I found the following article comparing blogging to feeding a family. The author compared writing articles to cooking the meal and the tedious promotional work to cleaning up after the meal. 

Aren’t you glad our software keeps us from having to do all of the tedious stuff?!?!? 

I’m new to blogging, and it occurs to me that it’s kinda like having to cook a meal for your family every day. You’ve pretty much got to do it everyday. It’s got to be something different or people get bored. With a blog, just like a meal, you’ve got to assemble all the ingredients up front; a topic, some facts, then double checking the facts, some images, and some links. Then you can get down to work, and start cooking up all these parts; getting the text, links, tags and keywords all squared away.

But maybe you have an accident. In a kitchen you might knock a pot of food off a table. And that analogy corresponds to something I’ve done with the blog; I might start an article and leave the window to my Wordpress post open. Then hours later come back, and maybe I’ve cleared my cookies, so when I go to the post to “Save” I get a prompt to “login” instead. LOOSING my article! So yeah, sometimes I have to skip a day. If you’re sticking with our meal analogy then in this case we’ll say “the family can get take-out tonight.” And you can take that time away with your blog too. But, sooner rather than later, you gotta get back to it!

But when you finally get the meal out to the family, or the blog all written and published, well its not over yet. With a meal you’d still have the dishes and kitchen clean up to face (possibly followed by taking out the garbage). Basically, the crappy part. And with the blog, after you publish a post you’ve got some crap work ahead of you too. First you’ve got to get out there and PING. So it’s off to Feedburner and/or Digg, Technorati and whichever else you think will generate some visitors and RSS subscribers. Then it’s off to bend and stretch some ongoing topic so you can make acceptably relevant comments on OTHER people’s blogs. And just like watching to see if the family looks full and content after they’ve eaten, I go out and start reading my stats to see how effective my work has been.

And then there’s tomorrow. What’s on the menu now?

David T Rosenthal. Chicago native, lived in New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Graduated Columbia University. Did film/tv acting. Studied Bujinkan Taijutsu. Comic book and movie fan. Renovating my home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Rosenthal
http://EzineArticles.com/?Having-a-Blog-is-Like-Having-to-Feed-a-Hungry-Family-Every-Day&id=791894

Begin blogging to your success today.  Let the www.connectingwithwomen.com system do the hard work for you.  Learn more

Seven Ways to Monetize Your Blog
By Ryan Lewis

At some point in your blogging career, you may decide to make the leap from a free reader service to a revenue generating venture. Using the following seven methods, you will be able to start making money online quickly and continually for the life of your blog.

Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)
This is probably the easiest way to increase your initial income from blogging. Showing Pay Per Click (PPC) ads means that you have signed up for any one of a number of different programs available. By adding a small piece of code to your website, small text or image ads will be displayed. Each time a visitor clicks on one of these ads, you make money.

PayPal Donate Buttons
Whether it be a Buy me a [Fill in your choice of beverage or item] here or just a button on your site that says Donate Here these can be useful little tools as traffic grows. People who read blogs and enjoy the stories or information that are posted get a sense of belonging to the writer. Some blogs make upwards of $200 per month from public donations.

Review for Fee
A recent phenomenon in blogging is in paid reviews of other people’s websites or blogs. Once your readership gets large enough you will be able to command hundreds of dollars to read, analyze and review other websites. Search around the web for review re-sellers or even set up an advertisement link through your own site and use Paypal.

Sell Your Own Banner Ads
One of the oldest forms of advertising on the web can still net you some money each month. You can privately sell advertising on your website to any company looking to attract viewers. Try pricing it out weekly, monthly or quarterly to see what works for your site. The price you can obtain will depend on your site traffic.

Affiliate Programs
Another traditional method of business is still working on the web. An affiliate program is based on a commission for referral payment method. A company will show their product or link on your site and when a person clicks through and buys, you receive a commission. Affiliate programs are offered by hundreds of companies including some very large international retailers. Simply find the product you want to sell and look for a link that says Become an Affiliate.

Text Link Ads
This form of advertising pays you to show links on your site. Depending on your daily traffic volume, you will be paid to show links from other websites. This differs from the PPC advertisement because you are paid a fixed amount for a defined period, rather than per click. This advertising is very similar than banner advertising; however, it is less intrusive.

Write and Sell Your Own eBook
Writing an ebook on your chosen topic is a great way to make money from your site. First, you will receive the money from the sale of the book. Second, you will have links within the book that redirect people back to your site, and third, if the quality is good you will gain popularity and respect in the market. Try using your historical posts as a basis for your eBook or research the best practices on the market and create something new.

Final Thoughts
The money you make from a blog will come from increasing your readership and increasing the number of first-time visitors to your site. First time visitors will generally be the ones that will read your information, subscribe to your RSS feed and potentially click through your PPC ads. Regular visitors are the ones who will help you sell banner ads, affiliate products, text link ads and purchase your ebooks.

One other thing to remember when monetizing your blog is to keep a focus on the content - not the ads. If your blog has more advertising than content, your readers will receive very little value from the site and will not return.

Did you find these tips on monetizing your blog helpful? You can learn more about making money online by visiting http://www.lewisempire.com You can also receive regular posting updates and leave comments about current topics with the RSS feed.

For more information about Real Estate Investing, please visit Real Estate Start to Finish.com

Lewis is an Author and Real Estate expert with years of experience, research and training in Real Estate Investing, Wealth Creation and Goal Setting. Dynamic, intelligent and exciting, Lewis holds a bachelor of commerce degree and years of experience in Consultative Sales, Web Development, Internet Marketing and Business Start-ups.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ryan_Lewis
http://EzineArticles.com/?Seven-Ways-to-Monetize-Your-Blog&id=666938

Generating Massive Traffic Using Your Blogs Part II
By Sean R Mize

If you can build numerous links to and from your site, you can now have guaranteed web traffic as a result of reciprocal links sharing. Search engine ranking is also based mainly on the number of useful inbound links to your site. If search engine spiders could detect your site with a lot of useful links, it can give your site a higher page rank.

A high page ranking in search engine will mean your site can be displayed on the first pages of search results. You can have maximum exposure and the number of hits to your site could increase dramatically. The more hits you get will only mean increasing number of web traffic.

You can also syndicate your blog and make it available through live feeds. RSS feeds can complement your blogging in increasing the number of subscribers to your blog. As you regularly update the content of your blog, subscribers can instantly get your updates because content is delivered directly to their computers.

You should also join networking sites and offer the content of your blog to these social networks. You can also do your blogging directly from those sites and redirect readers to your business pages. The numbers of highly targeted traffic you can generate from these sites are immense.

Here is a twist. You can also post your best blog content to the top bookmarking sites. People in these sites often recommend to their friends and fellow bloggers links that they find useful. You can amplify your traffic through these sites. And the number of links to your site can double if you can satisfy the information needs of people.

And most important of all, always provide original and quality content. Other bloggers and web users will not bother to post comments and share their links to your blog if your content is poorly written, untimely, and have no use at all. The usefulness and quality of your content will determine the success of your blog. And if you can do all of these properly, you can be assured that massive and high quality traffic is on your way.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to traffic building success, ‘Secrets of Traffic Building’

Download it free here: Traffic Building Secrets

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_R_Mize
http://EzineArticles.com/?Generating-Massive-Traffic-Using-Your-Blogs-Part-II&id=808946

Yes, you have Blog i360 technology promoting your blog. You have the Connecting With Women Community members helping you out too. That doesn’t mean that you can write an article or two for your blog and forget it. There is more work to be done if you want oodles of traffic.

Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime

How to get traffic for your blog, By Seth GodinFinally, from our very own Scott Allen, “How I Made the Blog A-List (And You Can Too)“

Even if you are blogging on the topic of friendly cows, you can find perfect FREE photos online to use in your blog. My favorite place for photos is stock.xchng. You can register to use their vast collection of photographs by going to http://www.sxc.hu/signup.

One word of caution: The free photo websites that I have come across often contain suggestive and pornographic materials. Stock.xchng also has some of these types of photos that have been submitted to their site. You can usually avoid this problem by being careful about the searches you do. For instance, typing in the word “toaster” will generally be less problematic then typing in the word “women”.

If anyone knows of any more family friendly free photo sites, please let us know.

On long road trips, we keep our eyes pealed for a nice looking gas station that is close to the highway. The station doesn’t need to do any special advertising to get our business. Their prime location is what will get us to their pumps.

For brick and mortar retail establishments, often the key to success is “location, location, location”. For success on the worldwide web, the key is “information, information, information.”

Because your friends and family know and trust you, making a purchase from you isn’t a scary proposition. Outside your circle of friends, the selling climate changes dramatically.

Preselling is about establishing yourself as an expert and letting the potential customer get to know you. This is crucial to gaining their trust and getting them to buy from you. An easy way to do this is by blogging, participating in online social groups, or article marketing.

You should make your articles work for you more than once. When you write an article for your blog, also post that same article on http://www.ezinearticles.com. You must first register with ezinearticles.com and then your article needs to be approved, which can take a few days. However, the extra exposure and links back to your site make it worth the two or three minutes spent posting your articles there.

Your mentor can help you decide what to include in the “author’s bio” section of your ezinearticles.com articles.

To register with ezinearticles.com, visit http://www.ezinearticles.com/submit/.

Experts agree that niche marketing is the best way for the little guy with the little budget to make it big online. Niche marketing means that you choose a specific area to market. For instance, instead of marketing antiques, you market antique toys or even more specifically, antique toy soldiers. If there is enough interest you could even choose antique toy soldiers made by a certain company - even during a specific era.

You may think that marketing to a smaller audience will limit your sales, but actually, the exact opposite is true. This is because niche marketing makes it easier for potential customers to find you. (We will talk more about that later.)

When choosing your niche market, you should consider your hobbies and expertise as well as product popularity.Do you love golf? Consider focusing on golf clubs and supplies.

Are you a scrap-booking junkie? Think about making money while enjoying your passion.

Are you a vegetarian who loves to try new recipes? Why not focus on vegetarian cookbooks?

Also think about the ways that you can combine your current business or day job with your online business.

Your mentor will help you to understand how much competition you have compared to how many daily Google searches are being done on your chosen topic. This will also be a major factor in your choice of blog topics.

An example of a widget is on the top of this page and to your right. The scrolling text is a widget. Under the scroll is a link for you to get a widget just like it, which you can easily program with any phrase that you would like.

Widgets can display just about anything - the weather, time, sports scores, stock reports, pictures, videos, web cam feeds, other blogs and websites, and more. Widgets are also used to add sound and downloads to blogs.

At the very least, you will be using widgets to display items to sell and photos on your blog. Your mentor will be helping you to add widgets to your blog. In the mean time, visit http://www.widgetbox.com. Browse around the widget gallery. You can get some great ideas and inspiration for your blog there. Book mark your favorite widgets to share with your mentor.

Some widgets that you may want to consider include: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/photoshow,
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/ebay-pictures, http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/vflyer-mini, and http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/skype.

Have fun exploring!

I have had some business blogging success in the past. I blogged the way the “pros” say to blog. My blog pointed to my autoimmune information site. The purpose of the blog was to establish my credibility as an expert on autoimmune disease, direct traffic to my primary website, and then ultimately make book sales from that site. It worked. People were convinced. Traffic flowed. Books were sold. Glowing testimonials from happy customers followed. (You get the point.)

Following the same format and style, I started another blog for homeschoolers. (This blog focuses on combining homeschooling and a home business under one roof.) While commenting on other homeschoolers’ blogs to increase traffic to mine, I realized that my blogging style needed to change.

I was accustomed to writing and posting non-personal, informational articles. Appropriately so, there were no pictures of my children, garden, or latest craft project on my autoimmune information blog. This blogging style was perfect for sick individuals looking for someone to trust, but not for homeschoolers.

What I discovered while visiting popular homeschoolers’ blogs were posts that were long, essay-like, and highly personal.

I also found lots of pictures of kids, family projects, and apron patterns. Yes, apron patterns. (It was as if I had entered some kind of online apron fashion show.)

Although I don’t sew aprons, I can certainly stitch in more family pictures and make my blog a stronger blend of personal posts and professional advice. The lesson for this homeschooling entrepreneur – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!