It is already Late Tuesday night here in the South African corner of the Blogosphere. I am dedicated to this blog. I have been studying Google adwords and adsense. I have applied the lessons of where best to place adverts and contents. I have learned about Section Targeting for more Adsense focus. Google says to wait say 2 weeks before this yields results in terms in "click" income. I know I should not complain but Adwords and Adsense seem conflicted. i.e. surely business profitability would promote Google's favoring one over the other??? I suppose this is a small price to pay when you consider how Google has changed the world so quickly

You really should study the help files that Google has on optimizing your blog for search. I am still trying to work out how to get a Sitemap sorted out for this blog on blogger/blogspot, but am experiencing some technical issues.

Last night I saw that Google had last crawled this page in late December. I need to get incoming links because the crawler travels along all the links as it moves around in its incessant perambulations.

Beginners Guide To Blogging

Some Tips for Brand New Bloggers. You want to blog but do not know how. FOLLOW THESE STEPS:

1. You can create a very powerful blog for free on Blogger (www.blogspot.com OR www.blogger.com). This is Google's blogging platform. Best of all it is free. I use it and I am impressed with how quickly it allowed me to create a nice looking site. SIGN UP;
2. You will be asked to give your blog a URL name: http://xyz.blogspot.com, where xyz will be the name you give your blog (it can be anything - subject of course to no "bad" content (check the policy when you sign up) - No Porn etc.etc.);
3. Choose a template from among many;
4. Make your settings;
5. Once happy, save your settings;
6. Start posting!
7. In another Session sign-up with Google AdSense. You will be asked for your BlogSpot URL by AdSense which will auto-link to your blog.
8. You can also add page elements very easily. I recommend that you immediately ad Google Adsense Ads, Goto: Dashboard>Layout>Add Page Elements. Tip - if you do not see facility to add page element you need to download latest java add-on for your browser.

USE MY BLOG AS AN EXAMPLE of what you page elements you can place on your blog. I have: Google Search, Google AdSense Button, Google AdSense, Amazon Widget and others.

For Email I Use GMAIL also by Google.

Happy Blogging!

Different Time Zones and Other More Profitable Musings

It is Sunday 06 January 2008. Another day spent browsing on the topics of Blogging and Making Money with Blogs. I will be creating another blog that will be based on a three column template with a grid structure - I would like to present the best of what I have found on that site. I am still busy with that blog, so when it is ready I will activate it.

I am writing this blog in "discovery mode". The main theme of my content up to this point has been my arriving at an appropriate moral point regarding the blog title: for myself that is. One lesson is that the topics: Learn to Blog and Make Money Blogging (online) are really two different topics, one educational and the other both revenue oriented and educational.

The aim of this blog therefore will continue to be one of me tracking my Web 2.0 Discovery while I learn to blog AND at the same time while I learn about making Money Online.

I have looked at creating a blog in wordpress which is just now in a created state. I have also looked at TypePad but their platform is not free like this one is.

Hi All. Just spent the last few hours looking around on the topics of blogging and learning to blog and to make money from blogging. There really is a lot of rubbish out there... BUT just when you are getting tired of wading thru BS along comes a GEM. You literally stumble across some truly good information and when you have finished reading it you think to yourself : "well there is hope of mastering the art of Blogging AND generating blog revenues, while having fun blogging".

So what have I learnt in my ramblings through the Blogosphere?

The key lessons are as follows:

1. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is;
2. The internet does give hope to people, but it is very easy to get scammed a lot of money for a generic type
ebook - reminds me of the movie I just rented from the video store called Prime Gig. If you have not seen
it you should...
3. The real key to prospering with a blog is to:
a) have very good content of value to readers;
b) have high levels of traffic visiting your site!

4. The devil is indeed in the detail as regards actually achieving internet profits. How to do this? I am still in
discovery mode.

When (If) an idea makes a profit, I will do a detailed lesson post on the idea.

Discover >Learn to Blog > Make Money Online is the process I am following.

I went back to my day job yesterday.

The title of my blog is: Blog Make Money Online... I am wondering if it is such a good title??? The best blogs I have seen are where the content is so good. They are usually NOT about the topic of making money (except for John Chow of course). These sites get their traffic first based on their interesting content (e.g. VinnyLingham.com or that nice British Cartoon blog that is on blog spot (I will try and find it again)). Once the surfer is on the site they enjoy the content and then I am sure that they probably leave by clicking an interesting link out, even if it is not a Google ad.

After building the site that I have built, I find that it to be a bit "clunky": too harsh an opinion??? Maybe? I want to place all my small icons on one line and not each on its own line for example. In addition, I want to make the title font smaller but not also have to reduce the normal text font size when I do this. I like Blogger. I will try to find ways of working these things out before blaming the tool that I am working with.

I am also thinking of building a blog on Vinny Linghams Synthasite. I signed on. It looks really good! Well happy blogging. I'll post again when I can...

Hi All. Hope all is well this fine day! This posting is about how to add the things to my site that you see on the site:

1. Amazon. The scrolling widget at bottom is from Amazon. If you want it just go to Amazon.com and sign up as an associate (link at bottom of their home page). Once inside you can set up your astore and you can choose from a number of widgets.
2. Google Adsense. Go to their link (i have linkyfy'd it here). Sign up. I am still looking for a way to add a money making Google Adwords link to my blog).
3. Technocrati, RSS Feed and Digg will be the subjects of a later post.


I am looking for feedback on my site. I am using blogger, but at this stage I feel that I could do better with page layout if I had a custom template. One site I really like is JohnChow.com.

I see I have a really low reader count so I am still on a mission to get an effective way of driving traffic to this blog. ANY tips out there that really work?

Love to hear from any one. regards. Alan

There is no silver bullet

Happy New Year to all !!! May you have a good and prosperous New Year. I have just finished reading a book by John C Maxwell called "Failing Forward". I would really recommend this book to anyone. The bottom line is that if you want to succeed in life you have to master yourself and how you react to failure which I am afraid is inevitable in life, especially if you have the courage to venture new things. So how does that relate to this blog? Well the hard lesson I have learnt so far is that the internet gives people hope. It is true, it is a source of much information and if you can get the correct information you can use it to deal better with circumstances in your life than if you did not have such information. I have also been reading the Rich Dad/Poor Dad books and I would recommend buying all of them. That is what I have done. I live in Africa. In South Africa which is pretty westernised though we are behind in some aspects (like cheap broadband but it should improve in the run up to the FIFA world cup (2010)). Enough rambling.
I have decided that I will daily try to improve this site by adding content the value of which I hope to improve as I learn more. My reading and reaserach leads me to my latest reflection which is that it is quite a complex matter to get a blog that appeals to the reader both content wise and visually. Visually, I am still working on my site.

I also want to start featuring products and advertisements that will genuinely assist the reader in their efforts to establish profitable (but legitimate) businesses online using blogs. I have placed a RSS feed (burn your site at feedburner.com) on my site AND I must confess that I have set up a small budget on Google Adwords (so much for trying to attract traffic without spending a cent). I have purchased some key words around learning blogging and learning to use a blog to make money on the internet. So far I have spent just under $1 but made $0.00 on adsense.

I'll keep you posted.