New Years Resolution: Will You Keep it?

How can you keep a New Years Resolution? Well, if you are like most people, you will not be able to. When you get down to it, a New Years Resolution is no different than setting a goal. The best way to reach a goal is to simply write it down on a sticky note and place it on your bathroom mirror. Then, you will be reminded of it each and every day, the first thing in the morning.

Most people are flippant about resolutions, but never really keep them. The main reason is that they simply forget ever making them, then all of a sudden, six months pass and it is too late.

If you want to make something of your life you have to set yourself apart from what other people are doing. Write your goal down and work towards it every day. Most, do not write goals down and never reach their dream.

Short Breaks from Making Money

Trying to make money from blogging or online marketing is tough.  Sometimes a short break is needed to re-group your thoughts and get back on track.  The important thing is to not let that short break put a crimp in your money making plans.  You let things slide, and then eventually completely forget about what it is you want to accomplish.

This is why it is so important to write down your goals.  Then place them in a prominent place to remind you to get back on track.  

I took a week off, not because I was tired.  It was because I got busy with my real job.  This too, can put a crimp in your money making plans.  But remember, your real job is your real source of income.  Blogging, and making money online are fun hobbies, that really should take a back seat. Unless you find that you have hit a home run with your site!  But face it, you will likely not get rich with something like a make money blog or a blog farm.  That is reserved for the select few, that I doubt even make a third of what they state they do. 

When you take a break, your readership will drop off fast.  In addition, the daily hits will drop fast, especially if you are relying on current events to drive the traffic to you blog.  It is an endless cycles, that may seem hopeless at first, but if you keep at it, you will succeed. 

Make Money Learning a New Skill

You can make money online and learn a new skill online! It is very easy, simply start a blog about the topic area that you are interested in learning about. Your blog can be your self-help guide, and reference database when you need to look up information. And you know something? It will also become a reference database for others as they as the perform searches on the Internet! So why not place ads on your database, err blog, as people come to look for information.

For example, I am interested in learning how to program in Java, which is a very common computer language that is used for programming software applications to run on your computer. I know a little about Java from reading books that I borrowed from the library. I even know a little about how to write simple programs with Java. But, I want to take that idea, to learn more Java programming, set a goal, and then accomplish the goal. In order to reach that goal, I am going to start small, by learning about a specific part of Java programming: Graphical User Interfaces.

I am interested in learning how to write programs that use Graphical User Interfaces. This is known as GUI programming. Sounds complicated right? It really is not. A GUI is simply a application, like for Internet Explorer or Firefox browser, of say, something like the Google Earth program.

The applications that I would like to create are not quite as complicated as those programs, just simple programs with menus, buttons, and checkboxes. I probably will not create anything specific to start, I just want to get the basics down.

I could spend a ton of money taking a class at a local college, or I can even do it for free by reading some books at the library. But, time is money, and every minute spent doing something is money spent, if you are not making money. So, I decided that I wanted to make money learning Java GUI programming. I am going to set up a very specific blog centered around this very topic!

This blog will contain everything I learn from reading and testing. It is going to be very specific as well. That way, it will key in on certain search words naturally. The adds will go up and then other users will find the very same information as they search for it on the Internet.

Becoming a Consistent Money Maker

If you want to make money blogging, the fist core skill you will need to develop is writing. You do not have to be a good writer, just a consistent one. Ideas need to flow from your head and right into your post. It is kind of like spontaneous writing, although you will need to go back, do a little proofreading and fact checking. I think some spelling errors are OK though, more on that later.

The only way to develop this skill is to practice at it. The best way to practice your writing is to get on one of your blogs and start posting. Sounds easy right? Usually, it is not, because you want your post to have something to do with the topic area that your blog is centered around. You need to put a little though in your key search terms. Remember the search terms that you want to key in on and make a few links to previous posts or topics that are covered those terms.

I have a lot of blogs. On certain days, I came across something that hits one of my subject areas that I am interested and BAM! A post is born. Not every blog gets a post every day. I do try to hit them once or twice a week. A variety of blogs, helps keep your extemporaneous writing juices flowing.

I have a bunch of blogs, that cover a wide variety of topics that I have a little bit of knowledge in. These center around hobbies, or sports teams, and other things that I am interested in learning more about. Usually, I need to perform a little bit of research to fill in a little factoid, etc. because I want to get it right. Nothing turns away a reader faster than inaccuracies. I may not get it right all of the time, but I make an honest effort.

But, as I said before, an occasional spelling error is OK, I have gotten quite a number of hits on posts that I have that rank high for mis-spelled words. For example, in one blog entry I mis-spelled Plaxico as Plaxco, and got a tone of hits for Googlers looking for Plaxco. By the way, Plaxico Burress is a member of the New York Giants who recently made some headlines in the United States.

Anyway, to bottom line is you need to be consistent in your approach. Write something every single day and post it somewhere. If you do not have a place to post it, then simply start a new blog covering that subject area!

Other ways to Make Money Online

Starting a blog online with blogspot, and serving up your readers with ads can be one way to make money online. There are other Internet sites that take care of a lot of the middle work that is involved with setting up adds, worrying about SEO, and getting readers to see your articles.

For example, Associated Content takes care of a lot of this legwork for you. All you do is submit your article, and they take care of advertising your post to the search engines. They also place the advertisements on your post. You can write about anything under the sun. Their payout scheme is a little complicated through as there are several ways to accept payment. In general, they will pay between $1 and $15 per individual 400 or more word article, plus you get $1.50 per 1000 page views. I have just about 20 articles written and posted on AC, and pull in a couple of bucks per month. I made about $75 writing the articles, and accepting their initial payout offer.

This may seem small, but on average with my blog farm sites, I have been getting about $2 per 1000 views. It probably could be improved with more posts, and with a little work that is what I plan on doing. If you are not a dedicated blogger, and not willing to do the footwork to market your site, then Associated Content may be the way to go.

One Honest Money Making Blogger

There are a lot of money making bloggers out there that make up numbers to show how rich they are becoming by blogging. The truth is that most of them are full of it, and the ones that do actually get big incomes, spend nearly as much promoting there site, or paying others to promote their site.

This is going to be a no BS money making blog. I will not make stuff up, and you will get the straight and honest numbers. There will be some experimentation involved, and I will tell you what is working for me, and what is not. I have little experience at this, other than what I have read and learned from others.

My main technique for making money on the Internet will be through blog farming. I will create a bunch of blogs centered on several keywords, to increase their Google page rank, and hopefully derive revenue through the search engines. I will spend no money hosting sites, and will do it all through free blog services like blogger, and its derivatives.

At a few of these sites, most likely maybe only this money making blog, I will do a little more promotion and possibly paid review and postings. I have not decided yet if I should do this for this money making blog. If things are going badly, or possibly as a little experiment, I will take this aspect on.

I will spend just a dollars per month using Project Wonderful, but that is it. Only what I make through Project Wonderful will be eligible for being spent on advertising. To give you an idea of the numbers so far, I make about $0.10 a day from Project Wonderful. Thus,I will spend about $0.10 a day. Yep, that is just 10 stinking pennies. I will be adding a few more blogs to my Project Wonderful account in the near future, so I expect those numbers to come up.

All other revenue will come through the Google Adsense program, unless something bad happens and I am banned. This has happened to some in the past. So far this of month of December, I have made a few dollars of income. It is up considerable from what I made last month. Each month I am going to try to improve my income. I will officially start posting income reports beginning near the beginning of each month. Since there really was not anything for November, I wont bother. It was a little over $5 if you really want to know.

There are many different methods one could use to attract web traffic and keep them coming back. I am not worried so much about drawing an avid readership on any of my blogs, but if you keep coming back then THANKS!

I have a core group of about 10 blogs set up, some are more mature than others, and the stragglers will catch up soon. Just got to keep posting and plugging away.

Make Money Online with Family Commitments

Trying to make a buck online is not easy. It takes a lot of time and commitment if you want to succeed. The best way to succeed is to write your goals. But just writing goals is just the start. To succeed you have to put in time, and this is where the trouble starts.

If you are married, and have kids, then making money online can be a real detriment to your family life. But if you use a little smart time management you can make it work. Time management and using your time wisely once you have it managed correctly.

For example, you can say to yourself, I am going to wake up every morning at 6 AM to work on my blog for an hour while every one else is asleeep. You get up the next morning to work thinking you've got your time managed, and then spend the next hour surfing the web looking for ideas, and end up with nothing to show after an hour. This is not using the time that you have managed wisely.

I have found that ideas come to me at all hours of the day. I now carry around a little notebook, and if something pops into my head that I can use in one of my blogs, I jot it down. It can be anything, and sometimes that idea grows.

Go out and get yourself a little pocket notebook and a mechanical pencil. Not a pen, because you can not erase, and not a regular pencil because they always need to be sharpened. Make sure it is a mechanical pencil with 0.7 MM lead. 0.5 MM breaks too easy.

Once you start writing some stuff down in you notebook, when you sit down to actually write, you will have a bunch of ideas to draw from. You will look like a nerd walking around with a notebook all day, but who cares, you are making money!

Set Goals to Make Money Blogging

When you start something new, you want to have a feeling of accomplishment. The best way to do this is to set a goal for yourself. The best way to do this is simple: Write the goal down. It may sound complicated but it really is simple. Come up with and idea, think of how that idea can be brought to life, and then right down what you want to accomplish.

The idea for this little venture had very simple beginnings. I recalled all all those depression era articles that I read that explained how people work a little on the side to make money. I knew that I was not going to sell eggs or take in boarders, or paint houses on as an extra business. I needed to do something that did not take a whole lot of time, was fairly easy, and most importantly: ACHIEVABLE.

When you achieve at something you gain confidence. You also get motivated to take it to the next level to accomplish more.

The number one way to put you idea in motion is to write it down, and then write down the goal on a piece of paper and post it something that you will see every single day. This can be something that is just a sentence or two long. But it should be visible to you every single day.

For my make money online venture, I have a simple idea: Use blogging to make a little extra cash with multiple blogs, centered around keywords.

The goal is simple: Make $1 a day on these blogs.

Next you need to take your idea and goal and WRITE IT DOWN. Put it on a sticky pad next to your mirror in your bathroom. You will see it every day and you will be reminded that you need to do something that is important that day! Achieve your goal! Writing it down almost guarantees success. If you do not write it down you will forget about it in a week, and never achieve that goal.

This may not seem like a lot of money, actually it is a pittance and will make no difference in my income, as I already have a high paying job. But it is something that is achievable. Once I reach that goal, I can move on to the next level, say $5 a day, then $10 a day, etc. There is nothing wrong with updating your goal. Just make sure it is expanding, not contracting.

I already am about halfway to my goal. Through Adsense I am pulling in about $0.50 a day in visits and clickthroughs. This is just with a few blogs and posts, using Entrcard and BlogCatalog to promote. Soon, I will be ready to move on to the next level.

Starting a New Blog

There are a number of steps you want to take to get some traffic coming to your blog right when you start. Even though you have a tiny number of posts, and there is nothing indexed in the search engines, it does not hurt to put your site out there, you may gain a loyal reader or two.

Here are a few strategies I have been following on getting my blogs noticed.

1. Get an Entrecard. This is probably the best way to get some early traffic coming to your site for free. After you get an account with Entrcard, simply add their widget to your sidebar and this will allow sites to advertise on your site. In turn you are given credits to advertise on other sites. All of this is done for FREE. Also, to get best results, be sure to create an 125x125 image with a sexy babe on it to get males (majority of blog population) to look at your Entrecard. If you drop your card on other sites, about 1 in 10 will pay you a visit back.

2. Sign up for Feedburner. If you want to establish a readership then get a Feedburner account and install the "subscribe" chicklet on your blog. It does not hurt to also place an option that allows people to sign up via e-mail. Both of these can be accomplished under the "Optimize" tab on the Feedburner page. It also does not hurt to monetize your feed. In addition, I also activate "FeedFlare" to allow readers to "Stumble" or "Digg" your posts. I also use "Pingshot" so you do not have to manually update via the different ping services. Note that Feedburner has recently been bought out by Google, so many of their features are currently being integrated together.

3. Visit other blogs, especially new ones, and leave comment on other new blogs. I have found that about 1 out of every 5 comments will garnish a visit or two from the other blog. The chances are higher with a new blog, since the owner is likely to pay a visit. They are not quite as high with a blog that has mid ranged popularity. However, if you leave a nice pithy comment on a high traffic blog, you are likely to get at least a visit and may garner a new reader or two.

4. Sign up for Blogcatalog, and participate in their forums and discussion groups. Leave pithy remarks. You will soon be noticed.

5. Start writing. Posting, and writing. Soon your blog will be picked up by search engines and the traffic will start rolling in.

First You Need A Couple of Ideas to Center Blogs Around

My strategy for making money here on blogger is to create a "blog farm" with blogs that are centered around ideas and interests that I have. I already started doing this and have a couple of blogs that are already starting to earn a small readership. On gets close to a hundred hits a day, and still has less than 100 posts. There are others that I have have just started and still have under 2o posts, but I see that they are starting to get searches from the search engines.

This "make money blog" is also a member of this blog farm. Here are some of the ideas that I have centered, or will center some of my other blogs around: meteor showers, linux, weather, astronomy, current events (strange news), and people behaving badly. I also decided to write about some of my favorite sports teams, so will derive a couple of blogs from those ideas.

I think that I by multiplying the number of blogs I have, and monetizing them all will help enhance my income potentional.

Hard Economic Times

They say we are headed into a depression. So it is now time to start thinking about making a little cash on the side. We have been reading all kinds of stories about how in the last depression during the 1920's and 1930's people took all kinds of odd jobs to put food on the table. They sold eggs, took in boarders, swept floors. You name it, where there was a buck to be made, people were in on the action. All of it was for measly wages. They earned a quarter, here, a penny there, and at the end of the week it all added up to that extra loaf of bread that got them through the hard times.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and things have changed. Or, have they? We are headed into hard economic times, but you do not see people really starting to get it in gear to get that extra money. Instead they seem intent on waiting for the government to bail them out. You can't get by on selling eggs and doing a lot of the things that worked in the last depression. But there are many new ways to make money in this day and age that are just waiting to be tapped. Will they be lost when the government does not come through?

I am pretty well off financially, and have a pretty stable job. I am not too concerned about loosing it or my salary through these tough economic times. I do have an interest in trying to make a little extra cash 21st century style using the Internet as my tool. I plan on monetizing a bunch of my blogs right here on blogspot centered around certain keywords. Let's see how much money we can make!