EzyBlogger » Blogging Tips

How to Become a News Writer

EzyBlogger — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:18:06 +0000

Do you have aspirations of becoming the next Ernest Hemingway?

Do you like being “in the know,” on a first-name basis with government leaders, high-profile developers, or personalities?

Do you like being sought by folks who want to tell their story, run for political office, or publicize their business?

Or do you want to earn a steady income doing what you love, writing?

Consider becoming a news reporter.

Local newspapers are a great place to build your portfolio quickly. You can also make it a stepping stone to magazines, free-lance writing, wire services, syndicates, public relations/advertsing, publishing or authorship.

The lifestyle of a news reporter is fun, yet demanding, often requiring long hours at government meetings, in courtrooms, or at the office making telephone calls and writing news stories. Dedication requires the reporter to represent his employer if he/she happens to be on the scene when news happens, no matter what the time.

A dedicated reporter also is expected to offer help during major news events like hurricanes or floods, even if they fall on his/her off days. A dedicated reporter can be caught reading their own, or a competing newspaper or magazine, even on their off time. They’ll frequently listen to one or more television broadcast.

They’re also likely to be avid readers, devouring books as a hobby. While news reporters have the reputation of being a bit pushy, sometimes obnoxiously pushy, some reporters would describe themselves as a bit shy.

The mild-mannered reporter who folks trust is likely to be first getting a hot news tip. Because even reporters can specialize, these shy types eventually can settle into a feature writing job about gardening, or write about local sports, without having to be very aggressive. It is the muckraker, an investigative reporter writing about government-related or business scandals, who likely will fall behind for lack of aggression. These scandals attract reporters from various media, making the job much more competitive.

So how do you actually get one of these coveted, glamourous reporting jobs?

We’ll take a look at several important steps.

Step One — Keep up with current events by reading your local newspaper and listening to broadcast news. Consider subscribing to a well respected newspaper like The New York Times or The Miami Herald. Read it faithfully, paying attention to how articles are crafted.

Step Two — Earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree in journalism, mass communications or a related field. Get training/references in news writing. Be sure to take advantage of opportunities to write and edit your school newspaper. Train to work for online newspapers to broaden your base of opportunities. Learn how to use a computer. Learn how to use the Internet to look for a job and post writing samples.

Step Three — If you don’t already have one, buy a reliable car. Very likely you will be paid a gas stipend per mile, or a standard gas allotment.

Step Four — Be an intern. Seek opportunities to intern at a local news operation during the summer or school year. Take advantage of this time to learn as much as you can, make valuable contacts, build your portfolio, and get professional references.

Step Five — Consider becoming a news stringer as a part-time job while you’re in school. The small part-time assignment could bloom into a full-time job when you graduate.

Step Six — Go for your dream. Apply to the news magazines, wire services, or major metropolitan dailies. Don’t wait for them to run an ad in Editor and Publisher. The ad will bring piles of competition. Be willing to take an intern job and write obituaries or engagement and wedding notices, if necessary. Consider starting as a copy editor, but be sure to let them know you want to be a reporter so they can plan to give you the job when it becomes available.

Step Seven — If you fail to get hired at your dream news organization, or if you’re not sure where you want to work, check trade resources like US Newspaper List online and send letters of application, with resume, to a big batch of eligible employers. Offer samples of your work and references. Unfortunately, the proliferation of spam leaves you no guarantee e-mail will be opened.

Step Eight — Be sure to follow up, providing all requested information.

Step Nine — When an editor requests an interview, dress like a professional. Yes, even consider buying a suit, depending on the size and reputation of the news organization. (A suit probably is not necessary for small newspapers.) Even at larger newspaper offices, reporters typically wear casual, comfortable clothing, although suits and dressier clothing are required for some jobs. An interview is definitely time to pull out the suit at these newspapers. In any event, look professional and resist the temptation to wear your tattered jeans. They may not be allowed because you represent your employer where-ever you go on assignment.

Step Ten — Prepare for your interview by learning about the company beforehand. Plan to answer basic questions like why you would be an asset to their news staff and why you would like to work there. Be prepared to talk a little bit about yourself, but have questions to ask about the company and an editor’s expectations. Check into the area’s cost of living beforehand. Editors can and do negotiate on occasion, so you should know your salary requirements and politely let them know your needs. The salary on your first job may not be negotiable, however, so avoid appearing greedy.

Step Eleven — Repeat the application and interview process as necessary until you land the big one!

Once on the job, you may find yourself writing death or engagement notices, or covering police news. If you are assigned to cover suburban news, you may monitor local government, schools, police and courthouse events, take your own photographs and write features. It’s a great place to learn the ropes and find out what assignments you like best.

Consider joining the local press club or journalism society to make more contacts and establish yourself.

Image Credit – dbdbrobot

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

How to Become a News Writer

Becoming a Paid Book Reviewer

EzyBlogger — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:25:49 +0000

Rise to the Challenge

Book reviews are a great way for readers to get a taste of the story and find out if they’re interested in it, plus gather reviewers’ opinions or recommendations on a novel. People who read books and review them must walk a fine line, revealing information about the story without giving away the plot twists or ending, while writing as objective an opinion as possible. It may not be the job for everyone, but for those who love books and are ready for the challenge of reviewing them, it is possible to earn compensation for their hard work.

Practice Makes Perfect

For those who have never written a review or have written only a few, getting experience with writing reviews is essential. Publishers won’t hire individuals with no experience with reviewing, no matter how clever a writer they may be otherwise. Studying reviews by other writers is necessary to learn style, format, and structure, as well as becoming familiar with the content and review genres that are being published. Understanding the market will put a new reviewer on the right road to selling their own work.

Making a Name

Once the reviewer has some writing experience and some understanding of the field, getting their work into the public arena is the next step. This probably won’t include payment at first. Though some exceptional new writers may be accepted by paying publishers, most reviewers find that they need to volunteer their work to make a name for themselves and to gain attractive credentials to put on their resumes or queries when hunting for paying jobs. There are an enormous number of book review sites on the Internet that are willing to assess and publish voluntary reviews, but print magazines or newspapers may also consider free reviews. Reviewers can also benefit from creating a website or blog to display their work.

Finding a Paying Publisher

After getting a few bylines to their name, the reviewer can then consider applying to a paying publisher for a review job. Reviewers need to explore the market before sending queries, to make sure that they find a good match for their type of reviews. Publishers come in all shapes and sizes, from small to mega publications, online and offline book, magazine, and newspaper publications. Publishers interested in freelance book reviewers can be found in writer’s markets, classified ads, and employment search engines. Writing a professional query letter that follows the publisher’s submission guidelines is essential to show serious interest and competence. Most publishers will also require a review sample to assess the quality of the reviewer’s work.

Be Proactive

Once a reviewer lands a paying job, they need to be able to keep it. Of course, writing interesting reviews is top priority, but it’s also necessary to keep updated and educated. Reviewers need to continue reading other reviews, updating their own styles and approaches to reviewing, plus being aware of the changes in the market itself. A reviewer who is proactive and up to date will always be appreciated by publishers and find a secure home in the world of book reviewing.

Image Credit – Ian Wilson

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Becoming a Paid Book Reviewer

Unblocking Writer’s Block

EzyBlogger — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:08:10 +0000

It happens to most serious writers at one time or another. You have plotted out the story line. You have developed most of your major characters and you may have even completed half of your novel. Then one day you open up your word processor, or note book, and you can’t, for the life of you, think what to write next.

Writer’s block descends like a paralysing fog that seizes up the brain and sends the new writer into panic mode. When it’s the first time it’s happened it really does seem like the end of a promising career. The flow of words that have been bubbling along like a fast-running stream have suddenly dried up and you are left staring at a blank page with no idea where your cherished writing is to go next.

It could be a short term problem that is easily fixed, a bit like a computer that refuses to work properly when you switch it on. The guru’s solution then is to switch it off, leave for a few minutes and restart. This usually works, and it’s a good idea to use the same technique with the brain. Get up from your screen, or put away your notepad and pen, and do something else for a short while. Make some coffee, go into the garden and de-head something…above all don’t sit staring at a blank screen or page. It will just make matters worse. While the coffee ‘percs’ let some ideas mull around in your head. If it’s a minor hitch, like how to start a new chapter, or even a new paragraph, just relaxing for a few moments will probably do the trick. You’ll be able to go back to your writing refreshed and ready to run again.

If it’s a major block (you’ve painted yourself into a corner with the plot, or you just can’t think of a convincing piece of dialogue that’s going to be vital to the ‘show not tell’ rule you’re trying so hard to stick to) it’s even more important to get as far away from your work as possible.

The golden rule is …don’t start to fret about it. It’s not the end of your career, it’s just a blip and you will recover from it. So try and distance yourself from this particular piece of writing. That doesn’t mean give up all together. Still try to write something every day. It’s like going to the gym, but involves a brain work-out rather than a session on the treadmill. Forget the novel for the time being and start a short story, or if you’ve never written poetry before, experiment with rhyming couplets…limerick writing can be fun and relaxing. It requires word skills and a sense of humour. Something you’re probably a bit short of under the circumstances.

Don’t become obsessive about writing though. Try not to let it be the first thing you think of in the morning. You could become depressed, and that won’t help anybody, least of all yourself. Did you have a hobby before the urge to write took over your life? If so, retrieve it from the cupboard, the shed, or the last known sighting of it and take it up again (temporarily of course, just until the ‘block’ has cleared).Whilst you’re concentrating on sticking the millionth matchstick onto that almost completed model of the Eiffel Tower the solution to the tricky problem of how to dispose of the body, or how your hero is going to escape from the locked room will probably come to you.

If you really can’t bear the thought of leaving your ‘baby’ all on it’s own try skipping the part of the story that’s giving you trouble and have a go at writing the last chapter or two. Yes, you may have the ending totally worked out, but you may also find yourself going off on a slightly different track, and this in itself could provide you with the necessary route to fixing the stalling point of your plot.

The brain is a complex organ and the answer you’ve anguished over for so long can have a strange habit of popping up when you least expect it. That’s when you need to be prepared. During this ‘fallow’ period of creativity keep writing materials everywhere. In the car, by the sink,and especially on your bedside table. Three o’clock in the morning, when you’re drifting between wakefulness and sleep, is a favourite time for a piece of scintillating dialogue to spring into your mind. It’s an absolute cracker…it will set the page on fire. You roll over and go back to sleep, and by the morning you can’t remember a word of it. Oh dear, oh dear! But think about it…you wouldn’t commit a length of prose to your word processor without saving it, would you? Unfortunately the human brain doesn’t come equipped with a ‘Save As’ facility so keep that pen and paper handy at all times. A lot of very successful writers advocate a ‘jot it down before you forget it’ policy for their writing at all times and it’s sound advice.

Lastly, try sharing your woes. You need a sympathetic shoulder right now. Don’t burden your family with it. Unless they are writers themselves they won’t understand why you are making such a big deal of not knowing how your protagonist is going to get out of the mess you’ve got him into, or how your heroine is going to respond to the good-looking guy you just wrote into her life. Close, but non-writing friends will profess an interest and then quickly become bored as you chew over every possibility. You will notice this when their eyes glaze over and they suggest a sudden trip to the shops or the pub.

Hopefully, in your personal phone book you will have the numbers of a few fellow writers you can call on in times of need. Writers groups are great for this, so make sure you’ve swapped numbers with some friendly members. If you’re a writer in isolation this can be more of a problem, so it’s a good idea to go online and check out some writer’s web sites. A quick engine search will bring up hundreds….some good, some not so, but there’s bound to be one or two that you like the look of. Register, and hey presto, you’re in a virtual writer’s circle. Post your problem on their forum…offer advice yourself if you’ve experienced something similar, and suddenly that feeling of being the only writer out there will evaporate. You’ll get a wealth of advice and feedback. And who knows? Someone’s suggestion may be just the help you need.

You may develop a few pen-friendships from these forums into the bargain . These are great too. You can email off all your troubles, and even if they haven’t a solution, at least you’ll feel better having unburdened yourself to a fellow sympathiser. It’s highly probable that he or she has suffered from writer’s block as well and just being told you are not a complete failure will do your morale no end of good.

Anyone author who says they have never suffered from an attack of creative meltdown is either a genius or a fibber, so don’t succumb to the notion that you haven’t got it in you to write that book. You have, and writer’s block is all part of the process of developing your skills and completing your work. And when you’ve finally written those magic words THE END the real work (of finding a publisher) will just be beginning. And when you acheive that you’ll need to start the whole darned process off again with your next novel!

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Unblocking Writer’s Block

How to be a Freelance Journalist

EzyBlogger — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:44:12 +0000

Freelance journalists write for newspapers, magazines, radio, television and online publications.

Being a staff journalist is a job full of deadlines, stress and competition.

To land a reporting job at a paper, writers usually take a position as typist in hopes they can get in line for any staff writing jobs.

As a freelance journalist, you can find stories, pitch them to any paper you like, and write about the issues and topics you prefer. There is also an option that falls between freelance and staff and that person is called a stringer.

A stringer is a freelancer who has been assigned an area by the newspaper on a freelance basis. Within the area the stringer writes about politics, town meetings, issues, school happenings, entertainment, basically anything newsworthy or of interest to readers.

A stringer is not an employee of the newspaper, since he or she is paid per story, but unlike a freelancer the stringer is given assignments. So, how do you become a stringer? Find the editor’s name on the publication’s web site or in the paper and give him/her a call and introduce yourself. You’ll probably want to pitch a few story ideas as well.

Freelance journalists and magazine writers have a lot of balls in the air at once. They are constantly thinking of story ideas, writing and sending out query letters (idea pitches) to publications, and always writing something for publication.

So where do you come up with ideas to pitch to papers and magazines?

1. The news is a great source for nonfiction writers. Truth is stranger than fiction, right? Cut out articles or snippets from newspaper and magazines you find interesting and create a file folder for each category. Keep a notepad next to the TV incase you hear something interesting and want to jot it down. Have an “eye” and an “ear” for the news.

2. Local and college libraries are a wealth of information (thanks to grants and student tuition.) You’ll find a great deal of information among the databases and periodical collections. Read back issues for story ideas. If the magazine ran the article in the past, they may be willing to run an updated version in the future.

3. Dig up information on local history or people who came from your area. Visit the local museum or historical society, both of which usually have boxes and boxes of local information. If you do not live in a city with a museum or library with a specialized collection consider making a trip to review their collection.

4. Go online and browse forums. If you’re thinking of writing an article on a certain topic, visit a related-forum to find out what people want to learn. For example, if you want to write a series of articles for first-time home buyers, visit forums and learn what types of questions people have. You can then answer these questions in your article.

5. Ask people! Call business owners and ask what the issues in their industry are.

6. Research publications and journals are a great source for ideas. For example, research journals with recent medical studies and the latest medicines are great sources for “filler” articles as well as features.

7. Talk to people. Be alert. If a new and interesting business opens up, interview the owner.

Opinion Writing

Do you have an opinion? Do you have a strong voice? Love to debate? If you answered yes, then you have a future as an opinion writer. This type of writing can be found in newspapers on the “op-ed” page, in syndicated columns, and in articles. Opinion writers also make great speech writers. A quick way for opinion writers to get published in a newspaper and start accumulating clips is by writing Letters to the Editor. Be aware of the issues in your community and nationwide and write 300-500 words on your views on the topic. These are now your published opinion writing clips that you can send in when submitting your resume, stories, or queries to publications.

A career as an opinion writer can be a harsh one, especially if you wish to have many friends. This is because you are calling the public’s attention to the issues and in doing so, will probably offend at least one person. However; opinion writing, if done with humor and wit, can make you very popular, like Jon Stewart host and co-writer of The Daily Show.

Opinions and Letters to the Editor need to start with an attention grabbing opener. If you are referencing an article or current news event, you should mention it. Make sure your point is clear and that readers know what issue you’re referring to. In the next paragraph, start to make and support your views. Be specific: give names, data, facts, dates. Make it part humor part informative.

The following is an example of a letter to the editor published March 11, 2005 in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ex-hostage’s story has holes

“Something doesn’t add up about released Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena’s story. If you were just released as a hostage in Iraq and claimed to see no checkpoint, no people, would you drive at a ”regular speed” or would you haul butt? I just can’t believe they weren’t driving as fast as possible to get out of that country if no one else was around. She claimed they were driving slowly because the danger was behind them, yet they were still in a war zone. There is a huge contradiction there.

She speaks worse of the U.S. troops than of the terrorists who kidnapped her at gunpoint Feb. 4 and held her for a month. And she speaks nothing of the unconfirmed $1 million paid to terrorists for her release, money that no doubt is now intended to harm troops, journalists and innocent Iraqis. Kidnapping has just become profitable in Iraq.”

This situation is tragic in so many ways and caused by many circumstances, but all the reporter sees is the evil United States. The loss of the intelligence officer is horrible, but I also think that with her refusal to give the United States information, there is some deflecting going on with this situation. I think the United States deserves some answers as well.”

Can you see why this was published? First, the author has a strong opinion and uses proper nouns (Giulana Sgrena, United States) and facts, (Feb. 4, $1 million) to support her point. A good Letter to the Editor will address a specific event, article, or other letter, use a strong voice, and have facts to support the message.

Food/ Reviews/Travel Writing

Book, restaurant, and travel reviews are also options for the nonfiction writer. These can be for newspapers, ezines, Web sites, magazines, or you can take it further and write regional guidebooks or cookbooks.

a. Book reviews:
In a book review writers give readers a little information about the book without giving anything away. Writers should also add a little information about the author, include quotes from the book, and give an opinion.

To get started write a letter of introduction to publishers telling them you are a writer and express an interest to receive certain books for review. After contacting a publisher once, often you will receive free copies before they hit shelves.

b. Food reviews:
Five-star restaurants are not the only ones worthy of a review, as you can see just by picking up the daily paper. People want to know where to go for a specific type of cuisine, price or atmosphere in any given town, state and country. Take a look, for example, at Lake Claremont Press at http://www.lakeclaremont.com/. LCP is an indie publisher in Chicago, IL, USA that creates regional guidebooks full of reviews, with the bulk being restaurant reviews.

Often publishers look for contributors to such guidebooks, so always be on the look out. When writing for newspapers, magazines or web sites make your reviews interesting. Come up with clever titles and an entertaining opening line. You don’t want to simply write that the chicken parmesan was good and cost $16.95. Give the reader a sense of the service, atmosphere, and crowd.

c. Travel reviews:
Travel reviews can be either an impartial review of a country, cruise, airline, resort, or anything else related to travel, or it can be a personal account of your trip or experience. Readers look to these reviews for unbiased information on hotels, cruise lines and resorts, while also enlightening about things to do.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

How to be a Freelance Journalist

Blogging Demystified

EzyBlogger — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:49:06 +0000

Many people are completely mystified by the explosion of new technology these days, both in the real world and in the world of the Internet.

Just navigating websites can be a daunting experience, and learning all the lingo may seem like a mission impossible.

Blogging is one of those evolving technologies, and though it may seem incomprehensible, blogging is actually a useful tool for Internet communication.

Blog Basics

The word blog originated from the term weblog, referring to a website with regular entries or posts of information in the form of journals, editorials, news articles, conversations, and sometimes graphic material like pictures or video. These posts appear on the website in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry at the top of the page and progressively older entries posted below.

In addition to the blog posts, a blog page may also contain other features such as archiving of old entries, ability of visitors to make comments on posts, related images to the subject of the blog, links to related material, and news feeds notifying a subscriber of new content to the blog. There are many blog creator systems available on the Internet, eliminating the need to know how to use HTML to create a webpage. This makes blogging accessible to everyone.

Blog Uses

A whole community has evolved around blogs, called the blogosphere. This includes all blogs of any subject, whether they’re personal in nature or business oriented. Bloggers, or people who create blogs and post in them, produce content on various subjects ranging from simple online journals to in-depth educational strategies and complex marketing tools for businesses.

The most common use for blogs is still personal, people sharing their lives or interacting with one another on specific topics, but blogs are having an impact on many other aspects of our worldwide civilization, including politics, entertainment, health care, education, and business. One of the best aspects of blogging is its ability to open up the fields of information exchange and communication. On any given topic, bloggers can express their up-to-the-minute knowledge and opinions, offering multiple unfiltered perspectives and almost limitless access to further research.

Powerful Tool

Blogging is not just a communication tool, but also an evolving method for influencing the way we live today.

Creating blogs is a simple and an effective method of expressing oneself, but even if a person doesn’t feel ready to dive that deep into blogging waters, blogging content can still be an excellent source for entertainment and education.

Not all Internet technology has to be a mystery—once demystified, blogging becomes a powerful tool to help our society step into the future.

Image Credit – Michael Karshis

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Blogging Demystified

Blogging for an Audience

EzyBlogger — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:02:09 +0000

Some people think that blogging is for the isolated, or the dysfunctional: that it consists of alcoholic finger-jabbers or political obsessives firing their opinions into cyberspace regardless of the audience.

There are plenty of blogs like this! But it doesn’t have to be like that.

You can create and build an audience for your writing and get immense satisfaction from it.

How to begin, then?

You need first and foremost to choose your style and subject. Some generalised blogs reach a wide audience, but if that’s what you want, stick to a particular topic or group of topics. Politics is the most well-known one, but you will need the stomach for a lot of argument and debate if you choose it! Other blogs focus on domestic life or literature, or culture: whatever you choose to focus on, your blog needs an identity and readers need to know what to expect when they check out your blog. Writing on hundreds of different topics may seem like a good way to attract hits but it won’t necessarily build an audience.

You need to decide on your style: comic, controversial, laid-back, intelligent – what will your online persona be like? Although there is space for variation, if readers log on and suddenly find splenetic, drunken rantings where they expected discussion of the arts, they will not be impressed.

To build and sustain your audience, you need to comment constructively on other blogs and to link on yours. You can blog without allowing comments, but a few exceptions aside, this is not a great way to become known. You need to get your name – or online identity – known widely and commenting on well-known blogs is a great way to do this. You need to do it thoughtfully and intelligently, though. Just leaving one-liners or trolling (deliberately provoking the readers of that blog) is not helpful to you. Engaging in argument and making good points is helpful!

The most well-respected bloggers behave ethically, through not trolling, responding appropriately to comments and keeping just the one online identity if they choose not to blog under their real name. It isn’t your opinions as such which count, it’s how you behave and how you write. It is sometimes said that bloggers are the perpetually outraged, preaching to the converted. This is just not true. The best blogs involve wide-ranging discussion as well as well-written content. A blog which attracts dissent and on which well-moderated debate takes place is one which will earn a lot of respect. That doesn’t mean you can’t write your foul-mouthed outrage, just that that alone isn’t enough.

It’s also often said that you need well-written content first and foremost. This is true. But lots of great content is out there and unknown. You don’t need to be Shakespeare or a Pulitzer Prize-winner to blog well. You just need to write clearly, researching your topic and having proper support for any arguments you choose to make. Your style must be accessible. Posts should be detailed where necessary but not essay-length all the time. There’s also space for quips, random thoughts and jokes.

Joining a blogging agglomeration can be useful in building an audience. There are many of these, based on political affiliation, nationality or religion (for example). There are also blogging directories, which use your url and a few words to describe the blog, and which can be used by readers to search for the types of blogs they might be interested in. It goes without saying that the more links you have, the better.

One of the reasons that blogs do come and go is that blogging for an audience is hard work. You need to post regularly (several times a week, though not necessarily every day) and you need to keep up the quality of your posting and commenting. It can involve a commitment of a couple of hours a day or more. The rewards for this are twofold: satisfaction at becoming well-known, and financial – blogs with lots of hits can earn money from advertising and lead to the blogger being invited onto mainstream media outlets for discussions or interviews. Before you embark on this process, ask yourself: do you have the time and energy it takes?

Finally, don’t believe what you might have read elsewhere. Blogging is not dead, nor is it dying. Twitter and social networking sites are complimentary to blogging. You can, for example, post your tweets on your blog. In fact, blogging is only just coming to maturity. In the UK this year, a blogger forced a political resignation – the first time this has happened, and before the mainstream media could act. Bloggers break stories, start and maintain campaigns, try to raise awareness and keep a vast online debate going. Through the well-known blogs, people come to new art forms, read books they did not know existed, even learn how to cook!

Millions of people blog, all over the world.

Joining that community and taking part in its arguments, campaigns and laughter can be really satisfying.

Take the plunge!

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Blogging for an Audience

Money-Making Niche Blogging

EzyBlogger — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:54:46 +0000

What a better and more enjoyable way to make money – potentially plenty of it – than by writing everyday about subjects you love, and about which you know a great deal!

For example, if you are a horse lover or owner, you may want to start a blog on race horses.

There are millions of people who would have an interest in reading about horses, so just that alone, and making the subject of the blog more specific by gearing it towards race horses, will help to make your blog a successful one that many people will want to visit again and again.

And the more specific you make your blog the more it will stand out, which in turn will make it more attractive to a specific group of readers.

To find a more specific or unique topic (or simply to get more ideas about what to write on an already unique topic) you can go to the Google or Yahoo Directory (to name just a few) to find sub-categories of the more general niche topic.

For instance, the broad area of interest in “books” might lead one to focus on “American literature”.

Unique niche blogging targets readers with a specific and focused interest, which makes it more likely that they will frequently visit and read your blog, which in the end means more money for you.

Another thing that makes niche blogging so attractive is that there is usually no startup cost.

You can do this by using WordPress or Blogger. But as your blog attracts more and more traffic on the Internet and becomes more profitable, it is quite likely you will want to invest in tools that will make your blog even more successful.

And why stop at just one blog? Unless you have severe time restraints, and as long as you have knowledge of and a passion for other topics, you can always get another, money- making niche blog going.

To make money from your blog, you need to find an affiliate website to which you can direct your readers for products and services related to the subject of your blog (and their interests and needs).

You earn a commission every time someone makes a purchase from that affiliate.

In return for the business you have sent its way, the affiliate directs readers to your blog so you can make more money still.

Also, companies will pay you if you allow them to post an ad on your blog page.

In those ways, you are actually doing your readers a great service by facilitating their access to what they might need or want.

In any case, it is important to update your blog daily so as to keep a high flow of readers coming to it.

Some people even update their blog several times a day.

This generates a consistently high level of interest in the blog in the form of return visitors who want to see what new ideas and information you have added, and makes the blog more visible to search engines.

Besides the fact that it is usually free to get started, another nice thing about niche blogging (which is really one of the most successful ways of generating income from the Internet) is that it usually does not require great demands on your time, except when you might have several blogs going on all at once.

But in the latter case, if you have chosen your niches wisely, you will be making all that much more money when your readers go to your affiliate site and make a purchase.

Image Credit – Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Money-Making Niche Blogging

How To Earn Money Online as a Freelance Writer

EzyBlogger — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:41:48 +0000

The world wide web has revolutionized the life of a freelance writer. It has opened up countless new markets, all available through a simple search (no more poring through writer’s market guides) and has sped up the process of writing, seeing your work published, and getting paid. In the old days, it could take months – even years – to see submitted work in print, and checks would arrive long after you forgot making a submission. Today, you can write, post, and receive payment in a week or less.

Writing skills, of course, are as important as ever. Though electronic technology has changed the rules of grammar and punctuation for informal email communication and text messages, writers who want to get paid to produce web content or to find offline writing work using the Internet must be able to demonstrate strong writing skills. Although more opportunities exist for beginning writers who are still honing their skills, the standards for professional content have not changed.

As new markets have appeared online, so have websites devoted to writers. Many offer inherent freelance writing opportunities. Associated Content and Constant Content are two such sites many writers find profitable.

Associated Content (http://www.associatedcontent.com/) bills itself as “The People’s Media Company.” Nearly anyone can write an article for publication here, so it’s a great place for beginning writers to start. The site’s editors pay small amounts (usually about $3-$5) for full rights on well written articles that suit their needs, including articles on local attractions, products, events, and popular culture. Writers can respond to calls for content or submit anything they choose. Those articles that are not accepted for upfront payment are eligible to receive per-hit performance payments. Promoting articles is largely up to the writers, who comment on others’ work and post links on social networking sites to draw traffic to their AC page and increase performance payments.

Constant Content (http://www.constant-content.com/) accepts articles from skilled writers, who can offer three levels of rights – Use, Unique, and Full – which loosely correspond to the one-time rights and full rights offered in traditional writing markets. (Unique is much like first rights, but without the option to resell one-time rights to someone else.) Buyers browse or request articles to buy for use on their websites. Authors set their own prices. A commission fee is taken out of the sale price, and authors can receive a percentage from the sales made by writers they refer.

Freelance market sites, such as Elance.com, iFreelance.com, and Guru.com, help match freelance writers and other freelance professionals to companies with freelance projects. Elance.com charges commissions for projects and flat rates for listings. iFreelance.com advertises no commission but requires writers to pay a monthly membership fee. Guru.com charges writers both membership fees and project commissions. All three require you to compete directly with other writers for specific jobs, and pay varies by project.

Helium.com combines writing contests with topic guides and a marketplace for writers. Freelancers can submit articles on specific requested topics to earn $20 or more, submit articles that readers can rate, or enter various writing contests.

Several additional sites hire freelancers to produce content. Many of these promote themselves as “answer” websites, where freelance experts on various subjects write basic guides on the topics about which they are knowledgeable. Suite101.com pays writers a share of their advertising revenue and requires an application with samples to join. Mahalo.com, “the world’s first human-powered search engine,” pays for freelancers to put together search-result guides to websites on specific topics. Lifetips.com hires “gurus” to write tips on their niche areas of expertise.

For those who want to write what they choose, rather than writing for requested topics, blogging is a viable option. Many writers make a living from advertising revenues generated by their own blogs. Freelancers who have strong marketing skills, adequate computer skills, and the ability to write about life from an uncommon perspective should consider starting their own blog.

Alternatively, you may find paid blogging opportunities on established group blogs. Read blogs on your favorite topics and keep an eye out for announced writing opportunities. Blogs of medium popularity (which have established an audience but which don’t have too much competition for open writing spots) are the best for freelance opportunities. Those with their own sites, as opposed to those connected to sites like Blogger.com, also seem more likely to generate enough income to hire freelancers. Blogging for others can provide you with a regular income but without the hassle of continuously marketing your work.

Social networking sites also offer opportunities to promote your writing career. Reconnect with old friends on MySpace or Facebook; they may have writing work to offer you or know someone who does. Use your profile to promote articles you have published on sites that share ad revenue or pay you per hit. Sign up for Linked In, where you can list your experience résumé style and wait for professional writing opportunities to come to you.

A few social networking sites also pay directly for you to publish your articles. Associated Content (mentioned above) works much like a social networking site, where the more you comment, the more subscribers you attract. Gather.com, a niche social site for readers and writers, pays points (redeemable for gift certificates) for your participation – both publishing articles or photographs and commenting on others’ posts. The most active members can earn cash instead of points. Earning cash on Gather, however, requires many hours on the site; you are likely to earn more by writing for a variety of freelance sites.

Consider marketing your writing skills on general auction and classified sites, as well. Advertise your strengths and offer a specific service (such as writing copy for a brochure) in eBay’s Specialty Services category, which unfortunately does not have a writing subcategory, or try a less well known auction site, such as BidHire.com (a new site designed specifically for services). Post your availability as a freelancer on Craigslist.com and browse local job listings on that site. The Internet has a multitude of ways to find buyers for your work.

If your writing tends to be book length, and you can’t find a traditional publisher for your work, try self-publishing via the Internet. In addition to the online presence of old-fashioned self-publishing houses, sites like Lulu.com help you put together, promote, and sell your self-published book or e-book. E-books can also be created using Adobe Acrobat and sold through your own personal blog or specialty sites related to the topic of your book. To increase sales, make your e-book as professional as possible, with well written text and a cover that does not look amateurish. Perhaps you can enlist a copy editor and a graphic designer who are willing to work on a commission of your sales. (Check your contacts on social network sites!) Knowing your target audience and marketing directly to them also helps sell e-books.

Remember that organizations that offer you help in publishing or marketing your work are providing you a service, so expect to pay for their assistance. Before you pay for any services up front, consider whether you are confident enough that your work will earn you enough to make up the costs. Start with sites that pay a small amount or charge only a sales commission before moving on to sites with a membership fee.

Freelance writing does involve taking some risks, especially when you first start. You may spend many hours writing on speculation, only to receive a series of rejections. Writing is a competitive field, and even excellent writers sometimes have difficulty finding the right market for their work. Nevertheless, the Internet truly has opened up a whole new world for writers. While traditional venues, such as short story magazines that provided the staple income for F. Scott Fitzgerald, are becoming difficult to enter, the world wide web allows more and more people to earn money with freelance writing. As you explore the sites mentioned here, you will gain experience and build your portfolio, making your services more valuable to potential customers both online and off.

Photo Credit – Chaparral [Kendra]

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

How To Earn Money Online as a Freelance Writer

The Seasoned Blog

EzyBlogger — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:49:57 +0000

The Seasoned Blog.

Blogs, otherwise known as online diaries or web journals, are the hottest thing on the Internet today.

Virtually everyone surfing the net on a regular or semi-regular basis either has a blog themselves, or has spent time reading blogs.

There’s just something about the raw exposure of this “reality internet” that is attractive to people.

But the other hand, there’s a vulnerability involved with baring your essentials for the world to feed on in their spare time.

Plenty are the numbers of scorned souls, bleeding hearts, and wounded spirits who have fallen prey to online predators with negative intent. One of two things usually happens to set back or scare off those who are new to the blogging scene.

The blog won’t “take off” and isn’t popular and doesn’t stand out in the multitude of seasoned blogs, or the new blogger will get caught up in the excitement of it all, get too comfortable, expose a secret, and then live to regret it when the wrong person finds the post on the web.

But the seasoned blogger will tell you: you must find your own creative flavor, and then merge it with good common sense in order to deliver an enticing enough blog to the public without jeopardizing privacy or self-respect.

The first problem new bloggers generally face is what to write.

They have read and been entertained by other blogs, and they want their blog to be just as interesting and entertaining, but don’t want to expose anything personal, don’t have any creative insights to express, and aren’t sure how to get the words moving.

Here are a few ideas for subjects to get you started that are “safe” concepts to explore and display in public forums, such as blogs:

- Find a quote generator or use a quote book to find random quotations. When you find a quotation that strikes your fancy, copy it down, and then write 400 words or 20 minutes about what your thoughts are regarding the quote.

- Write about books you’re reading and how they make you feel.

- Write about movies you’ve seen recently, and whether or not you liked them.

- Write about your favorite music.

- Write about your funniest moments.

- Write about favorite childhood memories.

The second problem new bloggers encounter is frustration when there’s not enough traffic or response to their blog.

There are things you can do to improve public interaction and invite comment.

Make sure you use catchy titles that will change people’s attention from mere initial curiosity to recognition or identification with the subject matter. The title is the first “taste” the viewer gets of the flavor of your blog.

A catchy title reels them in.

Your first paragraph should further entice the reader and draw them in to the post. If the first paragraph is boring, confusing, or somehow offensive, the viewer will close the screen and move on to the next blog.

Try posting questions within the body of your blog entry, such as, “Can you believe this guy?” or “Is she for real?” It may seem like an innocent, rhetorical question to self, or “cyber-space”, but the viewer is more likely to answer if a question has been stated somewhere in the post.

Make your blog attractive. Dress it up with bells and whistles while at the same time making it easy to navigate. Adding photos, colors, designs, favorite quotes, jokes, favorite links, or other trinkets and treasures make the viewer want to stay and play.

Consider posting quizzes and fun games that can be interactive with readers, such as online quizzes they can take themselves, or “games” they can play along with you. One woman kept a blog and communicated with those posting on her blog message boards.

After she’d identified her following, a group of people who were staying with her and revisiting the blog, she hosted a “jeopardy” type game in which she quizzed the viewers on facts disclosed in former diary entries. All the participants had a great time and continue to go back to her blog.

Update your blog often, adding new interesting topics, conversations, and interactive activities. People have a tendency to stop visiting a site that looks the same every time they visit. Keep it active, mix it up.

Take the time to visit the blogs hosted by people who frequent your blog. It’s only polite and spreads the love around. If someone has been to your blog and has posted to you a few times, it would only be right for you to visit their blog and make a few posts.

If they don’t have their blog information listed where you can find it, such as in a user profile, and then ask them directly if they have one. They’ll be honored you reached out to them personally. If you don’t repay the kindness and show courtesy to your fellow bloggers, they’ll get bored with you and go elsewhere. Many bloggers intentionally seek out friendships in this way and for this purpose.

A seasoned blogger will tell you that there are risks involved with keeping blogs.

Blogs are often used for raw expressions, venting, or for working through difficult situations. In many cases, things are stated that are later regretted. When the blogger has an unidentifiable screen name and no personal information disclosed, the risks are less, but the blog is less interesting to users.

However, many people host blogs that have their first and last name, hometown, and other personal information that identify them to viewers.

In cases where your identity is not hidden, there are things you can do to help protect yourself from internet dangers.

Use common sense and never post your home address or telephone number in a public forum.

Use nick names or pseudonyms for every person of whom you speak in your blog entries, including kids, spouses, friends, and the schmuck at work who pissed you off this morning. Don’t use real names when talking about other people online. It can and will come back to haunt you.

Learn to speak or write in ways that use metaphors and imagery to explore subjects that can’t be disclosed but need to be expressed.

If your first and last name are appearing on or can be discovered within the content of your blog, do not confess to doing anything illegal or immoral. It can be used against you.

There are plenty of free blogs available online, and an immeasurable amount of how to articles or 0pinionated prose on blogs, online diaries, and web journals.

What are you waiting for?

Get yourself a free blog, deck it out with the bells and whistles, adorn it with groovy titles and fun challenges, produce it with common sense, maintain it with integrity, and enjoy the “reality internet” wave of blogging.

Before you know it, you, too, will be a seasoned blogger.

Image Credit – Foxtongue

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

The Seasoned Blog

Make Money Blogging During Economic Slowdown

EzyBlogger — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:05:28 +0000

Ten years ago during the global economic slowdown of 1997, I was very worried about what the future will bring.

Will I be retrenched from my job ?

What should I do If I lose my job ?

There were so many questions playing in my mind during that tough times.

However, this time around, though the global economy is facing a downturn, I’m more confident about facing the global uncertainties.

As a full-time work at home blogger who makes a living online by blogging, I’m more confident than before of pulling through these tough times.

Blogging and earning an income as a blogger makes me confident that things will not go that bad and I will be less affected by the whole financial crisis that the world is facing.

Though I can see some income dropping especially AdSense where lower income per clicks can seen throughout my niche blog networks, I’m optimistic about earning more money this year.

Even if AdSense is generating less income per click, I’m working on bringing in more traffic to my niche blogs to generate more revenues and testing other affiliate programs that might generate more revenues.

I’m very glad that I decided to be a full-time work at home blogger and Internet marketers as I’m now more confident to face the future even in this economic slowdown.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Make Money Blogging During Economic Slowdown

Spicing Up Your Writing Portfolio

EzyBlogger — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:50:49 +0000

Some established writers are afraid to make the transition to writing for the web.

Here are four ways to break onto the online writing scene.

Writers can get their feet wet and decide if they like web writing as much as they like writing for print publications.

1. Create a blog.

The blog is a tool that print authors use to stay in touch with their readers. For example, a novel writer can create buzz among fans for an upcoming novel by talking about the book on the author’s blog.

2. Write web articles.

You might be surprised how many people have never even heard of web content writing. There are a number of web sites online that sell licenses for informational articles that web customers can buy and display on their site or blog.

Writing web articles differs from writing for print publications. Web writing provides a newer market for good writing. You might have to adjust your expectations for how much you will earn for web content writing.

3. Enter a writing contest.

If you’re sick of mailing away entry fees to traditional writing competitions, enter an online writing contest. If you get published on the web, you will have a link that you can add to your writing portfolio even if there is little prize money offered.

4. Technical writing.

If you’ve typically written articles, poetry, fiction, or nonfiction for print publications, think about the possibilities of technical writing. This type of writing involves someone else paying you to write documents such as manuals and tutorials they need for their business.

There are many forms of writing in the online world.

You just have to search for writing in the Google search engine, and you will find out how many writing opportunities await you.

Good luck with expanding your writing portfolio!

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Spicing Up Your Writing Portfolio

Duplicate Content Penalty on Blogs – Some Tips to Fight This

EzyBlogger — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:19:08 +0000

Limited amount of duplicate content may not thwart your search engine rankings.

However, this problem can go out of control and start to affect your rankings even without your knowledge.

This article describes the duplicate content penalty and some precautions you need to take about it.

Recognize Duplicate Content

If you have a blog updated regularly, make sure no two of your posts have the same content. Make sure no two URLs point to the same page.

In self-hosted blogs, features like print preview, monthly/weekly archive URLs, topic (category) pages, etc., will cause duplicate content. When search engines encounter duplicate content, normally one of the pages is ranked lower. But, if you have duplicate content pages with intent to manipulate search engine rankings, these pages will be ranked lower or completely removed from the index.

So, duplicate content penalty can be very serious.

How Duplicate Content Happens

Just as we said early, make sure no two different URLs point to the same content. An example of this is the Recent Comments widget used in Blogger blogs. If you have this widget in the sidebar, the new comments shown will be in a special URL in the form: http://blogname.blogspot.com/2008/07/thepost.html?showComment=5533434#54545456645

The post’s original URL ends at “thepost.html”. The rest is an addendum, which will be seen by Google as a separate URL, though it points to the same page. So, the search engine will see it as a duplicate page on the same site. If you have posts with several comments, the issue will be very serious.

Another example is the monthly archives in Blogger. These pages are not disallowed with a robots.txt directive. So, they can cause duplicate content as these pages contain all the posts published in a particular month.

Fortunately, the categories (label) pages in Blogger are disallowed automatically in Blogger robots.txt file (accessible from: http://blogname.blogspot.com/robots.txt). So, they are not indexed by search engines and do not cause duplicate content issues.

How to Fight Duplicate Content

You can find if search engines have indexed any duplicate URL from your blog with this search directive :-

1. Google this query: site:your URL (no space after the colon).

2. Google will show you the number of search results. This is the number of pages indexed from your site. If this is more than the total number of posts you made in your blog, then there definitely is duplicate content.

3. Now, you have to request removal of all duplicate URLs at the Google Webmaster Tools.

Removal Request at Google Webmaster Tools

You can request at Google Webmaster Tools, removal of all your duplicate URLs. However, before sending a request, make sure that you have removed the duplicate content from your blog. You can do any of these :-

1. Remove the duplicate content entirely from your blog (which means the URL should return a 404 (not found) status).

2. Disallow the duplicate content with a robots.txt disallow directive.

3. Use Robots meta NoIndex tag to stop indexing of the page

After doing one of these, request a removal at Webmaster Tools.

1. Log in to Google Webmaster Tools
2. Go to your site’s profile and choose Tools
3. Under Remove URLs, click New Removal Request, and follow the site directions.

Once the removal request has been submitted, it will be in pending status and will be approved or rejected within a day’s time.

Self-hosted Blogs

In self-hosted blogs, you have control over the robots.txt file. You should disallow all pages that may cause duplicate content. This includes monthly archive pages, categories, and print preview pages.

Though these precautions are taken, you should ensure that nobody links to these pages from their sites. If you find that any other blogger links to your disallowed page, contact him and explain the situation.

Conclusion

As we said at the beginning, duplicate content can be a great problem.

All bloggers, who want to rank their pages high in search results, should be aware of this.

Content duplication not only is bad for search ranking, but also causes bad user experience.

If you scrape content from any popular blog and one of your users finds out, then he will most probably unsubscribe from yours.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Duplicate Content Penalty on Blogs – Some Tips to Fight This

Newbie Bloggers – Learn Blogging From Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick

EzyBlogger — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:46:01 +0000

Two of my favourite “pro” bloggers Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick have released a new blogging coaching program called “Become a Blogger“.

Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick are both top notch bloggers who have made a lot of money by blogging.

If you are a newbie blogger who wants to start a blog, I would recommend you watch this free videos on blogging by them. This videos by them are quite comprehensive and will be appreciated by all bloggers and newbies alike.

You can watch the blogging video series here.

Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick have also just release their highly anticipated new report called “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger”

You can download the “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger” report for free here.

If you’re new to blogging and still trying to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to be doing with your blog, this may be the most important report you’ll read all year!

The Roadmap report covers two key concepts:

1. The step-by-step “formula” that Yaro Starak used to create his six figure income blog and very importantly…

2. Thirteen X-Factor strategies that you can implement immediately to put your blog into super-drive!

Inside this amazing new report, you’ll discover…

- How to ethically exploit the biggest wave in technology since the invention of the telephone…

- How Yaro and Gideon stumbled upon the “X-Factor” For Blogging Success, and how it turned upside down everything they thought they knew about blogging…

- Why not deploying the “X-Factor” in your blog could cause your blog to crash and burn, never to recover…

- 7.4 million reasons why your blog will fail, unless you know how to take advantage of the intersection of two huge Internet trends…

- How a new way of using video, images and a blog turned a penniless actor into an Internet Superstar!

- 13 secret strategies to attract traffic to your blog like bees to a beehive, turn your competitors green with envy and provide you with multiple streams of passive income…

- And much MUCH MORE…

Ready to grab the report ? – Here’s the link

Yaro and Gideon really know what they’re talking about when it comes to blogging.

For example, as I’m writing this email, there has already been 63,268 downloads of their complimentary videos on becomeablogger.com!

That’s enough proof to me that whenever Yaro and Gideon speaks, hordes of people stop what they’re doing, and listen.

Also, it’s no secret that Yaro Starak makes a very comfortable living from his blog…in October of 2008 alone he made over $70,000!

Just imagine…

You can learn from a blogging superstar like Yaro within a few minutes without paying a cent – it really is priceless!

Teaming up with Gideon Shalwick, Yaro’s been able to leverage his knowledge with Gideon’s clear and easy-to-follow presentation skills, and knowledge of social media and upcoming online trends.

Together, these factors combine for an explosively powerful environment for learning how to blog successfully.

But really, you should read the report for yourself. It will open your eyes to opportunities you never thought possible…

Get your free The Roadmap To Become A Blogger report now !!

10 Easy To Follow Videos Showing You How To Create Your Blog From Scratch!

FREE: Discover The Time Tested And Proven Roadmap To Blogging Success…

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Newbie Bloggers – Learn Blogging From Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick

How to Make Money with Random Thoughts

EzyBlogger — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:25:02 +0000

Have you ever thought about a powerful way to use the Internet to make money ?

Since the Internet is a true marketplace for ideas, make money with random thoughts.

It might be through a blog, through selling your writing, through disseminating your advice on your web site, or through selling digital works such as graphics, cartoons, software, artwork, or other creative products in online marketplaces.

This brief blog entry explores the idea of synergy and specifically how random thoughts can make you money in ways that you never thought possible.

Merriam-Webster’s web site offers one definition of synergy as “combined action or operation.” In this discussion, synergy is being used in a different sense. The key to making money on the Internet is to express your creative ideas in a way that your buyers feel that you produced your works in some kind of mental synergy with them.

You have to harness the brain power that you haven’t even thought to tap into, in a way that everyday jobs often do not encourage you to do. Harness those random ideas and put them into a usable format that people want to buy.

Here is one example. On a whim, this author wrote an article about the importance of random thoughts. A short time later, the same article was purchased twice online. The experience illustrated that jotting down random ideas in a journal is essential because of the potential for using those ideas in the future. The journal is also a record of how your mind evolves.

The truth is that random thoughts do sell because they are not really random. What you think of as your random thoughts are just ways that your powerful human brain is expressing itself. Some of the best ideas are things that seem random until they are fit into the proper context.

Consider the case of Thomas Edison.

He took short naps here and there throughout the day, but he often woke up to jot down what he was thinking or dreaming in a journal.

Thomas Edison is a genius who did not live enough years into the twentieth century to see the true impact of his inventions on the world. Just think, if you could tap into even one-tenth of your brain power, what a difference you could make in the world.

You could profit in monetary and nonmonetary ways that you never imagined.

Along the way, it is fun to make money selling your ideas.

With the Internet as your marketplace, the sky really is the limit.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

How to Make Money with Random Thoughts

Newbie Bloggers – Break Free with Blogging

EzyBlogger — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:35:57 +0000

Blogging for money is a risky business and you must be very careful how you will invest your money and if it’s feasible.

Before starting everything you should pay attention to the next reviews that will tutor you on blogging steps and styles.

All you people eager to find out more about this new and amazing blogging experience lend me thy ears… and eyes.

The first and most important aspect of blogging is the technique you will use. Check out as many website you can and compare them. It is very important that you take into consideration their popularity and traffic.

Everything is centered on the host because your contract will obviously influence a lot on your blog.

That’s why you must be very careful and choose the perfect one.

Impression is everything on the internet and you must attract many visitors and make them your blog’s loyal readers. That’s the key to blogging because you want your articles to be read, appreciated and commented by as much people as possible. If you fail you will only receive sarcastic and rude feedback and you don’t want that to happen.

It is very important to act exactly like a newspaper editor.

You must bring forward every piece of information you consider to be interesting and analyze it in your own style. Write write write! But be sure you always bring something new in your articles. You must make your readers wanting to come back the next day and read more and more of your stuff.

In order to do that you might wanna stick to one topic. If you jump from one subject to another your “audience” might take you for a TV and get tired really soon. That’s why you must prove you’re consequent and original in the same time.

Now… about the guidelines.

All the important details between you and your host will be included on the website. You can’t miss them because they will pop out right before you’ll edit your blog. After reading them you will know what you can and cannot do. It is very important to respect them because otherwise you will find yourself in trouble.

The next item on our topic speaks about styles.

You should think about creating your personal writing style and blog making because by doing that you will attract more people. You can spice up your writings with photos, audio files, video and even animation. People love that.

Also you can use as many tools as possible but be sure you know when to draw the line. If you do this the right way, you will prove that you’re not just a journalist wannabe but you’re a true blogger.

Your articles will generate feedback and sometimes people are mean and post bad comments. That’s why you have the possibility to accept or deny them in order to maintain a clean, non-violent blog. In order to do that you must use the “comment blockers” and filter your reader’s comments.

In time you will see that a blog is very easy to manage once you know what you’re doing.

At first you must settle for a web host, then edit your webpage and only after that post your blogs. Keep in mind that you must not forget to add the time and date for every article and of course the title and the headline.

Once you’ve done all that, all you have to do right now is to relax and wait for your viewers do drop by. Blogging is easier said than done but if you are passionate about being a blogger, you will find that blogging is actually very easy to do.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Newbie Bloggers – Break Free with Blogging

Express Yourself

EzyBlogger — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:31:57 +0000

Got something to say ?

Have an experience or incident burning inside that you need to talk about ?

Do you consider yourself an expert on something, anything, that’s got you so excited you want to tell the world about it ? Then you should be blogging.

But blogging is not for the faint of heart, not if you’re serious about expressing yourself.

No, blogging is about ideas and turning those ideas into a steady stream of content. You’ve heard the real-estate mantra location, location, location ? Well, when it comes to blogging, it’s all about the content, baby.

What’s It All About

Blogging is about telling your story. It’s about your ideas and how they relate to the world around us. Think about what excites you. Are you really going to write about the latest in high-tech farming equipment when your real passion is home decorating ideas for high-rise living ? Probably not, and your readers (assuming you have any) will spot a fake a mile away and quickly move on to something better.

Ideas Are Like, Well, You Know What

Be real. Be true to yourself.

Tap into your passions.

We all have ideas (like opinions), but you’ve really got to nail them down. Once you know that, you can begin to cultivate those ideas and grow your content. Here are some simple ways to generate ideas (and content):-

• Google it. Go to your nearest search box and see what’s going on out there relevant to your topic. Who is writing about it (if anyone), and what’s their take. What is their particular slant and how can you make it your own — and better.

• Technorati Topics. Check them out to see what other bloggers are saying about a current event or a topic of your choosing. Technorati constantly trolls the web for the latest in blogging bug-a-boo.

• Blog from the front lines. Have an interesting job, hobby, or alter-ego that you’d like to tell the world about ? What better content than personal experience. Tell it like it is and you might become the next pied piper of the blogosphere.

Keep It Flowing

Don’t forget that blogging is about flow.

Certain expectations come with developing an online following.

Once you’re discovered, your fans will clamor for more. You’ve piqued us with your abilities, your life story, or your way with words, and like most of the finer things in life, we want more. How much more is up to you, but if we’re used to getting a post or two during the course of a week or so, not posting for a month is a big NO NO. Don’t disappoint by suddenly changing your blogging schedule.

Sure, the creative juices run dry every now and then, but if you follow the techniques for discovering content, you’ll soon find that there’s always room at the blogging table for a fascinating person like you.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Express Yourself

Ten Tips to Get High Traffic to Your Blogs

EzyBlogger — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:15:26 +0000

If you look at the professional blogs, you will notice that most of them thrived in their first months merely due to high quality content.

Ordinarily, this high quality content draws high amount of organic traffic to these blogs, and will pave way to several quality backlinks.

The effect of these backlinks is two fold :- organic search engine traffic, and indirect referral traffic.

Most of the traffic building methods used by high traffic blogs are still secretive.

The amount of traffic through normal methods, such as directory submissions, writing quality posts, social media submissions, etc., may not be substantial. And due to high competition in the Web, it may take several years to build a really high traffic blog.

Here, we will see some tricks you can use to get high traffic to your blogs within a few days.

1. Post a Relevant News Story

The effect of news stories on blogs can be very substantial. Particularly on blogs, which have a Google PageRank of 4 or above, any post written gets indexed within a few hours. News stories, getting indexed early on search engines can explode traffic overnight, since several people search for them. By publishing one such news story, you can take your traffic to a few hundred visits up.

You can even include news stories outside of the general topic of your blog. The drawback of these visitors is that they may not be interested in the other posts on the blog. Hence, they may not make revisits.

2. Commenting on Professional Blogs With a Strict Comment Policy

There are several highly popular blogs on the Internet, including TechCrunch, LifeHacker, ReadWriteWeb, etc. These blogs get more than one or two million page views every month. Among these blogs, ReadWriteWeb has a specialty. Its comment policy is stricter and hence, it doesn’t get too many comments to its posts. If you post a highly valuable comment there, it will be very conspicuous. Links placed on conspicuous comments will be clicked many times.

3. High Traffic Forums

High traffic forums like Digital Point Forums have at least a thousand visitors online at any time. If you manage to post any interesting entries on these forums, it will be highly beneficial in terms of organic SEO as well as traffic. Any new thread in Digital Point gets great attention, and several people can visit your blog, if your thread becomes popular.

4. Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo Answers can fetch you a great amount of traffic. The questions and answers posted in the site are indexed by search engines and showed on search result pages. You can include any number of relevant links to your site on your answers. Usually every question and its answers can get several hundreds of organic visits daily through search.

Anyone visiting the Answers page is most likely to click on your link, if your answer clears the problem well and the link is highly relevant. It has also additional perks like RSS subscriptions to your blog, more friends and votes through Yahoo Answers, etc.

5. Facebook Marketplace

Facebook is the largest social network in the world with over 90 million active users.

Have you ever posted a link to the Facebook Marketplace and seen its effect ? For this, you have to find the most appropriate marketplace to list your link.

For instance, imagine your company sells the most affordable health insurance services in say, Florida, but your website is rather new and has less reach than your competitors. If you post a link to the Florida network’s marketplace, several Floridians will see it and visit your site. And it can give you a bunch of new customers.

6. Social Media Submissions

Social media submission is another great way to attract traffic to your blog and get backlinks. If your posts are very useful, they can go up to the front page of social media sites like Digg, and give you loads of traffic. However, the main reason that you submit is natural SEO. The blog should slowly build many incoming backlinks to get organic search traffic.

Submitting all your articles to social media sites will get you a great number of incoming links. Also, these submissions are ranked high in search results. Hence, they can provide some indirect traffic to your blog too.

7. Press Release Submissions

Press releases are also highly useful in building backlinks to the blog, just as social media submissions. Several press release sites out there allow you to submit your press release and have a backlink from it.

The press releases you submit to certain sites like PRLog.org, are ranked very high in organic search results. These submissions, hence, can give great indirect traffic.

8. EntreCard Advertising

These days, EntreCard advertising is very popular among bloggers. However, many bloggers don’t tap its full power. They pile up a few credits and advertise on low traffic blogs. These ads won’t bring any benefit to the blogger.

The way to really manipulate EntreCard to get high traffic to your site is advertising on popular, professional blogs. Usually these blogs take thousands of credits to advertise for a day.

You should build credits by selling ads and dropping EntreCards for a few days, and then with all those credits, advertise on a professional blog that gets tens of thousands of visits daily. This way, you can instantly get hundreds of visits to your blog.

When selecting the blog to advertise on, check out the daily pageviews of the blog, its Alexa traffic rank, number of RSS subscribers, the time for which the site has been active, etc.

9. Craiglist Classifieds

Craiglist is the most visited classifieds advertisement site. Millions of people from around the world visit Craiglist on a daily basis. Placing a classified advertisement here is easy. This ad can give you hundreds of highly targeted audience to your blog. Place images and engaging description on your ads and you can maximize the effect.

10. Mass Emailing

Don’t you frequently receive forwarded emails from your friends, with some cool photographs, videos, text, etc ?

Most of us just forward these mails to our friends thus participating in the thread. Next time, when you get such a forwarded email, without just forwarding it to your friends, add some of your relevant links or photographs to it, and then forward it.

These emails have a viral nature. Several people, on receiving them, forward them to their friends. This way, you can reach many people you don’t really know, and your link will travel with the email.

Conclusion

These tips can build tremendous amount of traffic to your blog within days.

However, only the content and usefulness of the blog will make the visitors come back for more.

So, give importance in building quality content.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Ten Tips to Get High Traffic to Your Blogs

Blog – Is That a Blue Frog ?

EzyBlogger — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:14:24 +0000

Are you ready to join the blogosphere ?

Discover blogging basics because the blog is not a blue frog or another character out of a children’s book. A blog is a web log. Get the facts before you dive headfirst into blogging.

Blog 411

What is a blog ?

It is a powerful tool for communicating with people around the world who surf the Internet. The blog permits the development of your own digital public. The blog also draws attention to you, helping you to brand your business or your real name.

Remember that the blog is also searchable by employers, law enforcement, and other entities. Be careful not to plagiarize or infringe on copyrights. In general, it is wise to use caution when putting your thoughts on the Internet.

The Potential of the Blog

First, it is important to understand what the blog really is. Hailed by some as having the ultimate potential for grassroots dialogue, the blog is an exciting medium. In its most fundamental form, blogging stands for the process of web-logging, or creating a personal diary of thoughts that can be read on the Internet.

Blogs are unique ways to communicate with millions of users on the Web because you can write about anything, promote anything, and link to anything in the world. The blog is also a quick way to disseminate a message to the global community. Users can subscribe to your blog; every time you post something new, they will get an email notifying them about your new post.

The Blog as a Tool

A blog is a great interactive tool because it can include web site links, photos, artwork, video and audio clips, podcasts, polls, and surveys. A blog can become a business in itself.

If you can attract a steady stream of web traffic to your blog, you can make money by selling advertisements.

One example of a very successful, but controversial, blogger is Perez Hilton. His real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., and he blogs about celebrity gossip, especially about Hollywood personalities like Paris Hilton (whom he coined his name after).

Perez Hilton is also famous for becoming the defendant of copyright infringement lawsuits. Some claim that he has posted on his blog photos of celebrities that were owned by other sources. You can read more on his blog.

Before you decide to become a blogger, familiarizing yourself with blogging formats will help you to decide if this form of communication is right for you.

Blogging brings a whole new dimension to your connection to the world. Explore the possibilities of this fun lifestyle today!

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Blog – Is That a Blue Frog ?

How to Use Your Blog as a Writing Tool

EzyBlogger — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:22:58 +0000

A blog is a great tool for novice writers.

There are many websites on the Internet that offer blogging services for free.

Set up an account with one of them and start your blog today. You don’t need any technical knowledge, apart from the ability to connect to the Internet and type into a computer.

Don’t start trying to make money from your blog in the initial stages, but instead use it as a writing tool.

Log in as often as you can, preferably everyday, and just write on the subject you have chosen for the blog or, if you find no inspiration, on any other subject. Don’t pay too much attention to your style at this stage and don’t worry if no one is reading your blog.

The main advantage of writing a blog is the freedom.

There are no rules, so you can allow yourself to give your creativity full rein. You can write short articles, long articles, or even one word postings, if you like.

After you have been writing your blog religiously for a least a couple of weeks, look back over your postings and select one or two that have the potential to be improved and made into saleable articles.

Edit, revise, reword and polish these blog postings until you are happy that you have the finished product: a saleable article.

Be thorough but not to the extent that you never finish the article. Either set yourself a time limit in which you will complete the article or fix a limit on the number of times you will fine-tune the article.

The idea is not to write the perfect article but to write a good quality article that someone may wish to buy.

Once you have finished writing your article, submit it for sale and select another blog entry that has the potential to be crafted into an article.

In this way, you will have a never-ending stream of material available for saleable articles.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

How to Use Your Blog as a Writing Tool

Getting Started Blogging – Self-Hosted or Not ?

EzyBlogger — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:10:20 +0000

These days, practically everyone knows what a blog (Weblog) is: a journal-format web page where a writer (blogger) can post his or her thoughts, opinions, and ideas for other readers to comment on and share.

Five years ago blogging was a relatively new phenomenon; today bloggers play a major role in politics, fashion, technology, and practically any other field where opinions matter.

For many of us, though, that’s where our understanding of blogging ends.

We’d like to start blogs, but we don’t think we’re Internet-savvy or we don’t want to invest time and money on an online hobby. Fortunately, though, getting started with blogging has become incredibly quick, simple, and in many cases, completely free.

In general, there are two types of blogs: free blogs hosted on a parent site, like Blogspot, Blogger or WordPress, and self-hosted blogs, whose maintainers control their own websites, pay for their own hosting, and register their own domain names. Which route you choose depends on your goals.

Before you start blogging, you should ask yourself, “Where do I see this blog in one year?” The answer to that question will decide what kind of hosting you use, and what platform you choose to blog on. If your goal is to create a personal blog for family, friends and associates, your best choice is to host on a parent site, since it’s fast, free, and requires very little in the way of technical prowess.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to create a topical blog (say, gadget reviews, or political analysis), then the decision becomes harder.

Will you place advertisements on your blog ?

Do you want your own independent domain name, or are you willing to create your blog within another blogging site ?

If your goal is simply to get your voice out there and you don’t care much about customizing your software, making money off of your blog or controlling your domain name, the simplest solution is to host your blog on a parent site. Some of the most popular sites to blog are Blogspot, WordPress and Blogger, although a wealth of alternatives exists on the web. Nearly all of these are free hosting sites, and several even offer revenue sharing on advertising. You can start a blog on these sites in minutes; the hardest part is usually thinking of a creative name for your blog.

If your goal is to monetize your blog, though, or if you plan to create many blogs with specific topics, your best bet is to choose your own hosting provider. You can typically get an account opened at a reputable hosting provider in ten or fifteen minutes, and most of them will register your domain name and host it in one simple step.

Many large hosting companies, such as Dreamhost or GoDaddy, offer attractive hosting packages and so-called “One-Click” installations of blogging software packages.

“One-Click” installs can be a great way for technical neophytes to get their blog up and running quickly. Essentially, after you’ve purchased a domain name and set up an account with a hosting provider, they’ll set up the blogging software of your choice – usually for free, and usually almost instantly.

Some of the best CMS (Content Management Systems) are free, like Drupal, WordPress, or Joomla. These programs allow you to create blog posts without using a single bit of HTML – meaning that you can get started blogging faster, without having to learn complicated computer languages.

Content management systems are what make blogging possible. Instead of creating a web page and uploading it, the way that old, static sites were constructed, users can simply submit their blog posts through a web-based interface that takes care of all of the programming – freeing you up to focus on the content of your blog, not the construction and maintenance.

Remember, when starting a blog, the key is to realistically define your goals.

If you don’t plan on creating a mega-popular blog, don’t waste the money on an expensive hosting package.

If you don’t care much about your domain name and don’t plan on customizing your blog very much, consider hosting with a parent site.

But if you’re going to get into the gears of your CMS, or if you want to earn the most possible money from your blog, consider getting your own hosting and installing your own content management system.

Either way you do it, you can have a blog up and running in less than an hour, meaning you’ll have more time to tell the rest of us what you think about your chosen topic.

Post From : EzyBlogger Blog Tips

Getting Started Blogging – Self-Hosted or Not ?

EzyBlogger » Blogging Tips

How to Become a News Writer

Consider becoming a news reporter.

So how do you actually get one of these coveted, glamourous reporting jobs?

Related Posts

Becoming a Paid Book Reviewer

Rise to the Challenge

Practice Makes Perfect

Making a Name

Finding a Paying Publisher

Be Proactive

Related Posts

Unblocking Writer’s Block

Related Posts

How to be a Freelance Journalist

Related Posts

Blogging Demystified

Blog Basics

Blog Uses

Powerful Tool

Related Posts

Blogging for an Audience

How to begin, then?

Related Posts

Money-Making Niche Blogging

Related Posts

How To Earn Money Online as a Freelance Writer

Related Posts

The Seasoned Blog

The Seasoned Blog.

Related Posts

Make Money Blogging During Economic Slowdown

Related Posts

Spicing Up Your Writing Portfolio

Related Posts

Duplicate Content Penalty on Blogs – Some Tips to Fight This

Related Posts

Newbie Bloggers – Learn Blogging From Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick

Related Posts

How to Make Money with Random Thoughts

Related Posts

Newbie Bloggers – Break Free with Blogging

Related Posts

Express Yourself

Related Posts

Ten Tips to Get High Traffic to Your Blogs

Related Posts

Blog – Is That a Blue Frog ?

Related Posts

How to Use Your Blog as a Writing Tool

Related Posts

Getting Started Blogging – Self-Hosted or Not ?

Related Posts