Blogs can be inspiring

My brother Jaime has now created his own blog. His is less of a money making experiment and more of a travelblog, which lends itself to more of a consistent theme. Check it out for yourself: The Himalayas and India, February-March 2007: Planning, Packing, Blogging.

So what's next for Pursuing Success? Again with the decisions. Some areas I could work on:

• Migrate this site to my own domain;


• Learn more html, xhtml, css, etc.;


• Establish a theme/topic that will make people want to come back, such as:
  
  
  
  • Useful tips;
  
  
  • Humour/entertainment;
  
  
  • Guidelines;
  
  
  • Computer help for laypeople; or
    
  
  
  • Personal Development; or
    
  
  
• Improve the site's design.

It is the theme/topic that is definitely the most important to develop, because there is no sense in creating a blog if no one is going to read it. Of course, it's no coincidence that it is also the hardest part. All of the other steps involve simple research and learning. Establishing a successful theme or topic requires creativity.

So, which one of these steps will I take next? Will my next step even be one of these? Stay tuned to find out.

Thanks for dropping by,

ML

I bought my own domain

I bought my own domain on Friday. I could not believe it, but www.pursuingsuccess.com was available. I had thought that I'd have to work hard and try many domains before finding one that I could use, but I got it on my first try. Go figure.

I reviewed a number of sites comparing different hosts. I particularly favor the ones that include user reviews. After some research, I chose to register it and host it with 1&1 Internet Inc. It costs only $1.50/month and it includes domain name registration, 5 GB of web space, 500 email accounts, 250 GB monthly transfer volume and 1&1 webmail. I'm pretty pleased so far.

I had a harder time choosing software such as an html editor and an ftp (file transfer protocol) program. They weren't hard to find, but there are so many. I spent some time at one of my favorite software and electronics resources - CNET.com. I finally settled on a couple of the more highly recommended freeware programs, AceHTML and Core FTP. I have found both of them to be quite effective and user-friendly. I expect that the paid versions have more to offer, but I'm hardly even using the functions available to me on the free ones so far. I suppose I will become more interested in them as I develop some experience and skill.

Every day is something new.

ML

VISION Statement

I've been interested in personal development for a long time. I've watched "The Secret" a couple of times and I have used visioning as an effective tool.

A friend sent me a link to this video about using a video to create a vision statement several months ago, but I didn't look at it until today. All I can say is:

WOW!

I have got to do this. It looks incredible. Whether or not you believe in the Law Of Attraction, how can you not get benefit out of doing this?

What about you? Any interest in trying this?

ML

And the money rolls in

$1.29

Yep. That's how much I've earned in the four days since I started this blog. So between the initial blogging learning curb, signing up for AdSense and Google Analytics, trouble shooting problems, actually writing the posts and obsessively checking to see if I've had any new visitors, I would say that I've earned an average of approximately $.06 - $.08 cents an hour.

I'm just raking it in.

Once again, AdSense provides all sorts of information to help optimize your income. You can generate reports according to type of ad and date or range of dates. You can check out specific ads or compare different "channels", although I haven't fully explored what those are yet. Here are a couple of examples from today. You can see them full size if you click on them.


And this.
So I can compare which posts either draw people in for a first time or get people to come back and revisit, which is the ultimate holy grail of making money off of a blog.

I'm just scratching the surface of how to use AdSense, let alone the various other methods people use to generate income from their blog. Who knows, maybe I'll break $.10/hour sometime soon. The possibilities are so exciting.

I won't be posting on Saturday because I'll be out of town without internet access.

See you Sunday,

ML

Visitor tracking

Now this is quite incredible. Google Analytics (visitor tracking) is separate from google AdSense (advertising), but not surprisingly, they are fully integrated to work together. What I find so impressive is that they provide so much information, such as who is visiting this site, whether they're first time or repeat visitors, where they are from, how they got referred and whether or not they clicked on any links.

Buy why take my word for it? Here's a screenshot of the summary page.


And that's fresh out of the box. I still need to learn how to configure it to create specific reports that are related to my needs.

ML

Adding flash games to the site

GAMES!

One measure of success in blogging is return visitors. That's a given, but there needs to be a reason for visitors to return. One things that has often drawn me back to sites is games.

In particular, I got really into Maganic wars about six months ago. That was not always a good thing, because it could suck an hour of time out of my life very easily, but I think that says more about me than the game. Anyhow, I don't get any revenue from people playing the game or visiting the host site. It just think it's a fun game if you like fantasy/turn based card games.


Free and fun myspace games
from Venus Arcade Addicting Games

Interestingly, Blogger.com, the site that is hosting this blog, did not like the html code that Venus Arcade gave me to embed the game and refused to save the draft I was working on. It said that the tag was not closed and that the html could not be accepted. I could not find the problem and the code worked fine in an html code tester that I tried it on.

I think there is something to the problem, because the game has not worked consistently. If it is not working now, you can go to Managic War's home page by clicking on this button.

Until tomorrow,

ML

Advertising

Welcome to day two of Pursuing Success.

So many things to work on. Today, I have chosen to implement the advertising. My object is to generate income through this blog, so it makes sense to me to set up at least some revenue source before working on getting people to come to the site, and then come back again, and again, and again.....

I registered with Google AdSense yesterday. Unlike other Google services I've used, I had to wait for it to be reviewed and approved before I could use it. The website said it would take up to seven days, but I heard back from them in less than twenty-four hours. As you can see, I have two different types of Google Ads on the page.

Now get this. I am forbidden to encourage people to click on some ads and I am encouraged to try to get people to click on other ones.

The ad for Firefox with Google Toolbar is called a "referral". There were several products and services that I could promote, and I chose that one because I actually use it myself and believe it is a much better product that Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you haven't made the switch, I encourage you to try it. And that's not just because I will get paid (a very little bit) for every person who follows the link and installs the software.

The other ad in the white box is called "AdSense for Content". Those are ads that Google selects and tries to match products or services with the content of my blog to increase the likelihood of people clicking on the link. I am not allowed to encourage you to click on any AdSense for Content ads. So, of course, I won't.

So, I spent time today finishing the AdSense registration and setting up the ads, but there are all sorts of optimization options that I have not yet had time to read through. There are tips on placement and colour schemes. There are things called "channels". I don't know what they do yet, but apparently they help to optimize the choice of ads to go on different web pages. There are different types of ads that I have not reviewed yet.

I guess I'm treating this like any other writing assignment I've had. First, just get something down. It doesn't have to be great, just get it down. Then edit, edit, edit. And then maybe edit some more. The unusual part is that it is all in public.

So it's another small step forward. Tomorrow? Optimize ads? Learn about keywords? Work on the colour scheme? layout? Learn what else I can do with html?

Ah, decisions, decisions. Until tomorrow,


ML

My first post

Well, this is my first step on this path of pursuing success. After a year of feeling guilty for 'wasting' time on the computer while I should have been figuring out a new career path, I finally realized, "why fight myself? I can spend the same time on the computer, but use the time productively. A lot of people are not making money on the internet, but I'm smart, I have time, I'm willing to work hard and I'm not cocky enough to think that I already know what I'm doing."

So I have decided to create a blog, but where do I begin? I have lots of questions and no answers. What should it be about? How do I generate income? What is an RSS feed? Do I need one? Do I need to host the site myself or will a free host like blogger suffice? How will I find a niche to fill? How will I get people to come back and generate traffic? How do I register a domain? What pictures can I use?

And what should the focus of the blog be? I generated a long list of interests and things that I could write about, such as computer tips and tricks, cool links, videos, pictures, games, jokes, chess, procrastination, gadgets, guitar, personal development, rock climbing and personal development. The answer came to me when I thinking about something entirely unrelated:

This blog is about my journey to create a viable income through blogging.

Why be stingy? As I learn what works and what does not work, I can hopefully let others learn from my mistakes. That is one decision made.

My second decision was to start small, work hard, read as much as I can and get advice from anyone who has something useful to offer.

My third decision was to begin by hosting at blogger.com. That way, I can get started right away.

So this is really an experiment. My hypothesis is that I can generate a viable income through blogging. Am I correct? Specifically, I want to know how long it will take me to:

• learn the ins and outs of blogging;
• build up a blog that is worth sharing;
• build up an audience;
• generate an income; and
• generate a significant income.

Having never blogged, I've got a lot to learn. I spent a couple of days researching some of the basics so that I could create this page and this post. Some of the resources that I've found helpful so far are alltipandtricks.com, problogger.net and performancing.com.

I've got lots to learn. Let's see what I focus on tomorrow.

ML