Good question. And, while there are numerous suggestions on how to write your articles, there is one important matter which you should consider, and that is the YIN YANG of blogging. Before moving forward, let me give you a brief excerpt of what Yin Yang is: “Something created together in a single movement, and are bound together as parts of a mutual whole.”

Or basically, balance.

Let me ask you something. When you are writing your next article, whom are you writing for? For your readers (Humans) or for search engines (robots)? Blogging for Money unfortunately requires that we do both, although we must write, first and foremost for our readers, and then for search engines. Having this in mind, let’s break this down into a more comprehensible solution.

For Your Readers (The Yin)

1. Unique: Just like our DNA which is unique, I believe that every writer also has it’s unique form of writing. When writing – be yourself, use your own words, share your views, provide your opinion, give your readers emotion and most importantly try to connect with them (e.g. ignite a discussion). In my view, this is what makes an article unique, and nothing else, period. Do not confuse unique with original as they are not the same. Original means that you created the article your own, from scratch and not copied elsewhere.

2. Quality: Focus on what you are writing, and try to stay on your topic. Perform a thorough research before you start telling everyone about something. If you are recommending a product, service or an affiliate program, make an accurate research of what you will be writing about, compile the results, analyze them, and then draw your conclusions. If you had experience yourself, provide proof. This will give you credibility, and unless you gain your readers trust, it will be difficult to gain success.

In addition, avoid distractions on your post (such as ads) directing your readers attention on what you want to say. Adding images that are relevant to your post, are definitely recommended. Articles, such as Paid Reviews, are easily detected by your loyal readers and you want to keep that within a 3:1 ratio (at least). I am not saying here that we should not post paid reviews, but rather, avoid posting successively, one after the other. After all, we are blogging for money Blogging for money: Part 2 of the Reverse Order, will remind you of other useful information.

3. Add Value: Simple math. Add 1 and 2 of the above together and it is almost certain that you will give value to your readers. I wish to recall your attention to the following:

“Your visitors want to read a blog that gives them value and enhances their lives. Your principal motivation when producing content is to focus on these two aspects for your readers. After reading your blog they should feel good and thus, is the first step towards captivating an audience, building traffic and finally making money.”

Ok, so much for the Yin. Now for the Yang.

For Search Engines

The second most important part of writing is optimizing your content for search engines. Search engines drive traffic to your blog and these are the ones that matter most when blogging for money. Why? Because these users are the ones that are looking for something specific. Your regular readers are not (too) interested with your ads or affiliate links so don’t expect them to click that often. Maybe they will if whatever it is you are recommending is red hot:) The point is, what good is it to have quality content if no one will read it. Right?

Enter the Yang. SEO optimization is another important aspect to consider, when writing our articles. Techniques, such as, writing catchy titles, using proper keyword density, etc., are just but a few of various ways you need to know to do your SEO. Where else can you get such a precious source of information but from Mr. G. himself? The Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide and the Google SEO Report Card, made public recently, are great resources and a must read. Whenever possible apply those techniques, if you are seriously considering to achieve balance (Yin Yang).

There you have it, this in essence, is what I believe you need to write a good article. I am sure you also have different views and opinion, and for that purpose, I would like you to share it here, with us.

A blog theme or its design is a very personal choice. For this reason, it is difficult to recommend a standard or specific blog template and layout for you to use. While content is King, your blogs layout is the King’s castle. It should be easy to use, pleasing to the eyes and at all possible easy to navigate. When someone “lands” on your homepage or any pages of your blog, it should not be complicated for them to find what they are looking for. Remember that you only have some split seconds to convince your visitors to stay a while so you must leverage on that. I have seen many blogs with good content, but, due to the poor choice of colors, ad placements, navigation structure, download time, etc., I for one, have never returned to those blogs again. When this happens, you loose traffic, and when you are blogging for money, no traffic = no money, period.

That being said, here is a checklist of items that I recommend, to provide your readers with a waterfront view, when they visit your blog.

Do I need a GPS system here? Where am I?

An easy to use navigation structure is essential to any well designed blog! Information that are important should never be more than two or three clicks away. Consider creating a good “Menu” about your most important topics and make use of keywords for that matter.

Download Time

Not only Google has hinted that pagespeed will probably be playing an important role when ranking websites, DOWNLOAD TIME is probably one of the most important factors in your design. Visitors that arrive on your blog will not wait for more than 10-15 seconds for your page to load completely before they decide it is taking too much time and move on. While images are worth a thousand words, excessive use will hamper your blogs loading time. Use images sparingly or use thumbnail images to avoid this from happening. Scripts are also one of the main reasons why a website takes too much to load. Avoid external calls from your blog to increase speed.

Too much ads

Pop ups, widgets, plug-ins, banners, flash ads, badges, running animations and other intrusive ads annoy your visitors, makes your site difficult to use and bury your messages in a sea of clutter. If you use text links, infolinks or any other similar monetizing method, ensure that you disable them to appear on your visitors comments. It is not right to use your visitors comments to “hunt” for keywords and adding links to other information. That is not wise.

Outdated Information

Updating your blog with outdated information is like telling you now that Google is the dominant search engine as breaking news. If you stand to correct it or use it as a reference, fine, but do not blabber about something that is not fresh news.

Keep your backgrounds simple

White or light colors usually work best. Your background should not compete or disrupt with the content of the page for the users attention. Your text must be seen and easily understood by contrasting the background with the text color. If you would like to use a background image, select one that uses muted colors or format your picture as a watermark. If you do this, be sure that the text colors will contrast well with the background picture.

Like the tunes?

Unless you are promoting or selling MP3′s, your visitors probably won’t enjoy it either. Normally, it is best to skip the tunes, but if for some reason you think that it is a must to have music on your blog, be sure you provide a way for them to turn it off or better yet a way for them to turn it on, only when they decide to do so. Have you ever taught that your visitor may enjoy classic music and instead hears Poker Face when landing on your blog? What do you think they will do? Worst than not re-visiting your blog? Blacklist you:)

Check Your Spelling

While no one can be perfect, it is always recommended to run a spell check on your post before publishing it. There are many people with high tolerance for this type of problem, but then again there are those who don’t.

Browser Compatibility

While Internet Explorer is still widely used, there are other browsers that are available on the Internet. Different browsers, such as , Google Chrome, Firefox, Flock, Opera, etc., may display your page very differently. Check your website in as many different browsers as possible and avoid components which only render properly in specific browsers.

Other

Images not loading properly, broken links, hyperlinks leading to wrong pages, orphan pages, etc, are also reasons for driving your visitors away. Verify your links once in a while by using many SEO tools that are available for free. This will ensure that any links you provide your visitor can be accessible and most importantly, will not hurt your search engine rankings.

There you have it. As I mentioned, there are no specific suggestions for a perfect blog design, but avoiding certain things that I have said above, will help your blog stand out far better. If there is anything you think that we should be including in this list, please share them with us.

Determine Topic of Your Niche

Once again, let’s start by saying the same old, same old. To make money online you need traffic (or not, but more of that later). To get traffic you need to do a lot of things (like SEO, promotions, internet marketing, etc – yeah, I know it sucks), but most importantly, provide value to your readers. This is the only way you can benefit from the WWW.

Now, answer this question, how will you provide value if what you are blogging about is nothing but your personal rants? Unless, I am your friend, and I might just revisit your site and see what you’re up to. Earning money online comes primarily from organic traffic. These are the users who search for something, whether it is an answer to a question or something specific (buyers), and as such, are the people that is of interest to you. Don’t get me wrong, I love my loyal readers and I interact with them constantly. By building a network of online friends and loyal readers, you will gain credibility and their support. That is something of great value.

Let’s move on.

When choosing your niche, many will say that you should blog about something you are passionate about. I will go one step further and say, something that you are an expert on. If you are good at something, giving financial advice, video games, being a mom, a writer, web designer, blogging tips, SEO or anything else, remember that what you want to blog about is something that will provide value to people who are looking for answers to their questions. The more information you can give the better. Blogging for money is being an expert in a field, becoming an authority and this will take time. As you move on, you will gain that.

Learn HTML and the Basic Terms

You might say that this is something that you are not particularly interested in. I was not too, but trust me when I say that you have to learn the basics of HTML and some coding. You will encounter many terms such as, meta tags, title tags, H1, H2, alt, canonical and all that mambo jambo. If you are in for the serious stuff, then you should at least know how to copy and paste links, and all that. One place I recommend for you to get started and is relatively simple is W3schools.com. It is free and you can learn a lot of things by browsing through their website. Obviously, there are infinite amount of information out there that will teach you the ropes on basic HTML and terms, such as Domain, TLD, etc. You know what I mean.

Custom Domain Name

I will not argue and dispute the importance of this. If you are serious about your journey, you MUST get a domain name of your own. Regardless of where you will host your blog, this is the one requirement that you should follow in the very beginning. The earlier you have your own Domain name the better. You will regret it in the future if you don’t have one. I will not go deeper in to this as you can read all about why it is important on an article I have written about Custom Domain Name (Do you Need One?).

Web Hosting

If a domain name is your home (which is on the virtual world), think of the web host as the piece of land where you have your home settled in. Whether you opt for a free hosting or a paid hosting service, the things you should be aware of are the reliability and credibility of the host you will be using. For free hosting, I recommend you use Blogger.com. They allow you to use your own domain name and their interface is pretty easy to use.

If you choose to self-host your blog (which I highly recommend), then you should definitely go for WordPress and use a hosting service that has been proven reliable. Don’t jump into the first one you find. Digg deeper for information about the prices, limits (such as disk storage, bandwidth, etc) and then decide. There are many hosting services that provide almost “unlimited” everything and that is the right way to go. Famous Bloggers is hosted by BlueHost and it is very reliable. No pitching here, just do your research, find information and then decide. I also recommend you reading What Blog Platform Should I Choose for a better understanding on which way to go.

That’s about it for the second part of this series. Next will be choosing your blog design. Things you should have and things you should avoid.

Getting Started

To make money online, you need traffic. No traffic, no money. I am sure that in some form, you have already heared about this. Let’s push the rewind button and start from the most important part of your journey to make money online.

Make A Plan:

This part is not complicated and does not have to be. Make it simple and stick to it no matter what. At every stage of the way, review the goals you have set and see how it has performed. Have you accomplished something, do you need to revise your plan, what went wrong, are common questions that you need to be answered.

Some things that you should put on your plan are the following:

Initial Expenses (Cash Flow): As with everything else business, there is always a little investment required. Be it buying a Domain Name or self-hosting your blog, there is always some cost associated with it. Examples: Internet connection, Electricity, Web Hosting, Advertising, etc..

Establish your goals: The milestones of your business are very important, as they represent your achievements in what you are trying to accomplish. Your objectives are also here to keep you focused on what you need to achieve. Here is an example of milestone you can set for yourself: get indexed in 1 month, first sale in 1 1/2 months, Rank in the top 30 for my keyword X in 2 months, etc.. Try to look for small steps that you can achieve evenly spaced in time and be as realistic as possible with your expectation.

Your Financial expectations: Let’s be honest here, we are doing this for money, right? So set up your objective and define your financial goal. What do you expect to make in the next 3, 9, 12 months? What steps you’ll have to take to achieve it. Start low and revise your plan as time goes by. You will be able to have a better picture of it later.

Set your strategy: Once you have achieved your goals, what will you do next? Will you set new goals and expand your business even further, or would you sell it? Would you just get bored and let your site die?

Ok. Hands on. Start and scribble something on a pad and let your ideas flow. You might be saying that I’m a newbie and I do not know what to do. Fair enough, just keep in mind that it is important to have a plan and the sooner you have it done the better.

On our next series, we will focus on choosing our niche, choosing a domain name and web hosting. Until then.