January has been a month of milestones for me. This morning, I passed another one, that of a new level of monthly Google AdSense revenue.

I passed the $40/m mark, which for me is great. For several months, I've been hovering just above or below the $30 mark, not going much further. At the time of this writing, I'm only five cents above $40 for January. A close call, but I was pretty certain that I'd pass it.

My short-term (7-day) AdSense revenue daily average has dropped. However, my long-term (252-day) daily average is still climbing. It didn't quite exhibit the exponential growth curve I mentioned in an earlier post. However, my next moving average window is 280 days, followed by 308 days. One of these long-term daily average graphs might just exhibit the exponential growth that seems to be lurking around the corner.

I've mentioned previously that earning ad revenue seems to be a journey in jumping quantum levels. But you have to pretty much define your own quantum levels (amount of monthly or weekly revenue). Each successive level takes less energy to get to - although it may not always feel that way.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, ad revenue, blog revenue

After about 6 months of steady blogging, I've come to the point where I've started to branch out to write for other blogs, as I mentioned in my last post (links below). I've mentioned before that there are a number of sources of blog revenue:

• Ad revenue from existing ad networks.
• Ad revenue from your own ad network.
• Sales of your products and services.
• Merchandise sales through another party.
• Affiliate fees for someone else's product sales.
• E-books and for-fee subscriptions.
• Blogger for hire.
  

You might be able to think of other sources. Let's focus on the last item. This activity might include a number of things:

• Promoting a company on one of your own blogs for a monthly fee.
• Promoting a company on their blog for a monthly fee.
• Under your own name
• As a ghostwriter
  
• Writing articles for free article sites in order to build backlinks and traffic for a company's website. Charge a monthly fee for a set number of articles.
• Writing posts for a blog or online community.
• Payment is a flat fee
• Payment is a percentage of ad revenues (usually just the contextual)
• Payment is a combination of the above two.
• Writing articles for an online magazine.

If you have a stable of clients, you could very well stick to just the copywriting activities in items 1-3 above and earn a decent living. One of the more inspirational books about copywriting that I've read is John Clausen's very humorous Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal: How to Have a Great Life as a Freelance Writer. This was, however, written before blogging caught on, and before a lot of print magazines folded after the economic downturn that started in Q3 2001, forcing a lot of editors back into the competitive freelancing ocean.

But let's focus on the last two items of the above list. Here's a made up example. Let's just say that you're getting at least US$5 per post, and you're able to maintain a rate of 20 posts per day in a 10 hr day. That's 2 posts per hour. This is extreme for some bloggers/ writers, and easy-as-pie for others.

Remember, you want to produce your best quality writing, especially when you're writing for someone else, and especially if you want to continue writing. On the other hand, at a rate of 2 per hour, only the most seasoned of writers can produce more than short summaries and some commentary for each post. What would you expect for $10/hr?

If you can maintain this rate for, say, 5 days/wk, week in and week out, that's at least US$5/post x 20 posts/d x 5 d/wk x 4 wk/m = US$2000/m or more. That's not a lot for a job that you are doing full-time, but consider how much freedom you have, compared to a salaried job. You're also saving money on expenses such as parking and gasoline, or other transportation costs (tolls, bus or train, etc.)

Also, if you're working out of your home, and have a clearly defined "office space", you may be eligible for a number of tax writeoffs. You can deduct some portion of your "professional expenses" such as your Internet connection bill, phone bill, computer lease, home office furniture lease, rent, and more. (Check with your accountant to be sure what you are eligible for as a freelance writer.) Since you're eating meals at home, your monthly food costs are also a lot less than if you went to work and had to buy lunch everyday - and sometimes breakfast and/or dinner.

The $2000/m will go a lot further than you might think, even if you are not eligible to deduct some of your expenses. Depending on the country you live in, you may or may not have to deduct quarterly income tax payments. But you still have more cash flow than if you had a job paying $2000 gross monthly, since you'll lose some of that to weekly income tax deductions.

If you can supplement this $2000/m income with a higher-paying article each week, you could very well push yourself into the $3000/m territory - an amount that's sufficient for a single person or for one income in a two-income family. If you're earning any percentage of ad revenues as well, this could be the big payoff over time. If you're retaining copyright, those same posts may earn you additional ad revenues on your own site in the future.

Of course, the drawback of this sort of career is the same as for any self-run business: lack of security. Not everyone can manage it. Learning to save any extra bounty is crucial, especially when one blog or another stops accepting outside/ freelance writers, forcing you to find other gigs. The additional problem is that if you're blogging for smaller/ newer sites, they may have a limit on the number of contributions per week.

For example, a couple of the sites I blog for only allow me 2-3 posts per week, each. That means that at this low frequency, I'd have to blog for nearly 50 different sites, and be able to keep track of them all. But don't ignore these sites altogether, because posting frequency may change as the site gains in popularity and revenue.

A more manageable endeavour is to build up to a portfolio of 10 blogs/ sites, plus your own, as well as a few sites that pay higher rates for longer articles. With your remaining time, hire yourself out as a copywriter blogger for companies.

Also consider writing for "free article" sites such as EzineArticles.com to build up backlinks and traffic to ALL of the sites you write for, not just your own. Or at least to do this for sites that are paying you a percentage of ad revenues instead of just a flat fee. If you own the domain and are part of someone's network, even better.

When you've accumulated a large body of articles/ posts, and a sufficient number of regular visitors to one of the blogs for which you own the domain, you might consider compiling and editing a selection of your better writing into a book. Depending on the topic, you just might be able to find a suitable publisher. As an ebook, you could publish it yourself, or team up with an e-publisher that has some experience in this regard.

There are many ways you can make freelance blogging work for you, provided you are organized and disciplined, and can weather the lean early times. This advice is not much different than advice that used to be given to new freelance writers before the Internet.

Links: BlogSpinner - Writing For Another Blog, Bloggers For Hire.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, blog revenue, writing

While I'm talking about blogging milestones, I reached another one yesterday: that of writing for a 3rd blog for which I can earn or am earning either ad revenues or a pay-per-post fee, or both.

Sure, 3 different blogs isn't a lot, but throughout history, 3 is considered a magic number of sorts, and a catalyzing point in business. And being a metaphysical kinda guy, 3 is a magic number for me. I'm actually blogging for 4 blogs, outside of my own batch of blogs and zomblogs, but Performancing.com doesn't count because it's a blogging community open to anyone, and there's no schedule.

The thing that strikes me as interesting, which I didn't consciously pursue, is that each blog builds revenue for me in different ways:

• 100% of ad revenues (Google AdSense and Chitika eMinimalls) for my posts.
  
• A flat fee per post.
• A flat fee per post and 50% of AdSense revenue for my posts.

Despite this variation of revenue, each gig provides me with different, valuable opportunities and freedpms. Keep this in mind if you decide to supplement your income by writing elsewhere.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, blog revenue

A few days ago, I finally passed the Chitika eMinimalls ad revenue milestone of US$10. It's a milestone because it's the smallest amount they'll pay out via Paypal. Unfortunately, my excitement was short-lived.

Now, I know $10 is no big deal, and I'm by no means whining. I'm simply documenting my milestones for posterity, and for anyone new to blogging, so that they have a realistic idea of how long it takes to earn an income, and how much effort it takes.

Keeping in mind that Chitika audits out clicks by people from specific countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, I checked my audited totals, only to find that I'd lost 25% to auditing. So the bad news is no coin in my Paypal account for now.

The further bad news is that, after doing some simple MMAs (Multiple Moving Averages) analysis, aka "rolling average" graphs, on the Chitika revenue, I found that there isn't yet a discernible pattern forming (exponential growth).

The good news is that this is okay. It took at least 5 months before my Google AdSense revenue started to show any patterns. In fact, I suggest you wait 6-7 months before you see patterns in the rolling average graphs. Unless you have an establish website before you start running ads, expecting anything significant before that time is unfair to yourself.

The further good news, in a way, is that I haven't given my Chitika ads the same benefits as the AdSense ads. That is, my AdSense ads have been more prominent. What's more, because of Google's TOS (Terms of Service), I cannot use the Chitika ads in contextual mode at the same time. That means I have to randomly choose which Chitika ads I'm running on my sites. So they may not always be properly targeted to the content of my posts.

I can, however, run Chitika eMinimalls (or their text ads) on their own in contextual mode. I plan to do this with one of my blogs as a test lab sometime in the future. I'll document this test run once it shows patterns.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, ad revenue, blog revenue, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, google adsense, chitika

If you've actually been reading other blogs lately, you'll know that online communities are hot. Human beings have always been social creatures, for the most part, and always align themselves to some group or other. While such a group might typically be kinfolk, in the blogosphere, it's often one of the many online communities and social networking sites.

Online communities offer something to everyone involved:

1. A chance for readers to comment on posts.
2. A chance for readers to refute or support another reader's comments.
3. A chance for bloggers to interact with readers.
4. A chance for readers to also blog on your site.
5. Forums for topical discussions.
6. Regular fresh text content for the owner of the online community.
7. A synergy that a single blogger cannot achieve by him or herself.
   
8. Links from the blogs of the community members.
9. Members that have reached a comfort level with select members may team up to start other online communities, which will no doubt have links back to your community.
10. Resulting traffic because of all of the above reasons, for various reasons.
11. Higher traffic for advertisers.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but a French statistician by the name of Rappaport once said that he could mathematically prove that the universe functions best when situations are win-win-win, but that most human beings work on a win-lose premise. That is, everyone involved has to benefit from any transaction to propagate further beneficial actions.

If I recall properly, Rappaport particularly singled out Americans as violating this rule. But please don't mistake me as doing the same thing. The first two "wins" refer to both participants in a transaction. The third "win" refers to the rest of the world. Everyone has to benefit in some way.

Bloggers are starting to realize that online communities are quite likely the closest implemenation of a website to support Rappaport's win-win-win scenario. The first "win" is then the owner of the site. The second "win" are readers. The third "win" would then either be anyone searching for related content, and possibily some community feedback, and/or advertisers wanting to advertise on high-traffic, topical sites.

The only major con in building an online community is that it's likely difficult to monetize if the ad revenue is all going to you. You will have to consider revenue sharing with other members that are blogging on your site (point 4 above). Alternately, you may want to consider not having member blogs, but keeping comments enabled and having discussion forums.

If you cannot, for whatever reason, set up an online community, consider at least having your comments enabled. (My apologies, but mine are disabled for technical reasons, which I am trying to work out.) The value of comments is multi-fold:

1. The text of comments, typically topical and keyword-rich, may likely boost your Search Engine rankings, and thus your traffic, over time.
2. Being able to comment gives readers a reason to return and see if anyone responded to their comment. It's a very common human trait to see if others share your opinions and feelings. If this weren't true, all the social networking sites would cease to exist.
3. If you allow commenters to enter their URL as part of their comment, they get some link love, which more than likely will be reciprocated.

Let's do some math here. These are made up numbers to illustrate a point. Suppose that you manage to post at least 1000 entries per year (3 per day) to your collection of blogs. Further suppose that you've built up enough trust with your readers that you receive at least 3 comments per post. That's 3000 comments. (Hey, I know that some blogs may get 100 comments for a single post. But I'm writing for you, the newbie blogger. That's a goal to work towards.)

Some of the commenters will be the same, so you may only have, say, 1000 unique commenters in a given year. If a quarter of them link back to you, that's 250 backlinks. That's gold, if each one sends even one new visitor per day, some of whom may become regulars. And the cycle will continue, with new regulars linking back, etc., thus eventually generating exponential traffic growth.

Similarly, you should start an ongoing campaign to comment (intelligently) on the sites and blogs that you read daily, thereby producing links back to your own site. Say you read 10 blogs daily, and comment on 3 posts daily. In one year, that's about 1000 backlinks to you, assuming that each blog/ site allows you to enter your URL.

Each comment backlink will not necessarily be as valuable over time as a blog post backlink (from someone else's blog), but you'll continue to get some traffic from visitors referred by search engines. What's more, if you are commenting on blogs with high Google PR (PageRank), some of that will eventually rub off on your blogs. (I've tested this theory organically, so I have proof.)

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, web traffic, online communities

As stated in the overview to this series, the most fundamental way to get more traffic to your blog (or website) is to have more sites link to you. As many other bloggers have stated, you want to gain these links organically. That is, these links should be acquired gradually, and the link text shouldn't be the same for every linking site. Moral: don't buy links.

So how do you gain links organically? One technique for building backlinks to your website or blog, and thus web traffic, is to write articles for re-use by other publishers. I write "free articles" for EzineArticles.com, both to build credibility for certain topics, as well as to build backlinks and traffic. (There are other sites, but this is my preferred "free article" site.)

Recently, in my email, I received a December summary for EzineArticles.com. At the top of the contributions list was one author with what I thought was over 350 visits to a single article.

Hmm, I thought. That's not so much. Then I read the enclosing text, only to find out that this author had contributed nearly 300 ARTICLES in the month of December alone. Think about how much traffic this would generate. Let's do some simple math.

EzineArticles has a high Google PR (PageRank), and their authors often place highly in the Google SE (Search Engine) for either their name (not always a big a deal) and/or various keywords (a big deal). Links from EzineArticles.com will thus help build your own Google PR. As well, other sites and ezines will re-publish your article (following the terms set out by EzineArticles), thus increasing your potential backlinks.

[Note: Some SEO experts and bloggers claim that Google PR isn't that important for getting traffic. Take it from me, it is, to varying degrees. When I moved my four cooking blogs into a single website, the lack of Google PR for the new site made a huge difference. I had to come up with ways to promote it on the old blogs.]

I've only had my first article at EzineArticles.com for just over 3 weeks, with 3 more articles published over the past two weeks. So far, these 4 articles have had about 223 pageviews at the time of writing - with the current daily rate at 23 pageviews per day. Not a great deal, but they have brought me extra traffic to this blog, and its early yet. There are reports of some articles on EzineArticles getting well over 100,000 pageviews in a year, just on the site alone.

As well, each of my first 2 articles have been republished in e-newsletters 4 times already. That doesn't sound like a lot, but some of the ezine publishers that use EzineArticles have subscriber counts up into the mid-five and low-six figures.

Apparently, these articles are potentially seen by a half million people, depending, obviously, on a number of factors. But even if a couple of your articles are seen by 100,000 people over time, and 1% of them follow the live link from the email (or the republishing site) to your website, that's an extra 500 visitors per article - in addition to any visits you may receive from the EzineArticles website.

If you prepare yourself for the extra traffic, you can make your website or blog even "stickier". Some of these visitors may just become your subscribers, if you put in a bit of effort and set up your own e-newsletter subscription. It doesn't take a lot of effort. Of course, you could later parlay the traffic into sales of ebooks.

If you have webmaster skills and your own domain, your hosting company probably already provides you with the infrastrucure you need for setting up ezine subscriptions: a database (such as mySQL) and a scripting language (such as PHP).

The alternative is to pay for a monthly service to automatically email your e-newsletter at regular intervals. However, in addition to the cost, you will have to configure the service. For the money, though, you do get additional features that you may not have if you did it yourself.

To do it yourself, all you need is a little web script - say using the PHP or Perl scripting language - which you can trigger manually, each time you're ready to send out the next newsletter. Such a script would massage your RSS/ Atom/web feed, which all blogs typically generate automatically. The content would be massaged into an ezine format, complete with links to your own full-text articles.

I'll have a more in-depth article about ezine subscriptions in the near future, and a free service set up in a couple of months. Just check on my main website, Chameleon Integration, for an announcement in this regard.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, ezine, newsletter, web traffic

Every new blogger has one question on their mind (besides how to earn revenue): How do I increase traffic to my blog? The answer is actually very simple: increase the number of links to your blog. The "how" is another matter.

Lately, I've been experimenting with various methods for building my traffic, several of which have helped. Having found that other bloggers have had success with a number of techniques including link-building, I sat down to figure out some of the more "organic" ways to do this, so as not to get penalized by the search engines for "gaming" them via backhanded means, whether intentional or not. This post is just an overview of some of the techniques that I'll discuss in an ongoing series of posts.

One of the most fundamental ways to draw web traffic is to have links to your website/ blog. There are several different sources for these links:

1. Ezine/ e-newsletter links from article syndication.
2. Comment links from other articles and online community forums.
3. Blogroll and inline article links.
4. Search Engine links from results pages, and topical directory links.
5. Awards links. That is, create your own awards and give them out.
   
6. Advertising links.
7. Your own network of blogs/ websites.

I'll cover each of these methods in turn, in future posts.

Andy Hagans, a dedicated niche blogger, has a series of articles about link-building over at http://www.andyhagans.com. I should disclose that I write articles for one of his non-technical blog. But I feel that his link-building articles are immensely helpful, and anyone who wants to increase traffic may want to read them. You should be warned that they lean towards SEO - Search Engine Optimization - and thus may be something you in your "to read" queue for the future.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, link building, web traffic, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs

I've said in the past that there's no such thing as writer's block. I still maintain this position. Rather, my feeling is that many writers suffer from a condition where they have so many ideas that they don't know where to begin.

I know that I suffer from this condition weekly. It's frustrating to have to be disciplined and structured, when writing usually feels like such a creative, unstructured activity. Structure works for me when I'm doing technical or business writing. It doesn't work for the majority of my blogs. Not even when I'm writing about, say, gadgets.

So what do I do to spark the old mental engine? I use a service such as Google Alerts. It sends updates to your email box either on a daily, weekly or "as-it-happens" basis. (I could be wrong, but I don't think that they have an RSS/Atom web feed.)

I get mine sent on a daily basis. Then, each morning (or sometimes before I go to bed), I review the alerts, opening only those items that might be suitable to the topic I'm interested in. I usually use a browser that allows multiple tabs to be open simultaneously. I then open several tabs, each with their own Alert item, read each article that I've selected, and see if there's any commonality between 2 or more articles.

If there is some commonality, I try to write a single summary for those articles (including links), then add my own take on what's being said. Without my take, I'm not adding any value. Not that this stops some bloggers. But for me, what's the point of blogging if I don't open my big mouth and give my opinion, or sometimes the benefit of my experience?

This method works very well for me for several blogs, as far as writing goes, and when I actually employ it. But it's a new method for me, and the blogs I use it on are new, so I don't have conclusive evidence of its effectiveness. But I am tracking the domains in Google Analytics to see not only how many visitors I'm getting, but whether they are coming back. I'll be doing that and reporting on it here in the future.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, writing, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs

At some point in your blogging career, you may decide that your blog platform is no longer suitable for you or your co-contributors. Having learned from my own mistakes, I say to you, save yourself some trouble in the future by properly setting up your new blog now.

The assumptions here are for a new blog on your own domain. That is, a blog about to be set up. Maybe you're moving an old blog, maybe not. If you are moving, I recommend not copying your old posts to your new blog, so as to avoid being dinged by the SEs (Search Engines) for having duplicate content. Instead of deleting old posts and copying them over, I also suggest you leave your posts where they are, to maintain their Google PR (PageRank). Feel free to refute my claims, although tell my why :)

You could move your old pages wholesale - that is, remove the old text but redirect the URLs to the new domain. I'm not sure how this affects PR for your old pages, but I would think that this it would be negatively affected.

What's possibly more important is how you set up the directory structure on your new domain. I say to you that if you are about to set up a brand new domain with a blog/ online community, I highly recommend that you don't install your blog platform into the root directory of your webserver. Doing so may give you headaches later on.

As a concrete example, let's say you have selected WordPress as your platform. Do not install WordPress so that it runs from, say, http://www.myblogdomain.com/. Instead, create a subdirectory and use that for the base of your blog platform installation, then create a homepage/ splash page that links to the subdirectory. Some platforms even let you create a front/splash page that differs from the template used for the rest of the site.

So the URLs http://www.myblogdomain.com/ or http://www.myblogdomain.com/index.html would be the same splash page, and would point only to, say, http://www.myblogdomain.com/wordpress/ - or some directory name that doesn't even mention the blog platform. One possibility is a version number for the blog - say http://www.myblogdomain.com/v2p1/ (v2.1) - or the year - say http://www.myblogdomain.com/2006/. What you use depends on your blogging needs, how long you think your blog will be around for, and how often you may need to change platforms.

The reason for installing into a subdirectory is to prep yourself for a future move. If you decide to change platforms later, you'll most likely want to keep your old pages, whether they are static HTML or dynamically-served from a database - especially in the case of the latter. If you install your blog platform in the root of your webserver, you probably can't ever install another platform there in the future, without destroying access to the old pages.

On the other hand, having a dedicated subdirectory for each blogging platform you install means the ability to maintain archive pages from the previous platform/ blog version. You will, of course, have to update your old pages and splash page with an undoubtedly visible link to the new blog. This promotion will be necessary, since the old blog version will start to lose its freshness ranking, and the new one won't have any Google PR or its equivalent for other SEs.

Having moved several blogs from blogspot.com to their own domain(s), I've seen how this affects both traffic and revenue, however little you may have been earning in the first place.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, blogging platform, adsense, ad revenue, page rank

Are you an artist or an author? Or maybe you run a small record label or publishing house. A plain old website isn't the only way to promote yourself or your artists. Consider text and audio excerpts as premium content, available through the RSS/ Atom/ web feed of your blog.

In the first of a mini-series, I provide a few tips for using web feeds for blog and website promotion. over on my RSS Cases blog.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: rsscases, rss cases, feed promotion, podcasts, podcasting

Over the past two posts, I've been talking about blog platform. There's an ongoing debate in parts of the blogosphere about whether blogs need PR (Public Relations) or SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and whether they equate. Personally, I feel that some sort of intelligent promotional campaign is crucial for blogs, to compete with the approximately 70,000 new blogs that are estimated to be created daily.

One way to build PR is to build not just a blog but an online community, where readers can comment and maybe even have their own (relevant) blog with which you can build trust. Having polls and even quizzes are another way to boost your "sticky" factor in drawing readers back. Several blog platform plugins allow for communication between readers via any of chatboxes, shoutboxes, and private message boxes.

Not all blogs are suitable for a community, but many are. If it's appropriate, allowing readers to contribute recipes or reviews (books, movies, music, software, hardware) is a way for them to participate, and a motivation for them to return.

A drawback in building a community that is more than just your own blog is that monetization has to be handled carefully. If you are not contributing at least as much content as your readers, but are taking all the ad revenue, you may lose people.

One possibility is to revenue share the advertising. Several blog platforms let you decide on what percentage of pageviews should go to the site owner (and the rest to the author). Some forum plugins allow this as well.

Revenue sharing allows you to reward front-page contributors - who you would typically moderate - to encourage repeat contributions. I've previously checked with the Google AdSense and Chitika eMinimalls team to be sure that this is okay.

Building a community is only one way of producing PR for your blog. When you choose your blog platform, find a solution that works best for you. I personally prefer being able to add plugins as necessary. What I don't like is adding software from several different sources, some of which may not be compatible.

As I've said in a previous post, I've currently focused my attention on Drupal, as it has all the features I need, for several of my blogs and that of clients. These needs outweigh the technical learning curve, and there's a supportive community to answer questions.

Another good community-building blog platform, and which is an easy install as well, is WordPress. It has a smaller learning curve than Drupal, and is recommended for those of you that have less technical webmastering skills, and only need to manage one blog on a single domain at a time. Because of my own complex publishing needs, it's not suitable for me, but it has tons of powerful plugins, and lots of friendly community support.

In part 2 of this series, I'll discuss what to do if you plan to change blog platforms.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, blogging platform, adsense, ad revenue

In the last two posts, I've been talking about finally passing the $100 mark in Google AdSense revenue, as well as some of my blogging goals for this year. What I've noticed since crossing that US$100 barrier is few things:

1. I'm earning more per click on formerly low-paying blogs. Not always, but in general.
2. My recently increased traffic seems to have influenced the per-click payouts as well.
3. My long-term average daily click-through rate is starting to show signs of going exponential.
4. My long-term average daily pageviews is starting to show signs of going exponential.
5. My niche blogs are still paying relatively high per-click rates. This hasn't changed much. I just have to go back to posting, since I took a hiatus on them over the holidays. After muddling about for 6 months, these are the ones that show the most potential. [I don't want to jinx things, so once I show some success with them, I'll blog about them.]

What did I do to increase targeted traffic? Two things:

1. My newest blog launched recently on someone else's subdomain. The main domain has had steady traffic for 3 years, and the topic is very targeted: RSS/ Atom/ web feeds/ content syndication. I don't get paid for my articles, but my copyright line has my main website's URL. As well, the publisher, Rok Hrastnik, let's me use my Google AdSense and Chitika eMinimalls code over there. [Note: I verified with the AdSense and Chitika teams that this was okay.] The steady traffic overflow to my sites has most definitely been beneficial, counteracting the low traffic I get on some of my lesser blogs.
   
2. I wrote the first 2 in a series of articles about blogging and it's business benefits for a high-traffic "free articles" website, ezinearticles.com. In the footer of each article are the URLs for my my main website and this blog. The 2 articles have only been up for a couple of weeks, but I'm guessing that most people who have read my articles on the free site also visit at least one of the two links. (I can't verify this in my web stats because my links aren't "live". Readers have to copy and paste the URL into their browser, so I have no proof that they came from ezinearticles.com. But if readers are coming, the traffic is pretty targeted to the topics I usually write about.)

I'm guessing (and still researching) that my increased traffic, as well as passing the AdSense $100 mark, has played a factor in getting a higher per-click fee for Google ads for this past week. However, there were signs of this happening a few weeks. As usual, as I confirm things, I'll post it here.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, adsense, ad revenue

As I've said several times to other bloggers, I particularly like Google's Blogger.com for its simplicity. But every blog has its own needs, and sometimes you need sophistication in a blog platform.

Over the years, I've evaluated a lot of very high-end (6-figure cost) CMSes (Content Management Systems). Blog platforms are a scaled-down version of the older corporate CMS packages. While there are a lot of rather impressive blog platforms, many of which are free, not one single platform seems to satisfy either my needs, or those of some of my clients.

In particular, at least five of my current projects include setting up not just a regular blog but a resource website that includes an online community: forums, commenting on posts, individual blogs for each user, possibly individual storefronts, shopping carts, etc.

Now, it's true that you can set all of these things up with other blog platforms, but in most cases, you need loads of other supplemental software, from other vendors, to complete the "online community" features.

Based on my evaluation of blogging platforms for the past 8 months, the ones that appear to come closest to Drupal's feature set through modules/ extensions are WordPress, TextPattern, and a few others. But overall, Drupal is the strongest contender for me. (See my 21 Important Blog Platform Features article over at Performancing.com - links below.)

There is a technical learning curve with Drupal, and it's not as easy an install as WordPress's famous 5-minute install. But the rich, mature feature set is well worth the effort. Enlist a techie friend to help if you don't have any technical webmastering experience. There's also an active, supportive community forum, to which you can post questions and usually expect a prompt response.

Note: I have no affiliation with Drupal.
Note: If you read my article "21 Important...", you'll notice that I was a bit disappointed with Drupal's set up and the errors I was getting. I did, however, figure out that the errors were a result of the database tables being new. They were not major errors, and disappeared after I started creating content.

Links: Performancing - 21 Important Blog Platform Features, Drupal, WordPress, TextPattern.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, blogging platform

For those of you that haven't yet selected a blogging platform, you probably know that there are a lot of choices. The feature set to scan through can be kind of daunting. So I've posted a list of common features that my consulting clients need for their blogging, and thrown in a few features of my own. You can see the list and participate in the discussion over at Performancing.com.

Links: Performancing - 21 Important Blog Platform Features.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, blogging platform

Last night, I finally passed the $100 milestone in Google AdSense revenue. In reflecting upon this achievement, I've realized a number of important points in my quest to become a pro blogger - that is, to earn a living as a blogger, but not necessarily just from ad revenue.

First and foremost: Despite my long experience as a webmaster and writer, I'm not a pro blogger yet. But my journey's begun, and an important first milestone has been achieved. My long hours of hard work haven't been a complete waste. However, what's more important is that I've come to realize that as much as I want to, I cannot treat each of my blogs with the same care and attention.

Not only are there not enough hours in the day, if I want to earn a living as a blogger, I have to focus on those blogs that have the most potential. For example, the blog you're reading, while hopefully technically valuable to readers, will likely never earn much in ad revenue, as I've no doubt mentioned several times previously. And yet, in the past, I've spent a great deal of time researching and writing for this blog, while neglecting others that have potential.

That said, I still plan to post here, but the schedule has to change. I'll only be posting 3-4 days/wk, but I may post 1-3 entries on a given day. This is mostly because I'm achieving some level of success in blogging via another route: helping others set up and maintain blogs and online communities. As well, I have nearly 20 e-books and e-reports in the pipeline that I am collaborating on, as well as writing for two blogs and not owned by me. I'm using blogging as a means of promoting my services as both a writer and a webmaster. And on this front at least, I seem to be succeeding.

What's the next milestone for me? Hitting the $100/month mark, in tandem with 3,000 visitors/day by the end of 2006, across all of my blogs. I have a much clearer plan for promotion, after 6 months of making loads of mistakes, and I'll be outlining this plan here as I'm able to. My point is, patience does pay off, but you have to be proactive and promote your work - and most of all, focus.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogger, multi blogs, adsense, ad revenue

Depth of Visit is a metric that gives you an idea of how many people are viewing how many pages on your blog or website. Once again, I am using Google Analytics as an example.

The example below shows you the Depth of Visit graph for my hubsite, for nearly 2 months of data.

As you can see in the graph, the vast majority of visitors (253) only viewed one web page during their visit. The curve declines in typical "long tail" fashion, with only one visitor viewing 20 or more pages in a single session. Note: As I understand it, Google Analytics filters out search engines and other bots. I've also factored out my own visits, so there appears to be a few people who have done a fairly comprehensive viewing of my hubsite.

The value of the Depth of Visit graph is difficult to gauge, and as with the Length of Visit graph, depends upon your own goals. For example, if you've put a lot of effort writing many pages of information about a topic, you'll likely want all visitors, ideally speaking, to visit every page.

I'm hazarding a guess, though, that more than 3 pages in a single session is a lot for most people, unless they are doing research. The reality is that with attention spans being what they are, most people won't visit an entire website all at once. However, they may come back at some later date to view the remaining web pages.

So a metric like Depth of Visit has to be paired with a more thorough analysis of each visitor over time. Tracking every unique page each visitor has viewed is a more valuable metric, but requires a fairly thorough analysis that only specialized web analytics packages offer. However, if you are getting a lot of search engine traffic, with little in the way of visitor loyalty, then either your visitors are finding what they want on the page they landed on, or they didn't find what they wanted and left unsatisfied. (Unless you set up a community around your blog, including forums and comments, it'll be hard to gauge whether your readers are really finding what they want.)

I typically write my own database reporting for such complex metrics. In fact, such reports require complex logic that requires a combination of database reporting and programming. For those interested in such metrics reporting, I'll cover some of this over on the WebGuru multi-blog, which is currently under construction.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, web metrics, web analytics

One of the aspects of keep your blogs healthy is analyzing your web traffic. Just as important as knowing how many people are visiting your blog is knowing how long they are staying. Are they just passing by, or staying on and reading more than one page?

Google Analytics has a report under All Reports/ Content Optimization/ Content Performance called "Length of Visit". This report is an extremely valuable measure of the health of your blog. It's worth taking snapshots of this graph over time. But the value of this graph is defined by your own goals. Are you looking for tons of transient traffic, or a solid group of loyal readers? Or both?

Regardless of your traffic goal, your "length of visit" graph will be a great indicator of how close to that goal you are. Keep in mind that for a new blog without a lot of traffic, the majority of your visitors will probably only stick around for 30 seconds or less. So the majority of your visitors will be at the left of your graph. (The example below only shows just over a week of data during the Xmas season, so it's not a true indicator of the blog, but it gives you an idea.)


Over time, your graph should flesh out as visitors stay longer and read more than one page. Some ways of promoting such behaviour is making a good impression, writing catchy but non-cryptic headlines, informative content, and balancing longer entries with shorter ones.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, web metrics, web analytics

Over on Performancing, Chris Garrett has a thread about various types of blog payment strategies. If you are planning to manage one or more blogs in which you have other writers, you should read his article (links below). I'm also trying a number of different payment strategies for different blogs:

1. With one blog, I've actually been asked to write for someone else. The domain owner has set up a subdomain for me (although he may at times write there). Because he cannot pay me, he's letting me run my own Google Adsense (contextual) and Chitika eMiniMalls (non-contextual) publisher's codes. He does not currently run ads on his own blogs, other than for sales of his ebook. However, I've checked with both the AdSense and Chitika teams about the validity of this. They've both said it's fine. As well, the domain owner can also run his own ad codes simultaneously with mine at a later date, should he want to do so. For now, I am getting 100% of ad revenue from my blog. The owner will get any sales of his ebook. He has also asked me to collaborate on future ebooks, on which we'll split profit accordingly.
2. Another model I'm trying is a 50/50 split, with two different people.
• My father and I are collaborating on a topic that has longed interested him - since before he retired from mathematics - and with which he has some experience. So he's doing the heavy research for books he's writing, and I'm the editor and blogmaster. I'm also using Google Alerts to keep up and write news and summaries. My father has no idea how to blog, per se, and simply wants to write.
• I'm also trying something similar with a friend who has experience on yet another topic. However, with him, I am taking a lower cut, unless I have time to contribute articles. He's a high-paid consultant in a field that I do have experience in, but not so much as him. So at first, I'll simply edit and blogmaster. I'm trying to get him to write ebooks, which I would "publish" on my hubsite and take a small cut for.
• Now I know these are unique situations and won't work for everyone. But consider it for people you know well and can work with. I've always been the type to encourage people to write. If you know someone with experience and/or knowledge of a subject who doesn't know the first thing about blogging but does know how to at least write rough notes, consider partnering with them.You'll have to ask yourself whether or not they'll mind your editing. Everyone I've worked with, or will, knows I'm a long-time writer and editor and has no problem with my editing. On the other hand, another friend wanted no part of a partnership because he didn't think he could write. In hindsight I realize that he also would not have been happy with my editing his work.
3. With my math website (which also houses my technical/ webmastering blog sub-domains), I am trying a still different approach. I know someone who has a PhD in math who does a lot of one-on-one, in-person tutoring. I'm trying to set up online tutoring for him. I've set the hourly rate, but he'll get 100% of it. In return, I've asked him to occasionally monitor the forums I'll set up, as well to either contribute the occasional math blog entry, or help me with a curriculum for at least high school students. (I was doing prep for an MSc in math, so I'll be doing that curriculum.) I've also had another math tutor offer to write blog entries, but I've yet to decide how to compensate her if I take her up on her offer.

There are, of course, many different options for paying writers of your blogs. However, despite my desire to be generous and to profit share, most writers like it simple: a set amount for each post that they do. Read Chris Garrett's article for some excellent ideas.

Links: Performancing, Chris Garrett - Blog Network Payment Strategies.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/

Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, ad revenue, blog revenue, blog networks, blog payment, writing