tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50145623115370357952024-03-14T09:14:26.812-07:00Christian Blogger's JournalJournal about blogging from a Christian perspectiveRobbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-2503394280130633602023-10-12T16:49:00.006-07:002023-10-12T16:56:11.596-07:00SEO vs. Separate Platform Exposure<figure class="graf graf--figure" name="be64"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://unsplash.com/@justin_morgan?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank"><img class="graf-image" data-height="5222" data-image-id="0*LdwW5PO7JTvm2BeG" data-unsplash-photo-id="-q_lg2uUTjk" data-width="7829" height="534" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*LdwW5PO7JTvm2BeG" width="587" /></a></div><figcaption class="imageCaption"><br /></figcaption></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="f20b">I’ve been blogging now for 13 years and strategy has always been top of mind. Getting views to your articles and posts is half the battle, and if it isn’t happening, blogging seems like a waste of time. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="5cd7">Search Engine Optimization (SEO) sounds smart and helpful, yet how does it really help bloggers and article writers? I’ve come to the conclusion that for most writers, it plays a very minor role in getting views. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="bcd4">I’ve had some success in getting traffic from Google searches (which is mostly what SEO is about), yet it was only because a big publication mentioned my article in one of their articles (mocking it). Whatever the reason for the mention, it still helps me get views from searches even a decade later. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9aa8">Besides this anomaly, I’ve had very little success generating views to my articles from searches. Unless you are writing exclusively for one site and about a specific topic, SEO isn’t as important as writing for separate platforms. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="34ed">My strategy has gone through phases of syndicating and not, as it does create this SEO problem of duplicate content. Searches don’t like duplicate content, so writing exclusively is the best SEO strategy unless writers can syndicate it somewhere with a large audience that will bring them views. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="ffca">Like I said before, if the articles have a specific topic that doesn’t have a lot of competition from bigger websites, then it makes sense to write exclusively for that website and not syndicate. If the articles are quality, they have a good chance of showing up in searches and driving organic traffic to the site. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d1ca">Otherwise, if the articles are more generalized and about topics that have a lot of competition, then syndicating to separate platforms for exposure makes more sense. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3b53">Each platform has its own unique user base, although some will cross-pollinate, they will generally choose to spend most of their time on one or the other. Syndicating your articles to those platforms will expose them to that audience, in the measure of your following and status there. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="622d">So instead of trying to desperately drive traffic to your articles through organic search, the game is to build up followings at separate platforms to then gain views from sharing your article there. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="8142">I’m specifically talking about syndicating the entire article and not just sharing a link. Those are two different things. </p><ul class="postList"><li class="graf graf--li" name="b475">separate writing sites</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="55fb">social media sites</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="df95">video sharing sites</li></ul><p class="graf graf--p" name="000c">You can even read your article in a video to reach video platforms. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3bbb">For instance, here are the platforms I syndicate articles to,</p><ul class="postList"><li class="graf graf--li" name="7427">WordPress</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="4e71">Blogger</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="8c6a">Medium</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="3b18">Substack</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="2884">Before It’s News</li></ul><p class="graf graf--p" name="3c1a">I always put a backlink to the original publication below the syndicated article. This helps give your blog more exposure and support if people are so inclined to check it out, which most of the time they aren’t. If they are, then they might sign up to an email list or support your affiliates, etc. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="6449">Then you share the link to the original article with all of your social media accounts. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="8c79">After all is said and done, the article is exposed to:</p><ul class="postList"><li class="graf graf--li" name="c267">followers and general audience on the syndicated platforms</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="059e">followers and general audience on the original platform</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="87d3">email list</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="05ad">social media followers</li><li class="graf graf--li" name="cf6f">any organic search that may come</li></ul><p class="graf graf--p" name="56e5">Now, because the content has so much duplicate content, it probably won’t get much love from search engines. If it does, it will likely be ranked highest on the syndicated platform that has the highest rank. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="4b27">For instance, even if you use the canonical link at Medium to point search engine bots back to the original source, the Medium article will still outrank your blog in any search results it may come up in. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="33a5">Keep that in mind if you are making money from views. If so, then you probably don’t want to syndicate it to Medium or a higher-ranking platform if it might do well in searches. I made this mistake with syndicating NewsBreak articles on Medium, only to find the Medium article out ranking the original NewsBreak article and stealing my pennies, as I don’t make money from non-member views at Medium, etc. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="a84c">Most of my articles aren’t going to do well in searches, so syndicating them makes sense. If they do find their way into the search, I have backlinks at least, so my blogs will get some views. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d864">Just some thoughts on blogging, hope it helps someone. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d864"><br /></p>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-17759546914370399712023-02-18T12:48:00.001-08:002023-02-18T12:56:18.620-08:00WordPress vs. Blogger<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://unsplash.com/@tozakfikret?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank"><img class="graf-image" data-height="2848" data-image-id="0*c5q95mtHr8hu5J1l" data-unsplash-photo-id="Zk--Ydz2IAs" data-width="4272" height="426" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*c5q95mtHr8hu5J1l" width="640" /></a></p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="beaa"><figcaption class="imageCaption"><br /></figcaption></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="dcbd">The pros and cons of each from an experienced user. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="dcbd">I started a blog on both WP and Blogger around the same time in 2013 when I first started blogging. I went on to start 6 more Blogger blogs and no more WP blogs. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="dd13">Blogger is easier to work with, but you can also monetize it without paying for a yearly subscription like at WP. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d287">To put advertisements on WP, you have to pay for a pro plan for at least $96/year. In my experience with advertising on my blogs, you won’t make this money back. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="c0a7">I have Google Adsense on 3 of my Blogger blogs now and at the rate I’m earning it will take me thousands of years to cash out at $100. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="db62">All my blogs together, including WP, bring in about 500 to 1,000 visitors each month. You need to bring in at least 10k to start making any significant money with advertisements, affiliates, etc. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="4c7f">The plus about WP is the community aspect, which I’ve started appreciating more recently. The Blogger community is much smaller and the reader feed and app are not quality. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3f93">WP has a nice app, much like Medium, that allows us to read the blogs we follow. The vast majority of bloggers are using WP anyway, so the writing community is much larger. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="7ce1">The community aspect of WP is much like Medium, which is nice. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3291">WP also has realistic stats. Blogger stats are unreliable. I have to divide my views by 5 to get an accurate count of unique people who visited my site (like shown on Google Analytics).</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9a33">Lately, I’ve been writing exclusive articles for WP and sharing them on all my social networks. The effort has shown good fruit with more visitors and followers. I went from 11 followers for 9 years to 22 with a little effort. These are real followers too, unlike many of the fly-by-night followers at Medium. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="c5e9">I just don’t like having to pay to place ads on my blog and I won’t. This is why I’m glad most of my blogs are on Blogger where I can experiment with ad networks like PopCash. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="7126">Lastly, Blogger is easier to use and work with in my opinion, although WP has many more options with templates and add-ons. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="cea3">Overall, I think WP is a better place to build a community of followers besides organic search and visitors from sharing to social media. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="cea3"><br /></p>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-41999222492073650372022-12-20T09:47:00.006-08:002022-12-20T09:58:18.770-08:00Hosted Blogs vs. Medium<figure class="graf graf--figure" name="c5e6"><a href="https://unsplash.com/@hostreviews?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank"><img class="graf-image" data-height="2860" data-image-id="0*RHAZLcGm2B7UCDAd" data-unsplash-photo-id="shr_Xn8S8QU" data-width="4688" height="373" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*RHAZLcGm2B7UCDAd" width="611" /></a><figcaption class="imageCaption"><br /></figcaption></figure>I’ve been a blogger since 2013 and have 8 different blogs altogether; 7 are hosted on Blogger and 1 on WordPress.<p class="graf graf--p" name="faf4">One of these blogs is associated with my Medium account (the one below), one is for my music, one is for golf, one is just a mirror blog, two are ministry blogs, one is about blogging, and the other is a review blog. </p><div class="graf graf--mixtapeEmbed" name="9a85"><a class="markup--anchor markup--mixtapeEmbed-anchor" data-href="https://www.businessandsocietyarticles.com/" href="https://www.businessandsocietyarticles.com/" title="https://www.businessandsocietyarticles.com/"><strong class="markup--strong markup--mixtapeEmbed-strong">Business and Society Articles</strong><br /><br /></a></div><div class="graf graf--mixtapeEmbed" name="9a85">Really, I’ve been neglectful with most of these blogs over the better part of these 9 years, which shows with the stats I’ll show. There is one main blog I regularly post at and two others I keep up with decently. </div><p class="graf graf--p" name="d40d">Lately, I have updated my blogs with a new magazine theme and have started posting on them again.</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="0ee5">It is the off-season for me as a golf course greenskeeper, so I have some time to write and blog. This includes coming back to Medium and doing some work here the last two weeks. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="75fc">I’ve written 9 articles on Medium in this time; most of these I also posted in the blog associated with this account. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="cc54">That is the backdrop information for the stats I want to show. Now that you have a sense of my productivity, let’s look at the stats I found in Google Analytics and here at Medium.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Blogs and Medium Stats</h3><p class="graf graf--p" name="0866">In the last 30 days, all of my blogs combined pulled in 408 unique visitors or users. Not very good I know. My main blog pulled in 252 of these, and the one associated with Medium pulled in 67 (2nd most popular of my blogs). </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="f3ca">Looking at the stats of my Medium account today, I’ve pulled in 254 views, which although not a <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">read</em>, these are the equivalent of a visitor or a user with Google Analytics. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="bd0e"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">My Blogs: 408 </strong></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="68a7"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Medium: 254</strong></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="6b68">Three of my blogs have Google Adsense on them as of this article (2 more are under review) and about 5 affiliates. At Medium, I’m not yet eligible to make money yet, as I have less than 100 followers (67 as of today).</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="179e">Saying this, I have made .02 cents from my blogs with 129 visitors and no money from Medium — in the last 30 days. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9b2f">The only affiliate I’ve made money with (ever) on my blogs is Presearch, which is in the form of cryptocurrency, and I have yet to cash it out. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d797">If I were in the Medium Partner Program and was able to make money from the 254 views, I would guess this would amount to around .25 cents. On a side note, I’ve made around $2.50 in the last 30 days from HubPages. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="ec53">As you can see, making money from blogs and writing on Medium and HubPages (have 20 articles there) isn’t a cakewalk.</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="f6ca">It is also true that I haven’t been working very hard on my blogs and these sites until recently. The work I have put in on Medium has increased my views from around 50 to 254 a month. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="81ca">I also have 7 eBooks published and have made zero from these in the last month. Although, over the last 9 years, they’ve made me about $600 total. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Analysis and Estimations</h3><p class="graf graf--p" name="c991">Although these numbers are low and could be discouraging, I’ve been at this too long to be deterred. I like to write/blog and find it a fun and interesting journey; coming back and embracing Medium and HubPages has made it even better, as I get much more interaction with other writers. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9a95">What I see is the potential for my blogs and Medium account. <strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Medium is already bringing in as many views as nearly all my blogs just after writing here for less than two weeks</strong> — this was boosted by reading articles and interacting with others. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="d507">Both my blogs and Medium have the potential to drive traffic to my eBooks as well. And, if I had enough traffic, my affiliates would get some action too. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="e0ed">So how much traffic would I need to make a living from blogging and writing online with all these things in place?</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="ad6d">See, I already have everything in place to start building my online writing income. All that’s needed is dedication and hard work to make it happen. Of course, this would assume I had the time to put in a full-time effort. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="12cb">As of now, I have some time off, but soon I’ll either be back working the golf course in the early spring or starting another career with the college degree I’m going to earn in February (I’m applying at two different places now). This doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, yet it does mean it will be a part-time effort once again. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="0b88">Like many writers, if I could justify spending full-time hours on my online writing by making a full-time living, this could be a viable option. Even so, I do want to work in the field I’m studying, which means my writing online is going to be a part-time effort for the foreseeable future. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="72a5">Either way, I want to build my online writing audience and revenue. Let’s look at what this would take. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="adda"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Realistically, it would take about 50k visitors a month to make anywhere from $500-$5000/month</strong>. How much money depends on the content, the email list strategy, the SEO, and monetization tools. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9078">For instance, some people focus on writing their eBooks and everything else they do points visitors to this product. Others focus on writing about certain topics and depend on affiliate marketing and ad revenue. Others may focus on getting subscriptions and donations. Finally, others may do all of the above. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="535f">Making money from a place like Medium is just a bonus to income earned from other products and services offered by writers and marketers. For instance, there are many eBook writers and bloggers on Medium who are using it to build an audience. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="a726">My main focus on Medium is to build an audience for my blogs (email lists) and secondary for my eBooks. If I were writing more eBooks and had new material coming out, this would become my focus. I do have both my blog and eBooks linked to my Medium <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">about</em> page and profile. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="7a72">Essentially, getting traffic is key. Building an online network to create traffic to these sales funnels is the main objective. Even if someone isn’t trying to make money and their sole objective is to build their email list and audience, their main goal is to create traffic. </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9b06">Social media is another good way to build traffic. Personally, I don’t like to hang out on social media except to post something, so it doesn’t work as well for me. Places like Medium and HubPages though do work for me because they are built for writers who love the craft. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h3><p class="graf graf--p" name="6aa9">Writing online is a great privilege for me; being able to share my thoughts and topics I feel are valuable and interesting is fun and worthwhile in itself. Making money from this endeavor has always been secondary, although it does help justify spending the time I want to spend doing it (to my wife and myself). </p><p class="graf graf--p" name="960e">With the analysis we have discussed we can see there is potential with both hosted blogs and Medium. Being able to generate almost as many views with Medium after less than two weeks than all 8 of my blogs shows me how valuable this platform is in creating traffic for my online writing efforts. Hope this helps your efforts too, see you around. </p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="c5e6" style="margin: 1em 40px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><br style="background-color: #374561; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px;" /></div></div></figure>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-41134586826512330502022-12-14T09:51:00.002-08:002022-12-14T09:54:12.285-08:00The Massive Blog Update<p><br /></p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="a6d1"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://unsplash.com/@freegraphictoday?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank"><img class="graf-image" data-height="2533" data-image-id="0*MA28eoMQRTV0Kgy8" data-unsplash-photo-id="82TpEld0_e4" data-width="3800" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*MA28eoMQRTV0Kgy8" /></a></div><figcaption class="imageCaption"><br /></figcaption></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="2c7c"><span style="font-size: large;">Don’t ask me why I decided to create 8 different blogs in the last 9 years. The fact is, the blogs are there and have been given life and even longevity — long as many dogs sad to say (for the dogs). The strange part is, right after I wrote <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://businessandsocietyarticles.medium.com/the-dormant-blog-dilemma-bfd948a9fd9b" href="https://businessandsocietyarticles.medium.com/the-dormant-blog-dilemma-bfd948a9fd9b" rel="noopener" target="_blank">a piece about perhaps offing them with honors</a>, the next day I decided to get ‘er done and do a massive update. This is good news for this blog. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="4def"><span style="font-size: large;">I have to admit, CBJ was one of those blogs I was considering old yellering, but the good news is I found the strength to spend an entire day and a half upgrading all of my Blogger blogs with a new theme. If anyone else knows about blogging, they know this is a massive deal, especially when you have numerous widgets and links to arrange. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3c8d"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead of trying to describe all of this to you, let me show a picture of the old and new theme from Blogger (yes, Blogger.com, I’m still there). </span></p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="81b0"><span style="font-size: large;"><img class="graf-image" data-height="768" data-image-id="1*A2garXPEg5j2Mzcwpah9Mw.png" data-width="1366" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*A2garXPEg5j2Mzcwpah9Mw.png" /></span></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="810e"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, let me show you the new updated version:</span></p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="16db"><span style="font-size: large;"><img class="graf-image" data-height="768" data-image-id="1*XRgCH2u-7qPnKtyy3uFpOQ.png" data-width="1366" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*XRgCH2u-7qPnKtyy3uFpOQ.png" /></span></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="db1a"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, let me show you below the featured story:</span></p><figure class="graf graf--figure" name="2713"><span style="font-size: large;"><img class="graf-image" data-height="768" data-image-id="1*VJiKgwfdZhjySkeHpvn0yg.png" data-width="1366" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*VJiKgwfdZhjySkeHpvn0yg.png" /></span></figure><p class="graf graf--p" name="4607"><span style="font-size: large;">Now you can see the cool cards of each post below the main post. Before, there was only one unfolded page, you know, like blogs used to be; there could be multiple posts below the latest or only one post on the home page; this was an old, archaic theme on Blogger — the Simple theme I believe.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="152f"><span style="font-size: large;">Blogger isn’t somewhere most people consider starting their blogs, the majority do this at WordPress, Wix, or maybe on <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Medium, Quora</em>, or LinkedIn — there are many choices now. Nevertheless, Blogger did develop and offer two new themes for us to use the last few years; these themes make the blog more like a magazine with multiple cards or posts on the home page and then a single post on the ones you click. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="a903"><span style="font-size: large;">I used both of these relatively new themes before for two different blogs (one of each), but I still had 5 blogs with the old theme (and one I created for someone else). So, I had a lot of work to do switching over 6 blogs and then while I was at it revitalizing the other two (still some work to do with the music blog). </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="013b"><span style="font-size: large;">I was planning on writing some articles on <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Medium</em>, <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Voice</em>, and <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">HubPages</em> and kind of forget about my blogs, but that’s not how God worked it out. I still had a content creation plan for all my blogs (sharing media items with comments or writing articles and sharing them on Medium), yet I couldn’t figure out what to do with CBJ. See, the articles I write here are the same type I write on Medium and these other sites — about writing, blogging, etc. So, there was a dilemma in some measure. Let me explain.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="92fc"><span style="font-size: large;">As I said before, the good news is I found a way in my mind to continue to write here on CBJ. See, I can’t just share videos on this site because I don’t really watch videos about blogging. This is supposed to be about my journey as a blogger. The <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://businessandsocietyarticles.medium.com/the-dormant-blog-dilemma-bfd948a9fd9b" href="https://businessandsocietyarticles.medium.com/the-dormant-blog-dilemma-bfd948a9fd9b" rel="noopener" target="_blank">last article</a> I wrote about blogging was on <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Medium</em> and it seemed fruitless to write on CBJ where I get very few views and interaction. Maybe this can change. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="b2be"><span style="font-size: large;">What I figured out is CBJ must remain because it is a place I can write openly as a Christian writer online. This is the reason I started this blog in the first place because writing as a conservative Protestant Christian writer online is sometimes a frustrating and lonely experience. There aren’t many sites and people online who are openly these things, especially on big sites like <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Medium, HubPages, Voice</em>, etc. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="b01d"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I still won’t write here very often, yet it serves a purpose for my online writing strategy, and hopefully for others who might experience the same. I’ve learned over the years that I don’t have to be overtly Christian to the point of annoyance to make my point, to live a Christian walk. Connecting with people on these secular/liberal sites can help me influence them more subtly, considering they would likely never even click on a site like this. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3773"><span style="font-size: large;">Still, I like to talk openly about my faith and how I’m affected by the online world as a writer and a blogger, thus CBJ will remain as a refuge for this purpose. The good news is, it has a new updated theme and works much better on mobile devices. Also, I’ve been learning more about SEO tactics like how to syndicate and not have duplicate content. Maybe making this an exclusive piece just available here on CBJ will help it show up in the search engines (unless you syndicate with a canonical link). Sharing on <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Medium</em> automatically gives one of these links when importing, but the content of this isn’t suitable for the audience, so it doesn’t matter. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="c31f"><span style="font-size: large;">It was a lot of tedious work to organize and arrange all the widgets and links, but it was a needed effort and I’m glad God gave me the strength to do it. Now, I don’t have to allow my blogs to go dormant and be wasted, they can still provide a service to my online writing strategy. This means CBJ will continue on without looking like it was abandoned long ago. This also means I can finally get back to writing, which was the purpose before all this blog-building stuff got in the way. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="32b6"><span style="font-size: large;">Until next time, be blessed and comforted in Jesus Christ my friends, and keep on writing to share His love with those who don’t know it. </span></p>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-2405207992555690092022-12-09T11:27:00.005-08:002022-12-30T07:21:06.783-08:00The Scrambled Blogger<br /><br /><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*OFI3VpGzTRwn5giWW-ZiyQ.jpeg" /><br /><br />What started in 2012 has become a reality in 2022, yet the reality isn’t quite what I had in mind. Writing is what started, originally for a website called All Voices, which was a citizen journalist site working from a revenue-sharing model (is no longer around). This was very exciting to me at the time, an ambitious writer in his early 30s, a person who had been internet starved throughout his twenties and early thirties and now had access to the online world — the world was awaiting my opinions, so I hoped.<br /><br />The reality ten years later is what could be called a scrambled blogger or a scatterbrained writer, forlorn in the shadows of obscurity and lost in the wide efforts of his ambition. The whole “eggs in the basket” idea has turned into ashes in the woodstove, as little efforts spent far and wide equal little payoffs in the proverbial basket. It’s not even the stretched-too-thin problem that has rendered my efforts nearly penniless, it is the lost ambition to write and the loss of focus on what to write and where that has really taken the wind out of my sails.<br /><br />Now, in my early 40s, I look at the internet differently. It isn’t a place where I can just say anything, rather it is a place to carefully speak to an audience that is shifty and heavily stimulated. In truth, the audience has become very picky and mostly concerned with their own efforts. No longer is a writer someone who has paid their dues with poverty and obscurity; now, they are instantly seen and appreciated, if they employ the right template of success and use the right tactics.<br /><br />Regardless of these changing times and peoples, what is it about my own writing ambitions that have plummeted from the millions of handwritten words in my journals of the past? What exactly do I mean by scrambled and scatterbrained? Let me try to explain.<br /><br />As I said, I started with some citizen journalism and branched out to other revenue-sharing writing sites like Squidoo and HubPages. During this time, I also delved into content writing for Textbroker and HireWriters. Just to put some context to this beginning, I didn’t even know what an URL was when I began, much less how to copy and paste. The learning curve was steep, yet I was up for it back then. This ambition led me to create some blogs with Blogger and WordPress. I eventually got to the point where I monetized my blogs with Google Adsense and affiliates. I then branched out and started writing eBooks on Amazon. This actually sounds like a promising start, yet what happened?<br /><br />Things change so quickly on the internet. Having to work my day jobs and dealing with the things of life just sort of zapped my ambitions. My blogs ended up being where I settled, yet my very basic and unpretentious mode of operation wasn’t working for marketing. If fact, my marketing or lack thereof has always been my main problem — I wasn’t willing to market or even care about my “brand.”<br /><br />Branding myself never sounded very pleasant. Essentially, I became cynical to the entire attention-seeking process; as more and more internet users came along, I became less and less willing to fight over views and attention. Coupled with my research of conspiratorial history, I found myself at odds with the entire culture of online writing.<br /><br />I’m realizing now, this doesn’t have to be. I don’t have to relegate myself to my obscure conspiratorial blogs. I have a lot to write about that won’t get me banned and censored from respectable places like Medium and HubPages.<div><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Skinny</h3><br />While I have had some successes in my ten-year online writing career, I still haven’t found my groove and this disappoints me. What I realized was I wasn’t a very good writer! Yes, I do have the ability, or at least the drive, to express myself through the scant vocabulary I do have, yet the craft wasn’t/isn’t that extraordinary (it has gotten better). Of course, there is always editing, which is how I earned over $20k as a content writer. As a freelance writer, I’ve earned maybe $1,000 in total. Most of this was from eBooks, which I earn next to nothing from now. After hundreds of blog articles, I’ve earned probably $100 from the entire effort. I have 7 blogs by the way, monetized with Google Adsense and various affiliates.<br /><br />The biggest claim to fame I’ve had is the publication Cracked highlighting one of my blog posts in an article to mock me. That popular article helped me get around 300k views for that one article, which is more than half of the views for that blog in ten years — this is my most popular blog.<br /><br />I continue to try and improve my now archaic Blogger blogs, yet making money from them seems next to impossible. Realistically, a person needs to get 10k views a day to make anything significant. The most views I received for my most popular blog was around 5k a month. I don’t even use Google Adsense on that blog anymore, yet I still do on three blogs.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Medium Story and Hopes</h3><br />This sad and strange story is why I’m here writing on Medium today. Is it so wrong to just want to write an article that someone may read? It may be that someone even wants to follow me. Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging, yet I find writing serious articles there feels like writing in complete obscurity. Anymore, I just use my blog as a blog, that is, I just share videos and other media items there and talk about them.<br /><br />Let me explain what is going on with my Medium account here. You may notice some articles here that seem like content articles for businesses. That is part of the scrambled blogger thing I’m trying to explain. Business and Society Articles was started to place my recycled content articles that were rejected from being bought by businesses. I haven’t been content writing now for around 4 years, so now there are some golf and music articles here too. Doesn’t this seem confusing? It does to me. I’ll explain.<br /><br />I have a blog called Better Golfing Days, plus I’m a musician who has a blog called Robbie Lowdown0 Music. These are non-objectionable articles I felt were safe here at Medium. See, I used to have another Medium account where I placed all my blogs, including the conspiratorial ones. This didn’t work out, so now I have this account that uses my real name.<br /><br />The entire writing online journey is scrambled because of these things. I write under a pseudonym with my blogs, except for the one this account represents. It isn’t hard to find my real name considering I even include it in my contact information, yet this is how I started so many years ago. At this point, how do I proceed is the question?<br /><br />See, I’m not very good at being scrambled, I like organization and things that make sense. I like to give readers a clear understanding of things. Now, I find myself with all kinds of writing efforts all over the internet, and none that really satisfy my writing ambitions. This is why I’m writing here at Medium today.<br /><br />Maybe I can just come here and write about different things that interest me and I can find a place to call home. Yes, I can still blog media items of interest and syndicate my articles from here on my blogs, yet maybe Medium is someplace respectable that I can call home? I’m even a member now so I can read other people’s writings, support them, and get more involved. I have so many things to say and write about, maybe this is the place I can finally settle.<br /><br />I’ve been writing another eBook; it will be 50k words when it is over, that is the only real defining aspect of it other than being a creative journalistic effort with some semblance of poetry in areas. Not sure what I will call it. So far, I’ve written around 15k words.<br /><br />You’ll have to excuse me for this article being too much about my writing, yet maybe it will be useful to someone, as it explains the experience of an obscure online writer who has written even thousands of articles online in many different forms to find himself here with a scrambled blogging brain. There are likely many out there like myself who have put significant effort into their writing, yet find themselves wearing thin when that extra effort is needed to get over the top to some dreamy area of writing success. Already, I’ve been more of a success than I thought I would be, yet I can’t say I’ve been fulfilled with my own efforts. Essentially, like any writer, I just want an audience that appreciates my efforts and the journey it brings me on.<br /><br />I’m not a privileged writer trying to make everyone envious of my fantastical lifestyle, nor an overly intellectual snob that wants everyone to feel inferior to my writing prowess, nor even a self-righteous know it all who wants to berate the ignorant for their willing sloth and ambivalence. Rather, I’m just a writer who wants to express himself through words, to share what I find interesting, helpful, and profound in this life and world we are all sharing. Hopefully, this sounds good to some people and they will follow this poor writer with a scrambled blogging brain.<br /><br />Originally published at <a href="https://businessandsocietyarticles.medium.com/the-scrambled-blogger-b5501cdc857d">Medium</a> on Dec. 9, 2022</div>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-84270413084233905122022-05-07T18:50:00.005-07:002022-05-19T19:01:48.801-07:00Blogging Strategy: Coming Out of the Wilderness<p></p><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVZl-U0CTSw_jLI6FsS6wpDg5tyRuC_Ja1JnbQxxaB-tJah8qetYoXJ2ynN3LFd25a6ImA5_RNPX_-TWNvEmTckuTI36hIIkMT08ONcF3ukPFRI0kLs6uJ3_yVCoEvYqiDVe99TR5Nm-xecm71UO8gTYswH5nCYYnZZWTJeK87nmcGOOC11eaZDW0cg/s1024/CBJ%20wilderness.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVZl-U0CTSw_jLI6FsS6wpDg5tyRuC_Ja1JnbQxxaB-tJah8qetYoXJ2ynN3LFd25a6ImA5_RNPX_-TWNvEmTckuTI36hIIkMT08ONcF3ukPFRI0kLs6uJ3_yVCoEvYqiDVe99TR5Nm-xecm71UO8gTYswH5nCYYnZZWTJeK87nmcGOOC11eaZDW0cg/w640-h426/CBJ%20wilderness.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmcalifornia/49910851146" target="_blank">cc from flickr.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Languishing in the "no rank" section of website ranking obscurity, CBJ has seen better days, although perhaps the best is yet to come for this well-colored and named blog. Maybe all I needed was a better strategy to blog more, to blog better, to continue on in this blogging effort. While this seems easy enough to simply create a new strategy, the challenge is in the consistent effort over the months, years, and even decades. For CBJ, it has been 8-9 years since it started in 2014. If I'm into my blogging, I'll be here writing about it; well, I haven't blogged here since February of 2021, and before that not since 2019...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Keep in mind, I have 6 creator blogs, including CBJ. The main blog I post to is LDT, which has been lean over the last 5 years as well. I started out quickly in 2013,14,15, but then I faded and have been mostly subsisting and maintaining. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The strategy may sound elementary to some, but don't overlook the insight, as it reflects a deeper and more encompassing truth about our blogging efforts. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My problem (despite outward factors of life for the working married man) with blogging has always been how to approach the effort; should I write investigative articles or share quick little blurbs with posts. My blogs are not like a social media post to me, so I couldn't get myself to treat them so casually. I leaned toward writing articles about larger subjects or ideas on my mind, rather than just sharing everything I was watching, reading, and listening to. This strategy has its merits, yet my blogs are dying from no new content in the search engines, not to mention not building a readership, etc. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The strategy is to blog once a day at least to one of my creator blogs</b>. <i>Most of these shares will be the share what I find interesting and write a small article to offer my views or add valuable information type.</i> The thoughtful article brewing inside will also have its day of publishing among the quick share type posts. With 6 blogs and video channels to create content for, the effort has to ramp up if I'm going to ever stay afloat and maybe gain a growing readership. The LDT, at best, was 300k for world rankings and around 50k for the U.S. -- this is the Alexa rankings.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The point is, blogging is fun and easy, so I don't have it make it rocket science (might learn <a href="https://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-earth-is-flat.html?showComment=1620442937427" target="_blank">the earth is flat</a>). On the other hand, I want to put out quality content, so it will always be better than a social media post. I don't usually comment on my social media shares anyway. The daily routine or habit will also be a benefit, as it will keep my blogging efforts top of mind. For every topic, I have a blog for the share with a short article (something I write within 5-15 minutes -- this one has taken about an hour or so btw). Another important point, the shares that turn into blogs are only something I've watched, listened to, and/or read -- share worthiness is more than a social media post. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Much to share with the NWO on the prowl. I take my job seriously as a Christian watchman who also wants to minister to the Christians and lost to see souls saved and lives improved. CBJ is where I come to talk about my blogging efforts as a Christian and blogging in general. Blogging is different than writing, making videos, or doing podcasts, it is a jack of all trades online type of gig. Blogging is more than social media, as it gives the author the freedom to publish extensive pieces, small blurbs, and have their own environment online. For now, truthers, Protestant Christians, and patriots can still have blogs in some parts of the web, yet censorship has come down on certain platforms in certain forms -- as for now, I'm still able to blog uncensored here on Blogger, likely, because I'm in relative obscurity. When one finds a large audience is when pressure begins to mount to silence them...do you ever wonder what the powers to be are trying to hide?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Blessings in Jesus your way, until next time on CBJ.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><br /></p>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-77821332741263660562021-02-22T11:50:00.004-08:002021-02-23T06:39:45.918-08:007 Alternatives to Big Tech Social Media Sites<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://pixabay.com/vectors/freedom-of-speech-freedom-156029/" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="893" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBP1HXRsXdyYTWY648EC4YnuJdToLzNajPuMLS6bJ3sAHr6SAxmmdVCT7k8XEsCWoGRRLLEQK3EJ0YWJosuBlPYxJtFtzclYPjWFtse4s7mWJhVlHJ0NxjSzoWM9oX_zQ4Nrs9zSJWXZe8/w279-h400/freedom-of-speech-156029_1280.png" width="279" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pixabay.com/vectors/freedom-of-speech-freedom-156029/" target="_blank">cc from pixabay.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> </span>The massive censorship campaign against the truth by big tech has been happening right before our eyes in the last year; from an acting President being censored by Twitter and Facebook to thousands of independent media truthers with large followings being canceled and deleted by YouTube and their brainless bands of fact-checkers, sighting they were going against community standards. This is an ominous sign for bloggers and content creators, thus, we need alternative places to create and share our content to ensure continuity in our work. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> </span>By the way, community standards are simply their flexible ethical reasoning to censor information and truth the powers to be (and that pay them off) don't want the public to know, especially the mainstream public. YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Instagram, Medium, Amazon, and others have all ganged up on the truth to spread lies that destroy people.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> </span>The major lies of the #coronavirushoax and the #globalwarminghoax can not be questioned, otherwise, people might get the answers and see the lies, etc. They need these lies to subject us to tyranny under the pretense of helping and caring about us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span><span> </span>L</span>ike you know, since the lockdowns in March 2020 and the facemasks later in the fall of 2020, America has become censorship central. For instance, my Medium account was taken down completely for inaccurate medical information -- see, I write information showing the other side of the mainstream storyline. Bloggers and content creators are under attack by propagandists and liars. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> </span>So, what do we truth lovers, Christian bloggers, and those who love freedom do? Well, don't self-censor for one thing and use the big tech until they buck you off; in the meantime, start building an alternative back-up network, including social media sites.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Being allowed to voice different views on subjects that matter and holding the principle of not wanting anything to do with these censorship corporations are the main reasons to get away from big tech as much as possible. In an effort to help, here are some alternative social media sites to check out:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://flote.app/RobbieLowdown0" target="_blank">Flote</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Love this site. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://gab.com/RobbieLowdown0" target="_blank">Gab</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Great site, owned by a Christian.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.minds.com/register?referrer=robbielowdown0" target="_blank">Minds</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Blockchain social site, has been good so far. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://usa.life/RobbieLowdown0">USA.life</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Newer site, looks like facebook, but run by conservatives and patriots. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://mewe.com/i/robbienewport" target="_blank">MeWe</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Original and creative type of social site, neutral in politics, allows free speech so far. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.webtalk.co/7151922" target="_blank">Webtalk</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A business-oriented social media site like LinkedIn, a good place to share business truth, like how lockdowns are destroying thousands of people's businesses, etc. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://parler.com/profile/RobbieLowdown0/posts" target="_blank">Parler</a>: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Most people are aware of this site, as they were laser beamed off the map by Amazon and the big tech aliens. To their chagrin though, the site is back, yet without their freedom-loving CEO (he was fired by the board), well see how they progress. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Also, here is a list of video sharing sites:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://awritersreview7.blogspot.com/2019/01/7-social-video-platforms-to-syndicate.html" target="_blank">11 Social Video Platforms to Syndicate Content With</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Blessings fellow Christians and truth lovers, let us always speak the truth no matter how many people speak lies around us and no matter what threats are against us for doing so -- if we lose the ability within ourselves to speak truth to lies, then the enemies of God have won the battle; in reality, the enemies of Jesus Christ are just fooling themselves that they can stamp out the human spirit and the truth found in the Holy Bible. Indeed, the rulers of darkness are fools, the blind leading the blind into a ditch. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Praise Jesus for always being with us even until the end. The truth will be with us even until the end, no matter what Satan and his workers of iniquity have planned, they will never get rid of the Truth -- and they'll never be able to stop those who have it from telling others. Amen!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-11073383417436903422019-08-24T20:28:00.000-07:002020-04-25T22:18:42.148-07:00Blogging is Still the Wild Frontier <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YFm1XOAofZ9edc5FFQ1VqkV7Ae8GFwa8mQHTtnFIPCrpL7Hr2xgkmWLVEGrC8dqU6_BJ6wHKMNX8G_uBk6eOeTFbbptdPJVah0Vd1PqRAh48A5kji4sJLuMsH-VrBm97_cTH7qdkyjSN/s1600/bluediamondgallery.com+blogger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YFm1XOAofZ9edc5FFQ1VqkV7Ae8GFwa8mQHTtnFIPCrpL7Hr2xgkmWLVEGrC8dqU6_BJ6wHKMNX8G_uBk6eOeTFbbptdPJVah0Vd1PqRAh48A5kji4sJLuMsH-VrBm97_cTH7qdkyjSN/s640/bluediamondgallery.com+blogger.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thebluediamondgallery.com/wooden-tile/b/blogger.html" target="_blank">cc from bluediamondgallery.com</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I just looked at the date of the last post here at CBJ and it was July 13, 2018. So, it's been over a year since I've written a post here. Not the best marketing strategy, yet here I am, writing another post to keep the blog alive and give any readers out there hope the author is still alive and in the same blogging mind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of course, blogging is something I think about all the time. Having created the perfect blogs for every article I could imagine to write, I constantly think of articles and topics I could write about -- if only I had the time is usually the culprit I point to, and not without reason, still, the blogs go un-published and my ideas are seemingly lost in the daily routine of modern slavery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Specifically, God has opened the door and I've been working as a greenskeeper for the last 5 months. Golfing is one of my passions and lawn care is one of my trades, the match has been great, especially since I get free golf at two of Oregon's finest courses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Besides details and life matters taking me away from blogging, I also have to confess the sheer procrastination involved when the ideas are more prosperous than the tangible writing workload. This is part of learning how to be a long-term blogger, that is, how to pace yourself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mostly, this involves the voice of the blog. For example, when I first started I used CBJ as a journal to write whatever thoughts I had that day, etc. While this helped me be more productive writing posts, I found the voice of the blog was lost in the shuffle. I also learned it's better to put some thought and work into an article, rather than just flippant thoughts for the sake of adhering to a published blog schedule. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hey, every blogger has their own style and way of getting 'er done. I'm just grateful God has given me a place to publish when I do get around to finally writing an article. And, while I could have practically written this article with ease 12 months ago, the sincere truth is it took me about 13 months, making this a 13-month work in progress article, finished at the last moment, that is, now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Basically, what happened is I narrowed the focus of this blog to only posts about blogging. CBJ is my most narrow blog when it comes to the subject matter. Sometimes, I need a place to talk about blogging, and non-bloggers just don't get it. Besides, it's my hope to encourage blogging without guile, without pretension, and without cookie-cutter recipes of success. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blogging to me is still the wild frontier, the amazing Yukon of freelance writing. In the Oregon Territory, I can reach the world and not even have to pay for the platform (<a href="https://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2016/02/im-not-ashamed-of-my-blogspot-subdomain.html" target="_blank">still using the free subdomain blogspot.com on most of my blogs</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blogging allows a myriad of expression and combines the widest array of talents and art forms. Business-minded bloggers and abstract poets alike can blog their hearts away to the world at large. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">While blogging is something I enjoy, it does take sacrifice and the willingness to endure scant accolades from the deep, heartfelt discourse given to kindred humanity, connected on this strange rock powered device. We never know what door God will open; there surely is a reason for these efforts Christian bloggers, be encouraged. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Write and think on friends, pray, and read the KJV Holy Bible, and blog when you get the time. God bless in Jesus. </span></div>
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Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-20566611018108033092018-07-13T10:43:00.002-07:002021-11-23T08:05:29.172-08:00How to Monetize a Blog: My Experience <div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.maxpixel.net/Blog-Blogging-Wordpress-Leave-Blogger-Web-Design-684748" target="_blank">cc from maxpixel.net</a></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/how-many-blogs/" target="_blank">Joining the over 600 million other blogs in the world</a> is an exciting experience for the first-timer, yet could also end up being disappointing if they're trying to make money from it.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">While some bloggers do make enough money through their blogging efforts to make a living, most of us don't even come close. Let's talk about the challenges and possibilities of blogging by examining how to monetize a blog: my experience.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"> Types of Blogs</span></h2>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Among the hundreds of millions of blogs online, there are many different types of blogs to consider. Many blogs are monetized and professional, to the point where visitors can't even tell they're a blog. Really, they're simply a website where someone posts their writings, drawings, paintings, pictures, videos, audio, videos, affiliate posts, etc.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.shoutmeloud.com/difference-between-blog-vs-website.html" target="_blank"> What is a blog then, if it's just a website</a> with a unique domain? Blogs are websites where individuals or businesses can craft and publish their own posts. </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">The design and functions of each blog will vary depending on the platform using and the person building it. Site building sites aren't blogs, but they allow users to build a blog within the actual website.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Unlike websites, true blogs don't have a homepage; the last post published is the default home page. Also, blogs can have more than one article on the page; when readers scroll down they'll find the latest posts published – the number of posts is chosen in the settings.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Here are some blog and <a href="https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/" target="_blank">site builder sites</a> to choose from:</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Blogger</span></div>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Quora</span></li>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Tumblr</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Weebly</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Squarespace</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Joomla</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Medium</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Ghost</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Duda </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">LinkedIn and </span><a href="https://smallbiztrends.com/2014/10/know-can-blog-facebook.html" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Facebook also provide platforms to blog</span></a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">, yet are limited with monetization capabilities.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Whatever platform is chosen, there are different types of blogs as well, such as:</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://smartblogger.com/affiliate-marketing/" target="_blank">Affiliate blogging</a></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Interest blogs </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> A blog could be a mixture of these as well, yet most blogs should fit into these 5 types.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"> Types of Blog Monetization Methods</span></h2>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Although the sky is the limit when it comes to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/10/12/7-ways-to-monetize-your-blog-traffic/#54ad62164a45" target="_blank">monetizing a blog</a>, here are the main ways:</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Adsense (PPC ads)</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/" target="_blank">Amazon Associates </a>(affiliate marketing)</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">eCommerce</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Selling eBooks</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/2017/11/09/subscription-website" target="_blank">Subscription-based</a></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Indirectly through shared links to other income sources </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Selling music</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Crowdfunding</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> There could be other methods, yet these should cover the majority of general methods available to <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-monetize-a-blog" target="_blank">monetize a blog</a>.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> For those just starting out or those looking for motivation for their on-going blogging efforts, you'll want to know <a href="http://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-experience-with-making-money-blogging.html" target="_blank">how much can I make blogging</a>? I mean really, without the BS from an affiliate marketing system or the promotional CTA of a site builder platform; just tell me How Much!?</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Well, this is a hard question to answer, as it involves so many variables. Some people invest into a system and have the time to work full-time on their blogs, yet others start a blog in their spare time and work on it a couple hours a week. <a href="http://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2016/02/personal-blogging-compared-to-affiliate.html#.W0jVLNJKivE" target="_blank">One blogger just starts a free blog about their personal life</a>, while another starts a professional eCommerce website with a blog about their product, etc.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Suffice it to say, without a full-time, dedicated effort and the know-how to begin, <a href="http://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2014/08/trying-to-make-buck-blogging.html#.W0jebtJKivE" target="_blank">bloggers shouldn't expect to make even $100/month after a year</a> of building their blog. The challenges for most bloggers are finding the time to invest and having the knowledge to effectively build. I wouldn't even say money is a big hindrance, yet money does help initially get someone started faster and with more professionalism.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> With that said, if a person were so inclined, they could make a living blogging; even from a <a href="http://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2016/02/im-not-ashamed-of-my-blogspot-subdomain.html#.W0jYn9JKivE" target="_blank">subdomain platform with a free blog</a>, a blogger could drive enough traffic to their blog to make a living. It all depends on the amount of traffic and the conversion rates for each monetizing tool.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> The amount of traffic a blog gets depends on these variables:</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Frequency of posting</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Topics posted about</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">SEO practices</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Value of posts to visitors</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Longevity of blog</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> The variables determining the rate of clicks and conversions are:</span></div>
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<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Topic of blog</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Theme of blog</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Effectiveness of monetization layout</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Types of monetization </span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Mobile responsiveness</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">UX/UI design</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Type of blog</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> For instance, <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">an opinion blog about society and politics</a> will have a low conversion rate for Adsense ads, yet might be able to sell books related to the topic through Amazon Associate modules or their own eBooks, etc. The topic and type of blog make a big difference when it comes to attracting the type of people that engage with ads.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Affiliate text links and modules can be more effective if they're relevant to the blog and topic. This is what affiliate blogging is focused on, while others use affiliate blogging without actually blogging about the product or service – side panel widgets, etc.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Each blog needs a monetization strategy tailored to its unique subject matter, layout, purpose, etc. The main idea is to get a solid platform built and then work on getting the visitors. This is when the journey really begins – how much money a blog makes depends, ultimately, on the number of visitors they can attract and their ability to convert them.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"> How to Attract Visitors and Gain Traction</span></h2>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Seems easy to make money blogging right? All one has to do is build a solid monetized blog and then the visitors will begin coming in droves. Well, not so fast, this is the part about blogging that makes <a href="https://www.business2community.com/blogging/bloggers-fail-18-simple-reasons-01965070" target="_blank">most bloggers give up and quit</a>.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> The best attitude to have is to appreciate any and all visitors to your blog. Blogging is a work in progress effort and only those with nowhere else to go usually survive. For the love of blogging, stick in there whether the money comes quickly or not, and you'll be glad you did. Hey, blogging is fun.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Just remember, if everyone could simply start a blog, take a crash course in monetizing it, and then make a full-time living, then the secret would be out and everyone would be blogging their brains out. The truth is, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/why-do-most-bloggers-fail-a-review-of-flawed-blogging-practices-that-knock-most-people-out/" target="_blank">most blogs fail to ever make money</a>.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> The blogs that do make <a href="https://myworkfromhomemoney.com/blog-traffic-need-make-money/" target="_blank">money attract tens of thousands to millions of visitors every month</a>. The amount of money made per 1,000 impressions is called RPM (revenue per thousand impressions). <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6157410?hl=en" target="_blank">Impressions</a> are basically counted when an ad loads on the visitor's device, which means they're basically visitors who didn't bounce immediately.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> There are many ways to attract visitors; each blogger will have their own marketing strategy. Here are <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/7-proven-strategies-to-increase-your-blogs-traffic-by-206/" target="_blank">some ways to attract visitors</a>:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Post frequently and regularly</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Include <a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">creative commons pictures</a></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Include videos </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Creating longer posts (600 to 3000 words)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.hubspot.com/" target="_blank">Sharing on social media sites</a></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://awritersreview7.blogspot.com/2014/05/25-back-linking-sites-to-promote-your.html" target="_blank">Backlinking</a> with small revenue sharing sites </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Blog directories and feeds</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.business.com/categories/best-email-marketing-services/" target="_blank">Sharing to email lists</a> (default with Blogger is Feedburner)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Participate in related forums</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Including high ranking links in posts</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Give out business cards with blog URL</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Guest blogging </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">PPC ads with search engines or social media</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Create videos and podcasts about posts w/back links</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url" target="_blank">Submit blog's URL to search engines</a></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://pingler.com/" target="_blank">Ping the blog's URL</a></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> These are only some of the ways bloggers can use to gain traction and <a href="https://www.successfulblogging.com/grow-your-blog-audience/" target="_blank">blow up their blogs with visitors</a>. In my estimation, it takes 100k visitors or more each month for most bloggers to make a full-time living ($1,400/mo and up).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Much of the success bloggers have with marketing their blogs comes from their tech-savvy ability and their drive for money, or their lack thereof. </span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Here's an analogy to explain different blogging strategies: when there's a line of people, those who fight tooth and nail to be in the front will seemingly prosper quicker and get more, yet those who patiently and humbly wait at the end of the line (without resentments) will eventually get there just the same, yet can feel good about how they did it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> In other words, in the process of attracting visitors to your blog, don't sell out and become a slave for some corporation or money itself. There's nothing wrong with making money, yet there needs to be a purpose beyond just making money with blogging. Maybe this manifests in an ethical eCommerce store or an opinionated sociological news blog; either way and with everything in-between, there needs to be a purpose beyond making money – in order to sustain long-term blogging efforts with joy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> Having a more enjoyable life is why we want to blog for a living anyway, right? The freedom of making a living blogging is an alluring goal to have; imagine not having to work for anyone else! Indeed, being able to work remotely and make a residual income doing what we love (blogging) would be great!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Even after blogging for nearly 5 years and only making a few bucks a month, I'm still working towards and believing my blogging efforts will one day make me a living.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> I hope this blog post has helped you gain some ideas and strategies around monetizing your blogs. Just remember, there's no one right way to do it, so dig in and keep the ideas flowing and maybe one day they'll come to life. God bless in Jesus. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-80905692652658439002016-10-11T06:21:00.000-07:002016-10-12T18:15:13.421-07:00I'm Not Ashamed of My Blogspot Subdomain Anymore!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcKialXTe2xkubF5OwSMGLAhiYyRVWAq9fFGCpTuSGtHF0KnPpBLXouNRxNTHn3ATDIi0odOEk65BT49Hcpu8m1DF7nVKtah6emckSTr3QUMnS_xdW33oTnsk6R4TNqWLsuluhfDItNoC/s1600/flickr.com+blogger2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcKialXTe2xkubF5OwSMGLAhiYyRVWAq9fFGCpTuSGtHF0KnPpBLXouNRxNTHn3ATDIi0odOEk65BT49Hcpu8m1DF7nVKtah6emckSTr3QUMnS_xdW33oTnsk6R4TNqWLsuluhfDItNoC/s400/flickr.com+blogger2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/" target="_blank">cc from flickr.com</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This article is going to be unique
from what you'll typically find about affiliate blogging or building a website. I have a
different perspective from most of the websites out there: talking
about affiliate blogging. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Really what I'm discussing here is
professional blogging, where people are ambitious to make money
online through a website. They don't usually care about what the site
is about, as long as they can make a full-time living with copious
amounts of residual income. Yet, is it really as easy as people are
saying?
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> My Experience
</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> A couple months ago I wanted to start
an affiliate blog about the topic of golfing, so I started another
blogger blog here and called it <a href="http://bettergolfingdays.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">“Better Golfing Days”</a>. As of now,
I'm only an affiliate with Amazon, so I put some relevant products
there and an Adsense ad. For me, creating a free blog at blogger is
within my capabilities.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Now, about a week ago I found out
about Wealthy Affiliate, which is basically a hosting service which
gives you support and training to become an affiliate marketer. The
people there are very nice and I have nothing bad to say about the
site. Yet, I do want to point out something in this article central to this discussion, which does implicate sites like WA.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> What Are People Affiliate Blogging
About?</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is a good question, needing to be asked: before you begin to delve into starting a website and “creating
a business” online. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The answer is: everyone is blogging about
making money online – do you understand what I'm saying? It's like
a circle of nothingness, where people are cashing in on people who
actually think it's easy to create a website and make money online
blogging about something they love.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Truth is, almost everyone who is
successful at Wealthy Affiliate (and almost every other affiliate
blogging platform) <u>has a website about making money online</u>. So, to
make money online, you start a website about making money online...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Just search for making money online,
or affiliate blogging, and see for yourself how many blogs (websites)
are out there trying to get you to either: sign up for some affiliate
blogging network like WA, or sign up to some other server like
Bluehost or HostGator. They may call this an online business, but
really it's just a marketing scheme. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Creating a Self-Hosted Website is NOT
Easy!</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For regular people who love to write
and do want to make money online talking about their passions,
building a website is not easy. I don't care how easy it is for the
tech savvy, for the regular folk who don't speak Internet language –
the process of building a website is very difficult and will consume
massive amounts of time (and you make nothing significant for a long, long time).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Wordpress.org is the most popular free CMS
(Content Management Software/System ) available. People always talk about how
easy it is to set up self-hosting and download this free software
from wordpress.org, but my experience has proven over and over that
Wordpress (.com and .org) is NOT EASY to work with.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I started out blogging at
Wordpress.com with a free website over two years ago (I still have
the blog: <a href="https://lowdown0.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Lowdown Zero</a>), and after a short time I became frustrated with how
difficult it was to do anything there. Even after a couple years of
becoming more online literate, I still find Wordpress a very
difficult place to build a website (either free of self-hosted).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">See,
there's wordpress.com which is where wordpress hosts your site
either for free or with a premium paid blog, and then there is the
open source software at wordpress.org, which is free and can be
downloaded and used with another server of your choice (Siteground,
Bluehost, HostGator, etc.).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Getting Dirty with Self-Hosting</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> What good would my opinion be here, if
I didn't at least try self-hosting? So, I decided to not go with
Wealthy Affiliate (because I'm an independent sort) and signed up for
a year with Siteground hosting. The process for me was painstakingly
difficult, although tech savvy people doing reviews spoke about how
easy it all is.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Yesterday is when this happened by the
way. So, I downloaded a wordpress website and right away was stuck
trying to pick out a theme. What theme should I pick? How do I add
Adsense? How do I change the font and color? On and on...it was
nightmare. My stomach was turning and my head started aching. The
peace and song of God in Jesus was gone!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> After a couple hours of working on my
website, I had a thousand more questions I needed answered. I
realized that building a website on wordpress, especially self-hosted, was going to become a full-time job. Seriously, building a website
with wordpress is not easy, and will take you about a year working
full-time to learn how to do it correctly. Not only that, but then
the online world is changing so rapidly, the learning will never
stop!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The Lesson I Learned</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Siteground was nice enough to refund
my money for the years hosting, but I now own a domain of which I
have to spend likely a couple hours trying to figure out how to move
to my bettergolfingdays.blogspot.com website here at blogger. The
customer service was excellent, and they do have a 30 day money back
offer. Although I won't receive my money for 5 days or so, I believe
it will come.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I can't tell you how relieved I was to
come back to my subdomain blogs here at Blogger! Praise God for
leading me away from the horrible pit of building a website on
wordpress. Honestly, I can't stand wordpress, and that's why I came
over here to Blogger in the first place.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I Love Blogger!</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The Internet is full of snobby tech
savvy people who will make you feel almost ashamed of having a
subdomain on a site like blogger or hubpages. I have to admit, I was
trying to class jump and become a professional blogger, but I've seen
the light and understand now where I want to be.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I love my blogger blogs, and I'm not
ashamed of my subdomains anymore! Yes, the blogspot.com is there and
so what? These are blogs on blogger, these are my websites I write on
to share the things I want to share. Blogger is a great place for
bloggers to come and blog, and we can even have affiliates and
advertising if we want. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my opinion, building a website with
blogger is so much better than wordpress. You don't have to invest a
third of your life to create some website that looks just like
everyone else's site. And, hey, if you want a custom domain – by all means
get one here, no problem.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For me, I'm going to keep my
subdomains, and instead of being ashamed of them: I'm going to think
of them as a <u>badge of blogging honor</u>. Yes, I'm a blogger and not
business owner of a website, and that's exactly what I want to be.
It's all about content for me, sharing what I want to share, and if I
make any money from the monetization efforts here, then that's just a
bonus.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> As for trying to make a living as a blogger – forget it!
Why? Because learning the online beast language and keeping up with
the square glass wearing tech savvy snobs, is not a pleasant way to make a
living – at all!
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Be Different</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> If you really look at the myriad of
successful popular websites about professional blogging: they're all
the same basically. Some contact form pops up when you're there for a few
seconds - trying to get your email, everything is cookie-cutter and the
same. Personally, I'm no longer impressed, and I actually like my
retro blogger templates and old school approach to blogging better anyway. Hey, I'm
different and I like it that way.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> But Blogger Could Shut Your Site Down
</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This idea is part of what drove me into wanting to become self-hosted with Siteground. Yet, after thinking about it a
little more clearly, I realized Siteground hosting would shut me down
long before Google did. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Why would they shut me down? Well, because some of my blogs are
politically incorrect from a born-again Christian perspective. Or, just because Google one day decides to end Blogger, but really is
this such a concern? I can export my blogs to my hard drive and
migrate them elsewhere if this happens, or just start over with all
the raw saved article in Office where I wrote and saved them originally.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Look, Google is basically the biggest
server there is, so it's much more likely a smaller server like
Bluehost or Siteground will shut me down. Their much more afraid of lawsuits, and would be much more likely to censor a website than
Google. So, this fear is unfounded in my opinion.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Praise Jesus for His Guidance</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Yes, I believe Jesus does guide me
with peace and a song in my heart. And if that peace and song leave
my heart then I've gone astray. Well, when I was delving into this
wordpress.org/ Siteground/ website building/ affiliate marketing thing... my peace and song left! </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now that I'm free of this horrible tech pit,
I have my peace and song back, praise Jesus for this!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I wanted to write this article here in
my Christian Blogger's Journal, because this is where I talk about my
blogging journey. And this experience was part of that journey.
Hopefully it helps you: who are out there thinking about self-hosting
a wordpress (or other) website for affiliate marketing purposes.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Don't be ashamed of your subdomain, and don't believe people who say
it's not possible to have a popular blog with a subdomain. One of my
sites: <a href="http://awritersreview7.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">A Writer's Review</a>, is ranked under 6 million in the Alexa
rankings, while my blog: <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Lowdown Truth</a> is ranked around 9
million and gets 10,000 visitors every month (Adsense visitors).
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Isn't this a refreshing article? Please, leave
a comment and tell me what you think. God bless you in Jesus mighty name dear
readers. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And hopefully CBJ will begin to rise in the Alexa soon (it's
unranked as of now). Until next time, keep writing and appreciate the
free hosting here at Blogger. </span></div>
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Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-9434637067962428402016-06-07T06:24:00.001-07:002019-01-08T14:16:11.021-08:00The Contrast Between Bloggers (writers) and YouTubers (musicians)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdyWSS72pGEEa0wYHr1MF-jG7hmbrsIaZifWJ6LJESlGBCPnxYxKuG1nTURctSObasfDTRpHBf0TB6xLdCyG3GJa1swq-LPDaKi7KW7IVr7tqDsk3D6uIP6MKWj4YiRdCPNBdms2Yzhphu/s1600/en.wikipedia+keb+mo+musician.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdyWSS72pGEEa0wYHr1MF-jG7hmbrsIaZifWJ6LJESlGBCPnxYxKuG1nTURctSObasfDTRpHBf0TB6xLdCyG3GJa1swq-LPDaKi7KW7IVr7tqDsk3D6uIP6MKWj4YiRdCPNBdms2Yzhphu/s400/en.wikipedia+keb+mo+musician.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keb%27_Mo%27" target="_blank">cc from en.wikimedia.org Keb' Mo'</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_l4PQmt1Yot-x4Euckp-ZMvpRbErwZGf_J8TrdDj6KgZ6lnnKk-nsgLy1g2LKsD0yq48pPb3dGlDxsdzPRRHto6Q8fT3ACRg96u_xxH_9GmYyyb1K6Bq48nxNNh03DizA247Ly36Yn-gP/s1600/commons.wikimedia.org+writer.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_l4PQmt1Yot-x4Euckp-ZMvpRbErwZGf_J8TrdDj6KgZ6lnnKk-nsgLy1g2LKsD0yq48pPb3dGlDxsdzPRRHto6Q8fT3ACRg96u_xxH_9GmYyyb1K6Bq48nxNNh03DizA247Ly36Yn-gP/s400/commons.wikimedia.org+writer.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALERONE_BENNETT%2C_WELL_KNOWN_BLACK_WRITER_WHO_IS_SENIOR_EDITOR_AT_EBONY_MAGAZINE%2C_IN_HIS_OFFICE_AT_JOHNSON_PUBLISHING..._-_NARA_-_556250.jpg" target="_blank">cc from commons.wikimedia.org Lerone Bennett</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now, I realize many bloggers also are YouTubers (as I am), but there's is a decided difference between those who prefer one over the other. This difference is likened to that of musicians and writers, which I've always noticed a stark contrast between – as I'm also a musician and a writer. Let's explore these differences. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> YouTubers and musicians are more visually and hearing oriented, while bloggers and writers are more thoughtfully oriented. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mom, dad, and most of my extended family are musicians (some writers too, incl. mom as a songwriter), so I became a musician too. Yet, I never really had what it took to commit to this art form, at least not as much as writing. Writing to me was much more natural and enticing.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Musicians, I've noticed, are more self-centered, while writers are always interested in other people and the things around them. While musicians consider themselves the most interesting thing in the room, a writer forgets they're even in the room. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> When I was at my peak in my short career as a musician and poet in Eugene Oregon, I noticed the people I got along with the best were writers. Although we may have been the opposite in what we believed and our direction in life, the writers were always people I generally connected with naturally. The musicians, on the other hand, were always so hard to bring down to earth, which made it hard to relate with their distant thoughts and constant shifting. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> YouTubers are sort of like musicians, in that they like to be heard, and most of them like to also be seen. I have about 50 videos or so on my two YouTube channels, but have never shown myself talking. I just have pictures of nature, and the sound quality is generally lacking. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Basically, YouTubing for me is a half-hearted effort, although I can see the great potential in it. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In fact, if a person wants to make YouTube their career, get some professional video editing software and a nice microphone, and you'll have a good shot at this. Yet, I find myself simply wanting to write in my five blogs instead, bringing in my pennies a day.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Blogging is for the writers because that's what a blog is: articles. Yes, there could be a video, pictures, and other stuff, but words are the central theme of blogging. Words are silent and comforting to me, words are peaceful and helpful for me to understand life. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I can always tell when I'm around another writer, and can even gauge the depth of writing they're involved in. When I ask a person if they're a writer, I already know they are, yet I just want to know the extent of their writing and how much they've embraced the art. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Some writers don't know that they're even writers! Writers are a contradiction like this sometimes, so far in the background, yet wanting attention by writing about stuff for people to read. Bloggers are like this as well, because here we are writing in some quiet corner of the Internet, but we're aiming for as many people as possible to read our words. Make this post go viral for all I care, but for now, I'm just here silently and peacefully reflecting on what's on my mind. </span></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> See, being a musician or YouTuber as a preference, over being a writer or blogger, is such a contrast. Musicians are very present and actively rubbing elbows with their voice box and presence, while writers and bloggers are plotting and reflecting in silent places with words.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Both though, are looking to influence others and interact with people on some level with their art form. Both are artists trying to share something they've created. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Just wanted to share some thoughts about this subject, although I'm sure it's not trending on Google...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It may be interesting to some people, and especially for those trying to figure out if they're a writer or a musician by preference? I'm both, as I'm also a YouTuber and a Blogger, but I naturally realized that I'm intrinsically a writer, because every time I get around another writer I can see myself in them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> What are your thoughts on this? Please share, and hey: God bless you in your writing and YouTube efforts. </span></div>
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Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-48950702641715039302016-05-28T08:30:00.001-07:002016-05-28T08:30:04.238-07:00Blogging Strategy for 2016: Optimization and Time Management<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzfeTtvbp_Cb_8ZCnv9H9tzb5APAnyHzzuvOSHL2UiMJ6WUXM3mi4E9SuhJuIZjLMK61sCm6mFe_dhiVfc7pYU21TIkTc10p7lhX0uRmelcgQg4sTIDVmq84x3y0blfVhPOCOetnZ5qJo/s1600/wikipedia+content+is+like+water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzfeTtvbp_Cb_8ZCnv9H9tzb5APAnyHzzuvOSHL2UiMJ6WUXM3mi4E9SuhJuIZjLMK61sCm6mFe_dhiVfc7pYU21TIkTc10p7lhX0uRmelcgQg4sTIDVmq84x3y0blfVhPOCOetnZ5qJo/s640/wikipedia+content+is+like+water.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AContent-is-like-water-1980.jpg" target="_blank">cc from wikimedia.org </a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lately, I've been neglecting my
blogging efforts, as I've been working for Blogmutt writing content
articles. It's been hard to find the time each workday to write a
blog article or create a YouTube video, so I've been absent for a
couple months. The good news is, I've figured out a new strategy in my
blogging efforts. This includes some time management and blog
optimization, which I wanted to share with you.
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Website Optimization</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I have four main monetized blogs and
one ministry blog, all on Blogger with a blogspot.com
sub-domain. <i>CBJ</i> is obviously one of these, and as of today on Alexa
is ranked: 7.5 million. This is great considering it used to not be
ranked at all.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The two main ways I monetize my blogs
is with Adsense and Amazon Affiliates. The maximum Adsense ads Google
wants us to use on each blog is 3, so I placed three ads on each
blog. Before, I decided against putting a horizontal banner on top --under the title of blog, but on three blogs I decided this would work, because of the content of the blogs generally. Yet on<i> The Lowdown Truth</i> blog, I decided against the top ad, instead creating one on the bottom
right.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Then, I placed two Amazon items in
buyers boxes on each of the blogs, and three on <i>Better Golfing Days</i>.
This in addition to the Amazon Bookstore I have on each blog on the
right middle. In these Amazon boxes, I placed select items I wouldn't
mind buying myself, and that are related to the blogs placed in. For instance
in <i>CBJ</i> there's a Dell Laptop and Tablet.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Some other things I did was update my
Reverbnation widget, and placed a private policy on each blog ( for
some reason it was missing on three of them). I also tried to use
AddThis's mobile sharing tools, but was unsuccessful for now. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My sites
look decent in mobile mode, but only have limited sharing options
which only includes Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and email. I'll work
on figuring this out later; how to get AddThis's mobile sharing buttons
working.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is the effort I've accomplished
so far this time around, in optimizing my Blogger blogs. There's
always more we can do as bloggers to tweak and adjust our blogs to
perfection, but overall I'm fairly content with how they look and how
they're working.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Time Management</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I've been missing blogging and
creating YouTube videos (even if no-one has missed me haha), so I've
adjusted my daily work of writing content articles, to include some
time for blogging. The problem I was having was: scheduling blogging
later in the afternoon after work. This didn't work for me, because
I'm basically unproductive in the afternoon when it comes to writing.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The morning is when I'm most
productive with writing, while research and reading is good for me at
night. So, I've decided to go to bed earlier and get up earlier, and
this makes room for 1 and a half hours to blog or create videos each
work day. This means I'll be able to post 20-22 articles and videos
each month, compared to about 1-3 before.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Reason for Change</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The main reason I wanted to get back
to blogging was because my blogs are growing and doing well without
me doing anything. <i>The Lowdown Truth</i> blog has grown to 4.5 million in
the Alexa, and even under a million in America at times. This is
mostly because of one popular article about <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-real-eminem-died-years-ago.html" target="_blank">Eminem being a clone</a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Interesting how one article can propel
a blog into popularity.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>LDT</i> is getting about 12K Adsense visitors
every month, and the pennies coming in everyday are starting to turn
into dimes and so on. So, this got me thinking again about the
possibilities of making money writing what I like to write. Also, I
even made a decent commission of .48 cents with Amazon, and have been
getting about 30 clicks a month with my boxes.
</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Projections</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> As a rough estimate, I figure if I can
produce 20-22 posts every month, my blogs and YouTube should be able
to grow exponentially.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In three months I figure I could be making
$62/month, in 6 months about $125/month, and in a year about
$250/month.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">These are my modest goals for now, but the thing
about blogging is the exponential factor, which could propel my
earnings well past these amounts.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Summary</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is my 2016 strategy for my 4
blogs and 2 YouTube channels (plus old Hubpages). I've been blogging
now for a few years and my blogs are starting to become entrenched
into Internet land.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>LDT</i> has 107 posts now, and all of them are getting more popular, without me even posting in them very often. I
figure if I start posting, according to this strategy, and further
optimizing them here and there, I should be able to make enough money to justify the time I spend working on them.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Of course, blogging isn't always about
money, but when your not making any money then it's hard to find enough
time to work on them effectively. Yet, I'll never censor my content, if
Google decides to take my </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Adsense away, I can promise you this.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> How is your blogging journey going?
Hopefully well, and don't listen to anyone who says you can't be
successful with a sub-domain, or not using their cookie cutter
formula. Be unique and blog how you want to and where you want to,
and remember it's all vanity, unless Jesus Christ is the center of
your heart and actions. God bless in Jesus Christ and happy blogging to you.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-79981444825369188862016-02-05T05:07:00.003-08:002019-08-24T21:04:39.620-07:00Personal Blogging Compared to Affiliate Blogging<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEwGZ5zxadMSvuNiuY0mC5ivTKEug1oUREp6df6KKDflEGLP-pHiGv6f5bjaaC-b-J4yw2cxH_I3FgzG_jsedxFQzGurC9PNd-gt0EKfjvYGYnlM8aKo6HV4cH_ih044kcuALGW25ymsX/s1600/wordpress-923188_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEwGZ5zxadMSvuNiuY0mC5ivTKEug1oUREp6df6KKDflEGLP-pHiGv6f5bjaaC-b-J4yw2cxH_I3FgzG_jsedxFQzGurC9PNd-gt0EKfjvYGYnlM8aKo6HV4cH_ih044kcuALGW25ymsX/s400/wordpress-923188_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pixabay.com/en/wordpress-blogging-writing-typing-923188/" target="_blank">cc from pixabay</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Personal blogging could still be
monetized, but the subject matter is only what you personally want to
talk about. Affiliate blogging being where you're blogging to promote
and sell a product or service. Which one makes more money, and what
about affiliate networks and systems, do they work?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> There seems to be many people who're
making a living as marketers online. They basically are affiliate
marketers, who either run a website or have an extensive social media
network to sell products and services through. Each sale is given a
commission, and with a world-wide market a large audience can be
reached.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Personal Blogging</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is what I've been doing with 4
monetized blogs on Blogger. Although, I do sell Amazon products as an
affiliate on some of my blogs, I wouldn't say these are affiliate
blogs. These are personal blogs: where I write what I want, and if I
make money then great. Otherwise, my blogs are monetized with Google
Adsense.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I've noticed over the couple years
I've been blogging that the RPM for Adsense on my blogs is very low. The
average overall is around .50 cents per 1000 Adsense views. Lately,
on my main blog: <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">“The Lowdown Truth”</a>, the RPM has been .17 cents
per 1000!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> From my experience, it's difficult to
make a good RPM with Adsense on blogs. This could be from my error in
using the ads correctly, but considering my main
blog is getting about 20,000 Adsense views a month – I should be
making more than the couple bucks per month.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Ultimately and generally, personally
blogging isn't going to make as much money as affiliate marketing.
Yet, it's nice to be able to make some money writing what you want, and if a site/blog becomes popular: an exponential increase in money is possible.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Affiliate Blogging</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I'm no expert on this subject, but I
have some experience and see the potential with this way of making
money online. Setting up a website to promote a product or service,
then making a commission from each sale – this is what affiliate
blogging is all about.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> There are prescribed ways to make
money as an affiliate marketer, one is called affiliate networks.
These networks vary, but are basically places where a person can
start from scratch and be led through the construction and running of
their own site: selling items/services from affiliate companies.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Other affiliate marketers are more
independent, setting up their own sites and soliciting the businesses
they want to market. Amazon is a very popular
affiliate with a lot of potential for affiliate marketers. Yet, there
are so many other small and large businesses which have affiliate
programs. A site will usually tell you if it has an affiliate program
right on the home page of its site (usually on bottom of page).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I've considered looking more into
affiliate marketing as a way to make good money online, but I've
found other ways I'd rather focus on now. Marketing is not one of my
favorite jobs, although many times this is what I'm doing when
content writing for clients. Also, my efforts to market Amazon over
the last couple years has shown me how hard it is to get people to
buy something.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Summary</span></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In a way, bloggers are doing a little
of both types of blogging if their blogs are monetized. The
difference is what is the main focus for a site?
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> It's tempting to buy into some
affiliate network and go step by step with their cookie cutter
formulas. Likely with a bit of effort, a quality network will start
making you what they promise. I mean wouldn't it be nice to make
$100,000/year blogging about products and services?
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The most experience I've had with
affiliate blogging is using Amazon and ClickBank on my personal
blogs. I haven't had any success with ClickBank, but have sold a few
things with Amazon over the years. Never enough for a payment
though...pennies...</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Are you an affiliate blogger? How's it
working out? Just some thoughts on the two types of blogging, maybe
it'll inspire someone to look into affiliate marketing more. This is
still an area of making money online I may get into more later. For
now, happy blogging and God bless in Jesus.</span> </div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-26120119842485280002016-01-08T05:38:00.000-08:002016-01-08T05:38:58.556-08:00Setting a Schedule for Blogging<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Of course there are many different
ways bloggers get the job done, some better than others. Creating
content for our blogs is important so they don't become neglected and
drop out of the google radar. After a couple years of blogging I've
tried a mostly the: write when I want to approach, but now I'm willing
to try something different like a schedule.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The Blogging Schedule Plan:</span></h4>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Basically, I'm writing articles for my
blogs. I spend half my day writing articles for other people, so
treat the articles for my sites as I would a client. Record the time
it takes to write and post the article, hopefully within the hour
time slot I've planned and scheduled for my blogging and YouTube
videos.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> See, I now work from home full-time,
and there are many eggs in the income basket. There are a couple main
ones I work the hardest at, but then there are many small income streams with potential to be more. Blogging on all 7 of my
blogs, plus 2 YouTube channels, and Hubpages isn't easy to keep up
with.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> So, in the morning I'm going to spend
an hour before I write for other people, and write an article for my
blogs. The blogs will rotate, with 5 main sites and one alternative,
which rotates through the 5 alternative sites once a week every 6
days. Every morning that I'm working I spend an hour on feeding my
blogs and channels.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Although this likely won't pay anymore
than $2/hr at most for the short term, it'll be interesting
to see how these efforts grow my overall web presence. After a few
months of this fresh content on all 10 platforms, it'll be
interesting to see how much more money I'm making. Could be worth the
hour spent every morning, money wise. Either way, these are sites
I've made and can write whatever I want (however I want to). Mostly, what I write has
value only if it draws people closer to faith in Jesus Christ.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> An hour is a long time to write an
article, especially one you don't have to research. It does take 15
minutes to post the blog and share it properly, so the writing should
be around 45 min at most. The editing takes some time as well.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is my blogging schedule idea. CBJ
is on the list for today, and it's always a pleasure to come by. May
God bless your blogging and writing efforts. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-45090569408766023522015-11-28T20:49:00.002-08:002022-12-30T07:24:45.018-08:00Replacing Google Ads With Amazon Banners on Blogs<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"><b> </b></span>A few days ago I started thinking about affiliate marketing again, wondering if I could create content for my own site instead of clients on sites like Textbroker, Hirewriters, and BlogMutt (which I'm happy writing for by the way). The thought led me to creating my own niche blog called Better Golfing Days. I did this after realizing I'm already an affiliate marketer for Amazon. So, this led me to wondering if I should place Amazon banners on my blogs instead of Adsense ads? <br /> <br /> You might already be able to tell what I decided by looking up at the banner near the top of this blog. This blog is now sporting a couple Amazon banners and zero Adsense. My two other monetized blogs (displayed on the left as: Other Sites) I decided to keep only one Adsense ad and replace the other two with Amazon rotating banners ( the other blogs had 3 ads instead of the two in this one). Actually, just to note here - before all this happened I had three Adsense ads here and four on the other two blogs! Imagine 4 ads on one blog, geez what was I thinking? I thought better, and removed one ad all-together from the other two sites. Now my Robbie's Christian Bookstore Widget is more prominently portrayed (on the right). <br /><br /> Anyway, now I have another blog, as mentioned, which is my niche golf blog; made to attract golfers trying to better their game and learn golf history. In the process of attracting them to the site, hopefully they'll feel inclined to buy some expensive items, which will give me a healthy commission for my hard work...at least that's how it's supposed to work, right? <br /><br /> I'm excited to have a niche blog about golf anyway, because it really is something I love to write about and play. The three other blogs I have aren't really niche sites like "<a href="http://bettergolfingdays.blogspot.com/">Better Golfing Days</a>", so I can't really market them in the same way. "Christian Blogger's Journal" does target Christians and bloggers, but I may just write something totally off subject as well. Although, this may appeal to bloggers considering they likely understand, yet as for marketability – not really. "The Lowdown Truth" and "A Writer's Review" also don't have a particular marketable niche to focus on either. They all have their particular purpose which I understand and appreciate (and hope my readers do as well), but not really niche blogs- know what I mean?<br /> <br /> Anyway, back to the question about Amazon banners or Google Adsense ads? Before yesterday I didn't even know there was such a thing as Amazon banner ads, wow. I liked the idea instantly of replacing my Adsense ads with these Amazon banners, and did just that - all except for one Adsense ad I left on my other two blogs at the bottom of the post.The reasons I changed them is because Adsense shows ads sometimes inappropriate for the content I'm writing about. I changed the settings so no dating or lewd sites come up, but sometimes a Mormon ad would come up - or worse even some Catholic ad! So, I'm glad to get most of those ads off my blogs. The ad I left seems not as bad (they have personalities of their own) as the others, but if I may just change it eventually too. <br /><br /> The other reasons I changed them is: I wasn't making much with them anyway, making money on Amazon seems easier, and I can withdraw the money sooner than when I have $100 balance. I mean at the rate I make Adsense money, I was looking at getting paid once every year and a half! This because my money maker site Webanswers went down a couple months ago, which I used to make $30-$40/month with!<br /> <br /> Better Golf Days has a couple Amazon banners on it as well now. Today is really only the second day I've had these up, so I can't really say if it's working or not. Everyday (today) now I check my Amazon Associates Earnings dashboard to see if I had any clicks or orders. This is exciting because over the couple years I've had this account I've only made about .50 cents. Hopefully the efforts I put in will work out and I'll make more money from these Amazon ads than Adsense.<br /> <br /> It's good to try new things out with our blogs and see if they work. I'm not the type of person who just wants to follow other people's system to make money. I'm an out of the box type of person and Christian, but well within the Holy Bible friends. May you be blessed and happy belated Thanksgiving. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /></div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-46302385504329361542015-11-21T20:14:00.005-08:002022-12-30T07:26:17.432-08:00Finding Pictures to Use for Blogs<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"> </span>Hey there, I have a couple things to share this evening. I wanted to give you a link I use to get all the creative commons pictures I use for my blogs, eBooks, and revenue sharing sites. Maybe you already know about this site, but for those who don't this may help you find some pictures to use without breaking any copyright laws. Just remember to at least put the link to where they were found, for instance what I do is type under the picture on my blog something like: cc from en.wikipedia.org or wherever it came from. Hyper linking it to the actual wiki page would be best if you are high speed (military term meaning on top of it- high energy). <br /> <br /> Here is the link:<br /> <a href="http://search.creativecommons.org/">http://search.creativecommons.org/</a><br /> <br /> Use the google images tab when get there for best results. I haven't really checked out the others as much, but when I did there wasn't as many to choose from. Getting a picture for Hubpages or a blog doesn't have to be too hard, and if you are advertising using say, Adsense, then you need to do this in case of copyright infringement. No-one would likely care unless your post went viral and then somehow the wrong person found out and then who knows what happens- I guess the police show up at your door and take your laptop and punch you in the face or something. Well, likely you just would get suspended from Adsense? <br /> <br /> Trying to remember the other thought to share, which had very little to do with the first???<br /> <br /> How is your blogging going? <br /> <br /> Oh yeah... I remember now. Why isn't this site showing up on Alexa ratings? My other two sites do, but this one says it doesn't have enough data to compute. That's sad when this happens. This means you are out in never never blogging land. To come back from this type of obscurity really takes a love of your blog to not give up. Yeah, I think I'll keep up with CBJ, maybe it's the colors.<br /> <br /> Although my other two blogs are in the tens of millions when it comes to Alexa, I feel good about the progress overall. This Blogging venture never was a get rich or known type of project. It was more like I wanted a place I had control over exactly what I wrote and how I wrote it. I guess I can see why other places don't want what I want to write. Wow, that was horrible writing, look at all the I's!<br /> <br /> Still, this is an informative post at the beginning, right? I mean it may just help someone who is looking for pictures to use. Not everyone is an expert affiliate marketer making millions or thousands with their cookie cutter system. <br /> <br /> That's all for now, stay tuned for some more thoughts on the Christian Blogger's Journal. And just to note, isn't Jesus awesome? Any of us could drop dead any moment, and after this life we have heaven to look forward to because we believe and follow Jesus Christ, you know the Holy Bible. Life is great with the truth, thank you Jesus. Have a good night friends. <br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-37377275044895198162015-10-22T13:18:00.001-07:002015-10-22T13:18:43.916-07:00My Experience with Making Money Blogging<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> How's it going bloggers out there in
Internet land? I wanted to talk about how it's going for me- as for
making money from my main blog: <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Lowdown Truth</a>. It's been about 20
months since it started around November 2013. The only way I've made
money through my 3 blogs is basically Adsense, so this is what I'm
going to talk about. I do have a clickbank affiliate on my blogs as
well (porn blocker), but I'm not sure it's even working and I haven't
made any money from it that I know of- I may want to look into this.
Maybe another way I've made money is through driving traffic to my
YouTube channel or people buying one of my eBooks or items for sale
through Ebay or Amazon (which have links from my blogs).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Anyway, how would you like to make $10 for
every article you write in your blog with Adsense alone? Well, I
don't think that's too far off what we can accomplish, and the stats
I'll show you may lead you to believe that conclusion. Yet, just
remember it takes some time to get to the point where this could
happen. For some it may take 6 months or even less, and others it may
take 5-10 years. For me, I'm on track for the 5-10 years for these
kinds of results, but I may just start working my blogs more and fast
track it to around 2-3 years. If I could make $10/article writing
whatever I wanted (however I wanted to) and wrote one
a day, this would be $300/month. Not a bad income to include into the
other on-line efforts I'm doing.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I basically keep track of my views
counting them from Adsense alone- not from the Blogger dashboard –
this gives me a more accurate feel of just how many visitors I have
coming to my blogs (instead of views). Even so, I want to share both stats All-time for
my main blog, The Lowdown Truth:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> All-time views:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blogger Dashboard: 71,246</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Adsense Dashboard: 44,307</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> All-time money made: $35.46, which in
terms of views this amounts to:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blogger: .0004977/view (1000views
=.50 cents)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Adsense: .00080/view (1000views =
.80 cents)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For Blogger that's basically about a
half of a tenth of a penny per view (so 20 views = one penny), and
Adsense basically almost a tenth of a penny per view (so about 12
views = one penny). This kind of calculation makes you appreciate
your pennies.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Really though, it's just nice to know
the numbers. At least there is something to work with there, and the
goal is to increase the views and the rate over time. Some blogs are
going to have a higher rate than mine because of the content. This
blog isn't what would be considered a high percentage rate blog when
it comes to per view rates, but nevertheless I'm writing what I want
and getting paid for it.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I do 91 post on The
Lowdown Truth, but over the last year I've only posted about 1-3 post
per month. And I've noticed, to my happiness, that it keeps growing and
gaining some ground in the Internet world - despite my seeming neglect.
I do keep up on the layout and update things, but just haven't been
writing as much in any of my blogs. It makes me think if I did
start writing more (15 posts a month)- then maybe I could very well
get to the point where I'm making basically $10/article, on average, over a couple year time period. We have to remember that these blog
articles continue to get views even years after they were written.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Now, let my tell you about the most
popular post on The Lowdown Truth: <a href="http://thelowdown0.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-real-eminem-died-years-ago.html" target="_blank">"The Real Eminem Died Years Ago</a>".
This post has over 27,000 views on my Blogger dashboard ( I can't
tell how many views each post gets in Adsense), so that means it's
made me 27,000 x .0004977, which is about $13.44. Now over the next
couple years this will only grow. That means, that one article which
took me a couple hours to research, write, and place on blog- will
have made me something like $20 estimated over a couple years. This
is an article I wrote only about 6 months ago. That is the sort of
potential there is blogging. I have some other blog articles that
have near 5,000 views and many which are around a 1,000 views. Not
bad considering I'm writing what I want to write how I want to write
it.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> My conclusion is, keep plugging away
and doing the detailed things to make your blog more and more
entrenched in the Internet system. The point is to be heard with your
message and words, right? If you are just trying to make money you
likely aren't getting much from this blog, because there are a
million meaningless marketing strategy articles and systems you can
look into to simply make money. Do they work, heck I don't know and
don't care because they give me a headache just listening to the
pitch! If an effort of mine doesn't give me more than just making
money, then it's really a waste of my time. And time is the most
precious thing we have. Of course, we have to make a living and work
likely many jobs that we don't think is our calling in life, but
still we have to try and find some meaning in the menial jobs we have
to take in order to get where we can do what is meaningful. Of
course, for me this means doing God's will in my life. And remember
the love of money is the root of all evil. Also, we can't serve two
masters, mammon (money) and God (Jesus Christ/Holy Bible/Holy
Ghost/Father God).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> As for blogging, I thought I would
share these fun stats with you. Hey, I've made $35 from my main Blog-
not bad, over say 20 months -that's $1.75/month just writing and
getting a message out I want people to hear. The best part is my
blogs are growing and becoming more entrenched in the Internet
system, and maybe one of these days I'll get serious and start
writing more and who knows how well I'll do then. Hopefully this
encourages you to grow your blogs and keep writing those articles.
Also, hopefully you're doing something meaningful with your words as
well, because the Bible says life and death are in the tongue. That
is, our words my friends, and we all need to work on cleaning up our
words to reflect the Goodness and Purity of the God who loves and
created us. Till next time happy blogging dear bloggers.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-5700338830250995002015-08-18T07:14:00.000-07:002015-08-18T07:14:45.115-07:00Blogging Visitors Up, Money Up, Plugging Away<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I've been blogging now for about two years, and although there are times when I have a drought of posts- I still keep plugging away and writing in my blogs. The result is interesting like a sort of experiment in the kitchen which we call gulosh, or something like this. Really though, as I've begun to actually start growing my blogs I've also stopped writing in them very often. We ought to know we get what we put into things, so the energy I expended to begin these blogs of mine (have 4 of them now) has paid off in a relative successful way. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> This blog is the deadest of my four blogs considering our ministry blog has only 4 posts. The ministry blog has no ads on it, so I can't tell if it has any Adsense visitors. Adsense visitors is how I count the views I have on the blogs. I don't count the views that are on the Blogger dashboard because those are not visitors, but merely views. The most popular blog of mine is called The Lowdown Truth, which is the first Blogger blog I made about two years ago. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I write basically about 2-6 blog posts a month, mostly in my main blog LDT. Within the last couple months I've seen a dramatic increase in the visitors and money LDT was making. The money is still nearly change, but still it's encouraging to see the improvement. It's like my LDT blog has finally been ingrained enough in the Internet world that it's beginning to attract visitors from many different places with even people linking to the posts and all.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Basically, the visitors Adsense has been showing, have been around 8k-10k a month on LDT. Before it was more like 1k-2k/month. Also, although the RPM is low, the money has increased from about .50 cents per month to around $5/month. If you were thinking blogging pays big money through Adsense, then this is a harsh reality, but it's hard to make significant money through Adsense and blogs. A blog has to get something like 500k visitors a month to begin to bring hundreds of dollars a month. You get the drift, mostly the people who are making money through blogging are using affiliate marketing, a product, or a service to make significant full time job wages type of money. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Remember, what you put your energy into is what is going to show fruits in the end. If a person is passionate about blogging and is willing to put the energy in to make is a place where they make a full time living, then they will do it after some time. I'm thinking from a fresh start maybe one to two years to make enough to do it full-time, and that spending full time hours on it for that time to get it to speed. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> For me though, I have a buy and sell business that I spend my energy into. Blogging and writing in general on-line has taken a sort of back seat as I try to make a full time living through my buy and sell business. Yet, I still want to find some time to blog and share my thoughts about life, work, and Jesus. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I have decided to keep CBJ (this blog) because I just like it here too much to delete the blog. I can come here and talk about blogging and sort of document the journey I'm taking as a blogger and person trying to make money on-line. Also, I would like to talk about some how to and specific blogging discussions which may help a person who is starting out. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In conclusion today, although blogging may not make most of us that much, making $5-10/ month from writing 2-6 posts a month isn't too bad of progress for me. My goal is to make $200 a month with my three monetized blogs and two YouTube channels. Hopefully in a years time this will be a reality. I'll be in touch during this time. For now, happy blogging and God bless you in Jesus name. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-53283029729251732622015-02-21T08:04:00.000-08:002015-02-21T08:04:00.397-08:00Alexa and the Blogger<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://alexa.com/">Alexa.com</a> is the main internet website ranking platform. This site is free to use and can greatly help a person who is trying to discern sites to spend time on to make money or whatever. Alexa can also help a blogger see how their blog ranks in the masses of sites on-line. In this post, I'm going to share my experience with Alexa rankings with my main three blogs and my conclusions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Overall, I would tell blogger to not worry about their Alexa rankings and not to define their success from this ranking. Personally, I think the rankings are likely controlled by censoring powers who would like to completely control the Internet like a complete communist nation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I've been blogging for about 15 months now, and when I learned about Alexa rankings and was trying to grow my blogs, so I kept track of my weekly rankings for a couple of months. For some odd reason my oldest/main blog where I had most of my posts, well it was ranked the worst out of the three blogs I have. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At one point, at the peak of my Alexa ranking success, I had my Lowdown Truth blog ranked 5 million, A Writer's Review was ranked 2 million, and this blog was ranked around 2.5 million. Now, about 8 months later they are ranked 26 million, 8 million, and not ranked, respectively. Yep, this blog isn't on the radar anymore. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I can understand this blog going off the radar, but the other two I continued to contribute to often and they decreased to where they are. Although, they get more organic search hits than ever and should have more authority than ever with embedded links, they have gotten worse and worse according to Alexa. My personal opinion is that the content is something the powers to be don't want to be popular. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now, I realize that unless your site is ranked under a million, the ranking is hard to pin point, but the fluctuation with my main blog seems to be too much to simply say it has fluctuated some. So, in the end I have to conclude that Alexa really doesn't mean much unless you have a very popular site and are under a million. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Just to note, you can get a add-on button on the top right of your browser that will tell you what the ranking is on every webpage you visit. I've found this button very useful when searching around and trying to find places to make money on-line. It also is simply interesting to see what a site ranks and how many back-links it has to it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You can find this add-on at their site at <a href="http://alexa.com/">Alexa.com</a>. Hopefully this post has given you some insight into blogging you didn't have before, thank for coming by.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-82198133891396976542015-02-06T08:32:00.002-08:002015-02-06T08:32:47.238-08:00CBJ Purpose Redefined<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's shameful how long it's been since I've written a blog here at CBJ. Definitely not the example to put forth with bloggers trying to grow their blogs. There are reasons why this vacancy has occurred, but still it makes me a bit sad to see this platform abandoned for so long. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Time slips by so fast and things change as well. This blog is going through an identity crisis as my new writing system has evolved and streamlined leaving it out of the loop. Basically, I've been trying to figure out just what this blog can be used for exactly. Before it was created to write my random thoughts about whatever I felt needed to talk about everyday. I've found though that the writings I was creating ended up being articles I would have rather placed on my more prominent blogs, or the more flippant ones on small article writing sites like Daily Two Cents. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, what I've come up with is this. CBJ is going to be a place where I write specifically about blogging as a Christian. Hence the name! Simplicity is always welcomed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I do have the need for a place to write about this blogging and writing journey. I have basically two main blogs, this blog, and recently I created another one called Online Revenue Review. See now why I'm having such a hard time finding time to get here? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although I can't say I know a lot about blogging, I'm learning and growing at every chance I get. Recently I have started to look into affiliate marketing, which seems to be an exciting opportunity to make money blogging while helping to sell products you believe in. Clickbank seems to be a very good place to get started with this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That's it for now, couple things are for sure: Jesus Christ is God, and blogging is fun. Until next time, which won't be so long, goodbye and God bless. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-52663103912437107052014-11-30T09:59:00.000-08:002014-11-30T09:59:09.250-08:00Problem Solving Blogging<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> It's been awhile since I've written a blog here at CBJ. I haven't forgotten about this blog, there just has been other places I've had to spend my time. This blog though is where I talk about my blogging journey in general as well as some random thoughts I might have. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> One problem I haven't figure out yet is why there is an X on my feed icon in the widget added to my other blogs. Two of the four blogs I have have this problem. These two are the last two I have created. I have five blogs all-together by the way - four on Blogger and one with Wordpress. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This X doesn't seem to mean much, as my feed still works. Every post comes to my email, and when I check the validity of the feed on Feedburner it says it's good. There must be a reason though why there is this X on the icon in the widget. The widget by the way is where you can add other blogs to your blogs layout. I do this so people can find all my blogs from any of the other blogs. The only blog that is left out of the mix is the Wordpress blog. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I really do enjoy blogging, but it's just taken a backseat to the menial labor tasks that I have to do to make money. Also, I have started writing eBooks, which has taken much of my writing time away. You can find these eBooks on the tab up top as well. Soon enough I will write a review about my initial three month experience with eBooks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This blog has been abandoned for the last three months basically, at least posting wise. I have revamped it and added to the layout some. It's an interesting experiment to see how it performed without posting. It hasn't attracted very many visitors at all, according to Adsense. Maybe about 20 per week. From memory I believe I've made about .20 cents in the last three months with no posting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This blog doesn't seem to have he same search engine favor as the two main ones I started before this one (LDT and AWR). Does the X in the icon have something to do with this? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> One lesson I've learned from blogging is to learn how to problem solve and be patient when seeking answers to these kinds of questions. Eventually, after enough searching I'll figure it out and become a better blogger by being more knowledgeable. There is much to this craft I don't know, and eventually I hope to grow these blogs to a point where they are formidable platforms for their unique topics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Until then, this problem is on the shelf. I'll try not to be a stranger here, if anyone even noticed I was gone. God bless. </span><br />
<br />
<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-12580546681301515212014-08-22T15:31:00.006-07:002014-10-06T18:07:59.998-07:00Blogging Results After 8 Months<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfteh7B2fFhGZgdKba81NQl7wyNv8o_Ibp6sRGWe6OPsz9G4WuXWHl02TI0c4ePPpHUPbTf2R17uspPbUpX2VJ8G68LxisUGd7I6uCsddUzGxRSACbNOWymzt8OXkH-YfI6BBsFfyrtYvB/s1600/flickr.com+stats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfteh7B2fFhGZgdKba81NQl7wyNv8o_Ibp6sRGWe6OPsz9G4WuXWHl02TI0c4ePPpHUPbTf2R17uspPbUpX2VJ8G68LxisUGd7I6uCsddUzGxRSACbNOWymzt8OXkH-YfI6BBsFfyrtYvB/s1600/flickr.com+stats.jpg" height="310" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">cc from flickr.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Blogging on Blogger started for me Dec. 9th, 2013 with my first blog called The Lowdown Truth. Later that month on Dec. 25, 2013, a second blog was started called A Writer's Review. Finally, five months later on May 23, 2014, I started this blog called Christian Blogger's Journal. Although this is the timeline for starting the blogs, it took a little time after I started each to monetize them with Google Adsense. I was approved for Adsense with my first blog after 18 posts. The other two I monetized after having 10 posts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I'm explaining all this because this blog in part is about my journey as a blogger. This information may help you gain some perspective on blogging yourself. The amount of time I've been blogging is about the same amount of time I've been writing on-line all-together. Basically, I started from scratch with this Internet thing about 10 months ago. There has been a learning curve involved as well as I work a full time job as a lawn care business owner/operator during the nice weather seasons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I wanted to share some stats with you, mostly because my wife doesn't want to hear them. She cringes when I start talking stats and what they meant to me. Regardless, I find them very insightful and numbers objectively tell me something maybe my feelings are lying about. Although the stats for this time period may be low, they show me the possibilities for the future. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Stats (monetized posts only, these are Adsense visitors only) </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Lowdown Truth: 2266 visitors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">30 posts $7.06</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.24 cents/ post .0031/visitor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">76 visitors/post</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A Writer's Review 1398 visitors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">22 posts $2.35</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.11 cents/post .0017/visitor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">64 visitors/post</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Christian Blogger's Journal 512 visitors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">21 posts .55 cents</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.03 cents/post .0011/visitor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">24 visitors/post</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Total 4176 visitors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">76 posts $9.96</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.13 cents/post .0024/visitor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">55 visitors/post</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Those are the objective stats of this venture called blogging in the last 8 months. I have a <a href="http://awritersreview7.blogspot.com/2014/04/blogging-at-next-level.html#.U_fCM8VdW-k" target="_blank">blogging system</a> I've been using loosely for the last 4 months, before this I wasn't doing a lot of promoting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> To me, this is better than how I felt I was doing. This time period including a lot of improvement and learning for me. That I was able to make something at all writing on my own platforms I made, is very rewarding. What this tells me overall, is that these stats will be much better after another 6 months. This gives me motivation to keep writing and improving on my blogging efforts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How does this compare with Hubpages? </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> A couple days ago, I sort of decided if I wanted to make any money with my writing, I would have to write mostly on Hubpages. After seeing the numbers, I see this differently. Personally, I enjoy my blogs much more than writing on Hubpages, but really I wouldn't make much more there even comparing with these fledgling numbers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> At Hubpages, I've calculated making around .004 per view. That isn't much more than my blogs at .0025, and I really do think this number will improve with my blogs within the next 6 months while Hupbages will likely stay the same. So then it comes down to views, where do I get the most views? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> At Hubpages I've written 32 articles and received 5,779 views. That is 180 views/article compared to 55 views/article with blogs. So Hubpages does get more views per article overall, but with some improvements and time I should be able to match that or better within the next 6 months with my blogs. Not sure if I will improve my Hubpages views significantly within that time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> When it comes down to it, it's hard to make money writing on-line when writing about what you want to. The ability to write the articles about what you desire to and when you want to, comes at the cost of making it difficult to make significant money. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Goals</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In six months time, I want to get 250 visitors/post and make .005 cents/visitor. That means $1.25/post. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Long term I want to get 4,000 visitors/post and make .005 cents/visitor. That means $20/post. That would mean if I spent 2 hours on each post, I would make $10/hr. That to me would be very optimal when it comes to making blogging a real source of income and still be able to write about the subjects I desire. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Blogging has been a positive addition to my life, it provides benefits that are beyond money. Writing on-line in general has been a great opportunity for me. I'm encouraged to keep writing and plugging away at both my blogs and Hubpages. Hopefully your writing on-line has been a positive experience and you got something out of this article. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Your welcome to become a member of this site (widget on the top right of site) and/or subscribe in a reader or email. May your writing efforts be blessed, and remember to keep it all in perspective with Jesus as the most valuable thing in our lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Related Articles:</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">- <a href="http://christianbloggersjournal.blogspot.com/2014/06/racing-towards-mark-of-better-alexa.html#.U_fEJMVdW-k" target="_blank">Racing Towards the Mark of Better Alexa Rankings</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">- <a href="http://awritersreview7.blogspot.com/2014/05/25-back-linking-sites-to-promote-your.html" target="_blank">25 Back-Linking Sites to Promote Your Blogs</a></span><br />
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<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-13005056956250031902014-08-21T22:26:00.000-07:002014-08-21T22:37:20.898-07:00Lazy Writing Syndrome Thing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJpMT2Jt0Zd5BG7ILKYv8-T_dxCTUN_BTg0dnAyX_VX42_L8Y-Lr3sKIt5JXolKU_CDLiV3d3pG2k9xmjl7zvvpzMpkvxqbzT6oh2Xqlkn6IBX5p1ZtlTxNVeUe6OCSomfbqrRvcU5msMT/s1600/flickr.com+SQAV1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJpMT2Jt0Zd5BG7ILKYv8-T_dxCTUN_BTg0dnAyX_VX42_L8Y-Lr3sKIt5JXolKU_CDLiV3d3pG2k9xmjl7zvvpzMpkvxqbzT6oh2Xqlkn6IBX5p1ZtlTxNVeUe6OCSomfbqrRvcU5msMT/s1600/flickr.com+SQAV1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cc from flickr.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> What is it every blogger/writer wants anyway? What is it I want, as in a place to write? At one time, I was thinking about writing at RedGage for my journalistic writings. When I have an idea for a "real" post, then I have places for those, but what about when I just want to write? It used to be, people wrote in a journal that never seen the light of day. Now, we write our thoughts to the world at large, or at least those who listen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Yes, it's likely part of the conditioning process for us to loose our sense of privacy and let the powers to be know everything they can get out of us as we give it away openly. Yet, those that are aware, know this and intrinsically are safeguarding some sort of privacy. Still, this is me sincerely talking to you about our meaning as bloggers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> There are many who have a certain clout, they have become successful or some sort of pompous thing. After years of hard work on-line, they are now refined and ready to look down on you. No, I have to give some more credit than that. There are many good humble people in this virtual land who have a heart to help. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Half of the battle is having a battle plan, then carrying it out. We also must be flexible in changing our strategy to adapt to what comes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> There is this lazy writing syndrome thing. That is where I come to and have problems. Writing is work, and this is part of the problem for me. I want to write simply what's on my mind, and truthfully what's on my mind isn't always that interesting. Only celebrities can really snag a large audience with such. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Some people are all business and have no thoughts at all that they want to share. They also may be so focused on making money and "succeeding" they forget about the deeper things of life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> If a person wanted to start a blog and write on the current events in the popular culture of the mainstream culture, then they would likely do very well. For me, this blog has no such focus. This is one of those blogs you wonder why you are even reading it, wondering how exactly can this be considered constructive to read this?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Maybe it's just encouragement? Maybe it's just inspiration to be different and seek something greater than simply making money. It's not that I don't know what it takes to make money, it's that I'm not willing to do it that way. Of course, I need money to survive, but not at the expense of my dignity and morality. Not at the expense of my God, Jesus Christ, Hey, we can't serve God and money both. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Just a little tid bit to chew on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Glad I'm a blogger, cause where else could I justify writing this post? </span><br />
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<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-34540737523196558062014-08-15T00:26:00.001-07:002014-08-15T00:26:16.846-07:00Trying to Make a Buck Blogging<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigPQzrbUOVBr1pP6J0v2GfhvFN6iUhDbQ3NQVQmABNUcuEdys3q6XhH5dRuHdUKm2vHZHjxgCFs3EFV8OJZAcUhHUqm0ZecaAJKOcGNdO5ckJuIML0KUJs3278Pj7pMKg-sWf2W-Dp6yw0/s1600/commons.wikimedia.org+blogging.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigPQzrbUOVBr1pP6J0v2GfhvFN6iUhDbQ3NQVQmABNUcuEdys3q6XhH5dRuHdUKm2vHZHjxgCFs3EFV8OJZAcUhHUqm0ZecaAJKOcGNdO5ckJuIML0KUJs3278Pj7pMKg-sWf2W-Dp6yw0/s1600/commons.wikimedia.org+blogging.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cc from commons.wikimedia.org</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Every week I find it helpful to keep track of the amount of work I do on my various writing sites and also how much I'm making from them. It's sad to say that after keeping track for 14 weeks now and implementing a sort of promotion system to my blogs, I still haven't been able to make any significant money with my three blogs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In fact, the monthly amount averages out to at best about $1 per blog per month, or $3/month total for all my blogging efforts. I would estimate that last month I wrote about 14 blogs total. Although I'm glad to have a place to write and have the chance to make some money, it just seems I could do better than this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This has gotten me thinking about streamlining my blogging efforts more and making them easier for me to write and promote. What this means in reality, is I have certain articles I write routinely on each of my blogs. Cause I think at this point I simply don't write enough on my blogs to grow them the way I want to. Realizing there are many different ways to put effort into promoting a blog, I know there is also effort lacking in staying connected to people through social sites. For instance Google + hasn't seen me around for a week and a half at all. It's sad, but there is so many other things I'm trying to do I just don't make it over to my social sites as much as I need to anymore. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> If only I could make a $1 per post, then this would breathe new life into my writing on my blogs. There are other reasons to write of course, but I'm trying to keep myself out of the content mills you see. This on-line writing blogging thing is still relatively new to me, so I know there are strategies and things I could do to help boost my efforts without dedicating my life to it every waking second of every day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Basically, this may sound weird, but I'm putting too much effort into each post. I need to write quicker posts that take less time, but are pointed and have some sort of uniformity to them to define the blog. For instance this blog I want to write poetry, off the wall short stories, and deep thoughts that can't go unnoticed (about blogging/writing on-line, Christianity, and life in general). Of course, all from a Christian perspective. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In the mean time, I'm going to research some more about growing a blog and try to plug away with promoting it in creative ways. I'm still hopeful these blogs will one day grow to have a larger readership and therefor make a decent amount for the time spent writing in them. Anyway, how is your blogging going? </span><br />
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<br />Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014562311537035795.post-8358407570164556292014-07-28T06:52:00.000-07:002014-07-28T06:52:50.845-07:00The Dangers of Depending on Amazon and Google For Income<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7eXc_64QMtDZdbPGOCsF5hJmhP9HRIXLtKWBnXDDNGPwN0gjIrg6PP4lYLLPF1Dl5OCzSMs8ArDzQYcBQMlzq2AWKZo6_O0akE5mZ0YV0YGcTa2rEgFAnjTPuC011bYnUTSNsHHP2sHy/s1600/flickr.com+buy+and+sell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7eXc_64QMtDZdbPGOCsF5hJmhP9HRIXLtKWBnXDDNGPwN0gjIrg6PP4lYLLPF1Dl5OCzSMs8ArDzQYcBQMlzq2AWKZo6_O0akE5mZ0YV0YGcTa2rEgFAnjTPuC011bYnUTSNsHHP2sHy/s1600/flickr.com+buy+and+sell.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cc from flickr.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Lately I haven't been able to write much in my three blogs and Hubpages. Mostly, the reason is because I've been trying to learn about selling on Amazon and Ebay. Mostly, what I'm selling is books. Along with my lawn care job and this new activity, writing has taken a back seat. I thought I would elaborate in this post about this activity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This blog is meant to be a place where I can speak what's on my mind in a more informal environment. Well, many things are usually on my mind, but in particular lately I have been thinking about selling books on Amazon. They have a program called Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), in which you send them your inventory and they will ship it to your customers when and if it gets sold. I've started doing this, but as of now can't say how it's worked. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The three boxes I've sent off to their warehouses haven't been processed yet. This week most of them should be processed and go live on Amazon to be sold. Not sure how it will work in the end, but if it's God's will I pray they all sell and I can make a profit. Also, I have started selling some books on Amazon and Ebay myself, what they call self-fulfilling. This because they are maybe older books which don't sell quickly, but are worth something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> At first, this activity really excited me, as I have always wanted to sell books and grow my buy and sell business along with my writing on-line. God did lead me to see the dark side of this venture though soon enough. What I found was that many people have been burned by Amazon. Many people get their accounts shut down for basically no reason, or for a bogus reason. Amazon at this point becomes their enemy and the people are helpless to talk with someone to even find out why their account was shut down. This happens all the time to people who have been selling there for years and have a good track record with Amazon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> So, this made me a bit weary of Amazon and their FBA program. This because, what happens is I send all my inventory to their warehouse and if they shut down my account for no reason given, then I have to pay .50 cents per item plus shipping to get the stuff back. And if I want it destroyed, I have to pay .15 cents per item. And from what I've heard, they don't really destroy it, but sell it themselves. So, this is likely partly why they are shutting down some big sellers, is so they can simply keep their inventory and sell it themselves. For instance, I read about one seller who had 55,000 new items in their warehouses and they shut his account down. He was unable to get the items back or even have the money to destroy them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Ultimately, Amazon is a place to be weary of if you are a seller. Even if I could, I wouldn't make it my sole income, as they are not dependable. So, with this in mind I have begun to sell books on Amazon on a small scale, and have adjusted my methods according to this knowledge. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> This is what I've been up to of late. I have my store fronts in the tabs section at the top of my blogs for Amazon and Ebay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> It's not easy trying to balance time between all the activities we have in life. As of now, I don't make much money writing and selling on-line, so I have to work my day job. Even if I was to make a good amount on-line writing and selling, I wouldn't want to completely depend on such companies such as Google, Amazon, and Ebay. In the end these are simply big machines that can gobble us up and not even tell us why. This is part of the virtual reality where life is impersonal and unreal for the most part. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I will try and balance these activities out and find more time to write. My blogs are important to me, and there is so many writing projects that I have planned to complete. If it's God's will this buy and sell business will have some success. It's a fun activity for me, but I have to keep it in perspective in the way I've laid out in this post. Maybe you are also trying to do the same thing and this helps. For now, I pray we can complete the activities of life and still keep Jesus Christ at the center at all times, not compromising for anything in this world. God bless. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Robbie Lowdown0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17902333056871259143noreply@blogger.com2