Blogging

The Simple Unknown Secret to Start Making More Money

Stop! Stop everything you’re doing and give this post your full attention. Spending the time reading this post could be the best decision you’ll make this week.

What if I told you that I’ll share  with you the secret to monetizing your blog?

Monetizing your blog or site has for the majority of site owners hasn’t been that successful with them only making a few dollars each month from carrying ads on their site.

The secret to monetizing your site  is simple: Stop selling Advertisements.

Confused?

Don’t worry, you’ve every right to be.

What I’m stating is hard to digest, right?

But it’s the harsh truth. …

The Idiot’s Guide to Write 1000 Words in 30 Minutes

There was a certain time that I had so many articles to write up for myself and for some freelance clients I had then. However, the problem at that time wasn’t that I couldn’t write fine, but simply because I had the inability to write fast – in short, I wrote articles slower than a snail during that period.

For those who still write very slowly, you already understand what I mean – Write 100 words now and stop to read/edit it for close to 1 hour – this was one of the things I was busy doing enthusiastically then. And because of that much wasting of time on one article, I sometimes ended up writing a single 600 words article for close to 8 hours (and yes, it was that bad).

What could an innocent me do?  ;)

My clients were angrily waiting for their articles which I seriously was behind schedule and hadn’t sent; while my numerous readers were shouting their lungs out in other to have me write another post that I hadn’t written in like 2 weeks.

That was when I knew this had to stop.

no way

So how did I stop writing like a snail and more like Usain Bolt?

You want to know? Well, I went out, researched and found a remedy for slow writing that I could single-handedly use to write up a 1000 words post within 30 minutes.

You want to know the tactics I used to write faster? Then, without wasting much of your time, these 4 nuggets below are exactly how you can also write faster than you present can.

1. Write First . . . Edit Later.

Believe me, I know it sounds insane to write and not cross check what you’re actually punching out to the screen. Yes, it’s weird, but it’s one of the fastest ways to write up any first draft.

And believe me, no first draft is ever pretty, if you doubt me try asking Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter – he’ll surely back me up.

However, you might ask yourself or even me, “How can I start this habit of not editing while I’m writing?” That’s a nice question. And to answer that – the best way to do this is to turn off your writing software’s spell checker.

Why on earth should I turn it off?” It’s simple. First of all, the job of a spell checker is to examine your write up and show you the typos and grammatical blunders readily available in the copy you’re writing.

So when you turn it off, you won’t have any desire to go back and start correcting little errors you find, since you won’t see any red signal i.e. like in Microsoft word, indicating that you’ve committed an error.

The next question will surely be, “How do I turn my writing software’s spell checker”?

This depends on the type of writing software you use for your writings. I use Microsoft word – and I know majority of you also do – so let’s show you how to turn MS WORD’s spell checker off.

To do exactly that –

Click on the Microsoft Logo – at the top let hand side of your computer screen (shown below)

ms logo

This will bring out the menu of MS WORD. Find and click on “Word Options”.

ddropddownn

That will bring the Grammar Setting Page. Locate and click on “Proofing”.
proofing

Once Proofing page has been shown to you; go ahead to untick those three check button I pointed to in the image below (And of course, when you’re through with your first draft, then you can enable them again for proper proofreading).
untickk

That is it. Once you’ve un-ticked those check buttons, you’re done. You can now go ahead to write ceaselessly without thinking of editing.

But if in case you’re not an MS WORD fan, then you can try out DarkRoom and WriteRoom (for Windows and Mac respectively) – and these writing softwares don’t come with spell checkers at default. So give them a try.

2. Time Yourself. . . To Write Faster.

A goal without a time constraint factor kind of sounds like a wish. If you want to see yourself writing faster than you do now, then you need to start restricting yourself to a set time. To do this, I normally make use of Pomodoro app for Windows to time my writing while I write.

For those who haven’t heard of it before, it’s a desktop app that can be used to time oneself to a 25 minutes work period and a 5 minutes break time.

How can you leverage it effectively in fast writing?

Yes, I know you might ask this question. To use this app effectively, once you’re done your research and have read up everything you need to know about the topic. The next thing to logically do is click on the timer and immediately start writing.

And the writing should be a continual thing until the timer rings for break period. Once you keep at it, you’ll notice that you’ll be writing faster than you’ve ever written.

3. Research And Kill Your Distractions . . . Before Writing.

Researching before writing any piece out can not be over emphasized. It’s very very important and can’t be casually overlooked. When we talk about fast writing, we’re simply talking about researching indepthly so that what’s left of the process would be to write the copy out to the end without going online to cross check facts and figures that we might have forgotten.

And when we begin to continually check up on those figures and facts, the writing process starts to stall, to an extent that it’ll keep someone writing a little 500 words piece for over 2 long hours, instead of the usual 20 minutes.

Believe me, before; I used to waste that amount of time on such small writing just because I was always going on the internet to read more about the parts that I forgot to research on. And sometimes, when I land on Google for research purposes, I usually end up researching entirely different figures or even go on to chat on facebook, thereby derailing and delaying the writing for quite some time.

That said, to stop the derailing part of the writing process, I had to start researching more brilliantly and strategize ways not to forget what I’ve read up in other not to start going online to check up on more facts – and going off beat.

So what I did was simply using Evernote to store up long or short materials related to what I was to write about (believe me, you need to try it out – it’s FREE). And also, I leveraged Evernote’s Skitch to clip/snap screens I needed for tutorial write ups so that I won’t go about getting derailed again in the name of getting online to do it when I wanted to write that section of the tutorial.

Now, after all these have been taken cared of – I usually want to start writing at once, but even upon all these researches that I’ve done, I knew within me that I could still be tempted to go online and do other things amid writing (like facebooking and opening mails ). So I leveraged the use of the Chrome Pomodoro add-on to block me from using the internet (well, not entirely the internet per say; the add-on blocks selected time wasters’ websites you give it block), and yes, even though the app is a little bit annoying, but it helps me stay focused on writing only.

So after researching crazily using all this aforementioned research tools, and also blocking the time wasting websites, what’s left will be to write only. And when writing is the only thing on your mind to do – you kind of see yourself finishing it in less time more than it would have taken you without these aforementioned apps and tools above.

So give this strategy a try today and see a significant improvement in how long it’ll take for you to churn up a long piece of writing.

4. Keep Writing Non-stop.

This section is quite simple: Ignore the errors, grammatical blunders, typos, and any other things that have the power to stop you momentarily when you want to really start writing.

Once all of them have been ignored, what remains now is to start writing. Just write. Don’t mind anything. Don’t even think of what to write up next, because each word being thrown across the screen have already been embedded way long in your head while you’ were researching on the topic you’re currently writing on.

So leave thinking aside and just write. I know there will be enormous amounts of typos – especially mistyped words – but that’s the core beauty of writing fast. Just ignore them and keep on writing. I know that you will be overly tempted to clean up some typos using the backspace button; yes I know, because I’m always tempted to use it, too. However, even if you and I can’t stop using the backspace button, at least, we can limit how much we hit it whenever we type out grammatical typos.

The best ways to limit the hit of that button is to make a vow not to press that particular button no matter how bad the typo looks like.
When that has been taken cared of, you’ll notice that writing becomes a thing of joy since you’ll be writing so fast that you can literally be punching out 25- 30 words per minutes, and up to 1000 words in 15 -20 minutes

And YES! That’s you being insanely fast! ;)

If I have attempted it before and finished a write up of nearly 600 words in 15 minutes, then you can even finish yours in 10 -12 minutes if you keep on practicing this strategy of “writing nonstop” until you reach the end of the article.

In conclusion. . 

The world is going quite fast . . . And the internet is getting faster. If you want to meet up with those writing deadlines in no time and still be in the good books of your clients, then you’ve got to be a fast writer.

Therefore, leverage this wonderful craft now and write your way to stardom.

And finally, before I go I’ll like to ask, “How long does it take you to write up a 1000 word piece and what is that thing that’s presently stalling the writing process?”

Lets meet in the comment section to interact on this awesome question.

Thanks for reading . . . Don’t forget to share this awesome piece.

How to Get Out of Niches and Blog for a Purpose Instead?

Money is not everything. Anything beyond an optimum amount causes more misery than happiness.

Yet, with a stereotypical assumption that most of us want to make money (let’s not kid ourselves by saying “no” to this assumption), we all have a tendency to get stuck in a rut: the dirty groove of a routine that we get comfortable with over time. Even the advice we receive, the articles we write, and everything we believe in becomes congruent with this comfort zone.

For bloggers, it translates to finding niches, writing 500 word posts, and promoting your blog using the same methods we’ve always been used to. That includes social media, asking for links, putting up sign-up forms for opt-ins, some paid advertising, and then wondering how else to promote the blog.

If you’ve been doing whatever you’ve been doing, how will you get to where you want to go?

It’s time to do something different.

We all know passion pours energy into our life. It gives us more chutzpah to do what we want. It drives our efforts to reach our goals.

If you pick niches, blog multiple times a day, and work like a machine to promote your blog, here’s what happens..

Passion wears out..

Frustration sets in..

You’ll develop stress. Finally, you’ll give up.

Ignore the popular advice.

Forget the damn niches. ;)

If you have to blog, do so for a purpose. Here are different ways to find your purpose:

What is that one thing that pisses you off?

1 piss off

We all have our pet peeves, don’t we?

Maybe you love to do something but your lifestyle is your biggest enemy. Maybe you actually travel and you don’t like the way immigration procedures and visa restrictions don’t allow you to travel free. You could have been scammed online before and you just can’t get over it. Or maybe you got dumped unceremoniously by your girlfriend. Perhaps, you hate the well-orchestrated, social brainwash that marriage really is.

Find your biggest source of frustration; go and blog about it. Chances are that you’ll not worry about word counts and blog post lengths. There’s a possibility that many others in the world would relate to you.

Relating to the topic on hand, by the way, is half the business done.

Find a real business, blog for that business

2 real business

Don’t blog about a topic. Instead, find a real business and apply your passion for blogging into a blog built for your business. Why? An unbelievable amount of “you” gets into your business, whether you know it or not.

Hatching that idea, sticking with it, and grabbing a business plan template off the web are the starting points. Beyond that, you’d give your business everything (including startup capital, sacrifices, the comfort of a day job, and the wholesome approval of people who mean so much to you). You will not sound or feel normal after so much goes into starting and running a business.

Your blog now reflects the new “you,” doesn’t it? Whatever you went through until this stage of your business (assuming you go with this idea) helps you communicate better. You are stronger, and you have an attitude to kill for.

Blog for a cause, to make a difference

3 cause

If starting and running a full-fledged business (such as ecommerce, maybe) is not your thing, let’s get back to blogging.

Niches are popular and commercial. They evoke responses from customers such as “buy,” “buy later,” “no way, it’s too expensive,” and “nah, not for me.” If you don’t directly pitch for anything in your blog, all you’ll get is “ah,” “duh,” or “I see. Wow!”

Blog for a cause, instead, and you’ll mostly get responses like “I so want to help, if I could,” “Where is the donate button?” “I like what this person does,” “This is so true,” and “Wow, really?”

Now, causes don’t have to charitable. You could find a cause within commercial domains too. You can find a cause anywhere. All you have to do is look for something that’s troubling you, and you know that a lot of other people are also affected by it.

Look at what SaltyDroid does:

The trouble seed: Online scammers on the rise

The cause: Exposing scammers, thieves, and fraud “gurus” with make-believe opportunities

Does SaltyDroid sell anything? No.

Does it get traffic? Next question please.

Experiment until you find the purpose

4 experiment

Learning the art of blogging after you find your purpose will draw you in very late to the game. When the purpose comes calling, you have to hit the ground running. You have to be ready by then. That’s why it’s important to keep blogging everyday. How do you become a better blogger? Write blog posts every day.

What’s the secret to passionate blogging? Using your well-developed blogging skills to write about things that matter to you (and others).

In a nutshell, you have to do all the dreaming, thinking, and executing while you already have a blog in place. Now, you know that your choice of niche wouldn’t matter too. Pick a topic, start a blog and run with it. Think of this as your experiment.

Experiment until you find your passion. Once you find it, give your blog everything you’ve got.

Grammar? Rules? What’s that?

5 break rules

Read all the blogs you want on “how to blog better.” Brush up on your basics of writing (add copywriting to the mix). Yet, don’t think that what you read is the only “right” way to do things out there. You can make your own rules. Copywriters, for instance, break rules all the time. Find your voice. Make your writing reflect that voice. If you have to twist sentence structures, do so. If you have to invent your own words or phrases, like labeling yourself as an “anti-niche blogging rebel” go ahead and do it.

This is your playground. Go play. ;)

Your passion should show. Success will follow.

Are you stuck with niches or are you blogging from your heart? Do you have a purpose yet? Share it with us!

How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit as a Blogger?

How can I write daily as a blogger?

How can I write 1,000 words per day in a consistent manner?

What are the hacks involved to get this to happen?

Believe me, these questions above are some of the primary questions bloggers ask on numerous search engines when they find it hard to churn out articles on a frequent, daily manner.

But before I proceed to reveal what needs to be done in other to jump-start a daily writing habit, I will have to first explain why it’s imperative to have one in the first place.

Firstly of all, as a blogger who’s writing on a niche best known to you; writing daily would help you cover grounds quickly on the topic you blog about. This comes in handy when you blog on a very large topic e.g. writing, health or personal development etc.

write-writing_6

Secondly, writing daily makes you a better person since you’re actually setting goals and accomplishing it daily. And realizing this would naturally give you the required confidence to take on any mundane or gigantic tasks and complete them swiftly.

Thirdly, apart from making you a better person; developing a daily writing habit would also make you a good writer. As in, you’d be able to express yourself through your words so well that people would literally get what you’re trying to convey as they read each words of your posts.

And finally, now that I’ve shown you the reasons why writing daily is beneficial to you as a blogger, it’d be a privilege to show you how to start and keep doing this habit daily.

So, without wasting much time, these are the 5 ways to start and keep doing “the daily writing habit” –

1. Decide That You Want To Write Daily

We’re generally moral creatures as human beings, this depicts that whatever we put our mind to accomplish, surely comes into fruition as long as we have made up our minds to do just that.

Likewise, this can be said of writing daily too. When you decide within yourself that writing everyday is what you want to frequently keep doing, it becomes quite easy to write because you’ve made up your mind.

After making up your mind on starting, then you’d have to decide how many words to write everyday. Stephen King once famously quoted that, “To be a better writer, you’d need to write at least 1,000 words per day, for a start”. So choosing a specific amount of words to write per day is necessary. This gives your goal – of wanting to write daily – some kind of constructive form, since a goal without a precise target isn’t a goal but a mere wish.

With that said, when I decided to start writing on daily basis, I had a target to write at least 1,000 words per day, no matter how unpleasant it might be to write them out.

And to tell you the truth, with that target of 1,000 words in mind, I tried as much as I could to reach them each day and it worked excellently well for me.

So, it’s not only in deciding to develop a daily writing habit, but it’s also a significant factor to have a target of words, which you need to reach and overly accomplish on daily basis.

2. Write now. . Edit Later

Writing should come naturally and smoothly from you to the computer screen or paper. So when you constantly delete any little grammatical errors or typing errors you see while you write, you’d notice that it’d interfere with your writing flow, which ends up making you lose your writing muse.

So, what should you do to minimize the editing until you’ve finished writing?

Well, it’s quite easy, what you need to do is simply to turn off your Microsoft Word spellchecker or your word processors’ spell checker, since it’s basically the core reason why people keep editing their first drafts while they write.
To shut down the MS Word Spell checker until you’ve finished writing, do this –

Firstly, click on the Ms Word logo at the top left side of your screen.

Once that has been initiated, a little new window will come up.

Click on “Word Options”.

After you’ve clicked on “Word Option”, a new page will come up.

Locate and click on “proofing”.

Once the proofing page has shown itself; start by un-checking these buttons below in other to stop MS Word from momentarily spell checking your first draft.

• Check spelling as you type
• Mark grammar errors as you type
• Check grammar with spelling

And of course, you can “check” the buttons later when you’ve complete your daily word count.

This would help you very much in editing less and writing more in other to be able to finish up your daily writing on time.

3. Plan Tomorrow’s Writings – Today

Like I once said earlier, planning cannot be overemphasized when we talk about writing since it’s the embodiment of the subject in question. When you plan before time about what to write the next day, it becomes quite easy to actually write on any topic you’ve chosen to write on, no matter how complex it may be.

Likewise, to put this into motion, get online and do extensive research for the next day writing after you might have completed your daily writing of that day.

And when you do this continually, you’d notice that writing becomes easy for you each day you wake up to write. This would help you write faster and better, up to the point of even surpassing the normal word count that you’ve put in place.

4. Reward Yourself Regularly

Take out time to reward yourself for each day you complete your daily writing schedule. It doesn’t matter whether your targeted word count is 500, 900, 1000 or 5000; what is important is that you’ve managed against all odd to see that it’s completed.

So, once you’ve accomplished such feat; go out for a walk or buy yourself a wonderful dinner or lunch. Just enjoy the moment..;)

because achieving a goal isn’t easy and most people rarely achieve anything of significance in life.

So, enjoy the victory and make sure to have a blast. This way, you’d crave to achieve exactly the same feat the next day when you’re faced with the same word count.

5. Have Someone That Checks on You Daily

When it’s only you in a goal, you might easily start to give yourself measly excuses why you can’t fabricate the specific amount of words you had vowed to write out daily.

So normally, this is where attaching a second party to your goal becomes quite a good idea. Include someone you can trust to check up on your goal of accomplishing that specific amount of word count each day.

Apart from that, making sure he or she is given the power by you to seize something of value from you each time you fail to reach the required word count that you’ve set.

Believe me, with that only; you’d be prompt to take your daily writing a little more serious. Leaving you with no option than to complete the daily writing or have something of value seized from under your very nose.

In Conclusion

Since I started daily writing, it has been very wonderful for me as blogger, because I can now write tons of guest posts and also find more time to write for my own blog at same time.

This alone has significantly boosted my blog traffic to a reasonable level that I’m proud of, and it has also given me a little bit of confidence as a freelance writer too.

So, engaging in daily writing will surely change you and take your blog to the next levels.

I surely hope you’ll START the daily writing ritual today.

Do you write daily or weekly? How often do you publish new post on your blog? Do let me know in comments.

Increase Blog Traffic! 8 Great Ways That Really Work

In this post you’re going to learn how to Increase Blog Traffic.

Managing a blog can be an exciting time for anyone, but most of us are going to have a hard time to increase blog traffic and maintaining it for a long period of time.

Once your blog is a little older and has established its authority within your niche, then it becomes much easier to have a steady stream of traffic. So what should you do first in order to increase blog traffic?

Well, we are going to go over 8 ways that will be able to increase blog traffic it needs to get a head start.

increase blog traffic

8 Great Ways To Increase Blog Traffic

Search Engine Optimized Content & Site

Search engine optimization is going to be one of the best ways to increase blog traffic. The higher you rank in search engines, the more traffic you will get, so it is important to optimize everything possible. There are plenty of different ways you can optimize your blog and the content that you post. This method of traffic will require you to learn a lot of techniques and doesn’t become effective overnight.

It requires you to invest a good amount of time before you start to see great results. Although it takes some time, once you start to see your rankings increase, your blog will be well on its way to becoming a success.

Target a Specific Audience

Before you start posting more content, you need to make sure you have a target audience that you are writing for. If you know who you are trying to attract, you will be able to create content that appeal to them the most. Different audiences don’t like the same type of content, so you need to make sure that the stuff you are creating will have them coming back for more.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an incredible way to increase blog traffic. It is especially effective if your blog is brand new and you need to give it a boost in traffic. There are many different paid advertising programs that are available to you. One of the most commonly used ways is a pay per click program. You get to set up and advertisement and then pay every time someone clicks on it. Depending on what keywords you choose to target, will determine how much each click will cost.

You can also use social media programs, pay per impression programs, and plenty more. If you don’t mind spending some money to advertise your blog, you will get some targeted traffic that will get your blog off the ground.

You can even advertise here to get more and more traffic at affordable price.

Ensure All of Your Pages are Being Indexed

Sometimes search engines won’t index your blog right away, so you should make sure that they are. Like I previously mentioned, search engine traffic is one of the best ways to get your blog successful. Each search engine allows you to submit your site to them so they can easily crawl your site and index it. You should make sure to do this with every major engine.

You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to send a spider to crawl your site and report back to you with any errors you may have.

Create the Best Content you Possibly Can

If you want to increase blog traffic to your site, then you are going to need to make sure that the content you are creating is worth it. People won’t come back or recommend your blog to their friend and family if your content is mediocre. Since there are so many bloggers out there, our readers are used to consuming excellent content.

If your content doesn’t keep them interested enough, then you can expect them to just leave for another blog that creates something better.

Don’t Post Irrelevant Content

A big mistake that will cut your traffic down would be to post content that has nothing to do with your current niche. Plenty of blogs have ruined their chances at success because they drove all of their loyal viewers away and never kept their blog about a specific niche.

If you start posting about random things, your loyal viewers will most likely not stay since they originally came to view content about your niche. The traffic that you attract with the random content won’t stay since the rest of your content isn’t relevant to what they want to see. Just keep all of your content relevant to your niche and you will see much more traffic. In this way you can easily Increase Blog Traffic Fast.

Keep Consistent With Your Posts

You should come up with a regular time that you post to your audience. If your readership know when to expect your next post, they will be more willing to read it as soon as possible.

You should never go a long period of time without posting something because people will eventually just forget your blog even exists, which will obviously reduce your traffic. Come up with a schedule and stick to it. You can Increase Your Blog Traffic in this way.

Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Social media can be used in so many different ways. You can use it to increase blog traffic, help brand your blog, increase authority, and much more. You should be using social media to enhance all aspects of your blog.

The only thing you should be aware of is that it can be just as bad for your blog if you don’t manage it correctly. Posting something offensive, not responding to comments, and plenty of thing things can give your blog a bad image and hurt your reputation. If you plan to use social media, make sure to properly manage it to get as many benefits as you can.

Increasing traffic to your blog  may take some time and hard work, but if you are determined enough, you will have no problem being successful with it.

Using these 8 tips will definitely get you headed in the right direction, and as time goes by you will figure out new ways that will be more beneficial to your specific blog.

Did I missed any? If you want more suggestion about how to increase blog traffic to your blog, Do let me know in comments.