Blogging For Money 1
Internet Gurus And Hype
Somewhere along the way, not too long ago I started this particular blog, Transitions 295 which was supposed to be about the different transitions of life and a place for my articles. I'm not too sure why but I wanted it to be about making money mostly but I ran out of ideas as to money and found out people aren't that interested in reading about how to make money anyway. Why would they? The internet is saturated with similar articles and posts all with the same message. If you just try or use, actually buy would be the operative word, this product or ebook it will teach you how to make millions on the internet. By now that has been so overdone anything worthwhile in the books are useless.
Most people are like me, they are tired of hearing the hype of some new guy on the internet claiming to have made millions on the internet and now he's giving his secret away. Well, actually, he's not giving it away, he's selling it to you. Usually for not a lot. About $30 but still, who wants another useless piece of crap stored on his/her computer with the same message. If the people selling these ebooks had actually made millions utilizing some new concept that no one but him was aware of he wouldn't be trying to sell his wares. He wouldn't have to. If he had millions in the bank I'm sure he could find something far more exciting to do than sit on his computer all day making sure his ebook was in front of as many people as he could get it in front of.
The truth is, he wants to make money. We all want to make money. Most of us need extra money. The economy may be improving according to analysts but the sad fact is there are alot of people out there that are having a hard time making ends meet. And from what I've read people aren't going back to their old spending habits where they rack up hundreds, thousands of dollars in credit card debt and spending what they have in their pocket. Instead they are being more frugal and doing without alot of the stuff that before they thought they couldn't.
I'm seeing more people on the road buying older cars where before people would have went straight to the new cars and picked one without regard as to what might happen if suddenly he/she/the spouse lost a job. We all know happens when you can't pay for your vehicle, the repoman comes. Unfortunately, some people have run off with their defaulted vehicles to lands unknown where the repoman can't find them. Eventually, they will, sure but not after it's cost the bank hundreds more dollars than they initially thought. And it's costly for the bank to take the car back. The bank will try to make the debtor pay for the car even though he no longer has the vehicle but in cases where the debtor is living hand to mouth paying child support, bills and hardly making enough to make ends meet with two low wage(barely better than minimum wage) jobs getting anything from the debtor is going to be difficult. Because as much as the bank would love to place themselves first in line for payment, they will not usurp child support and taxes.
Some people have ended up living in their vehicles. In these cases even if money is owed on the vehicle people are going to make sure the repoman doesn't find it. Essentially, their car is their home. And that home is mobile, it can move from one place to another making it hard for the repossession agent to ascertain it's location.
Getting loans and credit cards is more difficult now than it was just a few years ago. Companies are no longer willing to take the risk.
Back to money, no one wants to give what little they are managing to get these days to some wanna be internet guru. And if they have money they'd rather invest it than listen to some hyped up fella in a suit telling them the next big thing is here and it's them(the wanna be guru).
So as you can see, a money blog didn't take off very well. Besides what do I know about telling people how to make it? Some of the ways I would suggest are unethical at best and some are probably downright illegal. I can't post those ideas. I do and risk being carted off to jail even if I said it was just a joke. These days you have to take care in what you say. What you say could get you in alot of trouble even though we live in a society of free speech. It isn't so free if you can get in trouble for saying the wrong thing. Of course some speech should be censored. Who wants to hear racial remarks or someone talking sexually explicit out in public? I doubt anyone. I take that back, child predators and white supremacists might but other than those people probably no one else.
Okay, sometimes I go off on a tangent. Sometimes I get really fired up when talking about certain topics.
I started blogging back in 2006 but I didn't really stick with any specific topic. I mostly blogged about myself and truthfully very few people are that interested in that either. Honestly who is? The only people interested in personal blogs are the friends and family of the person writing the blog and snoopers and busybodies who think they might be able to pull a few juicy morsels of information they can gossip about and spread to others. But the general internet population is not interested in family blogs about their precious new additions to the family, their pets and their everyday life.
So if you're interested in monetizing your blog make it worthwhile and while you're talking about that new baby, new pet etc. add some content by talking about things that new mothers would find interesting and helpful. Talk about things pet owners would find worth reading or parents of teens, etc. would find enjoyable to read.
When I monetized my blog I really had no desire to make money from it. I didn't think it was possible for one but I just wanted to share the things I found interesting and some of my pictures and talk about some of the places I visit. To get any real traffic has taken about a year of blogging and I let it go for about six months. If you're a serious blogger though you can probably get traffic sooner especially if you follow some of the optimization advice online and blog everyday. That's important.
If there is no new content people will go elsewhere looking for whatever it is they want to read about.
As for my blog Transitions 295 I've decided to abandon it for something more worthwhile but I am moving my posts to an existing blog. One of the reasons for the transitions(which by the way, I got the idea for the name from Area 80(it is now area 52 on Sirius XM satelite radio) was to house some of the articles I write. I like writing and have gotten a little better at it. I've always liked to write and find the internet a great venue. So if you like to write. blogging can be a great way of getting started on a passion/interest. Even if you don't like to write, blogging can still work but only if you have my other passion which is photography. One of my blogs features mostly pictures and the occasional article but that's the main theme of the blog so it works.
If you have neither interest then blogging may not be for you. No one wants to read plagiarized material or articles they already read elsewhere so do yourself a favor and don't take that route.
As for where to blog that is your choice. I won't tell you where I blog or which ones I like the best. I will tell you I've used tripod, live journal and blogger and a couple of others. If you're into adult blogging even though blogger allows adult content they lay a heavy hand down on those trying to make money from outside(other than adsense) sources. I imagine this is due to too many people putting to many banners, ads, etc on their blog. Take heed of this advice for any blog however. Too many banners and ads can get your blog terminated and many blog sites do not allow links to places that pay money for offers, surfing the internet, etc. so be very careful before placing a link or banner on your blog and read the terms of service very carefully before doing anything that might get you kicked off. That would be bad if you've started developing traffic and readers. Oh and there are a couple of good sites for adult blogging. Thumblogger is one and Sensual Writer is another. Of course I wouldn't know anything about them. You can google for more ideas.
With that said, happy blogging!