Blog updates

So I have decided to change my tactics with the Blog. I am trimming the ads and concentrating on initial impressions and improving content. The basic theory will be before I go on a huge promotional campaign, I want any visitor to get a good impression and valuable information so as to attract them back again.

I will worry about compensation after I get something resembling a readership.

Checking in with Google

It appears that in order for Google to find my new shiny Blog, I needed to register myself at the Google Webmaster Tools Section and verify my site.

I then added a sitemap by simply selecting "add" under the sitemap column, selecting "General Web Sitemap" from the dropdown and adding "atom.xml"

This enables the crawler to find my Blog and all the juicy search terms.

This is, I'm sure, is a big deal.

I also added my Blog to a syndication service called Blogrush. This, apparently, will send traffic to me. Some people seem cynical of that on the internets but we'll give it a shot. You can see the widget on the left side of the Blog.

My First 46 Cents

Well folks, here it is ...

PENDING PAYMENTS FOR "NETWORK ADS"
Transaction Date	Total CPC	Your 75%	Payment Date	Number of Clicks
01/01/2008	$0.51	$0.38	Approximately on or after 03/01/2008	4 click(s) recorded
12/31/2007	$0.10	$0.08	Approximately on or after 02/29/2008	1 click(s) recorded
Total:	$0.61	$0.46	2 record(s) found

Adster came through with my first blog earnings. I just got Adsense set up fully yesterday so I am not saying Adster won but I will say it is delivering with less than optimal (at least per the online experts) placement. I have some concerns about the ad matching that adsense is doing to my core topics but it is getting prime placement so we will soon see.

The reason this is significant is that I have done little to create heavy promotion or optimization of advertising. This blog is effectively a baby with little useful content or linking to it. I might be on to something here.

"Creating a new Blog" topic has dominated a little lately but that is just while I implement the core subject of the Blog which is improving your finances. Real content should be showing up with some real results to promote over the coming month. That said, it may be very valid if it can produce new income at some considerable level (say $300 a month to start).

More Blog Promotional Activity

I listed my beautiful baby blog on Technorati which, from investigation, is a major method of increasing visibility. I also used a site called Pingomatic to automatically get me onto several blog search engines.

Checking out the various adsense competitors but details on that to follow.

Need to concentrate on content now .....

Additions to the Blog

Quick update.

I added the various social networking links via the Feedburner site so that there is a chance for better visibility. Added a few Ads and a "Donate a dollar" button.

I posted a nice review of Mint.com and posted my review and the link in their forums (I hope that is considered OK). By viewing my statistics on Statcounter, I actually got 3 unique visitors from there.




Overall this is been relatively easy for not having done much research.

From tiny acorns do mighty oaks grow ....

Setting up the Blog

Basic requirements for setting up my blog were simple - It had to be free and it had to allow some method of generating income.

Wordpress (which I had some previous experience) does not allow the income part but Google's Blogger meets the criteria of both. I am also generally impressed with Google as a company so I decided to use Blogger. There may be more out there but I am not that patient.

I chose my topic, name and made a little banner using Paint.net (Free) to quickly throw it together. The results are before you.

Next thing was setting up some sort of ad revenue. I tried setting up Adsense (Googles ad "engine") but it gave me an error when trying to register so I am waiting on that to see if I can get it working. I did a search under "Adsense comparison" and found another service called "Adster" which was very easy to set up and claims greater revenue to the Client so I thought I would give that a try too. Once again there are probably more there but I figured I would give these to a try.

Blogger does not have statistical analysis so I signed up for Feedburner and Statcounter. Both pretty easy to set up but Feedburner seems to have more than just statistics and I will review that later once I work out what it fully does but it seems to have services to help promote your blog.

Now, onto posting content and lots of it.

Another Income Source - I'm a blogger now!

I can't believe I didn't post this earlier.

I started a Blog! Its called "Financial Irresponsibility" (Duh!).



The reason for this is that bloggers can make good money. I don't expect to make anything near the quantity of cash they make but a few hundred extra a month would be nice.

I am doing this blindly. I didn't do hours of extensive research but what I did pick up was that "content is king" so I hope my little or large gains are both interesting and helpful to people. I chose finances because everyone uses money, wants money and needs money. I have a certain amount of experience over the past year that might be helpful and I know i would have read my blog a year or two ago when times were at their darkest. I also think that my project to save $1000 a month on expenses is valuable if I achieve my goal or get close. I could see people using this project themselves.

I don't have a lot of time with Jobs, wife, 3 year old and volunteering at a non-profit so lunchtime and little spare time blogging for dollars it is.

Updates on how to stumble through setting up a blog on the chance it might make a little cash coming up ....