1. Link Exchange

I think this is one of the simplest and oldest ways to gain both visitors and back links to the site. I think I already discussed this one in passing in one of the articles I wrote. This is the process wherein you asked site/blog owners to put a link of your site in their site. In return both of you would drop by each other’s blog in a daily manner. Unfortunately, this trend is slowly diminishing, most of the time bloggers (especially the one who have been blogging for years) ignores request for link exchange. Also, blog hopping takes so much time.

2. MEME

This is one of my favourite things to do when I am not busy. Why? Because MEME has a lot of advantage. But you asked, what is a MEME? MEME in blogging are set of random questions or instruction that the meme owner would post in a daily or weekly manner. As a participant you have to answer the questions or do what is instructed in your own blog. Through this you have not only put contents on your blog but also gained some links because you would be putting the URL of your blog as a heads up that you join the meme. You might even gain friends in the process.

For a list of meme’s that might interest you, drop by @ http://thedailymeme.com/

3. Entrecard

Entrecard has had its share of popularity two or three years ago. Bloggers have been enthusiastic on using the site to gain visitors to their blog. All you need to do is register with then, wait for your blog to be approved, once approved, put in the code in your blog that they would give you and start clicking. If you are keen on visiting blogs in the network, chances are you would gain visitors also. But if you just put in their badge in your site and won’t make your fingers worked then it would make no difference in your traffic stats.

For more information about entrecard, visit their site @ entrecard.com

4. Adgitize

If you have $14 to spare, then go to adgitize.com and advertise your blog. I guarantee you that this site would give you daily visitors. Why? Because members of this site are rewarded points whenever they visit blog in the network. Don’t worry about the fee, you can have it back after a month if you are religiously writing post in your blog and visiting blogs in the Adgitize network.

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Next question, okay, the money is sent to my PayPal account, then how can I get it and convert it to cash? Simple. Withdraw and transfer. Just like what I am doing below. To make things clearer, go to the PAYPAL website. And register.

For you to be able to receive payment via PayPal, it will ask you for a credit card number. This is their way to verify your account. But if you don’t have PayPal accounts worry no more. Get a UNION Bank Eon account and link it to start using your PayPal account. To learn more about Union Bank Eon click here.

After putting in the necessary details in your PayPal account you are ready to received, send and withdraw money to your account. You can withdraw money directly to your account by putting in your account number plus the assigned bank code. For a complete list of bank codes please go to this eBay page.

Note: There is a risked when it comes to online transaction. I have heard horror stories about bloggers PayPal account being hacked. So just a note please be careful when using your account. Make sure you have secure connection and don’t click any link that is being sent to your email account. The email may look legitimate and coming from PayPal but the truth is, it’s just a phishing email. Just be vigilant.

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1. Pagerank or PR

Pagerank is the gauge to how your important your website is. Too broad I know. Actually your PR is the mirror of your site. It should reflects it’s overall statistics. However, there was an issue with Google before. Google is the one who determined PR. All sites that engaged with paid blogging were penalized and all PRs were reduced to 0. This was such a big blow among bloggers because the higher your PR the higher the pay and the more you attract advertisers.

But before I go any further, let me show you how a PR looks like and where can you find it. First, you have to have a GOOGLE TOOLBAR installed in your browser. And from there you can see the PAGERANK.

If after looking, you have not found it, don’t worry. All you need to do is update your toolbar. Use the right click option of the mouse and something like this would appear. Now, make sure to check the PR.

The site I used as an example is FACEBOOK.COM. Of course, almost everyone uses it, so it’s PR is a PERFECT 10.

So now you ask. How do I increase my PAGERANK? Well, I don’t know. Honestly, I do not know the algorithm that Google applies to determine the importance of one’s site. And almost everybody is clueless. I think it’s just safe to say, that in order to gain a PR, you should write articles that people would search about. TAKE NOTE of the word SEARCH. Yes, if you have articles that somehow gives out simple information ( for example your experience with a certain restaurant where you ate, a product that you have used, a spa that you have visited (include address and telephone numbers of the establishment please) that people look for then you are telling the search engines that your site should have a place in the internet.

You would also want to have backlinks. Backlink are produced when a different site put the url of your blog in their site. How do you do it? Well, contact the blog or site owner and asked nicely if you do exchange links with them. Target those sites with high Pagerank. Another note though, not all of those you will approached will respond but keep on trying. Don’t take it against the blog/site owner if he/she did not reply to your request. And lastly, advertise your blog to your friends and family. Put a link in your facebook account. Create a twitter and put a link there also. And again, let the internet be your library. Look for tips to INCREASE your PAGERANK.

2. ALEXA

Aside from the PAGERANK, paid to blog websites also requires you to have a low alexa. You can check you site’s ALEXA ranking by going to the ALEXA website. The lower your alexa the better. I really am not sure how blogs are ranked in alexa but what I know is that it decreases when you have high quality traffic. That means you got a lot of visitors to your site who stays to read on the content of your blog.

3. SEO

For bloggers, this is a favourite topic. SEO is a short term for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a process or technique wherein you as a site owner would used so that your site would have a place in the search engine being used in the internet. Search engine would include GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN etc. So you ask. How can my site be indexed by search engine? Well, if you have a new site you can start by submitting the url to different search engine. Yahoo and Google have pages for that purposes. And you can also look for sites whose main focus is directory submissions to search engine. Make sure you also write articles that would attract readers.

It’s okay to write personal post but based on my experience to help you boost your site rankings, develop a technique wherein you include some information that internet users might be looking for. Like a feedback on the product you are using, location and phone of the restaurant you are dining etc. And of course, look for SEO tips in the world wide web.

4. Backlinks

Back link is the term for a site which links back to your site. Back in the early days of blogging, link exchange ( bloggers would asked fellow bloggers to link their site) is very popular. This is one way to get back links to your site. In my personal opinion, backlinks to your site (especially links to high PR sites) is very important. Sometimes it determines your PR. Note : Link to high PR sites. Sometimes linking to low PR sites or PR0 can drag down your PR.

I think I already covered almost everything that a neophyte blogger should now. These are just the basic knowledge that I can share when it comes to blogging. Again, if you wanted to know do your research and know your way in the internet.

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Now, let’s get started on BLOGGING. How do we get started? Of course, create a blog. But a word of caution though. If you would enrol the blog in paid blogging sites I suggest you host your blog in your own domain for the following reason:

• Most paid blogging sites now are only accepting blogs that are hosted on own domain

• Your time and effort will all go to waste if by chance you started a blog on free platform then later on you decide you want to host it on your own domain

• Technically speaking, you have a lot more control on your blog when you host in on your own domain

But if you are insistent on starting on a free blog platform I suggest you can get one through blogger.com. The site will help you through the step by step. You just need to read and understand. If by any reason, you don’t like blogger then search for free blog platform on the web. Though I am not sure if these are accepted by paid blogging sites.

And now if I convinced you that you start by hosting a blog in your own domain, you can do so in different ways. There are two ways that I am familiar with.

First, this is for those who really wanted to host their down on a low budget. Create a blog at blogger.com, then go to the SETTINGS TAB then click PUBLISHING. You can see a buy a domain for your blog. Click that. This will guide you through buying a domain. The requirement for this is that you have to have a credit card. Once you have bought a domain successfully, the blogspot.com will be removed and will be replaced by the nameyouchoiceforyourblog.com.

Second, find a reliable webhosting company. This would come with a certain fee. You have to pay the one year or two year hosting fee. You might think it’s a bit of big cash out. But for me it’s worth it especially if in the future you would set up more blogs (not to mention you can now FTP files if you have your own domain). Keep in mind that I am talking about the wordpress platform in this one. Example of Webhosting Company is BLUEHOST.COM.

At first, starting a blog (whether it’s free or own domain) can be intimidating. But don’t be rattled. All bloggers (successful or not) have gone through this stage. The only difference is that there are those who got intimidated and quit. But there are those who persevere and have done their homework and succeeded. Remember, WINNERS never QUIT, QUITTERS never WINS!

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Many would say that blogging is as easy as 123, including me. It is indeed easy because blogging just entail you to write what you have in mind. It’s like keeping a diary but the difference is that it’s online and viewable by all. But when you thread the road to paid blogging, it will get a bit complicated. Why? Well, because you have to think of ways to increase the ‘market value’ of your blog. Again why? Because advertisers accepts blog that have high Page rank, low alexa, and high hits. Huh!?! What was that all about, you say? Indeed there is complexity in the world of paid blogging which you need to explore if you want to earn more.

That’s why I said that you need to devote some time if you would engage into paid blogging. Writing your thoughts won’t be enough. You need to research, learn and apply what you learn to be successful. I would be honest with you. A few years back, paid blogging is simple. If you have a blog even if it’s hosted on those free blogging platform (like blogger.com or wordpress.com) then you can apply it on different paid blogging website. Today, it’s different. Not only does they require that your blog are hosted on your own domain they also want that your site has the certain statistics that would guarantee them that you have a good standing blog. How to do this? Well, I am sorry to say I am no expert in this field. I would give you an idea or two but the best way to learn your way is to GOOGLE. Yes, try searching the web for information that would be helpful in your blogging career. What I am saying is that I cannot teach you everything; you have to find different resources to help you in your journey to paid blogging.

Research about:

• Paid blogging

• Search engine optimization

• How to increase your Page rank, decrease your alexa

• How to attract visitors into your site and make them stay for a bit

Searching this in Google would yield a lot of results. You can read on everything or choose which article is worth reading and where you can learn. Through researching and reading you would definitely learn a lot. Don’t depend on others to do the work for you, help yourself!

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In 2008, I earned around 200K in Php. I was really surprised when I tabulated my earnings in the worksheet and got that sum. I am actually earning a decent income through paid blogging! So, to track everything I decided to make a report in an excel file. And I am happy to announced that for 2009, from January to September I earned more than $4k. For some this is already a big amount but for some it’s a small amount but for me whatever the amount it, it’s a blessing for a stay at home mom, right? The truth is, I am having second thoughts of putting this figure on my post but decided to divulge this little confidential information to show you that indeed you can earn some income online. Also I would like to share with you a graph that shows the trending of my income.

As you can see not all months are good but there are months that my income goes up. That just indicates that paid blogging also have uncertain months. Income is dependent on some factors like the advertisers, the amount of job that a website assigned to you and how fast you can grab the opportunities that comes your way and YOU! Mostly, the reason for the decline on my part was that I feel the burn out of writing and have to give in to laziness

If you still are doubtful, then here is a proof of payment from some website where my blogs are enrolled. All of them pay through Paypal.

As I always said paid blogging has been a blessing for a mom like me who opted to stay at home. I don’t have to go to the office to earn my own money. I also work at my own time. Hopefully you can too!

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And then in 2005, being a curious cat, I love to hop from one site to another. That is where I started learning about paid blogging. It makes me giddy to think that I can earn online by writing in my blog. So I took the plunge and started enrolling through different paid to blog websites. But unfortunately, I stopped! Why? Because at that time, Paypal members here in the Philippines cannot accept money. That’s really heartbreaking.

So I took a break from paid blogging but when Paypal announced that we can now used all its feature (and by the time I have already resigned from work) I again started my quest to earn online. Fortunately, this time it proves to be successful. Today, I have money coming in on a monthly basis from my blogs. I am still contemplating if I would share with you my readers the exact figure to show you that everything in paid blogging is legit. And to inspire you just in case you really wanted to try paid blogging.

Indeed as a stay at home, paid blogging is heaven sent. I can earn online at the comforts of my home at my own pace and at my own time.

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