Bare All: What IM Guru Are Reluctant To Tell You

If you’ve been on the internet on the 90s to the early 2000, you will know what I mean by what IM guru are reluctant to tell you. Those are the days when the phrase ‘making money online’, ‘get rich online’ and ‘be your own boss’ was really famous and many got scammed online.

I am not talking about online scam but the real IM guru that sell products for you to start blogging. Blogging is a famous term then. By blogging it means that you start from scratch and write anything that you are interested in like hobbies, occupation or even talent that you had. 

Famous gurus from the 2000s were big names like John Chow, Pat Flynn, Jeremy ‘ShoeMoney’ and many more. I love these guys and I even bought some of their product. Some work and some don’t but it depends on your part also. If you are lazy and broke, you can’t hope for anything.

It is during those days that I realize that making money online is not an easy task. You must have some skills and passion to draw your internet success. But what’s still pissing me off until today is the way that the gurus are presenting their making money online products. They made it sound so easy that any school children can follow their instructions. 

Honestly, I bought their product because they tell their readers/customers on how easy it is to set up a website. I didn’t purchase because of greed for money or anything. I just want to learn something. I have passion for IM and I will learn about it no matter what!

The moral of the story (in my case), every business no matter where do you plant it, will get a rough start and this is including IM. I learned my lessons well and thinking back about it will surely made my day. Anyway, here I want to bare all what are the things that IM gurus are reluctant to tell you.

1. IM Guru said: Build your own website

Bare all:

There are many types of website. The most famous website for making money are micro niche sites (MNS), authority sites and e-commerce websites. Blogging will get you nowhere. Well, it will but for a long period of time.

2. IM Guru said: Buy a self-hosted domain and hosting (usually they will recommend Hostgator and Bluehost)

Bare all:

There are a lot of other cheap hosting provider out there. Hostgator and Bluehost are not bad hosting but it is expensive for newbies who just wanted to take their first step in learning. For example 123system offer $4 hosting per year. But cheap hosting are usually not the best hosting. I have bad experience with 1and1 hosting.

There are also a few types of hosting. The cheapest and that I would recommend for newbies are shared hosting. For full control of the hosting, buy a virtual private server (VPS). Search Google for more information about web hosting. 

For domain, if you register a domain with a different provider, you will have to learn the steps to point the domain to the hosting. You will not encounter this if you have the same provider as your hosting company. For this, I personally, use different domain registrar and different hosting provider for security reason.

3. IM Guru said: You can get a cheap domain for $0.99

Bare all:

This is absolutely true, however you will sometimes need a discount coupon for that. In rare cases, you will stumble with $0.99 promotion while you were registering for a new domain. That $0.99 is just for the domain name. It is not including whois privacy protection. Without this, people can see your details if they check the domain name.

4. IM Guru said: Choose a profitable niche (topic) to write

Bare all:

The Google Keyword Tool is long gone. This is the best tool so far to find a profitable niche. The topic not also must be profitable but with low competition. Keyword research and the right keyword is the most important thing for a website to go explode. 

At this time, the most popular keyword research tools are Long Tail Pro and Market Samurai. Most people now use LTP because it can count the competition and it can generate long tail keywords. You can try LTP for a 10 days trial, one-time payment of $97 or with monthly subscription of $27 (pro + platinum). 

Market Samurai comes with only one time payment of $149. The trial version is for 14 days and if you purchase before this trial is over, you will have a discount of $50 and Market Samurai will cost you $99 for a one-time payment. Even Market Samurai is not a popular choice anymore but I still use it because it has a good user interface with different colors to examine competitors.

5. IM Guru said: Build backlinks to make your website famous

Bare all:

You can build backlinks by building web 2.0 properties, using Private Blog Network (PBN), blog commenting, forum posting, using social media, guest posting and many more. That is only for one website, yes, one only. That is really a tiring work for just one website. To make it worse, Google regularly update their algorithm for their search engine ranking.  

People nowadays outsource this kind of stuff. A SEO package for a website is not cheap. It can cost about a few hundred dollars to thousands. You can find such package in the Warrior forum or BlackHatWorld forum. Those guys’ rocks.

6. IM Guru said: Write often on your website

Bare all:

The recommendation varies according to which guru you learn from. Some recommend once a day or a few times a week. Again, this is only for one website. If you have 10 websites, it will give you a total knockout.

You will also need to outsource this. It is easier than done. Cheap articles are always crap. You have to edit them yourself to make it readable. For tips, buy articles that cost more than $5 for a 500 word article.

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Top 7 Myths About Blogging

If you ever came across some advertisements, blog posting or even a landing page selling blogging ebook, you might have been thinking is this guy is for real? Many thoughts will come across you because the way the person creates his promotional method is sometimes look like a get-rich-quick scheme.

Most of the time (maybe they don’t exist anymore), common sentence used are ‘all you need is a computer’, ‘no computer skills needed’ and ‘I earned xxx in just two days’. In common sense, this trick also will not help you sell. Even if you do, there will be enormous returned back.

Many people are desperate to look for other alternatives to find money. Money is the no1 motivator for an individual. It is not a wrong thing to do but the way you put your mind into it is wrong. It is like working the worst job you ever had just to put your meal on the table.

Here we are going to see some blogging myths that have been circulating around the internet. I’ve seen a few still exist. I don’t know the rest of them. Maybe they have been removed by Clickbank or banned. Most of the products are ebooks. 

Myth #1: All you need is a computer/no computer skills are needed

Basically, this is true. What you don’t know is, if you don’t know how to use the computer or some skills on the internet, you have to pay somebody to do it. The costs for all this html, marketing, seo and any other internet crap is not cheap buddy.

You really need computer skills. You don’t have to know all of it. A little bit of basic html is fine. This simple Blogger blog that I have also requires me to have some html skills to tweak and maintain. You can hire someone to do the hard part.

Myth #2: Bloggers sell male enhancement products

This is not totally untrue. Bloggers start their blog with the niche that they are expert in or want to be expert in to. It is a common thing that bloggers sell male enhancement products. Maybe that is the niche that they like so much.

What you really need to know is, bloggers have many niche or sub topics. They can technically sell anything they want. If all bloggers sell male enhancement products, I will not read another blog my entire life.

Myth #3: I made $xxxx for xx days

With great confidence, this IM guru brag about how much he/she can earn for a certain period. Usually the period is only for a few days. To gain that kind of money is not impossible, you heard right, NOT impossible. That takes a few simple tricks to do so. 

What the guru don’t tell you is it takes for example $4000 to make $5500. The $4000 is for ads purpose and to buy email lists. Be extra careful when you come across this type of ads. You might lose more money than earning them.

Myth #4: Get rich with blogging

I think everyone is aware about this is really a myth. By blogging it doesn’t mean that you are joining a get-rich-quick scheme. But, some people still thinks that way. Internet involves so many scams. When someone is not familiar with the internet world, when they think about internet, the first think that cross their mind is scam. 

It is true that many things that you read online are scam. Do some research about the product if you are interested to buy them. It is a good thing that these days you can find many product reviews are available online. Read a few reviews before intending to buy. I also use this method to shop online.

Myth #5: Blogs are used for internet marketing

It is not only for internet marketing or teaches you to blog and make money. Blogging is freestyle. You can blog about any niche topic that you want to. Basically, you can blog about anything. People get confused what blogs are usually for. 

It’s not their fault to get confused. This is because of the ‘misunderstanding’ that the blogging gurus taught them. People read blogs like Copyblogger, John Chow, Entrepreneurs-Journey, Problogger and so much more blogs that teaches them how to blog. Beginners sometimes think that they should do the same blog like what they are reading.

Myth #6: “I got this information from a blog”

Blogs can cover many topics such as funny, sad, touching, current news, entertainment and so much more. Not everything that you read is true. The blogger’s intention was only to attract readers and subscribers. They ‘cheat’ their readers for a good purpose and sometimes also for bad intentions. 

Good intentions means that the blogger want his/her content to go viral on the internet. Even big company like Google does this with their first 3D glasses video that they post on Youtube. Google want to see the public’s reaction on the video. Entertainment blog can post a few gossip articles. The story doesn’t have to be true because it is gossip.

Bad intentions mean that the blogger intentionally writes a negative story and post them on their blog. Their intention was to give a negative image to an individual, a product or a company. This is not a very good idea to begin with. You can face charges by the party involved in your blog content. 

Myth #7: Blogging is the only money-making tool on the internet

This is totally untrue. There are a lot of money-making methods that you can do on the internet. In my opinion, blogging is the best because you can have a long-term earning. But blogging is still not the only way to make money. Some people don’t have the skill to write but they are good at something else.

For example, if you have a shoe store by your place, you can sell those shoes through Ebay. You don’t have to have a blog to do this. But if you are very good in shoes, you can have a blog and write articles about shoes. Tell your visitors how good your knowledge with shoes. 

Another example is a gambler. Gambling is a habit just like smoking. It is hard to leave behind. If you are really a good poker player, you can register your name and your credit card at a known gambling site. You can earn through gambling from the internet.

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Methods To Promote Your Blog For Free

Bloggers are so crazy about visitors. Many bloggers check their blog visitors every day to see how many people are visiting their blog. This is because all bloggers want other people to read what they are trying to say and their personal opinion.

No one creates a blog for the sake of blogging without anyone visiting them. That is what a blog is all about. Blogging is socializing. You don’t have to be a great writer to start a blog. You blog because you want to hear other people’s opinion and also show others what is your opinion on a certain topic.

Bloggers that have extra cash to spend, they sometimes spend big only to bring people to their blog. One of the most popular place to advertise your blog is through Google Adword. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can create a hole in your pocket through the wrong step you take.

Don’t feel down with competitors that have the cash. You can go slowly in driving traffic. The best way to bring traffic to your blog is through free methods and not by spending so much in ads. Don’t get me wrong. If you have the money, you can go the faster way.

In the other hand, I prefer free traffic through free methods. I hate to pay for ads except for driving traffic to a landing page. That is a different story because you are trying to sell something. You will usually get your money back if you can sell something. Here are the free methods that can make a difference to your blog:

Blog commenting

Leave your comments at other blogs that have the same topic or niche as you are. Keep the blog’s address for you to go back in the future. It is a good idea to make friends with people who have the same interest as you. 

Blog commenting allows you to leave your blog’s address when you leave your comments. Don’t do this to spam other blogs or they will block your comments. Leave quality comments so that other people who read your comment knows that you are not a spam bot.

Use social media

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are use widely around the world and the best part of it is you can use it for free. Post something that people love to read about for instance something funny, sad and touching story. When other people likes your post, they will help you share.

Blogging style social media such as Tumblr, Pinterest and Squidoo also plays an important part. You can write something about your blog or about your topic and leave a link there. If someone is interested in your article, they will click your link and you will have free traffic.

 

Article marketing

For me, this is the hard part but this is the best way to make your blog known to others. English is not my first language. That means I will have grammatical errors everywhere on my article no matter how much I check my article. for this reason I stick with social media.

If you think your English is great and you know how to format your article, you are good to go. The best way to send your article is to Ezine Article. People always look around Ezine to find free articles and probably they will find yours. Ezine is just an example. You can send your article in any article directory website that you prefer.

Word of mouth

This is a traditional way of promoting. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t intend to ask you to promote your blog to anyone you see (that also works). What I meant here is when your blog is popular and worthy to read, people can introduce your blog to their friends. 

If you have a business card, you can write down your blog there. Some people start a blog for business purpose and giving business cards away with their blog’s address is a pretty normal thing to do. Don’t be so down in promoting your blog.

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Easiest Way To Monetize Your Blog

There are many ways to monetize your blog even if you are using free platform such as blogspot. It doesn’t matter what platform you use. Monetizing can be done anywhere. For instance, google adsense allows you to put their ads no matter what are your blog ranking or what platform do you use.

However, the monetizing method can be very limited for new user even for paid host blogs. It really doesn’t matter because you can still do it slowly. No one ever said that blogging is a get-quick-rich scheme program. Start slowly and you will be rewarded for your patience.

Below is a few monetizing methods that you can use. For some of you who know a bit about monetizing a blog, you may notice that I didn’t mention some of them. That is because below are used by baby blogs which means the blogs are still new and they still don’t rank well and have low visitors. 

Google Adsense

If you don’t know about Google Adsense, you might have living under the rock for a while. This is a common and the easiest method to monetize your blog. All you need to do is register with Google and you can access Google Adsense immediately.

Google Adsense is a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. To use Google Adsense, you can log in to your Google Adsense account, copy and paste the html given and post it in your blog. Whenever visitors come to your blog and click your ads, you will get paid. The range of payment is from $0.01-$3.00.

The payment range can change according to the advertiser. To cash out your payment, you will need to reach $100.00. Payment will be made using checks.

Click here to register with Google Adsense

Infolinks

I think this is the best ad network available, at least according to my own opinion. Infolinks create link ads within your blog post. The links will be underlined in any color that you choose. When you hover over the link, an ad will appear. They also have banner ads and categories ads. 

Infolinks claim that they are the highest payee for publishers. I don’t know if this claim is true. All I know about is I’m going to make money out of it. I am still new with Infolinks so I don’t have much to tell. You can check it out yourself.

By the way, this blogspot blog is not approved by Infolinks. I only add Infolinks to my wordpress blog which is a paid domain. Don’t worry about this. I have seen Infolinks on other free blog platform. Blogs are easily can be accepted into their ad network. Maybe there are some content on this blog that they don’t like. 

Click here to register with Infolinks

Bidvertiser 

This is also one of my favorite. I like how they manage the page and ads settings. It’s like looking at Google Adsense page with a better version. You can register as publisher, advertiser or affiliate but you can have all in one account.

Bidvertiser is like Google Adsense. They have the same format and methods of advertisement. But one thing I don’t like is the ad setting. If you put more than one ad on your blog, the template of the blog is the same. You can’t customize it differently.

Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

Chitika

This ad network works depending on searches. They have banners with the searches that you made using the search engine, usually question based searches. If the visitor clicks on your link and came to your website, they will see the question they search is on the ad itself. Link ads also available.

Payment is still the same thing. It requires visitors to click on the ad before they pay you. Chitika is also easy to manage and their dashboard is simple enough for you to make your own settings. They also have website traffic graph for your convenience. 

Adf.ly

I don’t think that everyone likes Adf.ly kind of method in monetizing. But I wrote them here because it is easy to use. Adf.ly is link ads just like Chitika and Infolinks. With Adf.ly there are no ads when you hover over the links. Visitors have to click on the link themselves for you to get paid. 

This is easy money because all you need to do is put a link on your blog. Most people use important links for people to click on it. But the payment is not a satisfaction. One click is worth like $0.0005. 

Click here to register with Adf.ly

Conclusion

I know that you are thinking that there are other monetizing methods that pay higher. You are right but those methods are for professional bloggers that requires your blog to rank high. For instance, Review Me. They won’t accept your blog if it is still new and have a few visitors per month. 

That is why I only recommend the above method for you to try. It is a bit slow but please be patient. Everyone that succeeds already feel what you feel now. It’s up to you if you want to be like them or to give up.

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I Make Money From Blogging At Blogspot

Usually we heard or read about making money online using wordpress but what I get here is a very different effect. In my situation, I get more money by using this free blogspot platform. I have my own domain name but it doesn’t look very good, in the case of making money.

Actually this doesn’t look good for my wordpress blog. Even if I make money with blogspot, I shouldn’t feel comfortable with it. It is because blogspot is a free platform and it can be shut down by Google at any time without my concern. The blog is not fully mine. 

Don’t get too excited knowing that you can make money out from a free platform like being told here. It is not something shocking or interesting as it sounds. This is quite normal for some cases like mine. There are a few reasons why this is happening.

Here are a few things that you should know if your free platform blog is making more money than your own domain name:

Your blog’s age

How long does your blog are live on the internet will determine how many visitors you have. The longer the age, the better it will get to be well-known. A new blog will take its time to be ranked on the search engine.

In my case, my blogspot blog are older than my new wordpress blog. I got a lot of visitors every day and got some sale from my affiliate links. However, free website platform have bad adsense clicks. People don’t really trust a free platform blog’s ads. 

Affiliate links are a different story. You still can make money of it if you give an honest review about any product that you sell. The best thing to do before selling any product is to buy and use them first. By doing this, you already experienced the product yourself and you can tell if the product is good or bad. 

Your blog’s topic

What is your blog topic can also affect your earnings. This blogspot blog is mostly about technical stuff, blogging and reviews. People love reviews especially an honest one. Don’t try to lie in your review because people will know about it.

My wordpress blog is more about lifestyle and physical products. I don’t say that physical products are not good but it takes time. This blog also take its time to develop. I also have little visitors at my wordpress blog and I can’t get my blog registered at a few affiliate websites because of this.

Your product choices

Blogging about blogs have tremendous amount of product. You can choose which one that you think is best for your visitors. That is why people love product reviews. They want to know if you already try the product or not. The product doesn’t have to be good. If it’s bad, write it in your review. Your readers will also appreciate your point of view.

If you never try the product, do not write a review about it. You don’t even know what you are writing about. If you duplicate your content, you can get in trouble with the original reviewer. But in most cases, I don’t find anywhere in the internet about duplicate review for content.

Conclusion

No matter how much you find it is interesting that you can make money from a free website platform, don’t rely too much on it. It is not a stable business to start with. This blogspot blog that I have here is from my assignment and I continue to update it because I have my personal notes here.

It is not impossible to make money with a blogspot blog but it won’t go anywhere. When Google shut it down, that’s the end of the world for you. My advice, if you don’t want to wait to get visitors, buy a blog at Flippa.

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