Well respected, high-traffic blogs can make money for their creators as well as giving them a place to vent their spleens. But whether a prospective blogger is in it for the social value or to make a buck, there are some rules building a good online reputation. As the blog’s reputation builds, it can take on a life of its own, but the rules still apply, to wit:

1. Well Written

Duh. You’re writing for the general public, not just your friends. If you can’t spell, punctuate, and write coherent prose, nobody will read you. Basic research is required for posts where you are quoting someone, or reporting news. Again, duh. You can post unsubstantiated rumors but that will not garner a good reputation for your blog.

2. Attractive

Choose a format that sets the tone for your blog, one that gives a flavor for the content found on it. Much like the ambiance of your favorite restaurant, it doesn’t change the taste of the food, but adds to your enjoyment of it. Above all, make sure it is easy to read and loads quickly.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Maybe this goes without saying, but consideration must be given to the arcane science of Search Engine Optimization. It is imperative to get your blog listed with the major search engines and optimized for higher rankings. This is an ongoing task. There’s a world of resources available to you on the Net to help with this.

4. Regulate Comments

Comments expand and contribute to the discussion, if they are well regulated. The glory and curse of the Net is that anyone can and will comment. If your comments section contains offensive, inappropriate content or spam, it is YOUR job to clean it up. Just remember, it may be their words, but it’s your reputation.

5. Cultivate Commenters

Good commenters are your friends. That does not mean they have to agree with everything your write, but if they write well, have an opinion, and provide appropriate counter-points, they boost your blog’s overall readability. Commenters may have their own blogs for links, and can fill in for you when your brain is tired.

6. Originality

If you merely parrot what is written elsewhere, why should anyone visit your blog? Have a point of view and express it in an original manner. If you quote someone, give credit (see Rule number 7). And remember Rule number 1.

7. Freshness

Blogging well is time consuming. Unless you are blogging for your own amusement, you must keep the content fresh and updated. If you post once a month, even if it’s good stuff, people will eventually move on. Your online reputation depends on having fresh content on a regular basis.

8. Blog Etiquette

Reference other blogs of like interest and request links from them. Always credit content from others via trackbacks and linkbacks. Most blogging software handles these tasks easily. Observe proper decorum in the commenting area.

9. Get Linked

Cultivate relationships with the owners of well know, well read blogs and they may give you a link. Try commenting regularly on their blog and dazzle them with your brilliance. Don’t forget to link ‘em back.

10. No Over-bearing Ads

Folks don’t read your blog for the ads. If your blog is there to earn you some money as well as share your vast knowledge with the world, fine, just don’t rub people’s faces in it. A lot of this can be accomplished by using a good theme (see Rule 2).

Put these 10 rules in action and you’re well on your way to building a excellent online reputation!

• Building Good Reputation Online
• 6 Prerequisites To A High Traffic Blog
• Making Money Online Even Without A Blog
• How To Win More Sponsored Posts And Make More Money Online: Part II
• 10 Reasons Why No One Reads Your Blog

Probably you want to ask WHY I’M SELLING MY BLOG.

Well, the answer is simple and obvious. Firstly, I’m going to be very busy at the beginning of this year, which explains the lack of posts in the past few weeks. I’m doing some internship and time is much needed, which means I won’t be able to update TheWeblogZone regulary. This could have adverse effects to my blog so instead of abandoning it, I’m selling it to someone who have more time.

Secondly, I’m selling TheWeblogZone to raise extra money for my finances.

WHY BUY MY BLOG

If you want to start making money immediately, then buying TheWeblogZone is a good start. It already receives traffic from search engines (over 60% of the total traffic generated), which makes making money online a lot faster and easier. From my experience, the most effective way to make money from this blog is through affiliate marketing promoting Premium Wordpress Theme.

For the past 4 months (September - December 2008), TheWeblogZone averages a monthly income of US$200 excluding income generated from Blog Set-up Services. TheWeblogZone together with the 2 other blogs that come with the sale, make an average of US$30 - 35 a month with Adsense.

READ MY LISTING AT SITEPOINT for more information about my sources of income, blog statistics and what you are getting from the sale.

Thank you for your time. Happy New Year everyone!

• SlyVisions And TheUniversityKid For SALE!
• Where To Sell Your Blog
• What’s Wrong With Blog Flipping!
• Make Money Selling Text Links With Teliad
• Make Money Online With PerformancingAds

None Found

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best methods that bloggers use to make money online. Just like any other bloggers who monetize their blogs, I use various affiliate marketing programs to optimize my blog revenue. I tried experimenting with several affiliate marketing programs and Thesis Affiliate Program proves to be one of the easiest and most effective.

Why Thesis Affiliate Program?

Here are some reasons why you should join Thesis Affiliate Program.

• Thesis Wordpress Theme is an excellent product that you can be confident selling. I use it on my blog and I highly recommend it to others.
• Thesis Wordpress Theme is guaranteed to satisfy its users (buyers). Thesis is the best search engine optimized Wordpress theme, very flexible and user friendly, free lifetime upgrade and guaranteed to bring a blog to the next level.
• Thesis Wordpress Theme is affordable. (Personal License $87, Developer’s License $164 and Upgrade to full developer’s license $77)
• Thesis Affiliate Program offers one of the highest commissions to their affiliates, which is 33% of the total sales.
• Thesis Wordpress Theme has a huge potential market. Imagine the thousands of blogs created everyday.
• Below is a screenshot of my earnings with Thesis Affiliate Program. You need to understand that I earned over $400 with little effort, promoting Thesis Wordpress Theme on my blog. I also used Squidoo and article directories.

More Ways To Make Money With Thesis Affiliate Program

• Write a review Thesis Wordpress Theme, letting people know how good it is. Include your affiliate link at the end of the review. Post your review to free sites such as GoArticles.com & EzineArticles.com.
• Create a free blog (web log) at sites such as Blogger.com, and post your review of Thesis Wordpress Theme, including your affiliate link. Then “ping” your blog at a site such as Pingomatic.com, so it gets picked up quickly by search engines.
• Join popular marketing forums such as WarriorForum and DigitalPoint, and make frequent contributions to popular threads there. Be sure to go into your forum profile and edit your “signature”. Make a signature that includes your affiliate link, or a link to your own “review” website of Thesis. That way, every time you make a post, anyone who sees it will see your signature and potentially click on your affiliate link.
• Once every few weeks post a press release at PRWeb, in which you include your favorable review of Thesis, along with your affiliate link. If you pay them $80, they will guarantee that your press release is picked up by all major search engines, potentially sending you thousands of visitors.
• If you own an email list of newsletter subscribers or other people who have opted in to receive email offers from you, send them an email telling them about Thesis Wordpress Theme. Include your affiliate link at the end of the email.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Using a PPC account from Google Adwords, Overture, or many others, you can easily generate income with the Thesis affiliate program. You can either send people directly to your affiliate link in your PPC ads, or you can create your own website in which you have a review of our product, followed by your affiliate tracking link.

Additional Tips And Tricks From PostAffiliatePro

• From our experience, you will get the best results from writing your own product reviews, even if it’s short. You don’t have to be a good writer. Just write what you really think about the product. When you publish your product review, use your general affiliate link (on the top) to send user to our website.
• You will have much better conversion if you’ll put your visitors into pre-sold mood before sending them to our site.
  Pre-sold mood means that you build interest in product and visitor has decided to potentially buy it after he reads your product review. Choose from various types of product descriptions, download and adjust them to fit in your site. Experiment with short or long, try to find perfect combination with banners.
• Try to think like a visitor, when he comes to your page with review or affiliate link, you should draw his attention, build curiosity or feeling that he might need this kind of solution.
• Experiment with different banners, text links, or reviews. Keep these that bring good results, and change the others. Sometimes only change of few words or color of link can mean difference.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and JOIN THESIS AFFILIATE PROGRAM NOW. When you join, you also get the chance to MAKE MORE MONEY through Thesis’ Subaffiliates.

• Make Money With The Thesis Wordpress Theme Affiliate Program
• SponsoredReviews - Make Money From Your Reviews
• Thesis Wordpress Theme Has Got Even Better - Thesis 2.1
• Why Buy And Use Thesis Premium Wordpress Theme
• Successful Search Engine Optimization

Tour Wordpress 2.7 with this short video and get a grip of what’s in the latest update.

If you’re ready, feel free to DOWNLOAD WORDPRESS 2.7.

• Wordpress 2.6.5 Released
• Wordpress 2.6.3 - Available For Download
• Boost Your Adsense Revenue With Wordpress Themes For Adsense
• Why Buy And Use Thesis Premium Wordpress Theme
• Google Chrome

There are innumerable websites bustling on the internet that offer you with professional, flawless and impressive content for your blogs. These content providers are available for almost any type of blog. The growth in demand for ready made content is evidently due to the demanding tasks of bloggers to regularly update. 

Blogging is not only about creating content. Bloggers also need to network with fellow bloggers, promote their blogs and optimize them for search engines, which are daunting tasks that consume so much time. While creating content for your blog is equally important as networking, promotion and search engine optimization, some bloggers choose to buy content for their blog instead of creating it themselves.

Should you go for buying content for your blog or should you do it yourself? This is one of the dilemmas that bloggers are confronted with, especially when they have the means to buy. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of this option.

To Buy Or Not To Buy Content

Writing your own content is good for your blog as no one would understand best your readers, your expectations and your SEO strategies other than yourself. In this case, however, you will be responsible in doing the research for your topic, creating your post, optimizing it for search engines, regularly updating your blog etc. This entire process requires time and constant effort from part. The advantage of creating your own content is that you can tailor it to fit the objectives of your blog. The disadvantage on the other hand, is that you need to be committed with these tasks if you want things to work out well with your blog.

Alternatively, you have the option to buy content for your blog. But this decision does not come without a price. Some bloggers who buy content for their blog reported a decline in their feed subscriber and readership in general. This is mainly attributed to the change in the way information are presented to their readers. (e.g. change in writing style, tone, structure etc.) For instance, if your readers are used to your humorous post and informal approach in writing, they would feel uncomfortable if suddenly you publish articles written by someone else with a different writing style.

In order to avoid these problems, here are some useful tips to consider when chosing your content provider.

Tips When Buying Content For Your Blog

Before you buy content, try searching for those content providers who do not charge exorbitant price for their service. Make sure to strike a balance between quality and price. Generally speaking, those who charge a higher price for their services usually offer content with better quality. Ultimately, what you are searching for are experienced content providers who understand your needs and accordingly give you the needed content.

Writing for a book and writing for a blog both requires good writing skills but writing for a blog requires more. Hence, when you look for content providers, look for those who are not only good writers but those who also have experience in search engine optimization, keyword research, link baiting etc. If possible, hire someone who owns and manages a blog that is related to your niche.

If you have plans of hiring a content provider in a long term, try to experiment. Publish articles from different content providers in your blog and observe how your readers respond to them. The best content provider will receive the highest response from your readers. You can then choose him to be your regular content provider.

When you finally find someone who can provide you with quality content appropriate to your blog, stick with him to ensure consistency in your blog. Also, build a good relationship with him to secure his continuous good service.

• Benefits And Drawbacks Of Daily Posting
• Basic Search Engine Optimization Tips
• Make More Money Online - Be a Freelance Writer
• How To Win More Sponsored Posts And Make More Money Online: Part II
• Overcoming Writer’s Block - 6 Useful Tips

TheUniversityKid is already listed at SitePoint with a current bid of US$3,500. The bin was set at US$15,000, which when met will not only win the buyer TheUniversityKid but also a Blogging Forum. Check the listing of TheUniversityKid at SitePoint for information about traffic, monthly income, readership etc.

SlyVisions on the other is not yet listed on any market place. The post about the sale did not include any official price for the blog and Sly (the owner) is only 85% sure of selling it. Well, if you’re really interested, get in contact with him.

Good luck to Sly And Jason!

• TheWeblogZone Is For Sale!
• Where To Sell Your Blog
• Guide To Why You Should Not Purchase A Blog
• What’s Wrong With Blog Flipping!
• 3 Tips For A Successful Affiliate Marketing

To export and save your content, Pownce built an export tool. Just go to SETTING > EXPORT.

Pownce, a microblogging or file-sharing service  was launched on June 27, 2007 in Private Beta. It was founded by Kevin Rose, the same person who founded Digg. Lately, Pownce was successfully acquired by Six Apart, the same company responsible for Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. It turned out, however, that Six Apart wasn’t interested in continuing Pownce but was just after its staffs.

• Google Chrome
• Guide To Why You Should Not Purchase A Blog
• Why The Origin Of Your Blog Traffic Matters
• Drive More Traffic To Your Blog With Popular Searches
• 8 Effective Blogging Tips to Create a Blog that Stands Out

If you’re planning to register your .Com domain name, now’s the best time to do it. GoDaddy.com is running a promo where you can register your .Com domain name for only $0.99. Use the Promo Code: 99DOMAIN when you checkout. The code is only good for 1 year registration, which means, if you register a domain name for more than 1 year, you will have to pay the regular fee for the 2nd year onwards.

Hurry while the promo is still available!

• GoDaddy - Unblocked By The Great Firewall
• Tips On Registering Your Domain Name
• Domain Name Availability Checker
• Why Use Your Own Domain Name
• HTML Optimizer Tool

Getting the attention of Darren Rowse, Brian Clark or John Chow may lead to a lot of benefits. A simple link could result in a spike in traffic, which has the potential of boosting your blog earnings. For these reasons, I can’t blame other bloggers for worshipping them. What’s depressing, however, is to see some bloggers limiting their networks only to Probloggers.

Probloggers And Non Probloggers

Probloggers are the likes of Darren Rowse (Problogger.net), Brian Clark (CopyBlogger.com) and John Chow (JohnChow.com). They are the more experienced and established bloggers who have been online since the earlier days of blogging. Non Probloggers on the other hand are those who just got started with blogging. Those who are still building reputation online. Those who are still struggling with traffic, comments and inbound links.

From my personal experience, networking with Probloggers has been very rewarding, especially when you have established a good relationship with them. Once, when I was still blogging for BloggingMix, I got Darren Rowse to link to one of my posts and the result was overwhelming. Traffic went up so as with my comment and inbound link. Since then, I’ve been looking forward to getting the attention of Probloggers. Sad to say, I forgot the Non Probloggers.

Networking With Probloggers Vs. Non Probloggers

Bloggers build their network for several reasons. Some of these reasons are:

• Networking opens new opportunities.
• Networking boosts online reputation.
• Networks can be a great source of information and support.

Considering the nature of the Blogosphere, networking is a must if you want to succeed. For the same reason, I’ve invested so much time in building my network over my 3 years of blogging. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about networking… that is: Networking with Non Probloggers leads to better results.

Why does networking with Probloggers most likely to yield little or no results?

1. Probloggers have HUGE networks already. This means, they have little time to spend to each of their networks. As a result, your chance of getting noticed… of gettting their attention… of getting links from them is very little.
2. Problogger is to Problogger. Quite evidently, when you look at the network of Jeremy Schoemaker and other Probloggers, they’re mostly a bunch of Probloggers too. Why? It’s because they get more benefits from networking with fellow Probloggers than when they network with a newbie.
3. What’s in it for them? Probloggers don’t simply link and promote your blog even whey you’re in their network, they ask the question: what’s in it for them? If you are not offering them enough incentives, you might as well forget getting their attention. In case you haven’t noticed, the best way to get John Chow’s attention is to pay him. Otherwise, you need to come up with a really devious idea that appeals to him.

Alternatively, you can build your network of Non Probloggers. Networking with them is more likely to yield better results… mutually beneficial results. Here are some reasons why networking with Non Probloggers yield better results:

1. There’s more Non Probloggers. The fact is, there are more Non Probloggers than Probloggers. Another fact is, competition to network with Probloggers is tough as more bloggers prefer to network with them. In contrast, Non Probloggers make up most of the Blogosphere and the competition to get their attention is very little. This leaves you with a higher probability of getting their attention.
2. Unlike Probloggers, Non Problogges have the time. Because Non Probloggers are usually newbies, they’re still on the process of building their networks. In other words, you have a better chance of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
3. Non Probloggers are more welcoming. As Non Probloggers are new to blogging, they need all the support and information they could get. This presents you with numerous opportunities to network with them. Moreover, Non Probloggers have been proven to be more generous to their network, less picky of who they network with, and more appreciative of the little things you do for them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, networking with fellow bloggers can help you succeed online. But networking too, needs some strategy. You have the option to network with Probloggers, Non Probloggers or both. But limiting your network to Probloggers limits your opportunities of getting more results from your networking efforts. You should consider networking with Non Probloggers as the benefits you are likely to reap is so much more compared to the benefits you get from networking exclusively with Probloggers.

That’s my take of the issue. What’s about you?

• 3 Tips In Building Your Network
• Build Your Network With Blogcatalog
• 7 Reasons Why Men Are Better Bloggers
• Importance of Networking in Blogging
• GadgetAdvisor - Hardware, Software, Gadgets And Tech News