Here’s how to quickly build a money making blog for yourself. These blogs really do make money and I always have several on the go at once. They build momentum with every passing week as does the earning potential because they are built around a future event that is getting ever closer. By acting fast and getting a jump start on the competition your blog will already be regarded by Google as “the authority site” on the subject long before anyone else tries to jump on the band wagon.
Try and choose an event that you have an interest in. It could be a major sports event, a major product launch or major movie release. The optimum word here though is “major.” If its a sports event it needs to be at least a bi-annual event rather than being held each year. A major product launch could be the next new Harley Davidson due out in 2 years etc. and if its a movie, it needs to already have a fan base so it wants to be a remake, a follow on or a hugely popular book or TV show adaptation and it doesn’t want to be due for release for at least 18 months.
For this example, as I walk you through each step we will assume I have just checked one of the movie news sites and there is news of a new Tarzan movie with production due to start at the end of next year and a release date pencilled in for the year after. I shoot off and check for suitable domain names like tarzan-movie.com, tarzan-the-movie.com and new-tarzan-movie.com.
I decide on New-Tarzan-Movie.com. It makes an ideal main keyword for my money making blog and its a phrase many fans would type in to their search engine once they hear about it and want further info. SEO experts who tell you domain names mean nothing anymore are either lying or simply don’t own any domain names. I can always get the #1 spot for my sites main keyword phrase a hell of a lot easier when it matches the domain.
This is not the time to be tight and host your money making blog on your shared account or worse, a free service. Once word spreads about this event you are going to be getting some serious traffic. Normally its bad practice to register your domain name with the company that hosts it but as this blog is going to have an active life of only a few years I take advantage of the free domain offer with my host and grab the name together with a budget hosting account. I also order a dedicated IP address for my new blog. This money making blog is going to be the authority on the new tarzan movie and as such it needs to look and act the part.
OK, we have our domain name, main keyword phrase and some decent hosting. We now need to choose a suitable Wordpress theme. I used to try and find one that was on theme but it takes forever searching because most worpress themes have the phrase “wordpress theme designed by…” in the footer so you get loads of false trails. Even when I am lucky and find one, its done by a fan who isn’t concerned about monetizing the blog so its useless for my needs.
For this money making blog I would search for “adsense ready wordpress themes” and then pick the most suitable, perhaps a jungle theme if i’m lucky, plain old green if i’m not. I may purchase a theme if I find a really good on theme one but normally there are so many good themes that are free I don’t need to.
Once the theme is installed I will spend at least an hour optimizing it for the search engines. Some free themes are given away because they have links in them that are hidden from us but visible for the search engine spiders so they need to be found and removed. All other links that point away from the site such as the designers link are edited to have the rel=”nofollow” tag. This tag actually means the spiders will still follow the link but they do not count it as a link away from your blog and this is important for a money making blog because you want as many links as possible pointing at you and as few as possible pointing away.
I will title the blog “New Tarzan Movie News” and add the tagline “All the new tarzan movie news and info as it breaks.”
I will create a new account at OnlyWire and sign up with new accounts for all the bookmarking sites. I will sign up with Feedburner and I will do all the other Web 2.0 stuff that will bring me instant traffic.Web 2.0 deserves at least a few posts all to itself but for now I recommend you download this free ebook and follow its advice to the letter. In it’s early life Web 2.0 will bring my money making blog just as much traffic as Google (sometimes more) and by setting everything up before I start posting means even my first post will receive traffic in 3 figures. Everything you need to know is inside this book and its an essential read for all bloggers. Just click the book cover to get your free copy.
The ebook also has links to all the best plugins for your blog and you are going to need most of them.
All of the above will take me half a day tops but the first time you set up your blog it will probably take you around a day. Do not skimp on the web 2.0 work, much of it is repetitive but the rewards make it well worth the effort and use the same username and password for all the web 2.0 sites you join.
I hope you can see the potential of this money making blog. The first visitors are the true fans who are excited about the news. Because of this they will post plenty of comments and link to your blog from their Myspace and FaceBook pages. As word spreads, your blog will create a real buzz and you will be pulling in literally thousands of visitors within a month.
In part two I will show you how and where to get the news to post about and the most important part, making money with your new blog but the hard work is now done, the rest is easy.I have my fictional “new-tarzan-movie.com” money making blog all optimized and ready to be unleashed into the Blogasphere. I have done all my Web 2.0 work and everything is ready to go. All I need now is something to post!
I head off to Google Alerts and set one up for “tarzan movie” with the how often option set to “As it happens” and the type set to “comprehensive.” Now every time there is breaking news about the movie I can jump straight on it and get a post up. Often this news comes from obscure sources like a local newspaper that has a link to the story: Authors birth place, the place the movie is set etc.
These alerts will at first be thin on the ground but will get more regular as the event gets nearer. Some of mine regularly get 20+ alerts a day with a year to go that 6 months a go only produced 1 a week.
Don’t worry about not having anything to post though in the early days. What we are doing is building the authority blog on our chosen event, in this example the “new tarzan movie”. We are getting a jump start so that when the news does start rolling in and people see an opportunity to grab some traffic, they will be too late. Our blog will already have 30 or 40 posts, a page rank of 3 or 4 and the number one spot for “new tarzan movie.”
For now and until any news alerts come in I will check out all the specialist movie news sites and write the announcement of the movie as my first post. This first post and the next 4 or 5 will have “new tarzan movie” in the titles: “Mel Gibson to star in new tarzan movie” “New tarzan movie - Spielberg says no chance!” etc.
With the official announcement from the studio there should be enough material to get the blog established with several posts. I could do the initial announcement followed by one about the Director, one on the Producer etc. After that intitial period as long as I can find something to post about at least once a week, the blog will be fine. I submit each and every one of my posts to Digg, Reddit and all my other favorite news sites as I do them. I also submit each post to OnlyWire and follow all the Web 2.0 promotion methods as described in your Authority Black ebook.
Show Me The Money
The blog will make money with Adsense to start with but once its pulling in 1000+ visitors I’ll experiment with suitable affiliate programs. Once the movie is close to release I will look at selling advertising space. It will very quickly be making you double figures which wouldn’t be bad even if it stayed at a constant $10 a day for the next 2 years for what has basically been a days work setting up and the odd post once a week.
Of course, it won’t stay constant though. The blogs earnings grow practically every day and certainly you would always better last months earnings time and again until perhaps a month or two after the event when the traffic will start to subside.
What can I expect from my money making blog.
The first money making blog of this type I did I got caught out by how much traffic it generated and I had to upgrade my hosting twice. I was absolutely panicking as it was the first time I had ever backed up and moved a database. In the month running up to the event I was posting a minimum of 3 times a day and was working on the blog practically 24 hours a day monitoring comments and news alerts.
The traffic doesn’t suddenly peak and then drop off either. It builds steady and runs down steady and even after the event has been and gone, you can post the odd up date every now and again and keep it ticking over.
For instance, if the event were a movie, there will follow the DVD release, directors cut DVD, directors uncut cut DVD and so on. If its a sports event you can post the odd news release about the winners and if its a product release you can post comments about other reviews made by blogs and magazines of the product. In other words, it doesn’t just die and become worthless. It will still be earning you a revenue long after the event has been and gone.
Final things to consider
I think I started part 1 by advising you choose an event you are interested in and its worth repeating. If you think soccer is for girls and Beckham is a pansy, don’t do a blog about the 2012 world cup. Your blog will be visited and read by people passionate about football and if your writing doesn’t convey that same passion and knowledge you will soon be found out. They won’t be returning to your blog and they certainly won’t be linking to you from their FaceBook and MySpace pages. Same goes for movies, if Rambo is your hero and handkerchiefs are for blowing your nose on, don’t try and be a Jayne Eyre expert. The Bronte fans will pull your posts and you to pieces.
Make sure you are the first to try this event. If the main keyword phrase domain is not available, go take a look and see if the site is up and running. If it is, move on and try for something else unless you are confident you can do better.
Personally, if the site looks even half decent I leave them to it and look for something else. Yes I may well be able to dominate and become the authority but time is short with these types of money making blog and there may well not be enough traffic to share for some time. Just congratulate whoever it was that had the idea before you and get your thinking cap back on.
I have several of these types of money making blog up and running at any given time and I can tell you that you will make some serious money from them. If you do more than 1 at a time though, make sure the dates of the events are well apart and try and stick to the same genre. That way you can collect emails and when you move on to your next money making blog you can email your list and a good percentage may well be interested in your new one.
If you have found these posts have inspired you to build your own money making blog, a click on the “Add this blog to my Technorati favorites” would be greatly appreciated, thanks shorted by no name.
Try and choose an event that you have an interest in. It could be a major sports event, a major product launch or major movie release. The optimum word here though is “major.” If its a sports event it needs to be at least a bi-annual event rather than being held each year. A major product launch could be the next new Harley Davidson due out in 2 years etc. and if its a movie, it needs to already have a fan base so it wants to be a remake, a follow on or a hugely popular book or TV show adaptation and it doesn’t want to be due for release for at least 18 months.
For this example, as I walk you through each step we will assume I have just checked one of the movie news sites and there is news of a new Tarzan movie with production due to start at the end of next year and a release date pencilled in for the year after. I shoot off and check for suitable domain names like tarzan-movie.com, tarzan-the-movie.com and new-tarzan-movie.com.
I decide on New-Tarzan-Movie.com. It makes an ideal main keyword for my money making blog and its a phrase many fans would type in to their search engine once they hear about it and want further info. SEO experts who tell you domain names mean nothing anymore are either lying or simply don’t own any domain names. I can always get the #1 spot for my sites main keyword phrase a hell of a lot easier when it matches the domain.
This is not the time to be tight and host your money making blog on your shared account or worse, a free service. Once word spreads about this event you are going to be getting some serious traffic. Normally its bad practice to register your domain name with the company that hosts it but as this blog is going to have an active life of only a few years I take advantage of the free domain offer with my host and grab the name together with a budget hosting account. I also order a dedicated IP address for my new blog. This money making blog is going to be the authority on the new tarzan movie and as such it needs to look and act the part.
OK, we have our domain name, main keyword phrase and some decent hosting. We now need to choose a suitable Wordpress theme. I used to try and find one that was on theme but it takes forever searching because most worpress themes have the phrase “wordpress theme designed by…” in the footer so you get loads of false trails. Even when I am lucky and find one, its done by a fan who isn’t concerned about monetizing the blog so its useless for my needs.
For this money making blog I would search for “adsense ready wordpress themes” and then pick the most suitable, perhaps a jungle theme if i’m lucky, plain old green if i’m not. I may purchase a theme if I find a really good on theme one but normally there are so many good themes that are free I don’t need to.
Once the theme is installed I will spend at least an hour optimizing it for the search engines. Some free themes are given away because they have links in them that are hidden from us but visible for the search engine spiders so they need to be found and removed. All other links that point away from the site such as the designers link are edited to have the rel=”nofollow” tag. This tag actually means the spiders will still follow the link but they do not count it as a link away from your blog and this is important for a money making blog because you want as many links as possible pointing at you and as few as possible pointing away.
I will title the blog “New Tarzan Movie News” and add the tagline “All the new tarzan movie news and info as it breaks.”
I will create a new account at OnlyWire and sign up with new accounts for all the bookmarking sites. I will sign up with Feedburner and I will do all the other Web 2.0 stuff that will bring me instant traffic.Web 2.0 deserves at least a few posts all to itself but for now I recommend you download this free ebook and follow its advice to the letter. In it’s early life Web 2.0 will bring my money making blog just as much traffic as Google (sometimes more) and by setting everything up before I start posting means even my first post will receive traffic in 3 figures. Everything you need to know is inside this book and its an essential read for all bloggers. Just click the book cover to get your free copy.
The ebook also has links to all the best plugins for your blog and you are going to need most of them.
All of the above will take me half a day tops but the first time you set up your blog it will probably take you around a day. Do not skimp on the web 2.0 work, much of it is repetitive but the rewards make it well worth the effort and use the same username and password for all the web 2.0 sites you join.
I hope you can see the potential of this money making blog. The first visitors are the true fans who are excited about the news. Because of this they will post plenty of comments and link to your blog from their Myspace and FaceBook pages. As word spreads, your blog will create a real buzz and you will be pulling in literally thousands of visitors within a month.
In part two I will show you how and where to get the news to post about and the most important part, making money with your new blog but the hard work is now done, the rest is easy.I have my fictional “new-tarzan-movie.com” money making blog all optimized and ready to be unleashed into the Blogasphere. I have done all my Web 2.0 work and everything is ready to go. All I need now is something to post!
I head off to Google Alerts and set one up for “tarzan movie” with the how often option set to “As it happens” and the type set to “comprehensive.” Now every time there is breaking news about the movie I can jump straight on it and get a post up. Often this news comes from obscure sources like a local newspaper that has a link to the story: Authors birth place, the place the movie is set etc.
These alerts will at first be thin on the ground but will get more regular as the event gets nearer. Some of mine regularly get 20+ alerts a day with a year to go that 6 months a go only produced 1 a week.
Don’t worry about not having anything to post though in the early days. What we are doing is building the authority blog on our chosen event, in this example the “new tarzan movie”. We are getting a jump start so that when the news does start rolling in and people see an opportunity to grab some traffic, they will be too late. Our blog will already have 30 or 40 posts, a page rank of 3 or 4 and the number one spot for “new tarzan movie.”
For now and until any news alerts come in I will check out all the specialist movie news sites and write the announcement of the movie as my first post. This first post and the next 4 or 5 will have “new tarzan movie” in the titles: “Mel Gibson to star in new tarzan movie” “New tarzan movie - Spielberg says no chance!” etc.
With the official announcement from the studio there should be enough material to get the blog established with several posts. I could do the initial announcement followed by one about the Director, one on the Producer etc. After that intitial period as long as I can find something to post about at least once a week, the blog will be fine. I submit each and every one of my posts to Digg, Reddit and all my other favorite news sites as I do them. I also submit each post to OnlyWire and follow all the Web 2.0 promotion methods as described in your Authority Black ebook.
Show Me The Money
The blog will make money with Adsense to start with but once its pulling in 1000+ visitors I’ll experiment with suitable affiliate programs. Once the movie is close to release I will look at selling advertising space. It will very quickly be making you double figures which wouldn’t be bad even if it stayed at a constant $10 a day for the next 2 years for what has basically been a days work setting up and the odd post once a week.
Of course, it won’t stay constant though. The blogs earnings grow practically every day and certainly you would always better last months earnings time and again until perhaps a month or two after the event when the traffic will start to subside.
What can I expect from my money making blog.
The first money making blog of this type I did I got caught out by how much traffic it generated and I had to upgrade my hosting twice. I was absolutely panicking as it was the first time I had ever backed up and moved a database. In the month running up to the event I was posting a minimum of 3 times a day and was working on the blog practically 24 hours a day monitoring comments and news alerts.
The traffic doesn’t suddenly peak and then drop off either. It builds steady and runs down steady and even after the event has been and gone, you can post the odd up date every now and again and keep it ticking over.
For instance, if the event were a movie, there will follow the DVD release, directors cut DVD, directors uncut cut DVD and so on. If its a sports event you can post the odd news release about the winners and if its a product release you can post comments about other reviews made by blogs and magazines of the product. In other words, it doesn’t just die and become worthless. It will still be earning you a revenue long after the event has been and gone.
Final things to consider
I think I started part 1 by advising you choose an event you are interested in and its worth repeating. If you think soccer is for girls and Beckham is a pansy, don’t do a blog about the 2012 world cup. Your blog will be visited and read by people passionate about football and if your writing doesn’t convey that same passion and knowledge you will soon be found out. They won’t be returning to your blog and they certainly won’t be linking to you from their FaceBook and MySpace pages. Same goes for movies, if Rambo is your hero and handkerchiefs are for blowing your nose on, don’t try and be a Jayne Eyre expert. The Bronte fans will pull your posts and you to pieces.
Make sure you are the first to try this event. If the main keyword phrase domain is not available, go take a look and see if the site is up and running. If it is, move on and try for something else unless you are confident you can do better.
Personally, if the site looks even half decent I leave them to it and look for something else. Yes I may well be able to dominate and become the authority but time is short with these types of money making blog and there may well not be enough traffic to share for some time. Just congratulate whoever it was that had the idea before you and get your thinking cap back on.
I have several of these types of money making blog up and running at any given time and I can tell you that you will make some serious money from them. If you do more than 1 at a time though, make sure the dates of the events are well apart and try and stick to the same genre. That way you can collect emails and when you move on to your next money making blog you can email your list and a good percentage may well be interested in your new one.
If you have found these posts have inspired you to build your own money making blog, a click on the “Add this blog to my Technorati favorites” would be greatly appreciated, thanks shorted by no name.
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