WordPress, in particular, is so good that it is used to power 14.7% of the top one million world’s biggest websites. In the USA, WordPress has been used to create and manage 22% of all new websites in the year 2011. Clearly, WordPress is the one of the biggest and most widely used CMS. (Source of statistics).

Are you using WordPress for your own website? Why not? If the very very biggest websites use it, it means it is world-class, right? Well, you can use the same world-class software for free right now: www.wordpress.org

Our own DukaPress is an e-commerce engine for WordPress. i.e. we enable you to quickly and easily create an online shop using WordPress and DukaPress.

This year, Kenya will host East Africa’s first WordCamp: WordCamp Kenya 2011. This will be an informal conference about WordPress. It is your golden opportunity to learn why WordPress is used to power nearly one-fifth of all the websites in the world.

It is your opportunity to meet bloggers, developers and businesses who thrive on WordPress.

Come and learn about blogging, online content publishing and how to make money from your WordPress blog/site or from WordPress itself.

Whatever you do, do not miss this.

More info: WordCamp Kenya 2011Similar Posts:

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I quit a good job in Tanzania because I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to do my own thing and get paid to write, and now I do. But it’s not what I expected. Of course there are perks. I pick my own hours, I’m here for my daughter, and I can hang out all day in pyjamas. My neighbours think I’m a housewife. A very strange housewife who has purple dreads and likes to walk around the estate in a sweatpants and a hooded sweater. One actually manned up the other day and asked me where I work. I said Westlands.

The part that tires me out is routine. I now have regular customers, but it’s the same thing. Write ten articles on bikes. Finish. Get paid. Write twenty articles on Nokia. Finish. Get paid. Write 15 articles on raspberry jam. Finish. Get paid. On and on and on and on. I’m still at the rookie stage, so I’ll make maybe $100 per assignment, and it’s a pretty good start. But when you make $100 for 100 articles, it can get a bit tedious, and I have to do at least 20 articles a day before it can pay off. That’s really tiring, and most days, I only manage 10.

At this point, it would be good to expand and get other people to do the writing so I can read Harry Potter all day,  but I don’t really want to. I love the writing, it’s just the humdrum that gets to me. When I wake up and find a brief that says ‘Write 10 pages on your imaginary boyfriend’ I’m thrilled, and it’s super fun for the first four pages. Then I push myself and finish all 10 pages, only to hear the client say, ‘Brilliant! I love it! Now invent 10 more imaginary boyfriends.’ I can barely stifle the groan. The gig pays really well, but I’m realising that sometimes, good money isn’t enough.

Maybe it’s just Quarter Life Crisis, [that runs until age 30, right?] but I feel disillusioned. If my dream job isn’t quite a dream, then what else will fall in my laps? Will I get my dream car and find it feels more like a mkoko? Will I buy my dream penthouse and get stuck with the neighbour from hell, or worse, have my mother-in-law buy out the building?

The thing with negative thoughts is that they spiral, and the more you dwell on them, the faster they increase. Jack Canfield says on The Secret that if it isn’t fun, he doesn’t bother to do it, but I can’t convince myself that he enjoys paying taxes, so I guess all rules have an exception. I don’t imagine sportspeople like waking up at 3.00 a.m. to train, or practicing every day for a year just to have it all hinged on a  ten second sprint. When I was whining about boredom to my better half, he asked me if there’s anything I like about freelancing, and I said, ‘Sure,’ and rattled off a list that was ten minutes long. He smiled and said, ‘See? It’s not so bad!’ How I love that boy.

So now I’m armed with a list of perks, and next time I’m restless, I’ll just look through the list. No matter how bad your job or business is, there are good things about it, and by dwelling on those, you can make it through the bad days. You might even turn the bad days good. And the good days are pretty awesome. I once got paid to say how much I like Ben 10. That was mad fun for the first four articles, but by the time I got to sixteen, even I knew I was bluffing. My client solved that my letting me write the articles in groups of five. She is SO cool.

I find basic writing assignments trying, because it’s fun saying how warm one woollen blanket; less fun saying it twelve different ways. I’d like to get to the level where I make $5000 on one assignment. Preferably, it won’t involve pimping on a Persian rug. But in the meantime, I love blogging assignments, so I spend a lot of time on those. I also update my website blog daily. Sometimes I feel bad that I spend more time working pro-bono, but it’s fulfilling, it keeps me sane, and it’s fun. Plus, yesterday I got a client recommended by a pal, and she hired me on the strength of my unpaid blogging. AND she recommended me to a second client who also liked my blog, so yay! I now have two long term clients paying me monthly to fill their blogs. How cool is that?! Definitely a good day.

Another thing you can do is to try emergency motivation. I’m told it’s a course in Boot Camp where they yell at you and call you names every time you start daydreaming. They also make you do press ups. The idea is to drill it into you that a boring task is fun. Later in life, when you feel like you’ll pluck your hair out on the assembly line, you just think of the drill sergeant and the press ups, and you have instant motivation. I’m told it’s very painful, it takes a while to learn, and you might become deaf, but it’s a worthy life skill for your 9 to 5. Me, I don’t like press ups; I prefer milk-free ice cream. So I’m going to stick with blogging, and when I buy that penthouse, I’m going to buy the whole building, just to keep my in-laws out.

Crystal Ading’ is a professional author, editor, rock lover, and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.Similar Posts:

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Last year, we wrote one of the most popular articles on this website: How to make money online in Kenya. The gist of that article was that advertising as a source of online income may not be the best way to go….that was way back in 2009, though. This is 2010! How does one make money online in Kenya?

This time, we’re going to do it a little different: since last year, we’ve come across countless numbers of Kenyan who are already making money online! So this article will talk about how those people are doing it in hopes of inspiring you to start making money online in Kenya!

1.How we make money online in Kenya

We run www.likechapaa.com and a number of other websites. Of course one of the main goals of running all these sites is for us to make money online. How do we do it?

• Advertisements – Like Chapaa has these adverts on the side (you see them?). They make us peanuts. Honestly.
• Consulting – as it happens, a lot of the people who read Like Chapaa tend to email us asking for help in setting up online. We make a tidy some from this. How can you do this? It is not a hard concept: just pick out a topic that you are interested in and know a lot about then start a website to talk about that topic and set yourself up as a “consultant”. It works, trust us.
• E-commerce – this is unbelievable even to us. DESPITE not having an online shop yet, we do sell a few books from our site Jua More. The lesson here seems to be if you have a website talking about a certain product that people want, then you can probably sell this product to those people. Jua More is a book review site which is still very small yet it already makes some money. Can you replicate this with a site of your own and another product? I bet you can! Just pick out something you have passion talking about (and marketing). I’m thinking things like movies and music, clothing and other such stuff can do pretty well! We even built DukaPress for you so this is super easy to do with no technical skills whatsoever!
• Web Design – Wambere, one of the founders of Like Chapaa, also runs Nickel Pro which is a web design and development company. Like Chapaa drives a whole lot of customers her way. How can you do this? This is all about marketing, if you offer a service and want to make money online from it, you need to find somewhere (online) where the people who would buy your service hang out and then talk to these people and subtly showcase your skills and experience. They’ll buy.
• Referrals (Affiliate income) – incidentally, most of the things we recommend you use – akina Freelancer.com, AlertPay, etc – have affiliate programs. This means that if you sign up to those sites after reading about it on Like Chapaa, we get paid. How to do this: this is pretty easy, in my view. You shouldn’t start the process by looking for companies that offer affiliate programs. Instead, look for what interests you. If you love shoes and want to start a website about shoes, you will come to find there are tons of sites out there that will pay you good money to drive people to them. Affiliate programs exist for almost everything under the sun – just find something you love, start a blog/site around it, and voila!

Also see: How to make Money With A Blog.

2. How Other People make Money Online

We realise that we aren’t the only Kenyans making money online (hehe) and so this section is dedicated to everyone else that we have come across this past year.

A. Advertising
Like Chapaa sucks at making money from advertising but these sites do it amazingly well:

1. Career Point Kenya – this is one of the most visited sites in Kenya and, rightly so, they make a lot of money from Google’s Adsense program. This means that whenever any of the hundreds of thousands of people who visit Career Point Kenya every day click on the Google Ads, the guys running that site get paid. Sweet! To replicate this you just need to build a website that gets huge, HUGE, numbers of visitors and you’ll get paid like you won’t believe. This is not as easy as it sounds, though, and I would caution against betting on advertising as your sole means of earning online.
2. Bankelele – the ever popular Kenyan blog. I think this is one of the oldest blogs in Kenya. It has only survived this long because the guy who runs it is a master at what he does. Unlike Career Point Kenya, Bankele makes advertising money by selling his own ads at his own price (you get this luxury when you have a site as good as his). Here’s how to do this on your own site!

B. Selling Stuff
Jua More, mentioned above, is just a lucky occurrence. If you want to really make money by selling something tangible (or digital), then you need to look at, and learn from, the guys below:

• Mama Mikes – Mama Mikes is one of the first e-commerce sites to serve Kenyans. It is a site that excels at selling Kenyan stuff to Kenyans who do not live in Kenya. For example, you can pay power bills for your family in Kenya while living in Spain – or buy them gifts and groceries. Brilliant idea, eh? I think so too. Mama Mikes found a niche market very early on in the game and took it over.
• Fab Guru – a fascinating business run by a lady off her Nairobi apartment. This is the face of “make money from home”. Fab Guru sells ladies shoes, bags and other items. She particularly excels at marketing her wares on Facebook where she has a large following of “fans”. Fab Guru makes quite a lot and the ingredients seem to be: a)find something to sell (preferably something that you love) and b)find a group of people who love what you have to offer (in this case, Fab Guru didn’t find those people, she built a place for them to come to).
• Career Point Kenya – these guys have written a book that resonates well with the people who visit their site. I’m not sure of the sales figures, but I’d bet they do very well.

Do you see a trend here? If you want to make money online by selling things, then you need to first find a good product (or products) – something you love working with and which is likely to have a market large enough to support you. Then you need to find, or build, a place where people who would be willing to buy your product(s) can be found. If you manage to do that, you’ll be home free!

C. Freelancing
Of all the ways people make money online, this is the one way used by most of the people we have come across. Quite simply, this is nothing but being a hired hand. That is, being paid to do something for someone because of your expertise, experience or both. Here are examples of Kenyans who are already doing this: Wuogard, Linda Cherotich, Maria Maina and our very own Crystal.

How do you do this? Well, first off you need to be able to do something better than most people can do it. It can be anything, from writing to art, to web design.

Next, you need to build out your portfolio and then try your hand at finding jobs/gigs at some of the more popular freelancer sites such as Freelancer.com.

To put it in a way that it is more easy to relate to, I’ll give the example of Kenyan Freelancer. She’s a brilliant writer. She set up to do business online the smart way: she set up Smurt Notes which is her ‘business profile’ used to ‘seal the deal’ – but that’s not all – she also has a somewhat less formal site, Kenyan Freelancer, which I would say does more of the ‘marketing’. A nice little one-two punch to get her clients.

Seems very do-able, eh? Good luck!

See also: Interviews with Maria Maina, Kenyan Freelancer, and Crystal.

Conclusion
In my personal experience, and as seen and proven above, you can make money online in Kenya by:

1. Selling adverts on your site
2. Consulting
3. Selling other people’s stuff (affiliate marketing)
4. E-commerce (selling your own things)
5. Freelancing

I am sure there are more ways through which people are actually making money in Kenya, but the above are what I have actually seen proven. What about you? Are you making money online? No? Need help?

Good luck, and God bless you!

Photo by timbrauhn.

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A recent study by HubSpot found out that businesses that actively maintain their blogs draw as much as 7 times more visitors to their websites than businesses which do not have blogs. What does this mean?

Does your business depend on getting many visitors to your website? Or, would it benefit your business if your website had more visitors? Yes? Then you need to have an active and well maintained blog for your business.

What makes a good business blog? It may surprise you, but the big accounting and consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers once did some research on what makes a good corporate blog. Here are their published results. From reading their white paper, some of the main points, in my mind, are:

• Demonstrate expertise – Position an employee and/or the business as the industry thought leader.
• Build customer relationships – Develop personal, long-term relationships with customers; collect feedback, insights, suggestions, complaints and endorsements; and increase intimacy by giving the business a human voice.
• Enhance company credibility – Utilize a high-profile, press-monitored venue to directly address and respond to issues related to the company. During times of crisis, explicitly address needs and concerns of stakeholders. In other words, use the blog to paint the best picture possible for your business.
• Expand company visibility – Link the blog to related Web sites via RSS to generate interest from new parties, including the media and competitors’ customers. Basically, use the blog to increase the number of people who know about you, and can find you.
• Increase collaboration – Create a workspace in which project teams can interact.
• Promote knowledge management – Provide employees with information and resources in an easy-to-navigate format.
• Strengthen recruitment – Generate interest in the business from potential recruits by demonstrating candor and credibility in the blog.
• Test progressive ideas – Gauge public interest to out-of-the-box thinking by posting ideas and monitoring responses.
• Heighten search engine rankings – Raise rank and profile of business by building a high number of links to the blog.

Apart from those pointers, the white paper goes further and lists some additional tips:

• Remember that blog readers are not passive consumers; they are actively seeking a ‘scoop’ or insight from your blog.
• Do not just blog for blogging’s sake. Make sure that what you write about is interesting and engaging.
• Authenticity is critical to creating a successful blog; readers know when content is primarily focused on marketing the firm/company.
• Updating the blog on a regular basis is key to engaging readers and driving return traffic.
• Be sure to incorporate RSS feeds. RSS feeds allow readers to receive blog updates in real-time.

So, why exactly does your business not blog?

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However, I thought it is important to write something of a ‘reality check’ concerning making money with blogs, especially in Kenya.

So, you want to make money blogging? Welcome to the club! Thousands have gone before you and many have succeeded but the sad fact is that the overwhelming majority of bloggers make little money or, most likely, nothing at all. I’m not trying to discourage you, just telling you as it is

Many bloggers that I know of start off with the idea that they’ll make money from advertising. This is cool – thousands of blogs survive and thrive on this, especially with Google’s Adsense program. But, and it is a big but, the truth is that advertising may not be your best option. In fact, many of the blogs that fail were started with this general plan: Start a blog – write many cool and interesting and fun articles – get lots and lots of visitors over time – make money. This may very well fail in today’s internet. Why? Well, it is very difficult to make substantial amounts of money off advertising alone – especially with Google Adsense. Yes, Adsense is wonderful and it supports thousands and thousands of blogs to make money but it does not work unless you are getting large numbers of visitors to your site. If you don’t get at least a thousand visitors a day then Adsense will very much disappoint you. That’s the truth. So don’t base your whole plan on advertising alone.

The good news is that there is a world of options for blog owners. For example, Kenya Buzz (which is not a blog), managed to get some advertisers on their site even when their visitor numbers were pretty low. I’m not sure how much they charge but it’s got to be something worthwhile. If you can get such advertising deals for your young blog then go for it, by all means. This brings me to another important point, unless you have very high visitor numbers, ‘self service’ advertising works better than advertising platforms such as Google Adsense. By this, I mean that it would be better to try and find your own advertisers at your own rates than relying solely on programs such as Adsense. For one thing, you can make more money even if you don’t have the visitors – depends on how you structure your deal and market it.

Of course advertising is not the only way to make money using blogs. Problogger has a huge list of ways to make money using blogs. There are, indeed, many other ways. We have to keep in mind that, at its core, a blog is very much part of ‘social media’ and web 2.0. A blog is a tool that you can very easily use to build a community of like-minded people. This is why, when it comes to blog monetization, I favour the techniques that use blogs to build or enhance a business. What I mean is that you do not actually make money ‘from’ the blog, but because of it. For example, Wambere does make money with Like Chapaa but not from it – she uses it to get clients for her other business. It works very well. So, for instance, if you are a photographer, you definitely want to set up a blog but not so that you can make money off advertisements or other ‘direct’ means – the blog helps you build a community of readers; it further helps you engage those readers and nurtures their interest in you, and your work. Selling your photography services to them then becomes much easier – and every new reader is a potential client who will love your blog, engage with it and, finally, buy your services. A blog is perfect for this. Blogs work very well for businesses that have a long sales cycle – businesses in which buyers take time before deciding to buy from a particular person/business. I hope I’m clear. In my experience, this is the best way to make money using blogs in Kenya.

So, before you rush out to your blogs, here’s some more thoughts:

• You just have to pick a niche. Do not write a general blog, it gets you nowhere and will not build a very good, single minded, community. For heaven’s sake do pick a topic that you really love. There are many months of cold nights ahead and if you don’t love what your blog is about, then it will start to feel like a “chore” and then your blog will die a slow, miserable and penniless death.
• Think clearly and rationally about the content of your blog. Remember that your content and style of writing will attract a very specific type of person. You want to avoid attracting people who will not end up being your customers because then you’ll be wasting time with the blog, ama? For instance, if you are a freelance writer, it may be very natural to write a blog about “how to write well” or “how to make it as a freelancer”. You will be surprised at how many people do this. The question is, who are your readers going to be? If you are a writer, and your readers are other writers, do you think they will pay money for you to write for them? No? Then don’t do it! Write about something like photography, so that you attract photographers who may then, possibly, need your writing services.
• Blogging is hard work and it takes a pretty long time before it starts paying off. It may take months to years, even if you write daily. There are millions of blogs out there and every potential reader of your blog already has tons and tons of other things to do with their time. Please only do this if you are prepared to go “long term.”
• As you work on your blog, you will notice that as time passes, you become more successful. If you picked a good niche and write quality stuff, then you will succeed, after a while. Just keep at it and have a clear picture of what you want from the blog so that you keep yourself motivated. Thinking long term is better.
• Blogging money can be the best money you ever make! Most bloggers just love writing (because they picked a topic that they enjoy) for their blogs and when this starts making them money, it is pure bliss!
• If you already have a web presence for your business, or if you are already into ecommerce, then you just must have a blog. It is priceless in terms of marketing and enhancing your online presence. For one thing, a blog does wonders to any site’s SEO (search engine optimisation). You’ll want to think clearly and deeply about the ‘tone’ that your blog will take. Make sure it goes well with the rest of what you do. Creativity is key, though.

So, that’s it, some random thoughts on making money using blogs. What do you think? We’d love to hear from you. We’re also available for hire, by the way.

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First, let me digress. B30 was fairly successful. We only let in 10 people and, unfortunately, some of the people we let in did not find time to participate in B30. The rest were very active, and the B30 training website bears witness to this. By far, the star of B30 was Maria Maina. She came to B30 being a big newbie on the internet but as I write she is launching an ebook shop whose first offering is an ebook that was written by Maria herself. In addition, she is a raging success at online freelancing.

How did she do it? In her own words, “Don’t flake out and everything you do will achieve some success.”

I agree with Maina. If you want to do something, and succeed at it then you have to do it, and do it well. You have to put in the energy, focus and do the work. There is no shortcut, really.

Going back to B30, Maria stood out from the rest – she actually really did everything that we talked about, and flooded our inboxes with questions. What about the rest of the B30 participants? No one put as much effort as Maria……likewise, no one is enjoying the success that Maria is enjoying.

If you want to do something, and succeed at doing it then you simply must work at it. Find time and work at it; and work at it again, and again until you accomplish your goals.

N/B: If you’re looking to get into the next B30 then be warned….everything that you achieve is absolutely up to you and to the amount of time and effort that you put into the project.

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Who really stole your car?

Some say it was just another Internet scheme, some say it really did happen. Either way it has been all over the Internet and generated comments from readers all over the world expressing their disapproval, shaming Google and demanding a public apology. While others have just taken it with a light touch and laughed it off. Weather it was a mistake by Google or some schemer’s plot, it sure has caught a lot of attention.

Here are some comments I came across:

Kevin: Try to Google black people shoot up school or black man chops up his wife and see what the results are smh. LOL
Jay: How is it racist? The search engine generates results based on popularity. More websites have the content “black people stole my car” than “white people stole my car”. Statistics are the truth….not racism.
Flagburner: All black people are criminals, some just hide it better than others.
Brandon: After nosing around a bit, I discovered that devilish lil’ spammers made this oh-too-popular phrase appear on Google Trends and from there, folks were led to Web sites filled with spam and viruses.
Joe: How about this: WET(White Entertainment Television)
now how would that go over? Will blacks be upset? Will you watch?
Mandy: Honestly? Come up to where I live and you’ll see all the blackies acting like we owe them something…
From Canada: Racism is alive and real… Blacks are suffering internationally, even in Africa.. slavery has been replaced by debt and prison systems…It’s worse than the Martin Luther King days, because it’s hidden…I am a successful black, but why did I have to work 3 times harder and be 10 times more aware???
Anon: relax everyone. It’s hilarious! I laughed so hard when I read that… and black people DID probably steal your car. Ha ha ha funny though!
Brik: So you are saying that white folks ain’t thieves? That’s just Bull!!
Jolenr: Ok this is racist but really funny. Like if I Googled “black people can’t dance” and it said “did you mean “white people can’t dance?” we need not to take ourselves so serious and laugh!
Heidi: a joke is something that all or most people can laugh @…even as a white woman this makes me upset. I think to just say “oh its a joke” should not make it okay.

There is also a whole website whitepeoplestolemycar dedicated to helping all our brothers out there find their stolen cars.
So to laugh or frown upon it is up to you.

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As said previously, the strategy is to set up a blog and optimise it so that when people search for your topic, they find you. You think make money from Google Adsense when they visit your blog. But what is Adsense? Basically, Adsense is a tool that allows you to place advertisements on your blog. Google uses fancy software to make sure that the advertisements are relevant to your blog. For example, if your blog is about golf, your readers will see golf related adverts. How do you earn? Whenever someone clicks on any adsense advertisement, you get paid. Therefore, the more people who click on your adsense ads, the more you get paid. Nice, eh? Thousands of people earn their money this way.

Integrating adsense into your blogger blog is very very easy. Here’s some excellent reading for beginners:

• Getting started with adsense
• How to start making money with adsense

For best results, I recommend that you set up your adsense “ad blocks” in these three places:

• The top of your blog, just below the title
• The sidebar
• The footer. This works best if you have set your homepage to show only one blog post

By doing the above, you’ll maximise the chances of people clicking on one of your adsense adverts.

How do you get your money?
You are able to check your earnings at any time in your Google Adsense Account. Google will only pay you when you reach a certain minimum limit ($100). It may certainly take you over a month to reach that limit but if you follow the steps I have outlined here and in the other posts of this series, you are guaranteed to get more and more visitors and see your earnings rise and rise. Google will then send you a cheque or transfer the funds electronically.

How much can you earn?
Depending on the topic you are writing about, you’ll make anything from a few (US) pennies to one or two dollars every time someone clicks on your Adsense ads. This can quickly build up if your site has a good number of visitors. The more you blog, the better it gets!

So that’s it – a simple step by step guide to starting a simple blog business. Any questions? You have no excuse – get your own simple blog business.

PS
You can use KeyWordSpy to estimate how much each click pays for the topic you are writing about. The amount that you will earn is approximately half the amount that Keywordspy estimates the click to be worth.

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If you recall, the simple blog business strategy revolves around getting visitors from our blog from search engines. Therefore, when telling the world about our blogs, the best way is by high quality backlinks. If done right, this will give you a high ranking on the search engine results pages and you will start getting visitors. Ideally, you should be spending two or three hours a week doing this. Here are just a few ways to get you started:

Yahoo Answers – This is a pretty simple and effective approach. Just head over to Yahoo answers and answer related open questions, putting your blog as the “resource”. The trick is to make your answers very high quality. It takes only a few minutes to post an answer but if you do this 2 to three times a week, you’ll have lots of great backlinks from an authority site.

Comment On Other Blogs – Most blogs let you comment on each post on the blog. Just find related and interesting blogs and post your comments on the articles you read. Make sure you actually read the posts and leave a meaningful well written comment. Most comments left on blogs will not really help you rank better in the search engines but they will popularise your blog and connect you with other bloggers.

Squidoo – Squidoo is another effective way of promoting your blog. Set up a squidoo lens and put up a bit of quality content – you can steal this from your site. Make sure you link back to your own site. Also, optimise your squidoo address to be relevant to your blog. For example, get something like: squidoo.com/yourblogname

Your Other Blogs And Sites – Place links to your new blog from other websites or blogs that you own/run. If it is your first blog, create another free blog on WordPress.com and link to yourself from there.

Submit articles to article directories: I’d say the three main directories are EzineArticles, GoArticles and SearchWarp. The articles that you submit should be keyword optimised (just like your blog posts) and should be unique. Make sure you link to your own blog – the author Bio area is perfect for this!

Submit your blog to social aggregation sites like Digg, Netscape, Stumbleupon, etc. Even if your articles don’t get a high rank on these sites, the backlinks you get are very helpful!

Directories – Submit your blog to as many online directories as possible. One particular directory, DMoz, is of note – make sure you submit there. It is hard to get listed (your blog needs to be high quality) but a link from Dmoz is very valuable.

There are probably 100s of ways to promote your blog but the above are some of the most simple and popular. Keep doing this effectively and in 30 days or so you will start seeing consistent and growing numbers of people visiting your blog from search engines. Here are 52 other ways to promote your blog.

PS
To track how many visitors you get and where they come from, use a simple and free tracking tool like StatCounter.

Ok, that’s it for today. Next, we’ll get to the part where we start making money! Do not miss out.

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You’re going to base the name of your new blog on the keyword that you selected. Remember? For example, I’d choose “classic cars” so I would want my blog’s name to be:

classiccars.blogspot.com
or
classic-cars.blogspot.com

Those are probably already taken, though. What to do? Simple, let’s add a word infront to make it unique:

flashyclassiccars.blogspot.com
goodclassiccars.blogspot.com
best-classic-cars.blogspot.com

I hope you see that the possibilities are endless. Just pick a name and go on. Don’t get stuck choosing! It doesn’t really matter much whether your name has dashes (-) or not.

Ayayai, we have a spanking new blog. What shall we do first? Write our first blog post, of course! This is the part where most people fail. It is really very easy but it requires consistent work and focus. You need to spend between 2 to 3 hours per week doing this. Is that too much? Yes, it is a little bit of work but it WILL pay off. Just do it and stick with it. If you can consistently write optimised posts for your blog you willl attract the attention of Google and other search engines and you will get visitors to your blog. You will then be able to make money using adsense. (We’ll discuss how in a bit, no worries).

First things first, what type of things do you write on your blog? Remember the keywords? Specifically, the keyword list, like this one:

Well, you’re going to write a letter two to three times a week related directly to one of those keywords. You can fake your way to a great blog by pretending you’re writing a letter to a friend. Easy? That’s all that blog is, in a nutshell. Assuming you picked a topic that you just love, is writing letters about it that hard? Each letter you write is going to be about one of the keywords that you found. So, for my cars example, I’ll have to write about old cars, used cars, sports cars, etc etc. Get it?

For each of your blog postings:

1. Should be 100% valuable and interesting to anyone who may read it.
2. The title should be the exact key word that you are writing about.
3. Should be between 350 to 500 words long and should contain your exact keywords repeated three to four times.
4. Should have the exact keywords in the first 50 and last 50 words.

That’s it! Go forth and start blogging

If you write 3 or 4 ‘letters’ a week you will start getting visitors to your blog and you will then be able to start earning money from your blog. But you need to start getting those visitors. That’s the subject of the next article in this series. Make sure you don’t miss that!

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