that is to make it easy for them to subscribe to your feed via email using feedburner. You may as well use an autoresponder service such as mailchimp or aweber

There you have it! You now know the top 16 secrets of successful blogging. It’s up to you now to dare and venture out into the world of blogging.

With its global reach, a blog can earn for you far much money than most jobs. It could also be the first step towards that book publishing deal, a fulfilling career as a columnist, or getting a TV show. Above all, it could be the missing step between you and your dream job.

No related posts.

But the truth be told, there are some downsides to using these free options. To start with, these platforms only allow you to have a blog name like yourname.wordpress.com or yourname.blogspot.com. You won’t get the privilege of having a site like yourname.com e.g. www.makemoneyonlineinkenya.com.

These free blogging platforms also limit you on the customization options you can implement on your blog. For example, you will be restricted on the amount of internet space you can use and you may be restricted from using certain plugins. Plugins are useful blog addons that enhance the functionality of your blog. Some plugins help you get more visitors. Others help you post videos on your blog. And some that make it easier for your readers to recommend your posts to their friends and social networks… The list goes on and on.

In addition, the free blogging platforms, notably, wordpress.com and typepad prohibit any type of advertising on your blog and this is contradictory to the very essence of making money with your blog.

For these reasons, the free blog platforms are ideal for people who just want to express their opinion and thought online by blogging, but are not the best choice for bloggers looking to make serious income online blogging.

So what blogging platform do I recommend?

WordPress.org

I know that may sound confusing. Yes, we have already discounted wordpress.com if you are looking to start a serious blogging business.

The blogging platform I recommend is the self-hosted software available from wordpress.org, not wordpress.com. The blogging platform available at wordpress.com is 100% free. They will provide you with a free domain and hosting, but I don’t recommend it for the reasons that we have already discussed above.

In addition, if you were to start your blog on wordpress.com, you will end up with something like yourname.wordpress.com. You thus don’t own the blog, WordPress does and you will be restricted on what you can do to your blog.

Now that you know the best blogging platform to use (wordpress.org), how much does it cost to start a blog powered by wordpress.org? Here is a breakdown of the costs incurred in starting a self-hosted, professional blog powered by WordPress:

1. Domain name
2. Hosting
3. WordPress software

Domain name

A domain name is in simple terms the name that identifies your site on the internet. For example, facebook.com is the domain name for the popular social network that we have all come to appreciate. I recommend registering your domain name with Namecheap.com. They have an easy to use interface and reliable support, and above all, they don’t impose any limitations on moving your domain name. A domain name costs about $10 per year.

Hosting

I always recommend hostgator for hosting. I have used their service for several years and I have found them very reliable and professional. They not only guarantee an uptime of 99.9%, but their customer support is one of the best (based on my own experience). The hatchling package (one domain) is enough to get you started; you can upgrade later on when you decide to start your second blog or site. The hatchling package costs $8.95 per month, but you can knock it off to $0 for the first month if you use the coupon code kevinnjoroge during registration. Hostgator also charges a one time set up fee of $15, but the coupon code kevinnjoroge will knock it off to zero.

NB: I don’t recommend registering your domain name with hostgator. Order their hosting package only after registering your domain name with Namecheap.

WordPress

WordPress is open source software which means that it is free to download and customize to your taste and preferences. Rather than install WordPress manually, you can install it in just a few clicks using a script called Fantastico Deluxe. You can access the script from the control panel of most reliable hosting services like hostgator

So what is the total cost of starting a blog? Here is the startup cost for the first year.

Domain name (10) + Hosting ($0 the first month with coupon code kevinnjoroge, and 8.95 per month thereafter; i.e. $8.95*11= $98.45) + WordPress ($0) = $108.45 for the first year.

NB: You don’t necessarily have to pay this amount upfront. You can pay the hosting fee monthly, biannually, annually, etc.

As you can see, a blog is one of the cheapest businesses you can start. And the return on investment (ROI) for this minimal fee can be amazing. There are blogs online making in excess of $1 million per year. Above all, a blog gives you a communication channel where you can speak your mind out and share your thoughts and opinions with the rest of the world. And the sweetest part is: the internet knows no geographical boundaries. You can reach out to readers in Kenya, US, Canada and anywhere else in the world.

What are your thoughts about the set up costs for a blog? Please share your opinions using the comment form below.

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1. How To Set up A Profit-pulling Blog in Less Than Five Minutes

And the one-time fee, the incredible bonuses, and the free consultation and free advice offered to all customers has made Plug n Profit System the go-to choice for thousands of aspiring internet marketers and small online business owners.

But what if you are looking for more?

What if you want to:

1. Earn online through writing?
2. Start a blog and earn from it
3. To start an affiliate marketing business?
4. Sell eBooks, Software and other digital products on the internet and rake in the sweet dollars?

Plug n Profit System will, of course, help you do that and more.
If you have ever wished that someone would hand you a proven system on making money online, then Plug n Profit System is exactly what you need. This simplified guide will help you skip years of learning and testing and kick start your online income generation dramatically.

Plug n Profit System is at least twice the price we are currently offering it and it makes sense that we’d raise the price right?
But here is the deal…

If you order the Plug n Profit System, you will not only save Kshs 1,500 on the current price (instead of spending more), but also get an amazing bonus package including free advice and consultation with me at your desired time, ten full fledged website designs, and continuous tips and strategies via email to help you get started on the right foot.

But there is one important thing you should know…

The offer is valid for a limited time only. We might be pulling it down any time without notice and charge double the current price. The race is on! click here to Get Started.

See what some of our customers are saying about the Plug n Profit System:

Testimonial 1

Plug n Profit System helped me start my first blog which is already getting visitors daily and making me a decent income with Google adsense. Thanks Kevin for your amazing advice and continuous support.

Mark Mwirigi

Testimonial 2

I just finished reading module 1 and it is amazing. The info and knowledge contained therein is evident that Kevin Njoroge is the kind of Teacher I want to learn from.

My decision to purchase this course is the best I ever made. The material is simple and easy implement.

Thank you Kevin for taking the time and keenness to prepare the course for us

Moses Chirchir

Testimonial 3

“Thanks Kevin for your training program. I have been struggling for the last three months trying to win freelance projects on freelancer.com but after reading module 3 of your course, I am glad to inform you that I have just won my first project on freelancer.com to the tune of $75. God bless you. Joan.”

Testimonial 4

“Hi. Your plug & profit programme was so great. Continue the gud work.”

Erick Maina

Testimonial 5

Hi Kevin, thanks for the plug n profit training modules. Module 5 is a real gem, I struggled to get traffic to my blog but I have already achieved a great deal since I started using the tips you have taught in there. I am very happy I ordered this course.

Stephen Okal

To save 50% on the Plug n Profit System, click here now!

Questions about the plug n Profit System? Drop them in the comments and I will answer them as soon as possible.

About the author: Kevin Njoroge is the author of the Plug n Profit System and the founder of makemoneyonlineinkenya.com

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I hope you enjoyed your week. Have a happy and blessed weekend.

Best regards
Kevin

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“Kevin, is it really possible to make good money blogging?

Regards
Ruth”

I immediately sent a reply to Ruth but thought I should follow up with a blog post on the same topic. So, can you really make good money online blogging? The answer is a big “Yes”. You can earn good money online blogging every month. To give you an idea, think about TechCrunch.com. The blog make more than $ 1,000,000 per year. That is a nice income by both the U.S. and Kenyan standards. Other popular blogs such as Mashable.com and HuffingtonPost.com follow closely.

While these blogs operate so much like mainstream media houses and publications, with various internal writers and editors, specialized sales teams, etc. they each started with one passionate blogger writing about topics they were passionate about as to attract a huge following. And you don’t need to start such a popular blog to start seeing the cash. There are many small bloggers making a killing online with their blogs. Indeed stories of bloggers making five and six figure income online blogging are all over the internet.

Monetization channels for a blog range from affiliate marketing and direct advertisement to launch of related products such as training courses and physical products.

So, yes it is very possible to make money online blogging.

But it takes dedication and passion. For that reason, you shouldn’t try to blog about a topic you are not passionate about. The fun thing about blogging allows you to write about subjects you are passionate about, to work from any location so long as it has internet connection, to meet many interesting persons, and it can become a full time business. What is even more interesting, blogging can be the bridge to that job of your dream.

Yes blogging can help you get a job.

What topics should you blog about?

Choosing an appropriate niche for your blog is not really a straightforward task. You can write about whatever you want, but the single most important factor for successful blogging is quality content that is informative to your readers. That is how you establish your credibility among your potential readers and generate repeat traffic to your blog. Ask the successful bloggers what the most important factors contributing to their success were, and most of them will immediately mention content.

It is just a simple logic anyway; to make money blogging, you need traffic (visitors) to your blog and what a better way to attract blog traffic than with informative, well researched and optimized content?

What exactly is quality blog content?

To fit the description of quality content, your blog posts must be unique, valuable and engaging to your readers. How valuable your blog posts are to your readers vary from niche to niche. For instance, while readers of a tech blog will delight in informative blog posts sharing with them the latest gadgets and tech developments, readers of a humor blog will delight in funny posts that entertain them.

The most important point here is to make your subscribers and readers’ stay at your blog worth their time.

Your content should also be unique if your readers are to become repeat visitors. If you were to start a new blog where you ONLY repost articles appearing on the New York Times website, for instance, your readers wouldn’t have strong conviction to stay with your blog when they could just as well read the same articles from the original source.

Lastly, you should inject a sense of personality into your blog posts by sharing your own experiences and opinions, asking questions to your readers, and responding to your readers questions. You can even write blog posts dedicated to your readers’ questions just like I did with this blog post.

In conclusion, you can make good money online blogging. But you need a definite plan before launching your blog. Among the things to define in your plan would be your blog marketing strategies and monetization techniques among others.

To get step by step instructions on setting your first money-making blog, order your copy of my Plug n Profit System now while the offer lasts.

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1. How I Make Money Blogging

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2. How I Made $220 in One Day

As a freelancer, you never have enough of time yet you are only paid for the time you dedicate to your projects (and of course the amount of work done).

For that reason, freelancers need to leverage their time so that they can make the most out of it and earn more online money (or should I say more money online? Just kidding )

Let’s take a closer look at strategies you can use to effectively manage your time and get more work done in less time.

Time Management for Maximum Freelancing Profits

Let me ask you a simple question. Do you ever get the feeling that you are chasing an elusive dream? Have you ever spent a whole day on the internet and at the close of the day you just couldn’t account for those 8, 9 or 10 hours?

photo credit: Riebart

Well, it sure happens to most freelance writers. I know it is no fun, I’ve been there. And despite my extensive experience online, I once in a while end up in that situation where I have absolutely no clue what the heck I am doing. It’s like a kind of temporary brain freeze.

Here’s the thing. If you find yourself spinning your wheels in place, odd are that you are trying to do too much at once. You need to focus and develop a solid action plan that is well laid out so that you can easily follow through with your weekly schedules while monitoring your progress.

Sure time flies and like they say “Time and tide waits for no man”. But “time sure flies” is no longer going to be your excuse for the time and energy you waste in 2012 if you are to make more money online writing.

On the same note, one of the most common mistakes that new freelance writers make is to do a little of “this” and a little of “that” and before they know it, those tiny tidbits adds up to a full day schedule. Consequently they end up extremely busy trying to wind up a dozen different projects that they personally self-sabotaged along the way.

I understand that changing your focus and behavior is easier said than done for the majority of people but once you have done it, everything will change.

The question however is, how do you develop that rock solid action plan that will help keep you laser focused as a freelance writer? It is actually not such a complex system and extends to more than just time management.

You see, time management is not the most important element involved in getting yourself on the path to success. Life management is a better and more accurate reflection of the things you need to pay attention to in order to increase your productivity and efficiency.

On that note start by thinking over how your daily routine affects your productivity as a freelance writer. What is the first thing you do in the morning when you log in to your computer? How much time do you spend reading emails, chatting on facebook, on Twitter, on Skype, on online forums, etc?

If you take the first three hours of your day hanging on social networks that is the first habit you will need to readjust.

I personally had the most horrible work habits of anyone in my industry. When I got online the first thing I would normally do was to check my email, log into facebook, then twitter, hang on various online forums and respond to private messages, moderate my blog comments, recheck my email, and rinse and repeat the entire process.

And before I realized it would be 1 pm, with nothing much done in as far as my writing and blogging schedule was concerned. These things were really not helping my business grow.

On other days, I would waste my entire mornings doing “nothing important” and then work until late hours of the night when I was already exhausted and less productive. I would crawl into bed as the sun was coming up and sleep until noon.

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

And that draining cycle of life would keep on repeating itself. I had to fit everything into my day in just a few hours. This more often than not only pushed my energy down.

That is the point where you start feeling as though you are chasing a wild dream that is hard to come by.

But making a complete transformation from these old habits was not very easy. After all I had spent a better part of my online life barreling down the same old path. We are creatures of habit; that is without doubt. And whether they are constructive or downright destructive, breaking from habits hardwired in our brains is pretty difficult.

All the same, I started being honest with myself. If I really wanted to succeed making money on the internet writing, I had to emulate the work habits of the most successful people I knew. (And to be sincere, none of them were doing what I had been doing. It was sadly true).

So, what major change did I make to my life? My sleep and work habits.

If you will agree with me, there are certain times of the day when you are able to get more work done in less time. This is the time of day when you are at your peak performance. When I finally evaluated my habits and overall performance, I realized that my morning hours were my “prime hours”.

If I had to do a demanding task like writing an essay or eBook on a somewhat technical subject, that was the best time to start doing it since it is when I am typically at the top of my game (ama ni swag? ).

After the morning session, I most of the times start to slow down and by late afternoon, I often find myself struggling to keep focused. Drinking gallons of coffee may sound like a great remedy but it doesn’t really help that much, in my opinion.

Let me be upfront here with you though. If you have a similar lifestyle, you are not alone. Most online entrepreneurs and writers struggle with the same problem. We are left with the freedom to set our own schedules and decide our fate. But for most people, that is a dangerous power to have.

I knew that in order to be as productive and prosperous as I could be, I had to dig deep and come to terms with the fact that I was my worst enemy. I had to start justifying the time I spent online and start holding myself responsible and accountable with how I spent my work time.

Once I did that, everything started to change, I was on earlier and off at the earliest possible. My performance improved tremendously and I was churning out new literary pieces (articles, eBooks, reports, essays, website content etc) faster and easier that ever before.

I was able to cater to the specific needs of my clients in a very different way, having all the time, motivation and energy required to give my best shot. With that I was able to facilitate better satisfaction for my clients while being able to breeze through my daily work schedule more efficiently. That last sentence should make you tick if you intend to make more money online writing.

Changing my sleep and work habits was the single most important decision I have ever made in as afar as my online business and work habits are concerned.

As a freelance writing professional, it is very important to get into the proper mindset. It might be true that you are working for yourself (technically), but you still have deadlines to meet. You have to be far more responsible than if you were launching your own projects since missed deadlines and lagging projects will eventually cost your clients money. Worse still, it could lead to loss of clients and poor feedbacks on the freelance job boards.

Simple Steps That Will Help You Enjoy Your Life as a Freelancer

photo credit: flyzor

Now let’s look at some helpful tips that will help you do more and make more money as a freelance writer while having all the time you need to enjoy your life the way you deserve to.

Quantity control

You read right, that is NOT “Quality control” even though that is as well very important. But on this instance we are talking about “quantity control”.

As an online freelance writing professional, it can be extremely tempting to accept all the freelance writing gigs you can. After all, it makes sense since you earn based on the number of projects you are able to complete.

But as true as that holds, you need to limit the number of projects you accept irrespective of how much luring the prospect of that extra income is.

I know it sounds counterproductive but getting your projects delivered quickly while at the same time maintaining quality for your work will lead to a better profile in the long-term and more income prospects as happy clients are always likely to become repeat customers. That is how you get invitation to bid on high paying writing projects you were not even aware of.

It is absolutely important to manage the number of projects you accept so that you don’t end up getting overwhelmed. I have seen writers ruin their reputations simply because they bit off far more than they could chew resulting in delayed projects and unhappy clients who go out complaining on public forums online.

Such clients may be difficult to please even after you have finally submitted their projects since they might have hard-wired the notion of unreliability in their minds, leading to a negative tendency towards your work output.

Focus On Just One Project at a Time

You should as much as possible always try to work on one project. I don’t mean that you limit yourself to accepting only one project at a time, but rather to queue your projects systematically and work on one of them at a time.

This increases your efficiency tremendously especially if you are writing on a topic that you are not so much familiar with. Working on all the projects at the same time often makes you confused and necessitates refreshing your memory every time you revert to a project you had been working on earlier on.

The quality of your work may as well suffer.

Always let clients know that their completed project will be delivered by a specific date and make sure to leave adequate time. Don’t get overzealous as to promise to deliver the projects to your clients within unrealistic time range that you know only too well you can’t keep up to or lie just for the sake of winning a project.

Instead decide on a realistic delivery date and try to submit the project a day or so ahead. This is a very smart strategy for generating great feedbacks and reviews, getting happy client and generating repeat business.

Create a Regular Working Schedule

photo credit: alexkerhead

It is also advisable to try and maintain a regular working schedule that is set around your optimum performance hours of the day. Of course it is not so easy to stick to a strict working schedule and it won’t always be possible. You may for example have to work late at night sometime to finish up a demanding project.

That is just how the life of a freelancer writer is.

Just do your best to identify the times of day when you are at the best of your game and try to squeeze in some work during that part of your day.

Make Copy-Paste feature Your Friend

Now this may sound a bit controversial for writers, but I am not condoning plagiarism or any illegal use of copyrighted content. Don’t get me wrong. What I am instead referring to is the use of copy paste functionality of your computer to gather draft materials into your working space (e.g. Microsoft word).

As a beginning writer, I would make the mistake of trying to read, integrate and then write articles and other content from my head. This was out rightly inefficient and it took me more time to put the words to paper than was really necessary.

So what is the best way to research and write your articles? Well I recommend gathering relevant content into your word processor at a mark slight higher than the number of words required, and then rewrite the content in your own words while not having to toggle between tabs on your browser.

For instance, if you are writing a 3000 words essay, you should first of all gather relevant materials from across the web (up to about 4000words or more) while noting down the source URL, then rearrange and rewrite your fine draft.

And of course you must proofread your final draft scanning for errors and to ensure smooth grammatical fluency.

Take a Break

photo credit: seanmcgrath

As obvious as this may be, most freelance writers may at times get hang on completing a project so much so that they forget to take a break off their writing schedule.

To quote the old man in the “Legend of the Seeker”, “Sometimes you have to slow down to gain ground”.

That is true for online writing as it is for all other professions and routines because when fatigued, your brain performs at below par levels. Thus taking a time off is a great way to revitalize yourself and boost your overall performance.

In conclusion online writing is a splendid approach to making a full time living on the internet especially if you have a passion for playing with words and have the flexibility to work with diversified topics. You may find yourself writing about “binary options” one day and “beanie hats” the other.

The other great thing about freelance writing is that it provides a fair playground for all the writers and a writer in Kenya can compete head to head with a writer in the US or the UK. The best weapon is to focus on building a great portfolio and profile on the writing jobs board you use. Period.

It’s my sincere hope that the above tips will help you make more money writing online in 2012.

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