Earn a Living Online

I Have Moved.

2007-11-06T22:24:00.001-08:00

That is right! I took another step, hopefully forward, towards making money online. I have purchased domain and hosting from BlueHost. So far, they have been great. If you are looking for me I am now at:

http://www.joshdockery.com

I will try and keep posting some of my articles here, but please help the move and support me at my new site.

Until next time,
jdock

A Quick Way to KEEP Your Readers

2007-11-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

Formatting

I have been doing a lot of reading the past few days, both new and experienced blogs. One thing I have come across that really bothers me is the formatting of the newer, inexperienced bloggers. A lot of them will work hard, do a substantial amount of research, write up a terrific article, and then blow it all away just because they can not keep the readers focused.

Any well known blogger will tell you this is just as important as the content and topic you are writing about. You may have the best writing skills in the world or have the most interesting topic/content in the world, but without the right formatting your articles will be dull. The best article in the world will not keep the reader's attention for more then five minutes if it looks like it was written in Notepad.

Ways to spice up your articles:

Most popular bloggers, that I have seen, try to use an image in each article. This also helps with SEO if you name it correctly, but it also helps give the article some color and character. Over at doshdosh, Maki uses a different anime picture in almost every article.

Use bold and italics to your advantage. When there is a key point or something that needs to stand out, use bold. It will help distinguish your strong points and change up the pace of the article. The same for italics, they are like an alarm or siren. Both, make the reader take notice.

Use bullets and lists to your advantage.

Use them as small headlines inside your article.
Tease your readers with them.

If anything, when making a list you are changing up the flow of the article, indenting, and catching the readers attention.

Font size is another great tool. From just changing the font size you let the readers know that this is important. Even more so, if you increase the font and bold it, the reader will automatically take notice.

And the easiest of them all - paragraphs. Please, if anything, please separate your thoughts. Let the reader know you are changing lanes. No one wants to read a massive article that has no breaking point. It seems overwhelming, boring and readers will run away.

There are many other ways to format your articles, just be creative. I have seen too many well written articles today that would not get read because they were just too boring to look at.

Please take the extra five minutes after you write an article and make it look nice. You will be glad you did and so will the READERS.

Until next time,
Josh Dockery

BloggingZoom: Another way to Make Money Online

2007-11-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

New blogging community has been developed. Courtney Tuttle and Vic Franqui have brought us BloggingZoom. BloggingZoom runs similar to the Digg, but with a little twist. Submitting your own material is not frowned upon, it is actually encouraged.

What an opportunity for the new blogs out there. Because Zoom is so new and you can submit your own articles, this is a perfect opportunity for some of the lesser known bloggers to get their material read. So, if you have not heard of this or you just have been to lazy to take advantage of it, I suggest you get your game face on and go register.

http://bloggingzoom.com/

How To Pick a Domain Name

2007-11-05T09:42:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been wanting to move over to my own private hosting and I want to start using WordPress. However, I am having trouble on deciding what domain name to use.

How should one pick a domain name?

What is your blog/site about? Your domain name should suggest or describe what your site is about. ie http://westvirginiarafting.net That describes exactly what the page is about. It is a little long, but it gets the job done. When observed, the user should understand what your site is about from the domain name. This also will help when working with SEO, but that is a huge topic all by its self.

Does it stand out? There are all of these articles that say the number one way to bring more traffic to your website is great/unique CONTENT. Do not get me wrong, I completely agree, but if your content should stand out, why shouldn't your name? The domain name should be a trademark of your blog or company. When picking the domain name and trademark for your site, be sure to be creative. Use descriptive keywords that describe your sites. Pick something that will stand out in peoples' minds and help bring them back to your site.

The Common Problem: most domain names are already taken. There are plenty of ways to get around this.

Use keywords that get the same results. blog4money.com as blog4job. Use Google's Adwords Keyword Tool for this.
Shorten your words or names. blogformoney.com as blog4money.com or makeyourlivingonline.com as makeurlivingonline.com
Use hyphens. problogging.com = pro-blogging.com
Purchase already bought domain names. This can be expensive.
Alternate extensions. i.e. .net, .org, etc. Use this as a last resort. This is an option, but I would steer clear of it, if at all possible.

Some people do not like the substitution of number for words or sticking hyphens in the middle of a domain name. However, these are options of how to get around domain names already being taken. Personally, I think having a numbers in your domain name can be catchy and good for your product and hyphens will not hurt your SEO.

Go and test out some names and see if they are available at GoDaddy.com
GoDaddy will also give you alternate names, however I usually do not like the ones they give me.

Believe it or not. The selection of a domain name can make or break you. If you are trying to make money online, I really suggest you put some time and thought into the selection of your name/trademark.

Setting Goals to be Successful

2007-11-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

Let us step away from the common "how to receive more traffic" articles.

Having goals set for your work is extremely important. Without goals one tends to get lost along the way, doesn't work as much, gets stressed out, tries to do too much at once, etc. Not only is it important to have goals set, but those should be separated into short-term and long-term. This will allow pacing and evaluating progression.

Goal setting needs to be realistic. For short-term goals, you can try breaking them up into weeks or months and establish what you want to accomplish each month. Do you want to increase your traffic by 20% each month? How about adding a 100 subscribers to your blog each month? Those would all be realistic and great goals to achieve from what I have seen so far in the blogging community. You will be able to monitor your progression with these goals, but they will also help keep you motivated.

Long-term goals are more focused on what you want to accomplish online in a year or half a year. These will be harder to set, but should be related to your short-term goals. If I were focusing on the short-term goal of increasing traffic to my blog by 20% each month, I would look at my starting values and set a standard for the end values.

One additional aim for each term is a high standard. When applying for colleges this was called a dream school or a bonus at a real job. This can be achieved, but is not likely.

Okay, now you have your goals, what do you do? Write them down or type them up somewhere so that you can see them each and everyday while you are working. You need to see what you are working towards, the light at the end of the tunnel. When each goal is achieved, check them off, that will keep your eye on the prize. For some reason, a goal is not met, the motivation for next month is increased.

One more option available to help accomplish goals: Share objectives with another party who has the same interests as you and help each other stay on track. Buddy systems are always very effective.

Short-Term Goals for this Month:

Make $100 in revenue.
Purchase domain name.
100 members in MyBlogLog community
Move to WordPress

Dream Goal: Create 2 Niche Websites

Long-Term Goals for 6 Months:

Reach $1000 per month
Have 500 Subscribers
Have 5 Niche Websites

Dream Goal: Reach $5000 in total revenue

Please take some time and share your goals with me.

Until next time,
jdock

Make Money Online

2007-11-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

I want everyone to take a second out of their busy days and type in "make money online" in google. Does anyone else see what I see?

Make Money Online | Make Money at Home with a 13-Year Old

That is quite a feat for a thirteen (now fourteen) year old. He also gets a lot of first page views on Google for other searches, but that is a very popular search. 134 million pages to be exact. I don't know if that shocks the rest of you, but I just think that is incredible.

I know I have just been posting about what I have found lately, but honestly mostly all I have been doing is researching and trying to figure out a game plan for how I am going to attack this gigantic task. So, later today or maybe this evening I will post some of my goals and hopefully that will get this show on the road. I hope you enjoyed the read, please leave some critiques as that is the quickest way for me to improve.

until next time...
jdock

John Chow is Earning a Living

2007-11-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

I am truly amazed. Never in my wildest dreams would I expect to make as much money a month from a blog web site as this guy. If you have never heard of John Chow I really suggest you go check out his website. I have noticed a lot of these websites have the same redundant information, but I still think you should check out this website. Not so much the website, but this one article about his October earnings. It is jaw dropping to say the least.

Let me know how this hits you all.

jdock

Nice Blogger Site

2007-11-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am addicted. Did anyone else get this addicted when they first started out? I can not stop researching and trying to think of new ways to bring in traffic. I have enjoyed every single minute up to 2 AM. Ha! Just thought I would make a late night post for you. I have been doing a lot of reading at doshdosh, where there is a plethora of information on blogging for money. The site also has a big community of experienced bloggers who leave pretty interesting comments. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

If you find some really good reads be sure to let me know. Thanks.

until next time...
jdock

Moving Right Along

2007-11-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since this morning. It seems like I have done a lot, but honestly until I get traffic to my website what I have done is futile. So my number one priority, as it probably is for most website owners, is to increase the traffic to my blog. But, besides that I have accomplished a lot. I will not bore you with the details, instead I will just post a list of the things I accomplished.

What I have done:

signed up/added Ad-Sense
signed up with CashCrate
signed up with mybloglog.com
signed up with text link ads
signed up with payperpost
signed up with AuctionAds
signed up with Technorati

All of these were very easy to sign up for and get running. The only trouble I had was with PayPerPost because my limited traffic did not qualify for their program. So if you are just starting up like I am you might want to skip them for now. If you run into any problems just let me know.

Information Galore

2007-11-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have been doing research non-stop for two days now and there is a ton. Any experienced blogger will tell you there is a never-ending supply of information out there about how to make money online.

I am actually having trouble deciding on what I want to do first. All of this information has kind of hit me at once and left me dumbfounded. So as of right now I am still trying to figure out what my first step is going to be. I think it is safe to say that one of the first things I need to do is add a Ad-Sense banner. Most tutorials or "how to get started" sites suggest this as one of the base revenues of a blogger.

My research - as I said - has been going extremely well. I found two extremely useful websites that I think we can all benefit from. The first one I think we all know about, ProBlogger. This is not only a website, but it has a huge community of experienced bloggers that are willing to help. I suggest, if you have not already, that you take advantage of this resource. The second site you might not have heard of before, My Debt Free Goal. I have found this website to be very interesting and fun to read. It is actually what inspired me to try and achieve this dream. I really suggest you take a look at both of these web sites and if you have any websites you believe would be helpful or interesting to me or the other bloggers - please comment.

I will update you later on in the day as I make progress. Thanks for the support and until next time...
jdock

The Beginning

2007-11-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

So this is it. The first post of my road to supporting my self through online means. I have just recently graduated from college with a B.S. in computer science. I took the summer to earn some quick money and went traveling through Europe. I loved every single second of it. I do not know how some people can go there whole lives without seeing at least some small part of the diverse world. I have to say though that the currency exchange rate did not help me in saving money. Especially in London, UK. Talk about a money drainer, but I am getting off topic.

My dream and objective has always been to earn a living through online means. This would allow me to travel anywhere and everywhere I want while making money. The meaning of this site is to get me started. Through this site I would like to inform readers of my day to day steps in getting closer to my goal, my good and bad experiences. I hope to help others reach success through my successes and failures. What I am also hoping is that some experienced professional bloggers can attempt to throw their advice my way.

It just so happens that today as I was skimming through digg.com that I saw an article on making money through blogging. I did some more research on it and was drawn in completely. This is my "quan" (From Jerry Maguire).

I hope I have informed you enough and hooked some people in. My first few steps will be mostly research. I need to find out exactly what I want and need to do to be successful. I will relay all important information I use to make decisions to you through this blog and as I said I hope it will help you. Please post comments and advice if you have any.

Until next time...
jdock