Owning a Blog | Chris Bell

Owning a Blog that generates income is hard work that can only be achieved with determination, knowledge and the perfect amount of optimization that doesn't get you banned from search engines. Search engine optimization and marketing was created by the search engines themselves to deliver better results to their customers. Start with a domain name and hosting. Paying for monthly hosting is like paying taxes on a plot of land, you need it for your domain.

Keywords

Let your page flow by focusing on the title throughout your post. Don't listen to articles that tell you to pack your posts with keywords. Google is searching for titles, once the titles are clicked 1000 times, Google picks the top ten pages that were visited the longest, and those in which multiple pages were viewed. Think about visitors staying on your website rather than which keywords to use.

If you're website is about Aruba vacations you won't have to specifically hand pick the keywords in your blog posts to show Google that you want to rank for Aruba vacation phrases. Likewise, a local hardware store will already incorporate enough "hardware" phrases into their posts. Take pictures of jobs and discuss how you completed each. Show your potential customers that you do the right job every time and more will call for an appointment. Post a link to your BBB profile and Angie's List. If you're not a member then join.

Business

If you want to own a blog as a business you'll need to invest the time. My father opened his own business when I was 5 years old and he still owns it today. It didn't come easy, he put in long hard hours before he had the money to hire staff and conduct more business than he can handle himself. Owning a blog isn't much different. You'll need to put in long hard hours of continuous updates, posts and edits. Your posts need to be intriguing for readers to buy your products or continue reading additional pages of your website.

Take a look at www.CJ.com to incorporate advertisements on your blog posts. For instance, if you discuss home audio equipment but you're not equipped to sell the products, you could list CJ, Commission Junction, advertisements that show companies that are equipped to sell them. They allow merchants to create ads that offer website owners a percentage of each sale. As you promote home audio equipment, you'll list a few ads that send your visitors to the home audio website. If they purchase something, you'll get commission. This is an example of a CJ advertisement for Domains names. I don't sell them myself, but if you click the advertisement and buy something, I'll get a commission.

Think about how YouTube provides only 10 videos when you search. First, they probably search the database for the closest title and pool them all together. Then they select the top ten with the highest amount of "likes." If that's not how it's done, it sounds like a good idea to me. Think about your blog in this manner where you reel people in to make them spend time on your website. Viewing a second page is basically a "like" that you receive for the next time someone searches the same query. A video with 98% likes should show up before a video with 65% likes.

Showing up the first time is about your title and keywords, showing up the second time is based on the quality of your content. You shouldn't have to spend all of your time writing 500 articles per month. Instead, spend your time doing research that writes 50 high quality articles filled with facts, solid sources that backup your statements, and an interesting point of view. No one wants to read 50 articles in a row on a website that just bought an online package of 50 articles written in broken English (SPAM friendly) for only $5 each. Please.

Written by: Chris Bell
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