ADVICE: some1s crap advice on how to

BLOGGING info / how to 2

Pro bloggers such as Pat Flynn, Neil Patel, Darren Rowse, Melyssa Griffin, and many others make a fortune from their blogs (we’re talking about 6 figures A MONTH here). But they’re not the only ones making money blogging. Thousands of bloggers are generating an income from their blogs. Sure, it may vary from extra pocket money, to side-hustle earnings, to full-time income, to significant wealth, but the bottom line is if you’re not making money with your blog you’re leaving money on the table.
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How to start your own blog and make money.
  • WordPress.org and WordPress.com,
  • WordPress.org
  • the only way to FULLY monetize your blog is going self-hosted WordPress
Siteground or Bluehost best value for money.
tutorial, I recommend Siteground
Get a logo
Canva get a professional graphic designer make it for you on Fiverr.
The fees for this kind of service on Fiverr are pretty affordable.
A favicon is that little icon (usually your blog logo or part of it) that appears next to the page title in a browser tab.
Customize your website
familiarizing yourself with your WordPress dashboard.
Next, in your dashboard start customizing your theme.
don’t recommend installing a free theme on your blog.
don’t recommend using them for these reasons:
  • They’re not fully customizable.
  • All WordPress users have access to the same themes so your website will end up looking exactly the same as thousands of others.
  • They are limited in the features they offer.
  • Many are poorly coded and have not been updated in ages.
  • Many are not mobile responsive.
  • For most, you won’t have access to any kind of support.

premium theme StudioPress.
The way StudioPress works is that you get the Genesis framework (which is also called parent) and then you pick a child theme to go with it.
On my blog, I use the Genesis framework together with the Glam Pro theme.
Genesis framework because it’s light, mobile responsive, widely used, fully customizable, compatible with any plugins and it’s the best for SEO.
Genesis framework, StudioPress website offers a live demo of each theme.  
see a screenshot of the home page like on any other theme website can actually navigate many sample pages and posts to see how everything would look live!
Divi comes with a drag and drop builder so it’s good if you don’t want to see a line of code ever.
Keep in mind though that its builder makes snippets that will slow your website and make it hard for you to migrate your content or switch to another theme down the line.
Once you picked your theme, start customizing your blog.
Pick 2-4 colors and 2-3 fonts, and use only those across your blog.
Write the code of the colors and the name of the fonts down.
You will use them again later on your social media and graphics to keep the branding consistent across all platforms and every aspect of your blog.
Stick to these same colors and fonts on all pages of your website and all your social media platforms (unless you decide to rebrand).
Spend some time customizing your theme. tutorial.





Hi David
Welcome to lesson no. 3.
Today we will talk about how to make great blog posts that will bring consistent traffic to your blog.
You cannot make money when your blog doesn’t have any dedicated readership.
You need a loyal audience that would keep returning to your blog and would keep checking out your new content.
To be able to make significant money blogging, the audience cannot be limited to a few dozen people and it cannot be sporadic.
Your blog must be popular and obviously, it would have its target audience.
You don’t need all those readers to become subscribers or commentators.
As long as they follow your blog and repeatedly visit it, the blog can be monetized.
An unpopular blog or one that doesn’t have a substantial readership can have ads or affiliate links but the monetization will not generate any revenue. 
In order to attract enough traffic to see any real results, you have to come up with a long-term plan that will not only bring in traffic but also ensure that it’s a consistent and continuous flow of targeted visitors.
The trick to gain and maintain high traffic is to offer value and great content in the first place.
Nothing is more important than compelling content.
Remember the reason why you are blogging and why someone should read your blog. This alone should lead you to the type of content you should be working on.
Do not just replicate what is already out there.
Look for what’s trending and popular and then focus on originality and make your post on the subject better than all the other ones in your niche.
Use your own voice.
Your personality is your best weapon to make any content unique.
But remember that as discussed in lesson 1, people read blogs to learn new skills, get better at something or get some specific information.
So, when writing a post, keep in mind the readers you’re writing for and what can be in for them.
Figure out what they might be struggling with and try to come up with a solution or show a way to solve a problem.
Try to be personable and relatable, but keep the main focus on your audience, their needs and how you can help them overcome a problem or offer them any value.
Write posts that resonate with them, solve their problems, offer value and they will come back for more.
Now that we have established that when it comes to having a successful and profitable blog, high quality and relevant content is everything, let’s start writing some killer blog posts!

Assignment

Brainstorm ideas for your first blog posts

If you want your blog to be popular and profitable you have to plan ahead and a great place to start is by setting up a blog calendar or schedule for writing and posting to your blog.

This will help keep you on track as you write and help eliminate distractions.

As you create your schedule, make sure that it is conducive to your personal routines and preferences. Otherwise, it will be too hard to follow.

For instance, if you prefer writing early in the morning make sure your schedule reflects that. The idea is to choose a time when you are most likely to be creative.

Internet marketers reckon that for a website to be considered complete it needs to have around 20 blog posts.

So, many recommend publishing at least 15 posts before launching your blog.

I don’t entirely agree with this strategy.

Part of what makes blogging fun and enjoyable is seeing people reading your posts, commenting on them and sharing your content with others.

If you have to write 15 posts before having any interactions with your readers or other bloggers, it may become a lonely experience and you may lose interest before even starting.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with launching your blog with just 3 posts.

You can do that as long as you keep in mind that for obvious reason it won’t receive much traffic at the beginning.

But as long as you keep that in mind and commit to publishing more content as soon as you can and then keep posting on a regular basis after inception, you will be alright.

Of course, the more the better so if you like writing and you are a fast writer, publish as many posts as possible before launching, then commit to a regular schedule.

But don’t sacrifice quality over quantity.

Remember that the aim is to publish fresh, high quality, and relevant content.

The trick is to make it captivating enough so that your visitors want to keep reading and coming back for more.

When you are creating content, it’s important to focus on writing headlines that grab the attention of your visitors so they want to know more and then follow it up with quality content that delivers exactly what the headline promised.

Also, make sure that the content is easy to read and up to date.

This will help keep your visitors engaged and also have SEO (search engine optimization) benefits.

As you are creating your content it is a good idea to think about the keywords and phrases you want to target and weave them into your headlines and content where appropriate.

We will see all these technicalities more in detail in tomorrow’s lesson.

For now, let’s focus on brainstorming ideas and outlining some first blog posts.

We will then look into optimizing them for search engines tomorrow.

In order to outline your first blog posts, get rid of any possible distractions so log out Twitter and Facebook, put your phone on silent, shut down your email, close Skype and any other interruptive applications before you start.

Only open the tabs you will be using for your research and close all the others.

You need to be focused when writing to avoid wasting your time and to allow your creative juices to flow.

Before starting writing, take some time and gather all the information and essentials you’ll need. Whether it’s a glass of water, a cup of coffee or your favorite snack get it before you sit down.

It’s also a good idea to conduct any research necessary to get the job done that way you can write without stopping to look something up or to check on certain facts.

At the same time, don’t forget to take regular breaks, go for a walk or do some exercise. You may want to check out the Pomodoro technique to see if it’s suitable to your writing routine.

Start with an outline.

Just like an article, a good blog post should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

If you take the time to write down the main points of your post, before you begin writing, you will be able to complete the task much faster by simply filling in the details.

You should also break your post up into readable chunks by incorporating an attractive heading and subheadings. 

Once you are done writing your blog post, turn on the spell checker and go through your work correcting all the grammar and spelling mistakes.

Read the post and edit it as necessary to ensure that the ideas flow and that the blog post is flawless.

If you’re not a native speaker or grammar is not your strong suit, you may want to consider having a professional proofreader go over your posts.

This is a good idea at least for the first ones until you get the hang of it.

You can find professional proofreading services on Fiverr for as low as $5.

By using these simple tricks not only will you be able to write faster it will help ensure you are able to stick to your schedule.

Remember that it’s important to write consistently. For a new blog, a good schedule is one new post per week.


Actionable tips for the perfect blog post

Create a catchy headline.

There are specific formulas to create the perfect headline to make your content more appealing and entice people to click and read.

E.g. 11 growth hacks to triple your traffic in 30 days works better than traffic tips for your blog.

Come up with a few ideas for the title of your post and then use the free headline analyzer from Coschedule to check their score. Tweak the potential titles according to the suggestions from the analyzer, then pick the headline with the highest score.


Use subheadings (and make them catchy too).

Add 1 featured image (horizontal or squared) and 1 pinnable image (vertical, ideal size 735x1102) to all your posts.

Add other images, videos or infographics throughout your posts whenever possible.

You can download high-quality royalty-free stock images from websites like Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash. You can then edit, crop, and resize them, and add text to them on Canva.

Compress your images before uploading them to avoid affecting the speed of your website.

No one wants to stare at a blank page while your website is loading so if your website is not fast enough, you will lose visitors.

Loading time is one of the factors for Google ranking so it’s important that you keep your website as fast as it can be. Keep your images as small as possible and try to avoid uploading anything bigger than 500KB. You can compress your images on TinyJPG for free.

Add share buttons to all your posts. Place them at the top and at the bottom of your blog posts or use a sticky floating bar (the buttons will remain on screen while scrolling the post).

This is really important because people don’t like scrolling up and down to locate the share buttons and you want to make it easy for them to share your content.

Remember the more your content is shared, the more traffic will be driven to your blog, the higher your income will be.

Include at least the following share buttons Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and StumbleUpon (only available for blogs on self-hosted WordPress or other paid platforms). This will be important to participate in promo threads on Facebook Groups (if you don’t know what they are, don’t worry, we will talk about it in tomorrow’s lesson).

Make sure your share buttons are big and visible. Don’t rely on the share buttons that come with your theme. If they’re too small, add a sharing plugin.

Add a comment section where people can leave comments/replies to your posts.

Add a call to action to all your posts. In the last paragraph, tell your readers what you would like them to do, e.g. leave a comment or share or ping your post.

Add a sign-up form for your readers to subscribe or join your newsletter -  or (even better) a content upgrade in the form of a related freebie/opt-in/lead magnet at the bottom of all your posts and/or within your posts. If you don’t know what a content upgrade/freebie/opt-in/lead magnet are, don’t worry. We will talk about them in lesson 5.

Add links to other content of your website within your post and use a plugin to add related blog posts at the end of your posts.

Once a visitor lands on your website, you want to keep them there for as long as possible.

So, providing them with the option to click on further content is a good idea.

Bounce rate tracks whether visitors bounce back after landing on your website or remain and click through other pages.

Google ranking takes into account your bounce rate so it’s important that you try to keep it low by providing related or popular content to your visitors.

You can check your bounce rate in Google Analytics. Don’t get scared if it seems high. It’s quite common for blogs to have a high bounce rate. A normal bounce rate for blogs ranges between 70% and 90%.

Another important factor that will affect your likelihood to rank higher on Google is optimizing your blog posts for search engines by using keywords and other on-page and off-page SEO techniques.

As mentioned earlier, we will go through this in tomorrow’s lesson so don’t worry about it for now.

Finally, the ideal length of a blog post for a social media audience is 700-1200, to rank high in Google 2000+, for cornerstone content/first page of Google 4000+. But please keep in mind that these figures serve as indicative guidelines only.

Action step

Install a plugin for your share buttons so that they’re big and visible.

Popular free plugins are Share This, Shareaholic, and SumoMe.

I have used SumoMe in the past and don’t recommend it. It slows your website down. You can customize your buttons but you can’t get rid of the SumoMe branding (their logo, a big crown, will show in your share bar).

I have also used Shareaholic in the past. It does slow your website down but you can you can fully customize your buttons without their branding showing.

I currently use a premium plugin for my blog: Social Warfare. What I like about it is that in addition to providing you with fully customizable social share buttons and floating bar, Social Warfare allows you to decide exactly which image, title, and description would appear when your post is shared on Facebook or Google+ and lets you pre-write a custom tweet when your post is shared on Twitter.

Social Warfare also lets you upload a custom Pinterest image together with a custom description so that when someone clicks on the pin button, the exact image (and only that image) and description will show up.

Lastly, it doesn’t slow your website down because it updates every few hours and not every time a page loads like Shareaholic and SumoMe.

Social Warfare has a free version but the one I use that comes with the above features is a premium version.

But the premium version only costs $29 a year so I think this minimal investment is well worth it.

Once you have installed the plugin, add the share bar at the top and bottom of your posts and/or add a sticky floating bar. Customize the buttons in line with your branding. 

That’s it for today's lesson David. In your next lesson, we will be talking about the best strategies to grow your blog and boost your traffic.

Happy writing and see you tomorrow!

Lucrezia

*Some links in this course may be affiliate links




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Make a pin for your freebie and pin it on Pinterest.

 Since I created a quiz via Interact, my subscribers have skyrocketed! 


the answer is always un a different place to where u were looking .... but if u werent looking u wouldnt have stumbled on in anyway
So, if you have the budget, by all means, sign up for ConvertKit because it’s the best on the market for bloggers.
  Mailerlite is an awesome FREE alternative.  What I like about Mailerlite is that is very easy to use through a drag and drop email builder.

It’s FREE up to 1000 subscribers and the free version comes with all the premium features including
  • Double opt-in ON/OFF switch
  • Automated email sequences
  • Time zone based email scheduling
  • Opt-in forms for your posts and social media
  • Pop up forms
  • Landing pages and customized unsubscribe pages
  • High opening rate
  • Easy importing feature for email list from previous email marketing service
  • 24/7 support
  • Segmenting features
Mailerilite is totally FREE up to 1000 subscribers, and if you use my link to sign up you will receive a $20 credit for when you will upgrade. Another popular choice is MailChimp  


  • Google Adsense
  • Medianet
  • Monumetric
  • Chitika
  • Infolinks
  • PropellerAds

  • Mediavine (minimum 25K sessions in the last 30 days)
  • AdThrive (minimum 100K page views in the last 30 days)
Before applying for an ad network, make sure you have enough content on your blog (at least 3 long posts) or your application may get rejected.

Affiliate marketing  Affiliate marketing is a process where you earn a commission by promoting other people’s or companies’ products and services if the sale is generated through your link or promotional efforts.
Basically, there are three parties involved in the process: a merchant/company providing products or services, a customer buying these products or services, and an affiliate, that is the “middle man” promoting these products or services to potential customers and earning a commission on any sales generated through their promotion. Sometimes, the affiliate may even earn a commission per lead or click. 
This is the easiest way for new bloggers to generate an income and so I recommend adding affiliate links to your blog posts from the begging. You may not see conversions straight away but it will save the time to go back and edit/change/upgrade your old content to include affiliate links when you’re more established and you have more traffic.
There are many affiliate programs and networks you could apply for. Before applying, make sure you have some content on your blog or your application may be rejected.
Most bloggers start with Amazon Associates. That’s not only because Amazon is one of the most popular and trusted brands but also because they have so many products that it would be impossible not to find something relevant to your niche to promote.




  • It gives you access to thousands of merchants
  • It’s popular and has a great reputation
  • It’s FREE to join
  • The process to get accepted as an affiliate is very easy and straightforward
  • The payout threshold is only $50 (compared to $100 of most affiliate programs out there including Amazon)
  • They pay on time
  • You can get paid directly to your bank account via a direct deposit or to your PayPal account
  • It doesn’t require minimum traffic
  • The earnings from different merchants are consolidated in only one account, instead of having money sitting in different accounts waiting to reach the payout threshold.

Unlike any other affiliate network, you don’t need to apply for each affiliate program individually. Once you join Skimlinks, you automatically become an affiliate for over 20,000 merchants, including Amazon and e-bay, but all your earnings will be consolidated in your Skimlinks account.
Unlike any other affiliate network, you don’t need to use specific affiliate links but Skimlinks will make regular links your affiliate links.
Other great features include:
  • It’s FREE to join
  • The payout threshold is only $10 (yes, that’s right, ONLY 10 DOLLARS)
  • Long-lasting cookies
  • Commission on the whole shopping cart, not the single item linked
  • You can get paid directly to your bank account via a direct deposit or to your PayPal account
Downsides
  • Your traffic needs to mostly come from the US, UK or Australia
  • Skimilinks does get a commission on your earnings but due to a volume of their sales, they were able to negotiate with their merchants a way higher commission than what you would get if you flew solo so the fact that they retain a commission doesn’t really affect your earnings.

With over 6,000 merchants covering every niche, this is another great affiliate program to join. The only catch is that they require a $5 admission fee but you will get it back with your first payout.

Ultimate Bundles are collections of online resources sold at the whopping discount of 90-98% OFF the original price. Some bundles are open for sale for a limited amount of time (usually 5 days) while others are evergreen and are available all year around.
Here are a few reasons why I love it:
  • Their affiliate program is FREE to join
  • A generous commission of 40% for every sale you refer
  • As an affiliate, you get access to a further 40% discount on the bundles’ price
  • The bundles are absolutely awesome, they’re affordable, they’re basically a bargain and they sell like hot cakes
  • There are bundles for many different niches so you would definitely find some that are interesting and valuable to your readers and yourself
  • When you join the affiliate program, you also get FREE marketing training from the insightful and resourceful Ultimate Bundles Team.

Always remember to disclose that it’s an affiliate link, have an affiliate disclosure in your blog posts if it contains affiliate links, in your social media posts and a full disclosure on a dedicated page on your blog. Always make your affiliate links no follow.
Affiliate marketing is an easy and effective way to make money blogging. However, it’s not as easy as placing an affiliate link in your blog post and hope for your readers to click on it and purchase something through your link.
If you would like to learn the ins and outs of affiliate marketing, I recommend enrolling in Michelle of Making Sense of Cents’ course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
Michelle is one of the most successful bloggers in the world. She is only in her late twenties and makes over $50K a month through affiliate marketing, and in her course, she shares all her winning strategies and secrets.
Her course is a bit pricey but she really goes through everything you need to know about affiliate marketing to be successful at it. Her course is the most popular affiliate marketing course amongst bloggers, and I have taken it myself.
 So, I created an affiliate program for this very course!


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BLOGGING info / how to 3 @


Hi

I aim to earn 500€ a month blogging.

THEME: creative writing and drawing for enthusiasts of all levels: from complete novice to professionals, how to develop one's own creative writing / drawing, how to organize creative writing / drawing activities for the community.


STYLE: Quick easy flowy irreverent style.

TIME: I can dedicate 2 hours a day / 5 days a week blogging

Do you feel this is a real expectation plz? 

Dave:  writingsdavidmeehan@gmail.com

glossary  plug in / self-hosted WordPress / 

 after u build ur site where does the money come from? // where does it go?

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