Luna Tail

Well, I’ve taken the plunge. I’ve been reading a lot about The Niche Blogger and how full time passive income is within my reach. And, well, I have a couple of personality traits that I think will be good to earn blogging money.. my obsession tendencies, and my anxiety! When I start something, I obsess about it. Which is good, because I can really dedicate myself to this in the beginning, and then later, when my anxiety kicks in, take a break.

Having a solid plan of action is a critical element of earning blogging money. And, it’s supposed to be pretty easy, in the log run! So I’m starting with a solid plan, and as things progress, I’ll be posting about it here on this blog.

I think in the past I’ve just wanted to put a blog up and hope that the money will start to roll in! It takes more than that… and so I went about finding a plan of action so I can earn as much money as possible from my blogs. So far, I only make a couple of hundred dollars a month. And I’d love to make a couple of thousand dollars instead.

So I’ve been reading a lot about a program called “The Niche Blogger!” Many blogs have been talking about this, saying it’s the best source they’ve found. It’s a complete program that was put together to help new people get their own start in blogging. And I figured what I was doing wasn’t really working well, so I wanted to find a mentor or model who is already a successful niche blogger.

I’ve been told this program will cut down the time it takes me to learn how to make money blogging and help me to avoid mistakes that will keep me from making money. Though I’ve also read that joining the Niche Blogger means I will have to dedicate myself to it. Which I’m excited to do!

There are so many different methods to earning money blogging that it’s easy to get lost in, and fall prey to, other methods that don’t really work. And it’s hard to find the model that actually does work. But finding the model that does work is exciting, and will help me (and you?) succeed!

I realize that even though I can start earning pretty quickly, I won’t become rich overnight. However I really hope to make a couple thousand a month so that I can pay off my mortgage faster! I’ve already seen some income trickling in from my blogging money.. and I really hope that in the next few months I’ll be able to make at least a good part time income from my blogs. Maybe even full-time income…? But we’ll have to see! After I get my blogs set up, it should be a relatively passive income. The cool thing about having blogs up is that they are 24 hour a day, seven day a week, “salespeople.”

I’m really doing this in case I get laid off. Though I hope I won’t, in this awful economy there is always the risk. So if I can make some blogging money I can have extra income to pay off the mortgage, or if I do get laid off, I’ll already have established blogs to become a full-time blogger.

By following the The Niche Blogger instructions, and dedicating myself to it until I am successful, I have confidence I’ll succeed. I’ve only been participating in it for about four or five days, and I’ve already discovered amazing information that is very impressive! Things I never knew before about blogging and the web, and I know a lot about the web!

I hope that I’ll look back on the moment I decided to become a niche blogger a year from now and know that it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I’m actually very excited. The strategies I’ve learned so far were an amazing surprise!

I look forward to making some nice blogging money and having some awesome passive income! I’m all for passive income!

So I participate in some of the click through programs out there… I’m not exactly sure they are called… social networking, maybe. And some of them are better than others. I think that, fundamentally, bloggers (or at least me) are a bit selfish and want to get page views and make money from their blogs. And to get page views, a good way is to do some click through programs.

There is Entrecard, which is a fun one, and I used to drop 300 cards a day on blogs. And I’d even try to do so on more than one of my Entrecard accounts. However, I kinda got burned out as it took more time than I was willing to devote to it. Now I just drop here and there when I see an Entrecard widget and I don’t worry about how many cards I drop.  Plus, I’m not sure if I can sell EC credits or not… used to be that you could, but I haven’t looked in a while. Plus, they didn’t go for very much.

There are also advertising programs like Project Wonderful. This is okay, and I’ve made a few bucks off this. But clicking through to other sites doesn’t get me anything… money or credits or so.

There was a system called Blogrush but it’s gone now.  Clicking on the blogs didn’t get the clicker anything, and so that’s why I think it failed. Sure you can look at other blog post titles on the widget… but clicking them didn’t get me anything, it only gave the other blog hits. And like I said, I want to get something out of a program, not just give my clicks away.  I didn’t see much traffic from Blogrush.

A new one that just started, which is kinda a blend of a click through program and an advertising program, is putting together the.. well, the advertising and the click through thing.  It’s Adgitize, and so far I like it. I haven’t been paid from them yet, but since I have a number of blogs and sites, I can put the ads on each of my sites and get credit for page views.  I get points. And points get money. And I like money! So not only do I get page views like Entrecard, and not only do I get money like Project Wonderful, I get both.  What a cool idea.

So anyway, I posted about this before, but I thought this time I would also include the thoughts that when people participate in click through programs and advertising programs, they want not only traffic, but money too… or at least something equivalent to money, like EC credits.  If you create a click through program that doesn’t get the clicker anything, then I think it’ll fail. At least this is my uneducated personal opinion.

And little ad spots don’t really bother the page much. I think I have quite a few, sometimes I think too many.  But pennies here and there help a lot, it all ads up! So then I can pay for a Mesothelioma lawyer sometime if I need one. Hopefully I never will!

One of my doggie friends online, Johann the Dog, was twittering the other day and said he was checking out Yoono. So curiousity always gets the better of me when I hear of things like this so I had to go check it out.

It’s a Firefox Extention for social networking. I tried Flock for a while, the social networking browser, but I still like Firefox better. And Yoono actually provides a lot of what Flock does.

Yoono is a bit complicated but the more I figure it out, the more I like it. I was using Twirl as my twitter client, but Yoono incorporates Twitter right inside and now that I can view the updates, I like it! And they only update every 3 minutes because of the Twitter limits. Where Twirl just kinda sits there and says it’s going to try again, and sometimes it’s longer than 3 minutes, I like how Yoono has it set up instead.

I can also include Flickr and Facebook (though I don’t use Facebook much and it’s blocked from my work anyway) and I can load up my blogs so I can post to them.. and I LOVE the little sidebar that opens up when I hover my mouse on it.

So far, so good, for Yoono. And I even have my own Yoono page.

I just joined up with Dneero, and I’m trying it out. Here is a conversation!

Well I signed up for Friend Feed. And actually, it’s pretty cool. You can put a ton of your own things in there… like your blog URL, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and other information and then people can subscribe to your feed and the the whole darn bunch. Which, actually, seems like a lot. LOL. I only am subscribed to a couple of people’s feeds now through Friend Feed, but if I find more people on it then I’ll subscribe to more. I especially like to check out friends, family, and dog people.

I was checking out some of the services and Yelp looks like a fun one, too. So I signed up there. Though I haven’t written any reviews yet.

So if you want to check out My Friend Feed, there it is. What is yours?

After much debate (pun intended) I’ve decided to switch my blogs from the Disqus commenting system to Intense Debate.

There are a number of things I like better about Intense Debate, vs Disqus. Intense Debate has a nicer dashboard. And they can import comments from my blogs into their database so they are all in one place.

Intense Debate still doesn’t email my replies to comments to non-registered users, which is a bummer. I would prefer to have an email sent out to all my commenters, informing them of a reply. So… though it’s by no means required, if you want to get in on this commenting community, I recommend you claim your comments and sign up. There are lots of blogs starting to be part of Intense Debate.

Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to get the comments that were in Disqus to import back into Wordpress itself, or into Intense Debate, and I apologize if your recent comment is no longer showing up. But please feel free to comment now, as I do think I’m staying with this comment platform!

Now to find me some weight loss pills to drop these ten freakin’ pounds I have gained back… ugh! I am working hard on getting rid of them, I’m tired of them!

The new version of Wordpress (2.5) has Gravatars built in. It took me a while to understand Gravatars, but finally I do, and really they are pretty neat.

A Gravatar is basically just a little picture that is related to your email address. And when you post a comment to a Wordpress 2.5 blog, WP will check if your email address exists in the Gravatar database. If so, it shows your little picture by your name.

It’s cool! If you don’t have a Gravatar associated with your email address, then a generic image will show. It’s boring.

Getting a Gravatar is free, and fun. Mine, as you can see, is Tatum. I have it linked here. If I reply to a comment of yours, this picture will show next to my comment as well.

So.. what are you waiting for! Getch yerself a Gravatar!

Though I’m not quite sure yet. I think I get OpenID… just like finally I get del.icio.us. Here is my OpenID page if you care to see:

So with OpenID… it has to be a URL / domain name. I guess… you can use your own domain name. If you don’t have a domain, you can sign into one of the companies (like ClaimID) and they give you a pseudo domain name that is your OpenID.

I think I was thinking OpenID is more than it is. I was thinking it was a social type network thing… and I guess it can be, but it’s not really, yet.

What is it, you may ask? OpenID is an ID you can use to log into websites that support it. When you post to a blogger/blogspot blog, it will give you the option of using your OpenID as one of your logins (if the blogger has set it up this way). But.. as far as I can tell, you have to use one of the publicly hosted OpenID sites to host the OpenID. ClaimID is one of them. Then… when you log in using your OpenID, the login page checks… err, checks something, not sure what, to confirm your OpenID and log you in.

What does it check? What does it know what to check? The geeky side of me wants to know!

I was thinking OpenID was a website in and of itself. Well it is, but you can’t get an OpenID from the OpenID website! Or at least I don’t think so. You get one through ClaimID or sites like it, such as MyOpenID. How does ClaimID talk to OpenID? No idea. Maybe someone will come along and clear this up.

I was thinking OpenID was a website where you could enter your information, link to other people with OpenIDs, and have a good old time. But… it is not. However, ClaimID seems to be, though it’s limited. You can claim your websites, and you can have contacts that have other ClaimIDs. I have one.. Johann The Dog. So if you have a ClaimID OpenID, I hope you’ll consider being my friend… my ClaimID is very lonely!

I need some home theater furniture to sit in while I figure this all out. OpenId really should be easier to understand than this! Or, sometimes, I’m just a bit slow.

One of the things I really enjoy about browsing to other blogs, is checking out things in the side bar and clicking them to see what they are. That’s how I found VerveEarth.

It looks pretty cool! I don’t even remember what blog I saw it on now… oops. Anyway, you can put in your blog and info, and then you can see what other people are around you and read their blogs.

They do need to be able to allow people to put in multiple blogs. Since I have six blogs, it’s not really practical for me to put all six in. So if I could relate them all to my one login, that’d be better. Guess I need to suggest that to them.

It’s a kinda fun community kind of website!

It was hard to find a picture without a dog! Don’t tell my sister this is her.. LOL.

Wordless Wednesday