Today, I liked to remember those days. The days when I was so new and shining. New and shining because, domain names, hosting, scripts, CMS and most importantly SEO, all  sounded like strange and too technical to understand.  I don’t know how, but come to know that it is possible to earn some money through blogging. Because everything was so new, I was not less skeptical than anyone of you who has never earned online money.

 

Its been so long. Today, I liked to remember those days. I liked to remember, because I received payment check today and I’m going to bank tomorrow to deposit it in my account. I’m earning good money. Its good when you look from US eyes but its Great for me. I’m in Nepal and a $400 is our Rs. 30,000. Which is double of a starting Government Officer.

 

Why should you keep reading this post? The shortest answer – Don’t waste time as I did. Take a short-cut, skipping mistakes and reach the destination quick. I’ll be explaining with sufficient details of each step. It’s not only possible, but its most prominent. Pro Bloggers like Risley, Hawie and Darren makes US Standard full time earning. They make six digits US $ earning! I don’t dream so lot yet, there is ‘a long way to go before I sleep’ as Robert Forst wrote in his ‘Stopping by Wood’. But I know you can make it if you are passionate, dedicated and not afraid of hard work.

 

Where to start?

 

If I were called by somebody and asked to build a website for them, it would be Wai-Wai instant noodle – boil water, pour on bowl, dip noodle and ready after 2 minutes.  Because the most important part – contents falls all on their head. Rest I know it very well. When you plan to start blogging the first question pops up is about what? Then there might be series of further distracting feelings like, I’m not an expert. I don’t know much the technology, and so on. Yes these are the confusions powerful enough to stop you from blogging. But I’m sure you know lot more thing than millions of people. Just remember, for how many people you gave suggestions today? Did anybody called you and asked something? Did you try to answer him/her? How you reacted for something you liked or did not like today? I appreciate Risley when he says “if you know and using Facebook, Twitter, Emails, you are already ahead of millions who are still coming tomorrow in this world.

 

Just find out what you are interested on, know something about it and decide if it is popular? Don’t be scared of competition. A niche where there are already some players is popular. What’s the use of a large Hoarding Board where nobody goes never?

 

If you are still confused, I recommend you to read Howie Schwartz’s Suggestions on which niche is best for my new blog. You can find a link to download Howie’s eBook ‘15 Niches’ on that post. I wish you don’t miss it. He has explained it very well how you should study your market.

 

If you decide your niche you completed half of the journey. Great. What next?

 

Get a Domain Name

 

What? Pay at the beginning? Yes. Domain name costs but believe me this is most profitable. Don’t ever get tempted on having domain name owned by weblog or others like subdomain. Invest about $10 in the beginning. This will be your property and you will never regret.

 

A short, catchy, meaningful domain name are ideal. Try to include your niche in the domain name. This is most beneficial for Search Engine Ranking and let me tell it from very beginning that search engine traffic (known as organic traffic) are the best customers and clients.

 

If you need help about domain names please refer to Antti’s post on How To Choose a Domain Name for a Niche Site [Questions & Answers]. To participate and learn more about domains name the best forum in my experience is NamePros.

 

Get Hosting

 

Should I say free hosting? or Wordpress hosting. Well, it depends on your pocket and how long you can keep paying without earning. Should you use free hosting, consider using blogger platform. Blogspot supports your own domain name and provides fairly sufficient tools to start your blog. I’m using blogger platform for my ICT Trends blog. But for serious minded blogging you should pay for hosting. After all you are going to earn considerable amount of money soon.

 

Contact Baba at Medost for your hosting needs. He provides free hosting as well as paid hosting suitable for all types of pockets. I’m hosting my PS Exam site with them and I found its great.

 

Should I choose Blogger or Wordpress?

 

Wordpress. Yes, a self hosted Wordpress blog script is best and most essential for a website if you really intend to make real money. Blogger is not less popular but I did not like due to its lack of SEO features. You need scratching the template HTML to implement widgets. Wordpress is best for blogging. You might feel but I’m not biased. To compare Wordpress and blogger please read Wordpress Vs Blogger.

 

Start Mailing List

 

From the first day your site goes live, you should have a mailing list. This is a great tool for any blogger who wishes to make a sale and earn good money. It is very necessary to contact visitors and convert them into customers and for this a smart mailing list management system is a must. My personal recommendation is Aweber. But they charge around $14 per month. Yes this is huge money for somebody who has just started blogging and never earned anything. Here again, I say, after all you are going to earn soon. Initial investment in the beginning will help you grow sooner than you waste time searching for cheaper services. Believe me you will not find any other service equaling the quality, services, reliability and security as them.

 

Great! you have come long way up to here. I must congratulate you if you completed these within two days. In my next Sunday Post (that’s on coming Sunday) I’ll be talking about the way to develop content, some must have plug-ins and widgets, implementing Ads in your blog and so on. Let me take a rest at this point. As always, I’m expecting your comments. Bye and happy blogging!

BlogEngage is a very important platform for your blogs’ exposure. If you have not submitted your articles on BlogEngage, you must do it right now.

 

After you submit an article to BlogEngage, its very natural you’d like to let your visitors vote for your post. Place a BlogEngage Vote button on your post itself so that readers are on comfort to vote you. You can’t expect too much from the readers.

 

Did you look for Vote button plug-in/widget on BlogEngage site and disappointed to find all the buttons provided are only for Wordpress blogs? Yes, we the blogs on Blogger platform are half-brothers. But don’t worry, we are strong enough to help each other and march forward.

 

There is a very simple procedure to follow and then there will be a BlogEngage Vote button shining on your blog too! Let me put them easily here:

 

1. Log on to your blogger account and follow the navigation to Layout >> Edit HTML
2. Enable ‘Expand Widget Template’
3. Search for <data:post.body/>
4. Paste the following code just above this line:
   
   <div style='float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-top:10px'>
   <script type='text/javascript'>
   submit_url=&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;;</script>
   <script src='http://blogengage.com/evb/button.php' type='text/javascript'/>
   </div>
5. Save your template HTML code.
6. Vaigo ni ta! You got the button shining on your post. Go check it!

Still confused? Look at this video:

On your first thought you might reject auto surfing programs, right? They are automated, they send false traffic which is totally irrelevant and not targeted. What would be the use of such filthy program to any sincere blogger with some real content on her blog? Moreover, it is against the TOS of almost all of the advertising networks and advertisers. They will ban her immediately they detect the impressions are obtained through auto surf applications. I completely agree with you on all these regards with a BUT. A big BUT.

Should I use autosurf?

As always I want to repeat “Every tools are useful, used in a right way.” And for a blogger she should not miss any of the opportunity that might add a small bit to her success.
Now, what might be the use of these auto surfing sites and how to use them? This is what you need to know first. Please check How ICT Trends Uses Auto Surf to see an example.

What are the benefits of autosurfing?

I believe you won’t disagree on any of the following points:

1. Auto surfing programs send you huge number of visitors (sometimes even enough to jam your traffic and devour all of your bandwidth. so beware!).
2. You don’t need to work hard to get visitors to your site. Probably, this is the easiest way to get visitors. If you don’t have time to start auto surfing you can purchase huge number of impressions in really cheap price.
3. Your site will get large number of ‘new visitors’ everyday.
4. Search engines and many other ranking systems regard new visits positively and helps to improve your ranking considerably.
5. Though its rare but there is always possible for the user behind autosurf gets interested on  your site and might open it and visit personally.

Well, you are already aware of the problems and drawbacks of auto surfing programs and I have listed out above, the good things you knew already. Then what’s there. Lets use auto surfing for our benefit. How?
DON’T USE YOUR URL WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE AND OTHER ADVERTISEMENTS TO ANY AUTO SURFING PROGRAMS, NEVER.

My blog uses Adsense and other Ads, how should I use autosurf?

The best use of auto surf is to create a splash page highlighting the attractions of your main blog. You can see an example how I used it for ICT Trends. Put the links of your main blog and articles on that page. Do not use any other Ads on splash page. Now, use the URL of this page in auto-surfing programs. Let the splash page get 1000s and 1000s impressions. When it gets high ranked, it starts appearing on search results. The visitors who reach to your splash page through search engine are target. It is most probable they will click the links on splash page to land on your main blog.

Which Auto Surfing Programs are Genuine?

When you realize the usefulness of autosurf programs, certainly, you’ll start searching for some autosurffing programs on net. I did the same. Signed up with around a dozen of programs and most of them cheated me. Damn Spam!
Right at this moment, I can refer you to Join 247autohits.com and 365autohits.com. These programs are very flexible and sends traffic to your site immediately after you start surfing. I used Some other programs too but I could not decide how reliable are they to refer you. I think these programs have referral schemes too, but I’m not interested to earn through referrals.

Final questions

Do you think this method works? Will it bring some traffic to your blog which in turn are really targeted? I’m eager to know your views.