Have you been to EntreCard yet? If you’ve got a blog or other regularly updated site, it you might want to consider it.
What happens there is simply an exchange of credits, based on "dropping your card" (as you can see in our sidebar) and having others drop their card on your site. No one but you can see who’s dropped, but it’s the things you can do with those credits that matters.
You can buy advertising for 1 day on another site that uses EntreCard.
You can buy services from the EntreCard shop, like graphic design, SEO consults, and more.
You can also sell your EntreCard credits for CASH on eBay or via private sale, or you can use your credits to hold a contest where others can try to win them.
The whole point of EC is to get more visitors, get more traffic, and yes, to discover other blogs in your niche.
The bottom line here is that Anywired can help not just individuals, but businesses as well, to understand the value in telecommuting or freelancing. I think that in the next 5 years, we’re going to see many more entrepreneurs going solo and working wirelessly from anywhere in the world. Personally, I’m aiming for a beach house somewhere in the Caribbean!
I get this question all the time from clients who are new to blogging and/or using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress to manage their site content…
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Let’s break that down for a second:
Really - Like, totally, dude! Simple - We love simplicity! Syndication - News journalists, comic artists and the like syndicate their content by selling it to various newspapers or article repositories. It’s a matter of making content available to subscribers through various means, and in terms of RSS, means providing content (as a site owner/content creator) for people to subscribe to (through an RSS reader) in the form of an RSS feed.
What’s an RSS reader?
And RSS reader is a program or web-based software that collects and organizes your RSS feeds in one central location. It’s what “pulls the feeds” from the sites you subscribe to and organizes them so you can see what you’ve read or not read, what you might want to read based on category, and so on. Think of it as one gigantic magazine where you completely customize the content, and it updates instantly as soon as your favorite sites update their content!
Let me ask you this: How big is your bookmarks/favorites list? Do you enjoy having to search through it to find the sites you already know you love? How do you know, without actually visiting the site, if there’s any new info there? RSS takes care of all that for you by literally delivering you the content YOU want, when it’s new, and with much better organization than that messy old bookmarks list in your browser.
There are many different readers available, and they’re all differently the same thing.
The one I’m using right now is called, simply, FeedReader. It’s 100% free, and lets me organize my feeds quite nicely. However as I said, there are literally dozens of really great feed readers available.
Two web-based readers are very common: If you’re a Google fan, and enjoy using their tools, there’s always Google Reader. Many use bloglines too. Since they’re web-based, they don’t take up any room on your computer and you can view your feeds from any computer at any time.
All three of these offer some “really simple” (ha!) and easy tutorials to show you the basics of how to use them. You don’t need to be all that “techie” to get it either, they’re pretty uncomplicated!
How do I publish RSS feeds from my site?
One of the easiest and best ways to do this is to use a CMS like WordPress to build your site and maintain your content. It comes with a built-in feed, and essentially means there’s NOTHING you need to do in order to provide an RSS feed to your site visitors except let them know that you offer feeds by using the universal symbol:
That’s it. Whenever you see that icon (it’s usually orange, but some people match the color to the theme of their site, as you can see ours is by scrolling to the bottom of the page) that means that site offers RSS feeds for you to subscribe to at your whim. If your site isn’t built on a platform that automatically offers feeds, you might want to think about a redesign if you want to offer your clients or site visitors the option to get updates from you via RSS. RSS is a great tool for marketing online, as it essentially advertises your site as often as you publish new content, to people who are confirmed as interested in what you have to say!
So there you have it! Now, I’m by no means the only resource out there for learning about RSS, so you should check out some of these other great posts if you’re still feeling a little confused:
What better way to announce our new blog development section than to start with a post about how to make money from your brand new blog?
It’s been written about before, hundreds of times of course, but since we like to practice the tried and true, I figured I’d spit out some good ones geared toward sites that are new and don’t necessarily meet the traffic requirements for some of the other, higher paying programs.
Lately it just seemed that we’ve been getting lots of clients who wanted just blogs - no static pages, no sales stuff, just really well designed, easy to manage systems that they could use to make some cash with while writing about their favorite topics. Of course, once we build the site, we love to help our clients monetize!
For new sites, there are a couple good ways to start off (including some active examples!):
AdSense - The amount of money you can make from AdSense depends largely on your niche. If you’re blogging about “drug rehab” you could find yourself making a good couple dollars per click. Blog about “scrapbooking” or “weight loss” and you’re looking at just a few cents per click. But the income is related to the traffic because you need other people to do the clicking. (aff)
Traditional Affiliate Program - My personal favorite is ClickBank, though there are many others out there. Find the one that has categories of products you can promote (ie. products that match your blog’s topic), and make money whenever someone clicks through and makes a purchase! You can even track your clicks with ClickSensor V2 (aff)
Affiliate Resale Program - One of the most well known is Amazon. You can build text or image links, and now even “aStores” which result in unlimited pages of products that YOU choose to promote. Have a digital photography blog? Sell cameras, lenses, and books about photography. Are you a “foodie” blogger? Sell recipe books, kitchen gadgets, and magazine subscriptions. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination!
CafePress - Create your own items with your own works of art and sell them from your site! T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, bags, even clocks!
So there you have it - Three great ways to get started making money from your blog from day one. The good news is that using a content management system like WordPress offers plugin options to help you incorporate these things even easier! You can conceivably manage everything from your WordPress admin and a PayPal account. Check out the following monetization plugins:
AdSense Deluxe - create ad block “shortcuts” to insert Google AdSense anywhere, anytime you’re blogging. AdSense Widget (for sidebars and widget-endabled themes) AdSense Revenue and Earnings - Track your earnings right from your admin section! Amazon Media Manager - a little complicated to get used to, but it’s the grand-daddy of all Amazon plugins for WP. Now Reading @ Amazon - Allows you to use a “now reading” section and write reviews for books you’ve read. CafePress Store Plugin - Create items like t-shirts, clocks, and mousepads and sell them right on your WP site.
You know, sometimes I forget that there are people who really have no idea what a blog is, much less know why they should want to be a blogger. The first thing I tell them is usually something like:
Blogs are like online journals. You can write about whatever your heart desires - be it news, fashion, television, work (but be careful!), your interesting or funny life - and use it as a tool to meet people, develop your own writing skills, start a community, you name it. You can even make a little money from it!
Of course - that last bit is the only thing people really “hear”, but what gets me sometimes - what really brings me back to Earth - is when people say, “Okay, but how do I blog?”
I do a lot of sites for actors, comics, and reality show celebrities. Most of these people are computer savvy enough to check their email and play a few games, maybe write a word document, or use excel for spreadsheets. But rarely do they understand what blogging is all about.
But you see, that’s the beauty in my job. I get to teach them.
It’s pretty well-known that I’m a die-hard WordPress fan. I use nothing else to build sites anymore, regardless of whether there is to be a blog on the site or not. It just makes life so much easier all the way around. So usually my first step is simply teaching people how to log in to their admin section, and what tabs they need to click on to create, edit, and maintain the content on their sites.
I love it - I can hear the tension in their voices over the phone as I walk them through the login process. “Anticipation is where it’s at, you know. Everything after that is gravy.” (A quote from my favorite comic - Lewis Black) My client sits there anxiously clicking on their keys to log in, and I’m hearing this pressure build up in their voices as I bring them into their admin and get them to the “Write Post” page.
They begin to write a sample post. Title… content… category checkbox. As they’re doing this, I can hear the release of tension in their voices. “Oh my god this IS easy!” I hear. I tell them it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you give in and let go - it’s a blast, and you never forget it.
They click the “Publish” button and then “view site” at the top of the page - and WHAMMO! Now I hear the smile (yes, I can hear smiles on the phone) and inevitably the word that comes out of their mouths next is, “Wowwwww…” followed by something like “Too cool!” or “I did it!”
This folks, is the best part. The gratitude, the realization on their part that they can do this, the joy of them seeing their own words in virtual print. I LOVE MY JOB!
