Money Blue Book

Review Of How To Start Earning A Full Time Income With Just A Blog

Previously, I shared a little background overview of how I got started as an aspiring full time blogger and pursued my dream of working from home and making money with a blog. For many years, I worked a traditional day job as an attorney, whether it was with the federal government or whether it was in the private sector. A few years ago and rather unexpectedly out of the blue, I stumbled upon the idea of starting up a blog to make some money on the side. The idea was not to replace my seemingly stable and indispensable full time day job as a lawyer, but to supplement my salary with an alternative income stream. Little did I know and much to my subsequent surprise years later, my small network of profitable online weblogs would one day start reaping monthly incomes that greatly exceeded what I could earn as an ambulance chasing attorney. While I continue to balance my part time legal practice profession with my mixture of online businesses and other side ventures to this day, my blogging operations have finally grown to the point where they are now capable of providing me a stable and nearly free source of revenue – offering me a boost in a quality of life I never dreamed possible before.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that persistent adaptation, continuous self education, a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and the uncanny ability to function with little sleep – are traits that can truly be turned into financial success. Becoming a semi-full time blogger and giving up the tedious commute and traditional desk job – to work from home and earn a stable living is a reachable goal for many. The process is not easy and most of those who attempt to walk down this deceptively daunting and challenging path will undoubtedly fail miserably, but the fiercely determined and highly self motivated few will succeed – I’m living proof of that.

As entire books and trilogies can be easily written on the subject, the following is more of a quick summary for beginners who are interested in getting started with running their own profitable blogs than a comprehensive guide. Here are some of the key pointers that I’ve learned over time as a blogger who now earns in excess of six figures a year. I’m by no means an expert – just a guy who’s witnessed and endured first hand both his personal share of lucky successes and misguided failures when it comes to the subject of blogging online to earn a living.

If You Want To Make Money As A Blogger, Blog About A Subject Other Than Merely How To Make Money Online

This is not a blog about blogging, nor is it a blog about how to make money online per se. While I do occasionally dwell into ways how ordinary consumers can take advantage of arbitrage opportunities such as advantageous 0% balance transfer offers, reward credit card bonuses, and paid online survey offers that compensate participants looking to make some extra cash on the side – the primary focus of this blog has always been first and foremost focused on personal finance and long term financial planning and investing. The emphasis has always been on the nitty gritty elements of saving money, debt reduction, and planning for one’s financial future. One of the most recent endeavors of mine was to start sharing my personal net worth reports and income progressions over time. On this blog, I track and provide my own net worth tables for all to see, not to boast or demonstrate some ego-boosting bravado, but to show readers that I am just a regular guy, trying to work hard and turn my life’s fruits and efforts into a future retirement nest egg. I have had a tremendous number of failures in my life, whether they be personal, relational, or professional – but I have continued to strive for my dreams. That’s one of the essences of blogging – the sharing of personal viewpoints and the trials and tribulations of personal experience.

Those of you who want to quit your full time day jobs and end the seemingly endless cycle of trading hours for dollars, and start blogging online will do well for yourselves by picking a real world topic instead of dwelling in the saturated “make money online” tar pit. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with writing about your passion for blogging and generating income via your efforts on the web if that is your interest and true calling, but the fact of the matter is – it’s not a topical niche that deserves the type of massive attention and copycat imitation that it receives. Like the overrated careers that populate the professional landscape, the “make money online” niche is vastly over saturated, with supply outstripping the demand, and conversion rates (the ability to convert blog traffic into income producing sales) from its natural audience of extraordinarily tech savvy readers – too aggravatingly low. It’s not impossible, but I think you are better off choosing a less tapped into subject matter that’s not so exceedingly rife with scams and get rich quick junk products. Frankly, the same negative sentiment can be said for the technology niche as well, although fortunately for that area of tech based information, the content matter is more broad, more varied, and perhaps sufficiently diverse to accommodate new blogging entrants.

When choosing a subject to blog about – make sure you pursue a subject that is sufficiently broad and dynamic enough where you would be able to sit down and write out 100+ new blog titles on the spot if you had to. The world is currently filled to the brim with a tremendous number of subject matters and questions that still await to be responded to with updated information. Do you enjoy clothing and fashion trends? What about cooking, parenting advice, personal fitness, or outdoor activities like camping or fishing? How about coupons, shopping deals, lifestyle do-it-yourself tips, interior decorating, real estate news, home improvement, or celebrity gossip? Those are all interesting subject matters worth blogging about with plenty of advertisers to tap into for the passionate blogger.

How To Find Advertisers For Your Blog As A Beginner Blogger

Whenever I’m at a family gathering, with friends I haven’t seen for some time, or at some church function, one of the most common questions I get whenever I talk to someone about my online business (once I’ve overcome the blank stares after I tell them my self employment job title), is how I find relevant advertisers for my blog and how I actually get paid for my blogging efforts. Frankly, advertisers are everywhere and you just have to know where to find them. When your blog ultimately hits the big time and starts generating massive traffic, prospective advertisers and curious companies (and even advertising spammers) will naturally start tracking your contact information down. But until then, your best bet is to seek out and partner with the middle man companies out there – the affiliate marketing networks that consolidate and aggregate the various affiliate and lead generation offers out there on the Internet.

Through these affiliate marketing networks, you will be able to locate advertisers from a very wide variety of categories – all willing and able to pay you whenever you refer targeted sales or business to them through your blog or website. Many will allow you to access their affiliate product inventories and compensate you for a variety of sales referrals including – pay per click ads (PPC) which pay a tiny sum of money per text or banner ad click, pay per sign up or action type ads (CPA ads) which pay you a much larger referral cut in the way of commission percentages whenever you refer a prospective customer to them, and pay per impression ads (CPM) which pay a sum for a set number of website viewing impressions. For example, if I wanted to promote Monavie or any number of acai berry juice brands/scams for example (I don’t – but just giving this product as an example), there are plenty of companies out there willing to pay me a set referral commission (hypothetically, say 5-10% or $10.00 per lead) for every new customer I refer. Picking the right mixture of advertisers depends on your blog’s subject matter and your target audience.

Check out the following below recommended and popular affiliate marketing networks and companies for advertisers. Bear in mind, there are also quite a great number of specific advertisers and companies out there who also run affiliate programs, but are only obtainable if you contact them directly, and many frequently won’t deal with you until your blog reaches a certain traffic minimum (on average at least 5,000 unique visitors per month).

List Of The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Companies (Pay Per Click and Pay Per Referral):

Remember to negotiate for the best commission rates and learn to leverage your ever steadily increasing blog traffic to your advantage. Your negotiation clout will slowly increase as your blog traffic increases with time – be patient. Compare affiliate payout rates and offers and go with the best rate provider. All of the following affiliate networks below provide similar banners, ads, and website scripts you’ll need to get started, but each differs in the exclusive offers each carries in its inventory cache of advertisers. Many of the individual offers overlap between multiple affiliate network providers, but each of the following networks offers uniques. Be forewarned, it will likely take many, many, many months of very hard (but frequently fun and interesting) trial and error work before you’ll figure out how to maximize your ad revenue, but if you are persistent and are constantly learning, you’ll figure it out in time. Trying signing up and tinkering with each affiliate provider to get started:

1. Google Adsense: The most well known and best pay per click advertising network is run by Big-G. Google’s highly targeted contextual advertising program is a must have if you are a beginner to blogging. Just run the Adsense script on your blog and ads relevant to your content will automatically be displayed. Pay per click income is great for beginners but its usefulness tapers off in income potential after your site gets bigger.
2. Amazon Associates: With this popular and versatile program, simply link to Amazon.com related products for affiliate income earning potential. Very useful and scalable for even mature sites.
3. Ebay Partner Network: With the eBay affiliate publisher program, you can link to any specific eBay auction or link to an eBay ad based on keywords to get a commission cut of the sales generated.
4. Linkshare: Lots of very nice ad exclusives but less customer support and attention then I’d like. But in general, the exclusive affiliate offers are worth signing up for as you can’t get them anywhere else.
5. Commission Junction: The 800 pound gorilla of pay per action ads. Like them or not, they are the biggest of the advertising networks.
6. Flex Offers: Run by the same guys who run CardOffers.com. A personal favorite of mine as my longtime rep has consistently offered me the best affiliate payout rates. Lots of great exclusive affiliate offers for a diverse selection of categories.
7. CardOffers: A very popular choice for credit card sales and affiliate referrals if you are into the financial niche. The best credit card payout offers have all but dried up recently however. The economy is to blame.
8. NCS Reporting: Owned by Bankrate.com, it’s one of the biggest credit card referrals company. However, payout doesn’t seem as consistently high as CardOffers and account security was a problem for a while (major breach of my account by cunning online thieves).
9. Acclaim Network: Allowed me to run Citibank credit card links as a new start up blog when the other card affiliate companies wouldn’t permit it. Payouts are pretty low though.
10. Commission Soup: Invitation only affiliate company that offers great service and good payouts on most of their affiliate offers.
11. Market Leverage: Great referral program and an up and coming affiliate network company. Market Leverage is big among big name bloggers.
12. PepperJam Network: Another up and coming ad company that’s popular among established bloggers and affiliate promoters.
13. ShareASale: Provides a variety of affiliate companies to pick from.
14. Chitika: Touts quite a number of search targeted ads similar to Google Adsense
15. Google Affiliate Network: Seems like a blatant conflict of interest to me, but Google does offer a few exclusive deals. Not a well developed affiliate network as of yet however.
16. Text Link Ads: Used heavily during its heyday, but has grown somewhat taboo these days as a means to build up page rank based search engine authority, but some sites still use them. I personally don’t, but that’s because my site’s been around for a while now and I don’t need to use such services, which are better suited for beginners perhaps.
17. Azoogle Ads: Affiliate network that allows publishers to buy and sell text links and various ad space.
18. Clickbank: Offers primarily text links, random ads, and e-books of all sorts (big chunk of those offers are targeted at the make money online MMO niche).

How To Start Blogging For Money and Generating Blog Traffic

As there is simply no way I can write down every single advanced blogging technique and trade secret strategy I have about how to make money online and generate money with a blog (there is just too many), I’ll share just the basics as this is a post primarily to serve as a call to action for beginners. Here is how you can get going if you want to start getting serious about blogging as a way to replace your existing full time job and for you to start working for yourself. As entire blogs and books can be devoted to the subject, the following is just a basic primer to help newbies get started on the road to blogging for income. Please don’t fall for those stupid and utterly useless Shortcut To Internet Millions and related eBay type scams that promise lots of money with no effort and no computer know-how. Don’t be misled – you will need to work very hard, for months or years, but making money online with a blog is possible.  The following are the entry level steps I took to get started blogging:

1) Register A Domain Name and Purchase A Monthly Web Hosting Service: I recommend starting out with a free Blogspot.com or Wordpress.com account as a way to get your feet wet into the wonderful world of blogging. However, for long term brand name and website setup purposes, if you plan on making this whole blogging deal into a serious venture, I very strongly recommend registering for a formal domain name and choosing a paid web hosting service sooner than later. After all, doesn’t MoneyBlueBook.com seem much more professional than say – moneybluebook.blogspot.com?

• Get A Domain Name: Go with GoDaddy.com for your domain registration needs if you want to go with the service that most people are using at the moment. GoDaddy is a very popular registrar choice for bloggers just starting out. I personally use Dreamhost.com for my domain name registrations – but that’s only because they’re the company I started out with and I want to stay consistent. Good luck finding a short domain name however – it seems like all of the juicy domain names are all taken, especially the coveted “dot com” ones.
• Get A Reliable Web Hosting Provider: MoneyBlueBook.com is currently hosted on a dedicated LiquidWeb.com server. I pay about $150 a month for excellent and very reliable hosting, but that’s because this blog generates pretty decent traffic. Liquidweb is more expensive than other companies, but I’ve found their service to be extremely reliable with an excellent uptime track record. Most start up blogs can probably run sufficiently on a cheap shared server at least for some time with a hosting company like BlueHost, GoDaddy, or DreamHost for about $10-20 a month. But ultimately though, you get what you pay for. Cheap hosting equals unreliable up time. It’s not a big deal when you’re just starting out, but it’ll kill your business when your sites start generating serious traffic.

2) Install and Learn To Use Wordpress: Wordpress is the best and most reliable blogging platform to date. Some popular blogs out there are still operating off of other blogging programs like Blogger, but most are steadily migrating to Wordpress. Most professional web host providers can help you install this very powerful and versatile free blogging tool for you. It will take time for you to truly master the ins and outs of Wordpress blogging and learn how to fully utilize all of the Wordpress plugins and widgets available, but once you get the hang of the versatile blogging tools at your disposal, you’ll find the free Wordpress software to be quite indispensable.

3) Start Blogging On A Daily Basis and Pace Yourself As A Writer: The key to surviving as a blogger and building a sustainable future as a blogger capable of making a living online through blogging – is to stay consistent and not get overly burned out too soon. At the start, there is a natural euphoria of excitement as you start witnessing the blogging traffic fruits of your efforts, but don’t let the initial excitement force you to over exert yourself. Similarly, during your blogging journey, at some time or another, you are likely going to get stricken with an affliction of what’s popularly known as blogger’s block (aka, writer’s block). But fear not – even seasoned bloggers experience this feeling of laziness and lack of motivation on frequent occasion. Cut back on your blogging activities if you have to but don’t give up.

When you first start out, your readership will be pitifully few, but that’s absolutely normal. Don’t stop writing quality content as that is the only way you will generate readership in the very long run. This feeling of blogging loneliness and frustration caused by lack of traffic may persist for many months, but if you are to succeed, you must give it time. It takes a lot of time to get accepted into the good graces of the search engines and for strangers to organically discover your blog through the series of tubes of cyberspace. From the time I personally started blogging with the intention of ultimately making money online, it took 12 months or so before I finally started to generate a substantial income from my blogging activities. Blogging is easy to get started but difficult to truly master.

4) Learn To Monetize Your Blog Readership and Increase Your Blog Traffic: Blogging should always be a work in progress. You should always be adapting and finding ways to do existing things better. Even after you’ve started to generate traffic and establish a cadre of readers, you should be constantly trying to figure out ways to increase that traffic and tweak the effectiveness of your advertising pitches. Strategic Google Adsense placement, targeted blog titles, and improved search engine optimization updates are ways to boost your income and traffic.

Getting listed in search engine submissions, blog directory listings, exchanging blog rolls, swapping reciprocal text links, participating in blog carnivals via blogcarnival.com, guest posting on other blogs, writing comments in popular online forums, participating in popular and related blogs, article marketing, as well as engaging in social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, mySpace, and Twitter – are all valid ways to get traffic but you’ll need to experiment with each one to find out what truly works in terms of improved monetization and what methods are just ways to generate exciting blog traffic numbers, but that don’t actually convert into tangible sales. Tip: Social media marketing is vastly overrated for monetization purposes as social media readers are not looking to buy or have their specific questions answered – thus targeted, organic search engine traffic is key. If you want to make money blogging, you had better be praying to the great temple of Google and figuring out what the Google gods want in the way of blog content and optimization.

5) Never Stop Learning, Experimenting, and Examining Your Competitors: You should never be trying to re-invent the wheel. One of the best ways to improve your own blog and blogging approach is to learn from the techniques of others. Take a peek at your competitor’s blog or visit your favorite blogs to see how they monetize and how they structure their blog content for clues as to their success. Don’t worry about feeling like a spy – after all, more likely than not, they are peeking right back at your website as well. That’s what smart businesses do – they examine their surroundings, learn from the best, and constantly improve. After all, if you owned a struggling ice cream shop, wouldn’t you secretly visit competing ice cream stores that are more successful than yours to figure out why and how those shops are able to generate more ice cream sales than yours?

My Dream Of Becoming An Internet Entrepreneur and Working For Myself

I am a part time (almost full time now) blogger who spends a great number of hours working on the Internet from home every night. For more than a year now, I’ve been quietly earning a sizable and consistent amount of money through blogging and my internet marketing efforts. As a multi-year veteran now to the world of making money online with a blog, I’ve joined a rather unique and eclectic group of young and emerging internet entrepreneurs – individuals who have not only successfully harnessed the power of the Internet to generate real money, but who have managed to turn seemingly unassuming websites into rather lucrative income producing automatons. While the phenomenon of blogging for money on a part time basis is certainly not new, the idea that one can actually become a full time professional blogger (a problogger of sorts) and generate not only a stable, but a sustainable income at a high velocity through mere blogging alone is quite a surprise to many (particularly among my friends and family).

I’m sure many of you are already well aware of a number of fairly successful bloggers and established Internet entrepreneurs like John Chow, ShoeMoney, and Darren Rowse of Problogger fame – online personalities that dominate the so-called “make money online” niche. Most of these semi famous Internet tycoons have been in the news for some time and have had many years to perfect the art of both online and mainstream personality-based sales pitches. Much of their mystique, self perpetuating hype, and authoritative attention stems from the sheer amounts of money they have raked in through their blogging and online entrepreneurial activities, and the continuous reminders of their financial success to their readers in the way of monthly income reports and screen shots of high dollar amount affiliate income checks. However, the ones you usually don’t hear about are those of us like myself who also run pretty successful operations of our own, but who have generally chosen to remain contently semi-anonymous and out of the lime light. While I’ve enjoyed a pretty lucrative career thus far in terms of the income streams that I’ve been able to pull through my collection of websites and online businesses, I made the conscientious decision early on to remain in the online shadows and out of the way in terms of real world publicity and attention. Not vying for the social media spotlight for ego-stroking purposes has allowed me to quietly generate a pretty prolific online business without the complicated hassles of unnecessary attention or even the critical scrutiny that the well known online bloggers at center stage face. Have you heard of the term “Millionaire Next Door” ? Well I’d like to think of myself as the “Blogger Next Door” – one of a growing number of unassuming and self made entrepreneurs who enjoy their relative anonymity and are content to blend in with everyone else in cyberspace while they quietly build their online fortunes.

Working From Home As A Full Time Blogger Is A Difficult, But Emotionally and Financially Rewarding Profession

My goal today is to simply break out of my usual personal finance subject matter for a moment and perhaps share some tidbits to encourage and inspire fledgling writers and aspiring entrepreneurs who have been quietly sitting on the sidelines – individuals who want to believe, but are afraid to take the first baby steps towards the world of self employment and Internet-based incomes. Admittedly, the journey from entry level writer and semi techie egghead, to nearly full time super affiliate power blogger is a very difficult and time consuming process, particularly in the early stages. Despite its rather ephemeral and unestablished nature, the seemingly unrealistic fantasy of being able to work from home and generate a full time income from just blogging alone is very real. While I have yet to make the final leap to full time blogger (I’m still a part time attorney), I am living proof that working from home and working for yourself is entirely and ultimately possible.

I stumbled upon blogging and the whole online business model a few years ago in 2006 quite by accident. One day I was tinkering with my free personal Xanga blogging account (this was back in the old days when Xanga.com was still popular) and I suddenly noticed the banner ads and affiliate links in the website margins for the first time. Examining the html source code, I finally realized and discovered that there was a whole marketing and income producing mechanism underneath it all that was quietly profiting from all of the user generated content that Xanga consumers were creating. From then on I decided to investigate further and figure out how the blog content and advertisement scripts were integrated into a workable business model – and the rest is history. A blog, or a weblog as it is officially called, is nothing more than an online diary of sorts sorted in reverse chronological order according to article post dates. Blogs are uniquely advantageous for monetization purposes because of the regularly updated and archived nature of their content. Simply put, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all of the other search engines love blogs for both the fresh and timelessly relevant content they churn out, and generally prefer to rank them very highly for organic search engine traffic – which when translated into practical terms, equals dollars and cents for savvy entrepreneurs.

Now that I’ve worked for myself and have finally tasted financial success and professional freedom, no longer will I ever go back to working for someone else. No longer will I ever want to go back to the emotional and professional constraints of working the traditional full time desk job and devoting my efforts towards benefiting someone else’s company or firm.

I attended law school and graduated to eventually work as an attorney (law school is overrated in my opinion). But anyway, in one of the lawyer jobs I held before I pursued my dream of becoming self employed, I used to work for an overbearing and very unprofessional alpha-female attorney. Despite my best professional efforts at the job, I felt absolutely miserable working as an associate attorney at her small solo practitioner law firm – and never felt so unfairly scrutinized, treated so condescendingly, and persistently set up to fail. But because it was her law firm and because she was my boss, and also because I wanted to keep my precious full time job, I humored her belligerency and endured her belittlement and unreasonable demands for weeks and months. Despite my seething frustration, the fact remained that it was her personal law firm and I was merely a replaceable cog in a bigger machine – and thus I swallowed my pride and did as I was told. But eventually I had enough of the disrespect and quit the firm, literally storming out at the end of one working day without looking back – going from having a full time job that paid the bills to immediate unemployment.

Now that I am a semi full time blogger who runs a variety of part time real life business ventures and operates his own part time legal practice on the side, I use tragic memories of my working past to motivate myself. Whether you no longer want to work for anyone else or whether you were forced out of your previous or current job due to the economic recession or as a consequence of layoffs, it’s time to consider chasing the dream of becoming self employed and finally throwing off the shackles and emotional constraints of the traditional “trading hours for dollars” working life. It may be a scary first step to take, but the potential rewards and financial upside are worth it.

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make From Their Blogs? Answer: Depends On Blog Niche, Your Tech Savviness, and Effort That You Put Forth

When I talk about bloggers, I’m not referring to full time freelance bloggers and online newspaper writers who crank out articles for others. Those types of freelance writers who produce text based content for blogs that are owned by other people only generate a few dollars or perhaps just a measly $1.00 to $5.00 per blog post that they write. In this article, when I’m talking about bloggers and webmasters who are able to generate a very good part time income supplement or even a full time living from their blogs, I’m talking about those who own their own blogs and websites – entrepreneurs who serve as both website owner and chief content producer.

So how much income exactly do average bloggers earn from their blogs assuming a reasonable measure of built up success? That’s not an easy question to answer. Because the amount of money that bloggers make from their blogs varies so greatly depending on the type of advertisers that a website can attract, that statistic is highly dependent on the subject matter of the blog. As a general rule of thumb, the most lucrative and financially rewarding websites and blogs tend to be those in the financial niche where credit card issuers, online banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders are better equipped in terms of financial capacity to pay a lucratively high price to affiliate publishers for customer and new sales referrals. While not as financially lucrative, other blog content niches such as entertainment, gossip, fashion, clothing apparel, legal services, health care, weight loss, shopping, computers, electronics, and dating are certainly financially worthwhile in their own rights and can be immensely profitable as well. However, successful online entrepreneurs who are able to multi task and pour in significant amounts of time and effort on a consistent basis may be able to target different content niches with a diverse portfolio of actively updated websites. Obviously the greater the content diversity from a variety of different websites with appropriate targeted traffic to match, the greater the pool of prospective advertisers to generate income from. The key is to also truly enjoy what you write about. The blog traffic, blog comments, and relevant advertisers will naturally flow thereafter.

Making a decent full time income online by working as a blogger is very much possible but it does require an enormous amount of time investment and educational self training, especially upfront during the initial stages when the financial rewards are still miniscule or non-existent. Whatever you do, absolutely do not quit your full time day job until your part time blogging efforts start paying off. I started blogging part time while I still had a full time day job – spending my off hours teaching myself the intricacies of blogging, website design, and Wordpress blog optimization tricks. It also took a great deal of time to learn the fundamentals of Adobe Photoshop graphic manipulation and the intricacies of basic Wordpress PHP programming for blog theme tweaking purposes. While the barriers to entry are extremely low for blogging as a profession and almost anyone and his/her grandma can get started at any time without paying a dime, there is no guarantee that the process will be easy (and I can almost assure you that the journey will be difficult and sleep depriving). A five figure income per month is possible if you pick the right niche and work extremely and exceedingly hard, but it’s not the norm. Most of you (more than 95%) will probably fail due to blogger’s block, frustration, and lost of interest – but the ones who can persist will succeed in time. Nothing in life is guaranteed but if you put your mind towards blogging and don’t burn yourself out – $100 a month, $1,000 a month, and perhaps even $10,000 a month of passive income is reasonable with the correct mix of content, the right blog niche, and a lot of search engine traffic generation luck.

Much of the information needed to get you started as a professional blogger can be obtained online for free and there is no real need for you to purchase or spend money on E-books or on the make money online books being sold at bookstores. But if you really want a good primer to get you started, I’d recommend something like Darren Rowse’s book – ProBlogger: Six Figure Income Blogging. Anyone who is a wannabe blogger knows about the original pro blogger himself – and ranked by experience rather than age, he’s the granddaddy of us all. Alternatively you can always just visit your local public library and borrow the books for free. But my advice is to just follow your favorite bloggers online and read through their past blogging post archives to get the information you need. You’ll get more real world practical advice on blog writing techniques, search engine optimization tricks, and website business maintenance pointers from these updated daily blogs than you’ll ever glean from mere stale books alone. The world of blogging for income and the fickle nature of search engine traffic generation techniques are constantly evolving so it’s best to stay updated on the latest news by reading from actively updated blogs and websites than from constantly reviewing some ancient textbook on the subject.

If you want to know exactly how much money I currently generate from my online businesses and from this personal finance blog in particular, unfortunately, I won’t be able to share that information in great detail at this time. If you must know a little bit, I will put this forth – this personal finance blog generates in excess of $100,000 in organic net profits per year, most of it without substantial effort on my part. I do not pay any money for advertising, I absolutely do not sell text links, I don’t do paid reviews, and I don’t engage in any pay per click Google Adword advertising – it’s all organic search engine based. Regarding the specifics of my income breakdown, I wish to stay silent on that for now. Perhaps in the near future I will share more about my online income sources and real life business ventures in greater detail with readers. For the time being, I don’t plan to share any pictures of fancy checks or reveal the specifics of my income sources from my blogging operations – you’ll just have to take my word for it. But it’s perfectly okay if you don’t believe me. Like I mentioned early on, I’m not interested in capturing attention or attracting a loyal zombie following – just hoping to inspire a few people and motivate some of you to a call to action.

Never Stop Learning And Chasing Your Entrepreneurial Dreams

To get the blogging and website business know-how you’ll need to run a successful blog, you’ll need to strive towards constantly educating yourself on all aspects of blogging. The facets are broad as blogging encompasses everything from the fundamentals of writing to grammar, basic web programming, graphic design, salesmanship, multi tasking, negotiation skills, and efficient time management. It will take months, even years before you will become a fully self trained expert on the blogging business. I started the early research and tinkering process in 2006, but didn’t start running my first few successful online blogs and start seriously generating a stable income sufficiently large enough to replace my day job wages until 2008. From the time I truly started writing and promoting this particular financial blog you are reading, I didn’t generate a sustainable full time income until 12 months thereafter. There will be times when you first start out that you will feel like no one is reading your work and that you are writing for yourself, but that’s okay. We’ve all been there before and that’s perfectly normal in the beginning. It’s a lonely process at the start but with time, your efforts will pay off. Meanwhile, to this very day, I still spend hours and hours every day reading blogs about blogging and scouring the web for any new morsels I can uncover about website optimization, how to generate more search engine traffic, and how to capture blogger traffic. As far as I’m concerned I will forever be a work in progress. There is so much to learn and my self driven educational enrichment will never cease so long as I continue to blog for a living and make money online (view my beginner’s primer on how to get started).

As I grumbled a bit in an earlier personal finance blog post, I’m suffering from a bit of a bout of blogger’s block recently. What started out as a torrent of gun-ho, blog posting eager beavery has dwindled to a couch potato-ry display of procrastination and summer slumpery (yes I know, I’m making up words here). However, despite my motivational troubles of late, I made the decision recently to rekindle my blogging business drive. To jump start my previously respectable and focused work at home habits, I decided to force an immediate change of scenery solution to get myself out of my temporary rut – by going on an overseas vacation. Of course, I wouldn’t want to head out without the ability to bring my blogging business platform and online writing tools with me – I will require the services of a portable notebook computer.

Since I gave my only existing laptop computer away to my younger brother so he could use it for his new graduate school studies, I decided I needed to go out and buy a new one for myself. As I’m actually in the midst of working my way through one of those supposedly free online laptop gift reward offers at the moment, I debated whether to wait around until I received it before heading off on my trip. At the end, I decided I could always sell the free laptop reward on eBay or Craigslist for extra money some other time in the future. So I decided to go ahead and buy a new laptop computer for work travel portability. The following are some of the considerations I went through when choosing a new laptop computer.

What Features Should I Look For In The Perfect Laptop Notebook Computer?

I’m not a tech blogger, nor am I even close to being an expert on how to buy a notebook computer. While I love computers, I really don’t update myself on all the latest news and advancements in technology related products. What I am is just an ordinary consumer who has purchased laptops and computers before as a student and as a working professional, for myself, family, and friends. I know what I like and I know what’s practical for most personal and business applications. I also enjoy visiting retail stores like Best Buy and Circuit City that offer in store display products for consumers to tinker on, tap away furiously, and basically abuse to their heart’s content. It’s one of the many reasons why I like retail brick and mortar electronic stores as opposed to online shopping sometimes. At retail stores, when it comes to products like laptop computers, you have the ability to pick the product up to physically gauge the weight and feel, the ability to feel the sensation of the laptop keyboard spring response as you type, and the first hand ability to visually assess the quality of the merchandise.

As a financial blogger with a legal background, I’m definitely not a savvy expert on computer CPU processor terminology or a know-it-all when it comes to deciding whether one memory component is better than another memory component. But I do know what works for me and what is practical for most laptop consumers in the real world. For my purposes, so long as a laptop computer is form appropriate in terms of weight, size, and aesthetics, and performs with proficient speed, and able to handle appropriate writing and browsing tasks at an affordable cost, I’ll definitely give the laptop model a serious consideration.

Here are some of the most important features to look for in a laptop notebook computer. The items in this little list don’t cover everything, but they are the primary features and components that most ordinary laptop users will want to consider when choosing a new notebook computer. I’m sure some of the so-called laptop hardware experts will be surprised at the features I find important and amused by the ones I deem less worthy of my concern.

1) Glossy Screen or Matte/Anti-Reflective Screen – Other than the keyboard, the screen is probably one, if not the most important feature of a great laptop computer. Personally, I highly prefer the glossy screens over the duller matted ones, despite the fact the great majority of computer users (probably 80% or more) seem to prefer matted displays. While the glossy screens tend to be more reflective of light and has been reported to cause eye strain in some users, I’ve never had any viewing problems or reflective difficulties associated with the glossier displays. I love the glossy screens because the colors are displayed much more brightly and with more richness. Color palettes are not only displayed with greater vibrancy, but the resultant effect is a laptop screen back light that seems stronger than that of the matte.

Matted displays on the other hand, while not reflective of light and supposedly less imposing of a strain on the eyes, display colors and shades that are much more subdued. My old IBM Thinkpad laptop was a matte screen and I always had problems with the display being too dark. Ever since I bought a glossy Sony Xbrite LCD monitor for my desktop computer, I fell in love with the glossies and never plan on going back. Due to my great experience with Sony glossy screens, I almost always recommend their displays over other brands. I’ve owned Dell’s and other brands as well and have found their screen colors to be comparatively duller.

2) Keyboard Size and Responsiveness – As I will primarily be using this new laptop for word processing and blogging related functions, having a stellar keyboard with accurate spring back response will be extremely important. The keyboard is definitely a major make or break issue for me. After visiting all the local Best Buy and Circuit City stores, and having matched the opinions expressed on online review sites like CNET to my actual experience at the retail stores, I’ve narrowed down what I believe to be the top 3 laptop brands that offer the best keyboards – Lenovo (formerly IBM Thinkpad), Dell, and Sony’s Vaio SZ business series. All of the other laptop brands out there like HP, Sony non-SZ series, and even Apple offer sub par keyboard typing experiences in comparison. Of course this is just my personal take and opinion, but I highly prefer laptop keyboards that click crisply as you type with very responsive and clearly defined bounce backs as keys are pressed.

The legendary IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads are above and beyond the very best when it comes to keyboard design and technology. Very few other brands even come close. The only ones that can even compare are the Dell and Sony VAIO SZ series keyboards (the non-SZ series laptops offer keyboard buttons that seem a tad too soft). While some might not like the noticeably louder clicking sounds that emanate from the Sony SZ keys, I actually find the sharper key taps to be very reassuring and responsive as I type.

3) Laptop Machine Weight and Screen Size - Unless you are buying a laptop computer as a desktop replacement computer that will spend the bulk of its time sitting stationary at your home office desk, the laptop’s weight and size will be fairly important factors to consider. In my ideal business oriented laptop, I prefer a light weight machine that doesn’t exceed 5 lbs (4 lbs is highly preferred). Anything higher than 5 lbs is treading into the heavy brick category in my opinion. I’ve lugged around laptops before and have found that after including the additional weight of the electrical power strip, the mouse pad, the mouse, and other external hard drive extras, any laptop that exceeds 5 pounds can quickly weigh down the laptop bag fairly significantly.

Interestingly, the laptop screen size itself is not something I pay too much attention to when it comes to choosing a notebook computer. If you ask me, unless you are buying a desktop replacement, you needn’t pay too much attention to the screen size. Even smaller screen computers generally perform just as well as the larger ones. Usually, it comes down to a trade off between screen size and weight. Having a larger screen size affords more computer desktop space and is certainly nice, but it also means the computer is likely to be substantially heavier. I’ve found that the compact 13 inch screen is perfectly ideal for most ordinary users, including bloggers and writers who don’t really need the extra desktop space for their work. For my purposes, anything larger than a 13 inch screen would probably result in a portable computer that’s significantly heavier than I’d like.

4) Processor and Memory Hardware - I rarely pay attention to the processing speed or memory hardware when choosing a laptop. I’m sure some computer techies would probably be shocked, but I personally view such laptop parts as inherently interchangeable. I’ve rarely had any problems with slow processing speed or issues involving not having enough memory. These days, with the rapid rate at which new developments in computer hardware get released into the marketplace, there isn’t much point in trying to stay on top of the latest technology. Most of the desktop computers and laptops sold out there usually offer the top of the line hardware anyway, or at least close to the top. There’s no real point fussing over one chip over another and it’s unlikely any of us regular consumers would be able to tell a difference based on performance alone anyway. You’re better off hinging your laptop buying decision on components like the keyboard or type of screen offered.

5) Built In Camera and Microphone – While neither are essential components, having a built in camera and internal microphone are handy features to have. Having them already installed into your laptop screen cuts down on the added weight from having to carry around extra accessories. With the growing use of video instant messaging and the use of Voice Over IP services like Skype for audio conferencing purposes, it’s good to have a built in webcam in your notebook computer. It shouldn’t be a make or break issue though, so don’t let it hinder your ultimate buying decision.

6) Extra Features and Gizmos Like Special Video and Sound Cards, and Extra USB Ports – Having extra USB ports is nice because it allows you to hook up multiple components like your mouse, printer, scanner, digital camera, and external hard drives at the same time. While the ideal laptop should have at least 4 USB ports, 2 is often enough for most entry level users.

As for having fancy 3D video cards or premium sound cards, unless you plan to be a heavy gamer or work as a 3D graphics designer, these are luxuries that are nice to have but not really essential in a new laptop computer. My suggestion is to not pay these components too much attention. Focus on the screen type and keyboard instead.

7) Customer Support and Product Reliability – One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that internally, computers are all basically from the same stock. Other than a few proprietary and unique components like computer screens and keyboard design, the internal processor and hardware components are all the same among the different computer brands. Almost all of the manufacturing and assembling processes are outsourced to other companies. For example, would it surprise you to know that Dell and many of the major computer brands out there don’t actually build their own computers? It’s true. What the brands actually offer is customer and technical support for computer repairs and troubleshooting. Manufacturing responsibilities are outsourced to other companies and all their laptop and desktop computer parts are built and assembled by third party manufacturers like Seagate, Panasonic, and Intel. Thus, oftentimes, one of the few distinguishing factors among different computer brands are the differences in customer support warranty packages. Most of my laptop buying and technical support experiences have centered around IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell laptops, and Sony notebook computers – the vast majority having been generally positive and favorable.

Most computers in the market offer the industry standard warranty of 12 months. When it comes to buying extra laptop warranty coverage, I advise against it – use credit card warranty programs instead. You’re much better off buying the laptop computer with a credit card and extending your original manufacturer’s warranty by a year or more with the special warranty extension perks that many credit card issuers provide for consumers. By extending your laptop warranty to a combined total of 2 years with credit card warranty programs, you’ll get pretty good mileage out of your portable computer. As laptop lifespans are generally 2-3 years and computer prices drop fairly fast, you may be better off buying a new laptop after the end of the 2 year warranty period should it break down after that time. Don’t waste your money on purchasing additional extended warranty add-ons. Many retail store agents push this type of extra service, not because it’s such an invaluable service, but because it’s one of the few things the reps can earn lofty commissions on.

My Decision To Ultimately Buy A Sony VAIO SZ Series Business Laptop

After weeks of tests and comparisons at local area electronic retail stores, I finally settled on buying a brand new black Sony VAIO SZ750 business laptop. The price, while more expensive than that of standard consumer laptops, offered a laptop that was a perfect fit for an aspiring full time blogger on the go like myself. The keyboard typing experience is quite exceptional on the Sony VAIO SZ series and the laptop is very light at 4-5 pounds. The glossy screen display also offers crisp colors and an excellent viewing experience, a trademark of most Sony VAIO computers. I love the black exterior color design, reminiscent of my old IBM Thinkpad during law school. The only thing that would have made the Sony VAIO SZ even better would have been a red pointer device. While most people seem to dislike those handy red pointing devices in favor of the classic laptop touch pad, I actually like the pointing sticks a lot more, probably due to my days as a Thinkpad user. I had considered buying a Lenovo Thinkpad, but the lack of glossy screens in the Lenovo notebook line eventually led me to go with a Sony VAIO. As usual, I paid very little attention to the processor, memory, or even hard drive specifics – making my decision primarily based on keyboard and laptop screen quality comparisons.

Getting Rid Of The Infamous Sony VAIO Computer Bloatware Programs

My only gripe with the Sony VAIO laptop I purchased is the extremely high and ridiculous amount of bloatware that came pre-installed. Bloatware is basically the lingo used to refer to free, but useless software that comes pre-installed on many new computers. Oftentimes third party software developers like AOL, Microsoft, and Norton Anti-Virus pay computer manufacturers like Sony and Dell large sums of money to install their promotional software programs into all new computers sold. Most of the time, the software installed are not even fully functional versions, but rather demo test trial programs designed to compel the user to pay more money to buy the full software at the end of the trial period. The pre-installations essentially bloat your new computer, causing it to unnecessarily devote processing power to handle the excess software load. For those like me who desire a clean desktop and streamlined hard drive installation, getting rid of all the preinstalled software can be a major pain in the you know what. Oftentimes it’s also hard to differentiate the unnecessary bloatware from the essential programs.

Sony is probably the king of bloatware. While they build pretty decent computers, for whatever reason, the company don’t hesitate to sell out their computer consumers to the bloatware developers as they readily stuff their new computers with all sorts of pointless software programs that consumers are unlikely to ever use. The following list are all the pre-installed programs and applications that came with my new Sony VAIO SZ laptop. While the specifics will likely differ among Sony computers, the majority are likely going to be the same. I’ve bolded the ones I’ve kept. The non-bolded ones are the pre-installed software programs I’ve deemed to be bloatware and useless. Please let me know if you disagree with any of my bloatware assessments. I removed the bloatware programs by accessing the uninstall program feature through my desktop’s control panel and individually removing each one. The whole removal process wasted about 1-2 hours of my time. Thanks Sony.

List Of Pre-Installed Software On My Sony VAIO Laptop (The Programs That Are Somewhat Useful and Perhaps Necessary Are Bolded)

• Activation Assistance For the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite
• Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0
• Adobe Flash Player
• Adobe Reader
• Alps Point-device for Vaio
• AOL Toolbar 4.0
• ArcSoft Magic-i Visual Effects
• Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007
• Click to Disc
• Click to Disc Editor
• Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office System
• Corel PaintShop Pro Photo X2
• Crackle Screen Saver 1.0
• DSD Direct
• DSD Direct Player
• DSD Playback Plug In
• HDAudio SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP
• Java SE Runtime Environement 6
• LiveUpdate 2.3 (Symantec Coproration)
• Location Free Player
• Microsoft Office Component Files (all)
• Microsoft SQL Server Component Files (all)
• Microsoft Visual C++
• Microsoft Works
• MSXML 4.0 SP2 Files
• MobiTV Icon
• Napster
• Norton 360 (Symantec Corporation)
• NVIDIA Drivers
• OpenMG Limited Patch 4.7
• Protector Suite QL 5.6
• QuickBooks Simple Start 2008
• Roxio Easy Media Creator Home
• Setting Utility Series
• SigmaTel Audio
• SmartWi Connection Utility
  
• SonicStage
• SonicStage Mastering Studio and Filters
• Sony Snymsico for Vista
• Sony Video Shared Library
• Spy Sweeper
• SupportSoft Assisted Service
• VAIO Camera Capture Utility
  
• VAIO Center Access Bar
• VAIO Content Folder Bar
• VAIO Content Folder Setting
• VAIO Content Metadata (all)
• VAIO Control Center
• VAIO DVD Menu Data Basic
  
• VAIO Entertainment Center
  
• VAIO Entertainment Platform
• VAIO Event Service
• VAIO Help and Support
• VAIO Media (all files)
• VAIO Movie Story
• VAIO Movie Story Template Data
• VAIO Music Box
• VAIO Music Box Sample Music
• VAIO OOBE and Welcome Center
• VAIO Original Function Setting
• VAIO PC Wireless LAN Wizard
• VAIO Power Management
• VAIO Productivity Center
• VAIO Security Center
• VAIO Service Utility
• VAIO Startup Assistant
• VAIO Status Monitor
  
• VAIO Survey
• VAIO Update 3
• VAIO Wallpaper Contents (not needed but nice to have some different wallpaper options)
• WIDCOMM Bluetooth Software
• Windows Driver Package Intent Corporation
• WinDVD for VAIO

The past few weeks have been tough on me as an aspiring full time blogger. After almost a full year of nearly regular blog posts and after months of practicing fairly consistent writing habits, I’ve finally been smitten with the ailment that inevitably afflicts all bloggers and online entrepreneurs at some point or another – blogger burn out. Blogger’s block, as the affliction is commonly called, is basically the lack of motivation and sudden depletion of new ideas found in those suffering from writer’s block, except it affects those who blog online for alternative side income or for amusement. However, in my case, it’s not the lack of new article writing ideas or lack of potential subjects to opine about, but rather the summer laziness feeling that has made it nearly impossible for me to stay self driven and self motivated. I actually have a spiral notebook that I keep around and regularly update. The notepad contains all my various scribbled down notes and ideas as they come to me. With hundreds of personal finance article writing topics and self jotted potential leads to inspire me, it’s rarely a matter of running out of ideas – I have plenty of them – it’s actually the drive and daily motivation to actually sit down and put fingers to keyboard that’s the feet dragging hurdle for myself at the moment. When it comes to running a side business in the nature of self employment, one must have a consistent way to stay focused and stay driven, working consistently despite personal and family issue disruptions. When motivation wanes or when concentration becomes too difficult, blog production and growth can quickly hit a snag.

Fortunately, a blog can still stay alive and remain healthy even without fresh updates for very long periods of time (weeks to months). One very unique aspect about blogs not found in most other industries is the ability to harness residual Internet traffic for long term growth despite lack of immediate content production. Oftentimes, it’s past blog posts that rank highly in Google keyword searches, which do the most to help sustain a blog’s successful traffic levels, and not posting frequency per se. Posting frequency is actually quite overrated, especially for mature sites that have at least a solid year’s worth of quality posts. Of course, in a perfect blogging world, the more posts that a site can accrue and index, the better, but offering a new post everyday is not necessarily a deal breaker. So long as the motivation to keep a blog alive is still there, a blog can still thrive, grow, become widely read, and become financially successful with proper monetization.

Even Formerly Consistent Bloggers Ultimately Get Bitten By Writer’s Block At Some Point Or Another

It’s been a year since I first started blogging for fun and transitioning my little hobby into a decent part time side job. I’ve had numerous ups and downs in terms of motivation and focus over the past few months – most of which I assumed I had permanently overcome. Much of the initial frustrations with running a fledgling personal finance blog happened early on when search traffic was non existent and lack of advertising success led me to question whether I could turn my hobby into a sustainable source of quasi-passive income. However, after 9 months in, the worries and gripes associated with the initial lack of blogging success faded away when my blogging efforts finally started to pay off and my efforts to convert organic search traffic into tangible pay per click and affiliate advertising income started to bear fruit en masse. Monetary success and upward trends in terms of website traffic have a way of greatly lifting one’s blogging spirits and sparking confidence to become more self motivated.

However, despite the steady traffic growth and monetization successes of my original personal finance blog and the newer health and fitness blog, persistent blogger’s block finally bit me again. For the last few weeks, I’ve struggled to motivate myself to update my blog posting and to adopt more sustainable entrepreneurial work habits. At first I tried cutting down my daily posting schedule to just a few personal finance and frugality articles a week, but ultimately even that proved difficult to sustain. I think after nearly a year of working continuously on my part time blogging business and putting time in at my full time job, I’ve finally burned out, at least for the moment. Thankfully, it’s happening during the annual summer slump, when most blogs and online websites see a noticeable decrease in search and referral traffic due to the cyclical and seasonal nature of Internet use. While certain niches such as college preparation and travel sites tend to enjoy an appreciable surge in traffic during the summer months, the vast majority of sites see a noticeable decline during the months of June, July, and August as prospective readers and viewers choose to spend their free time outdoors at amusement parks and take advantage of summer vacation traveling opportunities, putting off any significant financial moves or planning decisions until the fall.

As luck would have it, my sudden pangs of writer’s block couldn’t have come at a more fortunate time. The summer slump allows me to lesson the strain on my posting routine and take some time off to unwind and get away from the pressures of posting regularly. The urgency of needing to write regularly was starting to become a bit overwhelming. For those who wonder why I even bother stressing about the need to write regularly, or putting self imposed worries on myself, the answer is simple. I treat my network of blogs like a part time project that must be sustained consistently until the day they can completely overtake my full time job and allow me to become independently self employed and fully sustained financially. My dream and goal for myself has always been to become fully self employed, to become independent from the shackles of working for someone else (the Man if you will), and to find true financial freedom from the daily work grind. The fruits of success will be even sweeter when I can permanently escape the hassles and limitations of painfully long daily rush hour commutes and having to deal with high gas prices.

To reach this lofty but reachable goal of making money online through the monetization of my financial and health related blogs, I know I’ll need to get my blogging mojo back, so to speak. Unable to get out of this rut on my own, I’ve decided to take a little blogging break and go on vacation to momentarily escape my full time job and part time work responsibilities. I’m currently traveling overseas and will do so for the next few weeks. I plan to visit my parents and get my mind off the rigors of running a network of monetized blogs. It’s amazing how a little simple change of scenery and work space can refresh one’s motivation and perspective. I think it’s also the same reason why weeks ago I was trying to find public places outside of my home that provided complimentary free WiFi Internet access. It was probably in an attempt to escape the monotony and ho-hum sameness of working from home. Sometimes, a little healthy distraction is all we need to get our business minds back on track.