Making Money with Blogs to Build Income. Learning Adsense, Drawing Traffic, and More!

Since things aren't exactly explosive on the Google front for my cell phone site right now compared to a couple of months ago, and since Google really can't be controlled, and can pick you up and drop you as it pleases, I've been working more with the few blogs I own, including this one. Along the way, I've come across blog mogul sites like JohnChow.com and ShoeMoney.com, which are the top dogs who have worked their way to the very top of the online money making world, and their blogs are a major part of that. When I first started blogging, I created a blog for my cell phone site, and it was basically to aid my main site by writing content about cell phones, and linking to the phone order pages on my main site. Since then I've opened a few more blogs and have invited some others to blog on a couple of them, covering various topics like entertainment and reality TV. Then I opened this blog with G.C. basically to record our path to making it in the online business world. So with all this going down, we've picked up so many different aspects of making money online, and doing it with various sources of income. Blogging itself has turned out to be one of the biggest potential money makers out there. Of course, this sounds like the easiest thing in the world, you do blogs, you make money, bam! Of course there is the part about learning adsense and how to maximize it, how to get incoming links to your blog and why, getting your blog seen in the first place, etc. etc. For me it's one of those things where you can see the big picture (that seems to be a trend with most businesses I'm involved with), but you can also see the long long road ahead, and what has to be done. I myself wrote a blog awhile back about doing the work or never making it, and today I ran across a good blog by rkelley on ShoeMoney's site, about getting off your ass and working. The article basically puts the point across of just how hard is it to actually make money with blogs and only the few who actually put major effort in will ever make it. I've spent a descent amount of time between my cell phone site and college classes trying to learn anything I can about making some more money with the blogs to make ends meet. Of course Google Adsense is the most popular way to get some income coming in from your blog. I've recently taken a look at Joel Comm's Adsense-Secrets.com, which has some great tips on learning about placing ads, color schemes, and a lot of other aspects that are big factors in making money with Adsense. I'm really hoping the blogs can bring in some more money with some time and good content, and with all this potential, who knows how big things can get. I know there are bigger programs out there like Kontera and ReviewMe which can also big money makers once blogs get to a certain level of traffic on a monthly basis. Here's hoping that this will be one of the blogs that will one day have floods of traffic and I can sit here and blog about successful blog building, and share my tips on what I've learned in making money with blogs.

Ryan Shamus dot Com Review!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Finding Motivation, Do It or Go Flip Burgers!

So I find myself here in the same position pretty much, Google hasn't brought back any of my previous keyword ranks, so I'm having to scramble to make up for it with any PPC i can, and keep building and working all I can. Problem is, sometimes I'm just here doing nothing, when in the back of my mind I know I should, and I know i should be using my time more wisely. With the position I'm in now, I've got free time to do all the work I want and not have to worry about getting some 9-5 burger flipping job to get by. I've even taken up some link work that will pay me for submitting links to directories and is a generous compensation for that type of work. So basically last night, after a convo. with my business partner, realization set in that right now I don't have my former income from my unreliable day job, my credit is good, but I cant live off credit, so why am I not in super work mode and doing the directory submission work that's sitting in my lap. Its at the point where I have to ask myself, do the work that you like doing from right here on the computer? Or go flip burgers and take orders from some schmuck who's telling you when to come and go, what days your working, etc. I am not the type who wants to be told what to do, and I like working for myself, but as I stated in my blog about working from home, I need to take my own advice and put the work in. Right now I'm getting by, but if I ever want to get married, have my own place, and be truly financially independent, AND do it from home on my own time with my own business, the work has got to be done, and it has to be done daily. The directory submission work is there, in my lap, all that's left is for me to do my part and get it done.

So after the conversation last night and thinking about all the things that COULD happen if I didn't get some financial independence, and realizing if I didn't get off my ass and DO it I'd be flipping burgers and I'd lose the battle to not get a 9-5 job that I'd hate, I finally got it together today n did some directory work and made some $. I find one big trick for me personally, is throwing a CD in the computer, letting the music play, and get your blood pumpin some, and I find myself gettin work done steady. I think TV is too distracting with its visuals, doing work in silence is too boring, but music gets the job done for me and I find myself working at a steady pace. Now I figure if I can do this daily, and get at least a couple of hours of work in, I can be making money on the side with directories, hopefully with this blog, and my phone website as well. So now I'm on a mission to make as much as money as I can on the side, while waiting for search engines to wake up and get some good rankings back. All I know is, if I can have a day like i did today, then I shouldn't be sitting on my ass doing nothing, because it's not hard to get a couple of hours of solid work in, especially when your riding the line of success or failure!

Ultra Reviews: Ja Kel Daily Dot Com

I'm glad to say my John Chow Dot Com review has brought me some new readers and I'm starting to get suggestions and and ideas flowing already from readers, which is great. One of the people that contacted me was Jason Neuman, who also follows John Chow and views him as a mentor in making money online. I checked out Jason's blog and have enjoyed the viewpoint of someone who is closer to my level and trying to accomplish some goals that John Chow and others on that level have achieved. Jason has also adopted John Chows method of getting links back to his blog. Jason's Ja Kel Daily Dot Com eventually wants to make money and is offering to link to your blog if you review his blog. I was surfing through his blog and liked the layout and navigation of the site, combined with some good reads. I particularly liked his blog "Bloggers are Millionaire's - When to Quit" which takes a look at peoples expectations when they start a blog, and why some people give up so easily. It also provides some great tips on how to handle frustration when trying to build a blog and how to handle the temptation to just give up on blogging. I recommend this site as a good read for anyone who is starting out, and needs some direction and tips on how to stay on track with their blog.

Motivation Anyone?...A Review of John Chow dot Com

So when I started all this blog stuff, I had read a few different ideas and stories about how blogging could help your site grow, and just like I am now, I"m willing to do anything to help my site and grow. After a few months of doing blogs about phones that were featured on my site, and then later on some blogs about some entertainment topics, I stumbled across some stories about people who were actually making great money off their blog itself, and that was an idea I'm a big fan of, so what better place to find a blog that is making great money than the top, in other words John Chow dot Com.

John Chow dot Com was one of the top reasons I decided to create this business blog. After hearing the story and some of the facts, I was surprised to find that John Chow dot Com wasn't a a super site with bells and whistles and filled with super graphics like I expected. It was in fact just a normal blog that featured great content, especially on how to make money online. This blog was highly appealing because it showed me that even with a basic layout and some knowledge on using ads and tools like Feedburner properly, combined with a drive to type up loads and loads of good content (such as John has), achieving financial success with your blog was indeed possible. John Chow's blog basically set off a light bulb in my head, that I could blog about my everyday business experiences, and maybe even get some readers who could add some knowledge on certain topics or maybe even get help themselves in their businesses, which is the type of environment John Chow has created, while also keeping a fair amount of humor and entertainment content as well, which I'm sure keeps his readers going back for more and more.

And now while John Chow dot Com is one of the top blogs on the Internet, he is willing to help other peoples blogs and will link to you if you review his his blog. I think this is awesome to see someone who is at the top still willing to help out those of us who are striving to make it. If you are someone who is interested in making money online, I highly recommend John Chow dot Com as the first place to visit, as I've learned a huge amount of different information in a very short period of time.

My Past Business Failures Series: AMWAY part 1

Welcome to my new series that will look back and review my past business experiences and what went wrong, and what I learned or experienced from it. I'm starting from the beginning with my first "own your own business" experience, when in 1997, at the age of 17 and in my Junior year of high school, I was introduced to Amway. I intended on this being just 1 blog, but after getting some of this down, I realized my Amway experience will come in multiple parts, so with that, I bring you, Amway part 1:

I was introduced to this company by my dad (who I have to honestly say is notorious for falling for anything that claims to make you rich, and get you rich fast.) My dad was introduced to this opportunity by his boss (who owns a successful janitorial company with contracts across the country and even over seas,) and he was introduced to it by his accountant, and so on and so on (notice the pattern already.) All I knew so far was that my dad's boss was coming in from out of town, bringing some "business people" with him, and they were going to show my dad, our family, and anyone else my dad could get to come to our house, this great opportunity, OK cool. So the night arrives, food is on the table, people over, got a little party going on, works for me. The business people arrive, complete with dressed up attire and ready to do their thing. They bring out their dry erase board and they're ready to do this. So somehow things get going, and somehow I get targeted for the first question:

(For the sake of naming names, we'll refer to my Dads boss as "Mr. R."

Mr. R: So, tell me what your dream car is?

(Me, being brutally honest, state that the '91 Dodge Stealth sitting in the driveway that I had gotten a few months earlier was it....oops, guess i messed things up from the get go.)

Mr. R: OK, well, what's another car you'd get if money was no object?

(OK I'll play along this time)

Me: Uh, a Corvette.

Mr. R: What would you say if I told you in the next 5 years, you could make enough to buy that car, have a house, take vacations, basically not have to worry about money?

Me: Uh, well that sounds good

And from here, the push was on. The dry erase board was off and running, drawing circles that represented you (everyone in the little group), then connect another circle to your friend, your uncle, your co-worker, your cousins friends sister, etc. The basic idea being, why buy groceries and household products from a store, when you could buy it from your own business? They had their stats to show how much money is made from Walmart, Grocery Stores, etc., and how instead you could be making big money like they do. Buy everything from food to toiletries to vitamins and cleaning products from your own business, then get everyone you know to buy it from you too. Also while your doing all this, sign more people up "under" you, and when they repeat the process of buying products and getting their friends to buy, you'll get paid off that too. Yeah, basically they were making a dreaded pyramid out of bubbles on the dry erase board. They showed how if you signed up "X" amount of people under you working, ordering, etc., you'd make "Y" amount, and that "Y" amount would grow and grow as the number of new sign ups under you grew. Well, at 17, hearing these business guys tell everyone how "Fired Up" they were (and I don't know how many times I'd hear the term "Fired Up" in this meeting,) was kind of motivational, and the idea that you could sit back and be rich with a bunch of people under you working wasn't so bad I thought. These guys were ready to give up their jobs and be "walking on the beach" together, as they put it. They let everyone know that the "kit" to get things started was only $250.00. This kit was full of reading material and cassette tapes from the big timers in Amway who were gonna share all their tips on how to get where they were. Well i was 17 and in high school, so the $250.00 wasn't an issue to me, I figured I'd just help my Dad out and hopefully we could all be rich like these guys said. It sounded like we were joining this group of business professionals that were going to work together to get super rich and be financially free! These guys had a way to make you think they were excited about YOU, and your potential. They used the popular term FIRED UP (now that I think of it, the FIRED UP gets worse and worse as this story goes on), and AWESOME in reference to whoever they were talking to at the time in the group. So my Dad was in before this meeting ever took place, and him and his boss were set to do big things with this. We were officially Amway reps.

Not long after this initial meeting, we began buying the majority of our food and products from Amway. We had a giant catalogue and I had no problems ordering food items from it (mostly frozen food), but I wasn't picky, and they had a selection. We received boxes weekly with tons of products. My Dad was using the cleaning products for his business, we were eating the food, we were on our way. Pretty soon there was word that a huge cannot miss Amway convention was hitting Baton Rouge Louisiana, and my Dad wanted me to go. I'd get a free day off from school out of it, so off we went for our first Amway weekend….

To Be Continued…

Still to come: The Amway Convention, the red flags that told me something was wrong, becoming a rep. Myself, future conventions, more home meetings, Chris Hansen vs. Amway, and much more!

Simply Stated...

I ran across a short and simple article on making money (a six figure income specifically) with your home based business from Business Program Reviews. It goes right along with what I've said in my previous posts about people not getting or wanting to get the knowledge that is necessary to succeed in what they are doing. Patience is a huge factor in home based business. I've seen people literally drop hundreds of dollars into a program because they believe every word they've been told about how "You'll be buying your dream car" and "You and me will be walking the beach together." Uh, that's nice to fantasize about, but I've learned that there has to be something fishy about this guy I met 10 minutes ago telling me how excited he is to talk on a beach with me, and if he's been doing this and is so rich already, why isn't he on the beach already?? (I'm sure some of you have been in situations like this when your being told about some GREAT program that will make you RICHER than Rich.) Luckily I don't fall for that type of stuff anymore, but i know people and even family members that have and still do. Then reality hits, you've been doing this program for 3-4 months, or even less, and you have no money, so what is the answer? Usually just drop it and hope the next "big thing" is better than this one. It's an ongoing cycle of "Get Rich Quick" mentality. The first key in getting into a program or starting a business is knowledge. You have to know exactly what you're getting into and THEN decide if it's for you, only after you know all the details you can.

After some mild success with my website, I've had people who are in similar businesses or own websites and are trying to achieve the same things I am, ask me how I do it or what I do. Well when i reveal that I spend hours doing link building and exchanges, and read entire lessons full of pages on just one small topic that has to do with what I"m working on at the time with my site, they either don't believe me, or get inspired to follow what I'm doing, then run out of gas and just give up. So basically to succeed, you have to learn various areas of how to make money with your business, and then put it all together. Having someone help you who is knowledgeable in the area and can pass along good info. is great if you can get it, I've gotten great help in various money related subjects from my webmaster G.C., and have learned a great amount, as where others are just too lazy to do all the work or they look for a shortcut that they THINK will accomplish something. I"m 100% against the shortcuts. Too much of a chance to get penalized somehow and destroy your entire business. Hard work and consistency is the only way to make it.

I want to reference another outstanding article from Business Program reviews, this one explaining How to Start Working From Home. They list things that I have done and have worked for me. And this article also explains, that contrary to what the majority of people think of "working from home" or "online business," it is still WORK, and LOTS of work if you plan on making this your primary business. Remember, there is competition out there, and they're not going to wait around while you sleep and watch TV all day. I can tell just by the way people question me at times, that they think sitting at the computer all day isn't a "real job." Well I can tell you it is if you make it a real job. As stated in the above article, sometimes you can do all the right things and get off to a great start, and STILL not be making money, simply because more work is required.

Hopefully this will give any of you who have just started out with your business or those of you who have started but haven't found direction yet on how to get things rolling. It took me a little over a year to get a direction and find out exactly WHAT I needed to be doing, but actively searching for good info. such as the articles I've provided should start things out on the right foot, and once your focus and determination to make it work are there, you can build upon that solid foundation that has been built.

Starting at the BOTTOM...

So today, it feels like a new beginning for me, after being away a week house sitting for some friends, and my fiance being off of work for spring break, reality hits that I'm back to my normal life and I'm looking at where i stand. As i stated in my first blog, I lost my "day job" as of last week, and I start this week with my online business being my primary income for the first time in my life. It's a good and bad feeling i guess, being that my day job was a hassle to deal with and very unstable, but it was also my main source of money so adjustments have to be made. As thing stand now, I'm making a small amount from my business, my fiance has a good job, but it will barely cover our bills right now (but this will hopefully improved as we are 2 payments away from paying off our installment loan,) and we live with my Mom in my Grandmas old house since my Mom and Dad are getting divorced and my mom was willed this house by my Grandma. So basically, I'm at the bottom of the barrel right now, barely making it, but I'm not afraid to admit it get to work. So this with this blog i wanted to put down my current situation, so I can look back in a few months and see that I'm doing better. I find that in times like this, I seem to get more work done in a day, because its motivating to have the need and want to make things better. Right now, I've just set some small goals that I'd like to achieve, like covering bills, and being able to buy groceries and such without having to worry about money. Sure me and my fiance have big dreams like many do about future vacations and things of that nature, but right now we're being realists and hoping to achieve minor goals like being able to move out and have a place of our own, and have some financial security.

There have been a few other times when we've had to worry about finances and making it, and have even overheard family members saying I need to "Get out and get an F'n job," in reference to me working and putting time into my website (which obviously isn't good enough for some people.) But I've learned to turn that type of thing around and use it as motivation to work twice as hard at my business and make good things come of it. Sure I could go scrub toilets or flip burgers at a job I hated, and make myself miserable, all for more money than what I have now. But, as I said before, those of us with the "vision" can see that we are building something much bigger, more stable, and something that we can own, without the worry of a boss walking and and firing you for whatever reason, and having your whole world turned upside down.

So now I have it down, I'm at the bottom and ready to move upward, this is the starting point of working for myself officially, and relying on my business to at least get us to a "living without worry" stage. I"m trying everything even outside of sales from my site, since my rankings in Google have dropped earlier this month (at the worst possible time), including AdSense, Amazon Affiliate Ads, Auction Ads, and blogging. I'm aiming to bring in enough income to pay for groceries and a place to live (even renting a duplex would be suffice right now,) so small goals are just fine right now, nothing fancy, just want to get by on my own, without the help of people who didn't want to give it anyway. Upwards I go...I hope!