If you run a website and have basic interest in SEO, you probably heard that Google recently released their so-called Panda update, a change in algorithm aimed at getting rid of the shitty sites such as eHow.com and similar content farms.

The change in the algorithm came in 2 iterations. The first one came out on February 24th, in the US only, affecting about 10% of search queries. The second one was released on April 11th and was rolled out in the rest of English-speaking countries, also making a slight change to the US algo, which supposedly affects an additional 2% of US queries.

On the morning of February 25th, I was glad to see that my iPhone blog had gone through the update and came out unhurt. Even better than that, it seemed I was doing even better in search engines. It was nice to see Google recognizing me as a good resource. Then on April 12, everything changed when I realized the second iteration of the Panda update had slapped me in the face. Big time!

A quick look at my Google Analytics account revealed the damages. Week over week, I lost 31% of my traffic, going from an average of 90,000 visits/day to about 60,000. That really hurts, believe me.

At first, I kinda panicked a bit. Oh my god, what am I gonna do? You know, that kinda ritual every time Google tweaks their algo. Then I tried to rationalize all this.

First, this is not the end of the world. Taking a 30% traffic decrease sure isn’t pleasant, but I was there before and I did fine. As a matter of fact, this 30% slap takes me back where I was about 4 months ago, when I was averaging a little over 60,000/day.

Second, and maybe most importantly, I felt like the growth I had seen in the last few months was just insane, almost unnatural. Yes, I do admit that I was surprised I was receiving so much traffic from Google for very important keywords.

What really bothered me the most was the drop in revenues I expected from this. I now have several writers that I pay to write on iDB, and a drop in revenues means either a drop of my writers’ pay, or at least the freeze of their pay. To this day, I’m still not sure how the Panda slap will affect my bottomline so I haven’t really strategized about it, but a drop in pay for my writers is very unlikely.

So after the freak out period came the relaxed period. I just dealt with it, sucked it up, and moved on. It’s just the way it is, I said to myself.

Then I had a chat with my friend Shane from TC Geeks. Shane had been hurt much more than I was as he had seen a 50% drop in traffic. Ouch! And, as ironic as that can be, Shane, who wanted to work full time on his blog, had happened to give his 2-week notice the day of the Panda slap. Double ouch!

Shane was kind enough to tell me about what he had learned about Panda while browsing the various forums and blogs posts about the topic. Shane found out that we were not the only sites being affected, and that a large amount of web publishers were hit by the panda. Some of them just lost their business overnight.

The most interesting find to me is that Panda appears to hit those sites with numerous ads or affiliate links. iDB sure is one of those. I admit I have more ads than I really would want to have on the site, but again, this is my only way to generate revenues, allowing me to pay myself and the other writers.

What’s strange is that after the Panda update, many sites that rank better than me actually have more ads than I do. Even worse, Google now seems to rank crappy spammy sites better than my own blog, that is 100% original and legit.

I tried to analyze what had happened, or rather how I was affected. Turns out that instead of ranking #1 for many high value keywords, such as “iPhone 5″, I now rank much lower. It’s not as if Google had kicked me out of their SERPs, it’s just that they lowered my ranking, and you know as well as me that being anything but #1 for a query doesn’t bring you much traffic.

So I still have the graces of Google, simply not as much as I did before.

One of the advice that Shane gave me was to not do anything drastic to the site. When Google changes their algo, many publishers freak out and completely change the way they manage their sites (ie. by changing the URL structure), but this is actually the biggest mistake you can make. As Google is fine tuning the Panda, things might get better, and those spammy sites ranking better than me today, might even be gone tomorrow.

This whole episode confirmed my realization that we, web publishers, are extremely dependent on Google. One slight change in the way they rank websites and my business loses 30% of traffic, and most likely revenues. What can you do about that?

The logical and somewhat stupid answer is to get traffic elsewhere. The obvious is to not be dependent on Google. Sure, but how do you do that?

I think a real answer to that question could be a blog post in itself, but in a nutshell, I believe you have to build your reader’s loyalty. If they’re loyal, they’ll come back, and even better, they’ll sen people over to you.

But of course, creating a loyal readership is easier said than done. It involves great quality content, a compelling voice, constant engagement of your audience, an omnipresence on Twitter and other social media avenues, and a lot of luck.

I have decided not to over-analyze what happened with Panda because I’m tired of SEO. SEO good practices change all the time. What doesn’t change is Google’s quality guidelines and this is where I’m going to focus my efforts for my blog, and so should you.

I just updated one of my WordPress blogs to the latest version available, directly from the WP admin panel. After hitting the “please update now” link, I was quickly presented this message: “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”

For the first minute or so I thought WordPress was working in the background and that my site would be back up in a couple minutes. But 5 minutes later, it was still displaying this message. I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t worrying…

After doing a little bit of research, I found this post on WP forums that explained how to get rid of this issue. Basically, all you have to do is get root access to your domain and simply delete the .maintenance file that was created.

This .maintenance file might be hidden, depending on what FTP client you’re using. Just make sure you choose to show hidden files, somewhere in your client’s settings.

As soon as I deleted the .maintenance file, my WP blog was back on track, and had been updated to the latest version of WordPress.

Hope this little trick will help some of you.

Everyday I see people online that are trying really hard to blog and pretend to be what they’re not. They usually try to use very complicated words, or they try to make themselves bigger than they are by saying “we”, when they should just say “I”.

Why do people do this? They try to impress us because they are worried that if they show what they really are, then they won’t be taken seriously. Reality is, it’s quite the opposite. If you pretend to be what you’re not, people will eventually figure it out and you will lose all respect they might have had for you.

Because it’s easier to show what you really are than pretending to be someone you’re not, finding your voice on your blog shouldn’t be a painful exercise and will benefit you greatly.

Everyone is Guilty

You’re not the only one pretending to be something you’re not online. When I first started blogging about the iPhone, I was just another copy/paste, a blogger molded to perfection to fit the terrible blogging standards that many most blogs use out there.

I would just read an article, then paraphrase it on my blog. I was proud of myself because I had created unique content which would sometimes bring a few extra visitors to my site.

One of my favorite thing to do was to say “we” instead of “I”. Saying “we” in my articles would instantly make me feel like I was running a large blog with dozens of writers. That was so good for my ego!

Most bloggers are guilty of this. Because everyone does it doesn’t mean you should do it to.

The Web Doesn’t Need Another Standardized Blogger

After a while, I grew tired of pretending to be someone else. I got tired of paraphrasing articles. I got tired of being yet another blogger among thousands of similar bloggers.

The web is so full of crappy shitty bloggers that you don’t have to be one more of those. Why would someone read you if they can read about the same topics from someone really unique and original? Someone who would actually bring something to the table instead or regurgitating content and ideas.

It took me some time but I eventually figured out that I didn’t want to be one of those plain bloggers anymore. That’s when I started working on finding my voice.

What is Your Voice?

Your voice is who you really are. That’s you when you’re talking with your friends and family. That’s you when you’re being 100% true to yourself and your values. Your voice is what sets you apart from every other blogger. Something that makes you unique, original, different, and hopefully remarkable.

Finding my own voice was actually pretty simple. I stopped bullshitting people and I started writing with my guts. That’s when I started giving my opinion on things vs just reporting on them. Instead of being just another iPhone blogger, I started building authority in the bloggosphere because I was writing with this special voice that is mine.

Try to write like you speak. It’s ok if you don’t speak well. It’s ok if you say “shit” or “fuck” all the time. If that’s the case, you’ll be known as the guy who swears a lot and that’s fine.

Be real. Be original. Be yourself.

Why Finding Your Voice is Important

It’s important to find your voice so you can set yourself apart from all copycat bloggers.

Like I mentioned above, finding my voice allowed me to stand out from the crowd and having me, Sebastien Page, recognized as an iPhone expert. I might not be an iPhone expert, but that’s how people see me because I talk a lot about the iPhone with my own voice. I’ve got my own views and opinions and I’m being recognized for that.

Once you’ve found your voice, you will start seeing readers coming back and reading more of your content because they’ll see that you’re different from everybody else and that you have something to say.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say finding your voice is important because:

• it builds credibility
• it makes you original
• it builds trust
• it differentiates you
• it makes you shine
• it attracts readers
• it captivates those readers
• it keeps them coming back
• it sets you up as an authority

Have You Found Your Blogging Voice Yet?

I hope these few words will convince you that it’s important for you to find our own voice and be true to yourself and your readers. If you have any question or comment, please feel free to speak up in the comments section below.

Earlier this year I wrote a post about how I make money online in which I stressed the fact that it was hard for me to explain people what my job is when they ask what I do for a living. At the time, I was doing many things online which made it hard for me to tell exactly what I was doing, especially to those people who don’t know much about ways of making money online.

Things have changed a lot since then. My lovely fiancee and I traveled the world, I gave up on Google Adsense after they gave up on me and decided to take me back after all, but most importantly, my iPhone blog went from about 300,000 visitors/month to over 1,500,000.

What I previously considered a “remunerating hobby” became a full time job, and even though I’m not writing about the iPhone 8 hours per day, I certainly am reading or discussing about the iPhone most of the day.

Now I know what to tell people when they ask me what I do for a living: I’m a blogger.

And you know what? I love telling people I’m a blogger who writes about the iPhone for a living. Most of the time, they look at me like I’m coming from another planet. 99% of the time I can predict what their first question is going to be: “how do you make money?”

So I usually give them the short and sweet answer and tell them that advertising is my main source of revenue. To be honest with you, I always hope they ask me more questions about it because I love telling people about blogging and the different ways you can make money from it.

I think Tina loves telling her friends and new acquaintances that I’m a blogger too. Is she bragging about it? Neh, I think she’s just very excited her husband-to-be as such a great and unusual job, which has been able to support both of us financially during our eight months of traveling.

Right now, I couldn’t be happier with my situation. But (there’s always a “but”), the big problem is I spend way too much time in front of my computer. I know it’s bad for me. I know I need to get out and do stuff. I know all that but for some reason, I can’t get away from the computer once I start staring at the screen. It’s definitely something I have to work on this year.

All in all, life is very very good. How’s your life been lately?

In my previous article about how I make money online, I briefly mentionned that to run a blog, you need expertise about a given topic, time, and dedication. I think those are the three pillars of blogging.

When I tell people how I make money blogging, they get really excited and want to start their own blog. Some of them actually do start their own blog but the majority fails because they either lack expertise, time, or motivation. If one of the pillars is missing, your blog is going to collapse.

Let’s have a look at the three pillars.

Expertise

Expertise doesn’t mean being a living encyclopedia in a certain field. It simply means knowing more than most people in a certain field. That’s a big difference.

For example, I blog about the iPhone but I really don’t consider myself an iPhone expert. More often than not, I will find myself confused when reading technical information about the iPhone. However, I know much more about the iPhone than 99% of iPhone owners. In their eyes, I am an expert.

We’re all expert at something. It sometimes takes time to figure out what we’re good at or what our special skills are, but the reality is we all have skill sets that can make us look like experts in the eyes of many.

Are you a good cook? Are you passionate about tropical fish? Do your neighbors come ask you about gardening tips? Those are areas of expertise that you can take advantage of and leverage on your own blog.

Time

Being an expert is one thing, but having the time to show your expertise is another. Blogging is time consuming and you will need lots of time if you want to run a blog.

Last year I set up a blog for my accountant. As the guy who filed my taxes, he saw how much money I was making from blogging and he thought he could just start his own blog about taxes. He sure had the expertise, but the poor man didn’t have the time.

He didn’t have the time to put at least one article up a week, and he didn’t have time to reply to comments. Basically, he didn’t have time for something that wasn’t generating income as quickly as his business. He gave up within days.

If you’re serious about blogging, make sure you have the time to blog!

Dedication

Being dedicated is very related to having time. You obviously can’t be dedicated if you don’t have time. But having time doesn’t mean you will be dedicated. You might have all the time in the day to blog, but the truth is that if you don’t feel like blogging, well, you won’t!

I am very dedicated to my iPhone blog. I write at least one post a day, every single day. I am so dedicated that I sometimes get up at 3 in the morning to cover breaking news. I buy every new iPhone coming out. I read over 50 iPhone-related sites. I answer questions on Twitter about the iPhone. I reply to people’s comments on my blog or on Facebook. I do this because I am committed and dedicated.

There are some days when I don’t feel like writing an article because I lack the motivation to do it. Well you know what? I still move my ass and write an article. That’s dedication. No matter what happens, I’m going to publish one article/day, and I’m going to be as helpful as I can to people who think I’m an expert. They trust me, they give me their time (and their money); my part of the job is to being there to deliver what they come for.

Is that it?

Can you be a successful blogger simply by being an expert, having time and being dedicated? Absolutely not! These are just the basis of a blog. There is obviously much more to it than just the three pillars but those are the foundations and support of a solid blog.

What’s your take?

When you meet someone for the first time, there is always a time in the conversation when you’re going to ask each other what you do for a living. When I was working for the man, the answer was easy. I would simply say “I’m the Vice President of Marketing for a web company that offers various services to franchise companies”.

Now that I am self-employed and that I generate 100% of my revenues on the Internet, I find it a bit harder to explain what I do in one short and concise sentence. The best answer would be that I make money online. I’ve found that telling this usually generates about 60 more questions about the possible ways to make a living off a computer and an Internet connection.

In this article, I would like to discuss the various ways I make money online, mostly through blogging, content publishing and projects for clients.

How I Make Money Blogging

To me, blogging is one of the easiest ways to make money online. The start-up cost is extremely low. All you need is a domain name, a hosting plan, and a blog set up for a total cost of about $100/year. Of course, besides this you’ll need some time, expertise in a given field, and some serious motivation and dedication.

I run several blogs but there is one that I am completely dedicated to: my iPhone blog. I’ve been running this blog since May 2008 and at the time I am writing this, it is one of the most regarded iPhone blogs out there and it gets about 1 million visitors per month. Yes, you read it right. About 1 million people come visit my iPhone blog every month. Google “iPhone Blog” and you’ll see the iPhone Download Blog up there in the top results!

This didn’t happen overnight, but I can’t say that it took me forever to get here either. I’ve invested a lot of time in it. I really know what I’m talking about. I am very motivated and totally devoted to this blog, which I update at least once a day, every single day.

This being said, here is how I make money blogging:

Adsense

Adsense is a a service offered by Google that allows you to be paid everytime someone clicks on an ad on your site. This is basically how it works. You sign up with Adsense, Google gives you a piece of code to put on your site. This code will look at what your site is about and will display relevant ads. Whenever someone visits your site and clicks on one of these ads, Google will pay you a little commission. These commissions can go as little as $0.01/click to well over $50.

Although many A-list bloggers will tell you that Adsense sucks because it drives traffic away from your site, it still is a great and easy way to generate money easily. The downside to this is that you have no idea how much Google is really making thanks to you. When they pay you $0.25 for a click, they might actually make $4 for it, keeping the largest piece of the pie.

Banner Ads

I make quite a bit of money with banner ads without having to spend time managing them. I work with a company called BuySellAds (BSA). This is how it works. I tell BSA that I have a few ad spots available on my site and I also tell them what each spot is worth. That’s my part of the job.

BSA has a huge inventory of advertisors and puts my site in front of them. When an advertisor thinks my blog would be a great fit for their products, the advertisors can look at my ad spots options (placement and price) and decides to buy an ad.

From there, BSA collects the payment and takes a 25% cut. That’s their commission for their service. After collecting payment, it will automatically display the new ad on my site and send me an email telling me I just made money (I love receiving those emails).

The benefit of using such a service is that BSA helps me connect with advertisers that I may never find otherwise. Additionally, it makes it very easy and safe to collect the payment. Finally, and more importantly to me, all this is handled without me having to do anything.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where the affiliate (me in that case) promotes a business or service in exchange for a percentage or fixed commission of the sales they generate.

Let’s take the example of my iPhone blog. Invisible Shield is a product that helps protect your iPhone from scratches. I placed a banner for their product on my site and every time someone clicks on this banner and buys an Invisible Shield, I get about $5.

There are affiliate programs for virtually every product or industry out there. Here are 5 of my favorite affiliate marketplaces:

• ClickBank
• Regnow
• Share A Sale
• Commission Junction
• LinkShare

On my iPhone blog, I promote several affiliate programs ranging from accessories to softwares for iPhone. This generates pretty substantial revenues every month.

In-Text Advertising

In-Text advertising refers to links placed inside your text, that come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links. Once the user rolls the mouse over the link, the advertising will pop.

Although these in-text ads, also known as contextual ads, can seem annoying, they’ve been generating quite some income for me since I started using them.

I was very reluctant to include them in my blog until I realized that 1) my readers don’t mind them at all, and 2) they can generate thousands each month.

I use Kontera for my in-text ads. I even cut a pretty sweet deal with them, which is probably why I generate so much income from these ads.

Sponsored Tweets

Just like in-text ads, it took me a while to jump on the sponsored tweets bandwagon and so far, I’m not really impressed by the results. I do get people to pay me to send a tweet promoting their products from time to time, but not as often as I would want it.

There are 2 ways I go about it. The first is that I let people pay me directly via Paypal to send their sponsored tweets. That’s my favorite way because there is no middleman.

The other way is to use a service called Sponsored Tweets. It’s like a marketplace where advertisers can find tweeters like me. Although this service is very respectable, I don’t like it as much as the first method because it takes a pretty big commission, which means less money for me.

Content Publishing

Publishing and selling content is my favorite way to make money online because if you do it well, it doesn’t require much work at all and can provide a steady revenue stream.

Writing & Selling eBooks

eBooks are hot and they’re about to become even hotter. They allow anyone with a little bit of knowledge about a given topic to be published at a very small cost.

The concept is very simple: you find problematic topics and give the solution under the form of an ebook. I wrote a few eBooks on my own that I am now selling via the ClickBank marketplace.

Blog Building and Internet Marketing Consulting

I recently started offering my services to a select group of clients. From constructing a new blog from scratch, through to writing killer articles that attract more traffic and links, I help individuals and businesses, large and small, every day. Here are some example services:

• Blog building
• Blog teaching
• Social Media consulting
• Search Engine Optimization
• Content creation

More to Come

As the Internet evolves, new ways of making money online are created. I believe that what I’m doing now online has nothing to do with what I’ll be doing in 10 years.

How do you make money online?

I wanted to start a personal blog like you have done about business, life, health, politics, history.  Here’s the issue.  If I use my real name, and then connect it with my username and then link it to a blog with that same username, my real name would be exposed.  Do you think it’s a liability for an entrepreneur to have his personal and political views so openly espoused?  I have a business partner, employers, vendors, sales prospects that assuredly do Google searches on me before doing business with me…Do I run the risk of jeopardizing business because of my personal views?  And at what point does transparency become too much?  I figure that I can write in a sterile business like fashion, but that’s not me.  I’d love your insight.

You Are What You Say Online

Whatever you say or write online is a liability. There are many reasons why you wouldn’t want people to find out about your true identity. Eric’s problem is that he doesn’t want to associate his name with his political views, etc…

If you work for an employer and if you’re going to blog about hot topics (politics, religion, sex, etc…), make sure you don’t mind losing this job because it might get back at you faster than you think.

As Eric mentioned, people search more and more for names on Google. I do! When I meet someone I will potentially work or deal with, I Google them. That’s my way to do a quick informal background check.

This being said, if you work for the man and want to start your own blog about a hot topic, I suggest using a strong username.

A Username Can Be A Brand

A username for an online service or for a blog domain name doesn’t have to be something meaningless like “Eric1983″. If you want to hide your online identity behind a username, I suggest you choose one that may translate into a brand.

There are many examples of strong and smart usernames/URL that become their own brands: CopyBlogger, ProBlogger, TechCrunch, etc…

These guys chose to reveal their real identity but they didn’t have to. They could have chose to hide behind their usernames.

The Problem With Hiding Your Identity

There is a downside to hiding your identity and not being willing to reveal it. When I created my first website, I didn’t want my boss to find out what I was doing. The website, a franchise directory, was directly competing with the company who was employing me.

The problem is that the site started gaining popularity in the industry and people soon started offering me money to advertise on the site. I hadn’t created a legal entity and was just charging people with PayPal, which made it mandatory to reveal my identity, at least to the people who were paying me.

It became a little awkward when I once had to call a person on behalf of my employer and the guy on the other end of the line thought I was calling on behalf of my website.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s really hard to hide behind a username and things may really well catch up with you one day or the other.

Real Name Vs Username

In the end, it all depends on your needs and goals. In the case of Eric, I’d recommend using a username. That will prevent people from linking him to content he wouldn’t want to be associated with.

If you’re going to write a blog about the iPhone for example, then it’s no use hiding your identity. In this case, using your real name is the way to go as it will most likely help you build your personal brand.

Do you use your real name or a username online? Why? I am curious to read what you think about this.

Instead of replying to him, I thought that would be a good case study about duplicate content and how to create good content for your site.

If you have questions you’d like me to answer, feel free to contact me.

I have an attorney friend who is looking to add a blog to their site. They were wondering if there was a way to add content articles to their blog, to keep it fresh, without them adding unique content each day.

I told him that it is best to try and write something weekly, but he was hoping to have the page update with some other law related articles… Is this possible?

The Rise and Fall of Duplicate Content

The short answer is “yes”. It is possible and fairly easy to do. Simply install FeedWordPress or WP-o-Matic to your WordPress blog and start leeching content left and right via RSS feeds. Is this a good thing to do? Certainly not!

First of all, replicating someone else’s content without their approval is called copyright infringement. While it is widely done everywhere online, it doesn’t necessarily means it is ok and you might get into trouble if you copy articles from other websites.

But now let’s assume you have the consent of the article’s writer to place their article on your site. In most cases, the author will ask you to link back to their site to give them credit, which is a common practice. You might think “great, free legit content populating my site every day/week/month”.

Well let me tell you that’s a big mistake because you are now generating duplicate content. And if there one thing Google doesn’t like, it’s duplicate content. Google sees duplicate content as a waste of space and while it might index both articles in the beginning (the original, and the one syndicated on your site), it will sooner or later realize that the content is coming from the author’s site and will start removing the duplicated articles from its index. Even worth, it might even “ban” your site and remove it completely from its index.

Think of it this way. Imagine that both the author’s site and your site are newspapers. Every time the original author writes something in his newspaper, it shows up in your newspaper the following day. Who would buy your newspaper? Right, no one would because they can have the same news from the original source before getting it from you. That’s exactly how Google sees the duplicate content issue.

You may still be a little skeptical about all this. Well, why not try it for a while. Find someone willing to share his articles with you, or use articles from an article directory such as GoArticles and you’ll see how your site will slowly but surely drop in search engines. Been there, done that!

Blogs Are About Hearing Your Voice

People or companies are always very quick at starting a blog because they read somewhere that it’s good for search engines. Yes, a GOOD blog is good for your search engine rankings. If you’re just blogging to replicate content, what value are you bringing to the table?

See, blogs are good for search engine rankings because if you have a good blog, people will comment on it, they will link back to it, and that is how a blog really helps search engine wise. People go back to a blog because they like what YOU have to say about XYZ topic. It’s all about the way YOU say things. They don’t care about reading rehashed articles from another site. They want to hear what YOU think.

On my iPhone blog for example, most people come back to it because they like how I go straight to the point without beating around the bush. They also know my voice. My voice is basically to complain about how restrictive Apple is with the iPhone. That’s my voice. That’s what I am known for and that’s why people keep coming back.

Blogging is about finding your voice and sharing what you have to say with others. It’s very probable some people will not like your voice. Who cares? You can’t please everyone. I know some people don’t like my voice and they call be a whiner. Fine, I’ll take that. I’m an iPhone whino but you know what? Even among people who don’t like my voice, many of them keep coming back to my site. I know that because they often leave comments (including their names) and after a while, I get to recognize them.

Create Your Own Content

Content is king! The best way to have Google love you and crawl your site on a regular basis is to create your own unique content. Yes, it does require some work from you but this is the best way to bring quality traffic to your site.

There are several ways you can easily create original content:

• Write a mash-up of an article you read: you just read a good article? Simply write a little blurb about it and tell us why you liked/disliked this article.
• Pay someone to write for you: you can find freelancers that can write articles for you for very cheap. The downside is you don’t really control the message or the quality of the writing.
• Create a case study: this is what I’m doing here. I took a real life example to create a blog post.

Perhaps the hardest part about writing good content is to find good topics. Once you have the topic, the writing will come quickly. I have a few tricks to find topics when I don’t know what to blog about:

• Yahoo Answers: look for questions asked about your expertise in Yahoo Answers. If someone asks the question there, it’s probably because they didn’t find the answer else where.
• Forums: just like Yahoo Answers, forums can be a good way to find a topic.
• Twitter: I usually find iPhone-related topics on Twitter in seconds. Just go to the search option and type “yourexpertisekeyword ?” If you have a blog about olive oil, search for “olive oil ?” on Twitter. You’ll be amazed to see what kind of questions people may have.
• Other social networks: do the same as I do with Twitter on other sites such as Delicious, Digg, etc…
• Ask: sometimes you can just simply ask your clients/friends/employees what they want to hear you talk about. I sometimes ask my Twitter followers what I should write about. If a similar topic comes back several times, I will write a post about it.

The Bottomline

The bottomline is, as I said above, if you have good content and you have an original way to deliver it (that’s your voice), people will read you, they will trust you, and they will recommend you. In the end you will gain from it not only in the search rankings of Google, but you might also generate new leads, maybe some consulting jobs, or whatever may apply to your industry.

If you’re not ready to make the effort of blogging and you just want to blog to create yet some more crappy content, just don’t do it. You will waste your time and money and it might hurt you more than you will benefit from it.

I feel honored that Attila came to me thinking I am a famous online figure. Compared to other guys like John Chow (he’s a total douche) and Shoemoney, I’m still a noobie though.

Attila is a gamer. He used to be an editor on some well-known site in Hungary but the site kinda died after seeing increased competition from better sites and online communities. Now Attila wants to do stuff online but he doesn’t know where to start. It seems he has huge ambitions too as he’s already looking into hiring writers and developers.

So how would I go about this? Very simple, very inexpensive!

Choose A Topic

Ideally, you shouldn’t have to look for a topic. You should know what you want to talk about online. You have to be passionate about it and be quite knowledgeable. You are an expert at baking marijuana cakes? Talk about it! You know everything about shoes? Write about it!

There are no limits to what you can talk about. If you are passionate about it, chances are there are plenty of other people like you, and these people can be your audience.

Get A Good Domain Name

First thing I would do is buy a good domain name related to your topic. When buying a domain name, it’s always good to opt for the .com extension. Avoid the .net and .info as they are often seen as spam by search engines. Also avoid numbers and hyphens in your domain name. For example, www.Worst-Domain-1.info is as bad as it can get.

A domain name is about $10/year and it is very crucial as it is going to be your branding for the years to come.

Try to insert some of your main keywords in your domain name. For example, my iPhone blog domain name is www.iPhoneDownloadBlog.com. Those are 3 important keywords. Now when you look for “iPhone blog” on Google, I show up number 2-3, depending on the days.

Get Good Hosting

Good and reliable hosting is hard to come by. I personally use DreamHost. The service costs me about $130/year for unlimited sites hosted and tons of bandwidth and RAM (more than I can use). Their customer service is not outstanding but it usually is fast and good enough.

When looking for a hosting company, it’s important you choose one in your country. For example, in the case of Attila, he should look for a hosting company in Hungary. Now if he wants his site to be global and reach people all over the world, then I would go for a hosting company in the US.

The localization of your hosting company is important because search engines (which get you most of your traffic) look at where your site is hosted and give a lot of importance to this when displaying search results. If you are searching for something in Google Hungary, Google will mostly give you results from sites hosted in Hungary. If you’re in the US, Google will mostly give you search results with websites hosted in the US. You get the idea…

Set Up A Blog

The best way to start an online venture is to create a WordPress blog. WordPress is a free software that you can easily install automatically (depending on your hosting company). WordPress is highly customizable and simple, and it is used by the largest sites out there such as TechCrunch and Mashable (that’s clearly a sign).

I always recommend people to start a blog because it is inexpensive, and low maintenance.

Don’t Invest Too Much

A big mistake people often do when starting something online is that they want to invest too much time and money into it. Some people want to have a great looking site, with awesome features, and tons of useless crap. I say DON’T! Go with the simple basic stuff at first. You won’t have readers or visitors for a while, so why waste time and money on something no one will notice.

Besides, it’s good not to invest in your site at first because chances are you will blog for a week or so and you will give up. Sorry but that’s the reality. I think 99% of people who start a blog give it up within just a few weeks.

Don’t Expect Too Much

This point is related to the paragraph above. When you start a blog, don’t expect to get tons of visitors. People who start a website always think that they are going to drive thousands of visits overnight. Reality is that it will take you months if not years to get decent amount of traffic.

My iPhone blog gets between 15,000 – 20,000 visitors per day, just after a year of being online. This is really rare and it is the result of hard work. I was lucky to write a few good articles that got me some attention but don’t expect to get similar results as quickly as I did.

Content Is King

As I just said above, I was lucky to write a few articles that got me lots of attention and visits, and that is the whole point of blogging. Content is king! People will come to your site for your good content. People will return to your site for the same reason. People could leave your site and never come back for that exact same reason too.

Write compelling and unique content. Google and other search engines like unique content. Don’t copy/paste other people’s articles. Don’t become a news site! Get your own voice! My iPhone blog is everything but a news blog. All other blogs out there (except a few) are just about iPhone news.

Why would people come to your blog to read the exact same things as they can read on 2,000 other sites? People come to my iPhone blog because they know I am an Apple hater and that I like to talk about hacking the iPhone. That’s my voice. I don’t always rant about Apple or write about hacking, but it is my main topic and it is what I am known for.

Be Social

Getting your name and content out is great. There are many ways to do this. You can use sites like Digg, Facebook, etc… Personally, I am social on one and one place only: Twitter. I am on Twitter all day, sharing content, talking to people, and helping other people out. By doing so, I am now being seen as an expert in everything related to the iPhone. People come to me to ask my advice. People recommend me to their friends. I even have famous people like Dog the Bounty Hunter and Alyssa Milano recommend me or share my content!

Another thing to do is to connect with other bloggers. Go to their sites, leave comments, touch base with them. If they notice you, they might start talking about you too. It’s not because they are “competition” that you can’t work with them. I share stuff from other iPhone blogs several times a day. I am not just out there to advertise myself. I advertise myself as an expert that can get people the best information, even if that means sending people to my competition’s websites.

Learn SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is easy. No matter what these SEO experts are trying to tell you, SEO is dead simple. The problem is that it’s very time consuming. Learning, understanding and applying the basics of SEO is very simple and you can self-educate you. Subscribe to a few SEO blogs (like SEO Book, SEOmoz) and get familiar with the terms and all the tricks and tips.

Here is a great SEO guide for beginners. Read everything and learn. Once you know more about SEO, you can apply it to your articles to get extra love from search engines.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to start sharing your expertise with others and can hopefully lead to generate substantial income. But it’s not easy and it takes time. Most people who start a blog today will give it up tomorrow but it can be very rewarding to those of us who understand it takes time to create a follower base and be seen as an expert. Good luck.

Working From Home Made Me Lazy

That’s true, I’m a lazy ass these days… But I’ve got a good reason why I’m lazy though. I wrote 2 ebooks, both of them in a very specific niche, and I sell them through affiliate marketing (on ClickBank to be precise). One of those ebooks works alright, making me a few hundred dollars every week. The other one actually pays my bills, usually generating one thousand dollars per week in net profits.

When I first quit my job, I said to myself that I would develop one new ebook/affiliate program every month. At the time, it seemed like a very realistic goal. Writing an ebook can take up to 2-3 weeks, assuming you know what you want to write about, and putting up a website with a sales letter takes less than a week.

My laziness started to appear when I realized that my 2 current ebooks make me enough money to live pretty well. I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to bust his ass off to make tons of money. However, if I feel the financial situation is getting tight, I will work day and night to make as much cash as possible. I suspect there are lots of people like me in this world. We’re not hard workers; we’re smart workers.

So what do I do all day? Tough question to answer as I’m not even sure myself. I pretty much spend all my day online, reading news/blogs and on Twitter of course! Not very productive at all… Occasionally, I will take a walk to the post office to send back a Netflix movie. I also go to check the surf on a daily basis, and if there are waves, I will go out and surf for a couple hours.

The Negative Health Benefits Of The Internet

I am starting to realize that spending so much time in front of my computer all day is bad for me. Physically, I’m not as healthy as I was a year ago. The most obvious symptom is that I am constantly tired. I get up at 7.30am, and turn on my computer within minutes. One hour later, I will already be yawning. I was in Costa Rica for the last 2 weeks and I just spent a few minutes a day on my computer during that time. My energy level went way up right away as I used the computer less and less.

Another symptom of the perfect “work at home dude” like me is back pain. I have a laptop and I spend most of my time on the couch. It is very comfortable but it’s not a way to work. My girlfriend bought me a nice office chair to go with my desk but I rarely use it. I constantly have this pain in my lower back; nothing a good yoga session with Tina can’t fix, but it’s still a growing problem that I need to seriously take care of.

I think the internet is also making me socially retarded! When I worked at the office, I had to go out of my house every morning, walk to work, talk to my coworkers and talk to clients. In short, I had human interactions, which are vital to your social insertion… What do I have now? Twitter followers and RSS subscribers! It seems a little pathetic to me.

Being Your Own Boss Is Stressful

When I worked for the man, I used to think that working for yourself would be much less stressful because you wouldn’t have to deal with so many frustrating situations and that you could do whatever you want. I was partly right because now that I don’t have anyone to report to and no one to deal with, I have a much less stress to deal with. However, I have a whole new stress to cope with now: the stress of the paycheck!

If you’re currently employed, you probably don’t stress much about your paycheck. You now that twice a month, you will get a nice check for a defined amount you already know. You are paid the same amount every 2 weeks, no matter what (this applies if you’re a salary employee of course, which I used to be). I didn’t worry about my paycheck before. I knew that 2 or 3 months from now, I will still be making the same amount, and it was really reassuring.

Now I stress a lot about my paycheck because it is completely depending on my results. I am constantly looking at my emails to see if I received this magical email from ClickBank with the subject line “CB Sale”, telling me I just made another $40. Sometimes I have good days where I make $400. Sometimes, like 2 days ago, I have bad days where I make only $50. The most stressful to me is when I have a series of bad days. It completely freaks me out, until everything starts working again and making it up for the last few slow days.

Give Me Some Of That Internet Money

I do 2 simple things for a living: I have my affiliate programs; and I write for my iPhone blog. When people ask me what I do now, I just answer: “internet”. This short and simple answer is usually enough to satisfy the person asking you this question. I choose to answer this because I can’t put a real title on what I do.

Sometimes, if the person is genuinely interested in what I do, he will ask me more details. Explaining online affiliate marketing to a non-business savvy person is kinda hard, even though I try to simplify it as much as I can by saying that “I sell electronic reports and I blog about technology”.

A good definition of what I do though is that “I make money online”. I try not to use this term though because I think it sounds very cheesy. When you say you make money online, people think something like “oh yeah, just like the scammy late night commercials about how I can make money online working 4 hours a day”?

My friend Kayle is funny about it and always asks me to give him “some of that internet”, just like in the South Park episode where the kids try to make money online by having a video of Butters on YouToob.

Two Weeks Later…

Well, it’s been about two weeks since I first started writing this post and things have changed a bit. First, I worked on a new website that is now live and generating additional revenues. This website is part of my previous post about how to hit different niches with the same product. This website doesn’t pay the bills, but it’s still extra money.

The second thing I did is trying not to spend as much time in front of my computer. I now get off the internet for a few hours to read a book or a magazine. I am also starting to run! If you knew me, you wouldn’t believe what I just said, but yes, I do run for a couple miles and I kinda like it. It definitely boosts my energy level.

For the last two days, I haven’t been working from the couch. I put my laptop on the kitchen table and work from there. It’s really comfortable and I get to see what’s going on outside.

Finally, in order to fight my anti-social behavior, and after talking to my therapist who confirmed I need to interact with others (duh!), I am looking into participating in a Toastmaster club. This would definitely help me meet and talk with others.

I guess the goal of this post was to bring me to realize that I can’t just sit around all day and do nothing. I have this great opportunity of making a ton of money and I should take it because it might not last long.