100k Job Trading From Home

There are certain myths that have grown up around blogs, bloggers and the blogosphere in general. Here are just some of them and some clarifications:

Anyone can start a blog! Not just anyone! There are some requirements, some more obvious than others. Obviously, you need a computer that you know how to use, an Internet connection and some experience using the Internet. You also need a host for your blog; there are blog hosts that are free and some that cost a small amount per month. One last requirement is not just an ability to communicate your thoughts but also a willingness to do so.

Anyone can set up a blog! Some blogs are much easier to set up and use than others, this depends on your blog host (e.g., blogger, iblogs, typepad, tblog, etc.). Some blog hosts take you through a couple simple set-up steps and you’re off writing your first post but there are others that get far more technical than the average user may be ready for.

Blogging doesn’t take up that much time! That depends! Some posts, when you have a clear idea of what you want to say, may take just a few minutes while you may struggle for days (literally) with others that involve complex issues or thoughts. In general, blogging is a daily activity for the serious blogger (some bloggers write up to ten posts a day) and a once-a-week activity for the casual blogger.

Blogs are in competition with the main-stream media! This is true in a few cases (not as many cases as bloggers would have you think). Just recently, there have been some very popular and influential social and politically-oriented blogs that have caused main-stream media outlets to back-track and change their coverage of important events.

Bloggers just criticize and have no new information to add! This may be true in some cases but blogging today is much more than the personal activity it used to be. Corporations, media outlets, public personalities, politicians and experts in almost every field have now joined the ranks of blog producers. Considering all this expertise, one would have to say that bloggers have a lot of new information to add to any debate.

You can’t believe anything you read in a blog! That’s a bit of an overstatement. You’ll run across bad information and even intentional untruths in blogs but, for the most part, bloggers who state facts are stating what they honestly believe to be fact. It is always up to the readers to verify that any information they receive is accurate information.

Most of you must have known about the story of rich dad – Robert Kiyosaki. To my understanding, one of the keys to his success is asset building. Over the time, he accumulated enough assets to generate a sizable income to surpass his rich dad. The real value of an asset is that it brings you income, passive income for most of the time. While my blog and web sites started to bring me stable income month after month, I feel that I’m on the right path to be a rich dad myself. Have a look at some of my recently acquired blog/web sites, as they started to generate income for me almost immediately:

Somebackup.com – a Tech blog,
PHPpeixun.com – a PHP traing company site,
Lidanatural.com – a site development originally in a foreign language, I converted it to a photography library.

I found this web site lately called Posterous. It provides service of using email to send your updates to various services like Facebook, Myspace, Tweeter… and most important of all, your blogs. It is such a convenient tool which saves time to go to each site and put in your updates. If however, you don’t have account on any of the social networking sites, and don’t have your own blog, they give you a free blog, just like a blogger/blogspot blog. You update your new blog by sending emails. Google “Posterous”, you will find the site.

It is important to realize that your choice of a niche can have a significant influence on the success or failure of your new blog.

Deciding on a theme can be a daunting task. What exactly are you going to write about? Your niche needs to be a popular topic that many people are interested in.

If you are going to blog about yourself, then you better have a very interesting life, or you will have difficulty keeping your readers coming back for more. You should choose a topic that will make it comparatively easy to grow your readership and build a strong following.

Since many bloggers write about their favorite subjects, it’s not a bad idea to start brainstorming by writing down a list of your hobbies, interests, and any areas of professional expertise. Now try to determine a niche you can target within one of those areas.

Should you blog about automobiles in general, or the latest sports cars? If you choose too narrow a theme then you may struggle to come up with regular, fresh content. And if you choose a topic that’s too general your readers may be confused by a jumble of seemingly unrelated posts.

You might consider niches within the following general topic areas which have proven to be popular for blogging:

•    Automobiles
•    Computers & Information Technology
•    Digital Cameras
•    Gadgets
•    Music
•    News
•    Photography
•    Politics
•    Shopping

If you plan to use Pay-Per-Click advertising to get traffic to your blog, then remember also that the hottest topics might have the highest pay-per-click fees.

You can sometimes get great niche ideas by browsing at Blog directories and sites like Google Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com

The fastest way to get your business’s name out in the public is to make it known to your targeted marketing group. If you want to get your company’s name out to men who like fishing, then you can find a blog that is about just that. When you find the blogs pertaining to this marketing group, post useful and intelligent information about topics that pertain to your company. You might not want to sound like an advertisement. Think about responding to another comment and simply tagging your signature with your company’s website. This is a subtle way to get their attention. The more you post on blogs, the more widely known your company’s name will become with the select marketing group. When they tell their friends and family about the site then your consumer group will have grown even more. This is a fast way to get started. You will have to invest some time however. At least an hour a day can be used for this type of task.

It is assumed that blogs are so popular for two main reasons. The first reason is just because everyone would like to* be heard. By posting your opinions, views, or experiences on the web, you are essentially being listened by anybody who reads your post. With more and more people reading blogs, you can count on more and more people reading yours as well. Expressing your opinions allows you to be free from any stress they may cause when you keep them inside. A blog is a socially safe way to express your views without having to worry too much about a reaction from someone else.

The other main reason the blog is so popular is because due to amazing blogging software, it is so simple to do. When personal websites came onto the scene, everyone wanted one. The problem was that the good ones were very difficult to construct unless you had programming skill. Many people hired professionals to create their personal spaces. Blogs on the other hand, are very easy to make. Software allows you to post your thoughts in a typing box and the system automatically updates itself when you are done. It could not be any easier. Because of these two reasons, people absolutely love blogs. They love to post on their own blog and they love to read other blogs. The phenomenon is one that is so well loved it will likely continue to grow and grow.

If you want more advanced blog features, then you can add tracking options to your blog. There are several ways you can track your readers. One is by keywords and the other is a visitor tracker. Keyword trackers are ideal for those who need to know what keywords people are using to locate a blog. This could be important for businesses that need to reach potential consumers. A good keyword tracker can also help you organize your blog site to determine which keywords are most popular with readers. It can also help get your site listed on search engines. Keyword trackers can be downloaded for free in many cases. If your site relies heavily on readers, then a keyword tracker could be a good choice.

Carefully choose your subject titles, taking into consideration what other internet users may be searching for. I suggest subscribing to Word Tracker. Their report of the most popular searches is published each Tuesday and distributed to over 30,000 subscribers.

Technorati.com , a blog search engine that also lists the top search words. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your return in search engines will be.

New advances in blogging are occurring all the time.  Learn what is out there and available.  Stay connected to your readers, your fellow bloggers and your favorite blogs.  The fact that you can do all of this from your mobile phone; just makes it even better.  More than likely, you’ll have something to blog right now.

The uprising of Twitter gave us some clue as where will the social networking and social marketing heading for. One big lesson learned is that people are getting addicted to short and meaningful messages or posts. Everyone is busy, unless you got some really good written stuff, nobody would bother to read your post more than 300 words. From now on, I’ll make my posts short and meaningful to follow this twitter trend.