I’m not an expert at blogging and I’m not an expert at making money at blogging. I don’t think anyone actually can be considered an expert at any point because there is always someone doing it better or even doing it worse. We learn from one another and from ourselves and therefore we basically all create our own success.

This being said, from the information I’ve gathered by watching videos, reading blogs around the world and watching this video, I’ve thought up two basic ways you’re probably not making money from your blog and the way to change that is to quit doing them in my opinion.

1. Take Time To Build The Relationship

Everyone wants more money and the faster the better. I also want money and more importantly do I want to have more fun in my life and do things that make me happy. I want more free time with my family as does everyone else around. I also want to help people and give all that I can.

I feel a blog can help with this tremendously because it’s a long haul process that can do wonders for personal pleasure or business.

You can easily email your friends and family and co-workers and tweet articles you find interesting and get on Facebook and the like but when it comes to really giving people something good, bring them back to your blog and that’s where a great new relationship can truly come together at.

Blog consistently and put some effort into your words and bring passion to the table. Do that as well as keep at it. Literally put some hours into your blog and treat it as a business and keep going, improve as you go, learn from others, communicate, get to know people, build your list, and never try and sell people on an idea or on a product you “believe in” just to make some quick cash. Do that and you’ll loose people right away.

Really focus on being there and helping people through your blog. Allow guest posts on your blog and share with other bloggers as well.

Bottom line is, build up a good relationship by using your blog to really connect with your readers and in the end things will come together nicely. Your readers are what will be paying your bills because some of them will become customers so treat them right and give them what they want. Don’t just give them crap. Give them quality even beyond a relationship.

2. Take Charge of Your Audience: Blog About What You Know (Become A Leader)

If you just blog about something you read on another blog because you thought it was a cool idea, that’s great. But don’t do that all the time. Make your blog have a purpose and make it about what you really care and know something about. If you know a lot about music and instruments, build a blogging business around that.

Don’t just go around telling people how to make money by blogging about making music though if you yourself have no clue how to do it.

Also, keep your readers informed of your decisions. If you just start placing banner adds or marketing products on your site and don’t involve your audience, things will probably not go so smoothly. I am currently not making money yet with this blog though I do intend to do just that.

How? By giving my loyal audience of great people who come to see what I’ve been up to and read my words great quality every time. Period. What products and services am I going to give them? I’m not sure at this point. It’s been on my mind for quite some time and even though life is all about taking action and just going for it, I have to make sure I’m not just giving them complete crap with my actions I might take.

That being said, I’m still focusing myself on making sure I’m writing about topics I know something about or am truly inspired by and am providing quality, building up relationships and allowing them to help me make money when the time comes.

I recommend every blogger who is serious about making money online or at least helping someone else start an online business do the same.

What do you do about these two ideas? Do you do them or not and how well do they work out for you?

I was just over at Hot Blog Tips watching the video Keith posted about having a plan. It made me think about some things that for some reason so many people are doing and yet I wonder if they’re actually making money or just talking the talk. It’s a rather hott issue but I just wanted to see what you all think.

1. Follow The Right Crowd

I have this trouble quite a lot myself and it can even be a scary thought when you know the right people are giving you advice because it’s advice you really should take. But that’s just it. How do you know it’s advice you should be taking?

A lot of bloggers say to blog about what you’re passionate about and the money will follow. However, there does have to actually be some competition for you to make money because what you’re blogging about has to be profitable, right? Yes. So, follow the crowd that says you should blog about what you know and not just about what you’re reading others blog about.

Same in life, do what you know and don’t just follow a crowd who does something and you’re seeing them achieve success at.

2. Do Your Own Thing

You ultimately have to just do something and it comes down to doing it on your own. You can definitely have help from others but you still have to just go after it and do it and make something out of yourself. If you want it just go after it and keep going until you get it. Blogging? We’re all blogging because we’re writing articles like this and talking about whatever we’re talking about. Does it make some people upset? Sure. Does it make other people happy? Sure does. But we’re doing it and even though not everyone is making money we’re still going for it and just doing it. So do that.

What do you do and what crowd do you follow?

Twitter is an awesome program for a lot of reasons. The main reason is because it’s a very simple and powerful tool if used correctly. You really can do wonders with it and it’s just so damn simple to use. I myself use HootSuite most of the time now for Re-Tweeting articles I find worthy on the net but I don’t just tweet the newest articles.

I usually can remember the main blogs I visit on a daily basis but also like to use Google Reader so I can rip through what I want to read quickly and leave my comments and Re-Tweet what I want to and here are five reasons I don’t JUST tweet the newest articles.

1. Helping Someone Else’s Killer Idea

I often re-tweet older blogs posts sometimes because I read something that is just amazing and want to help the person out by showing off their hard work. Everyone likes a bit of a helping hand with things and if you find an article that’s a month old and is just amazing to the point beyond words, why not share it with all your followers? Sure, 300 out of 10,000 might have already read it but it shows you’re bringing it back because you want to show it off again.

2. Going The Extra Mile

It’s easy to just re-tweet all the new articles at the very of blogs. Sure it’s not exactly hard to go back in to older posts but it can take a longer time because you have to scroll down and do a bit of extra work. You should really read the articles and if you have to scroll down, read the title, then if interested read the article and THEN re-tweet things it’s just more work on your part. Therefore, it’s nice to go the extra mile for someone and really do a bit of extra work. Who knows, they just might for you some day. Give and get.

3. Inspiration

Bringing up an older post to someone who’s not read it can possibly really inspire them and create a whole new post in itself. You never know what’s to come and inspiration can hit at any moment. This is great especially if you’re reading an old post and a killer idea comes to mind that you absolutely have to share. You could re-tweet the post and then link directly to it on your post that was inspired by it. Then, you might just get double tweets than you normally do on YOUR blog post.

You might but but it never hurts to give it a go, right?!

4. I’m Behind A Couple Days

Sometimes we all just get behind and get lazy. We’re human, it happens and when it does we have to go back and catch up. Granted, we’re not all going to like every post that’s out there and you may like 2 out of every 5 posts you read from a blog you visit daily to see what’s new. Well, if you scroll down to see where you left off and something catches your eye instead of just going with what the newest article is, who knows what you’ll find out. It’s worth it. Just go for it.

5. It’s Fun

Seriously, I’m not making money at this stuff yet and I really want to help people in some way through this blog and through my other blog(s) but ultimately, as you’ll read if you’re new to this blogging thing, it takes time and a lot of effort put into it. Therefore, if you can’t do it just for fun and you’re ONLY  in it for the money you’re on a long hard road to failure. Have fun tweeting, talking, communicating, posting, everything. I have fun sharing content because I like people to not only get their great ideas out there shared by me but I like people seeing the great ideas I’ve shared and then wanting to connect with me because the info I shared was crazy cool and they really enjoyed it.

Ok, that paragraph is a bit long but again, this is fun so just have fun and start tweeting.

What do you Tweet and why do you do it that way?

It appears to me that a lot of people don’t take blogging seriously. I don’t understand this exactly. If you write about something you’re truly passionate about and can come about making money with it to the extent you can earn a living by it then why shouldn’t it be taken seriously? This post isn’t about how to make money or why you want to make money blogging. This post is about taking blogging seriously.

Blogging

Blogging is basically writing articles online for the world to see. It’s not much different from a website except that it’s updated a bit more (or a lot) and the latest information is at the top. It also allows you to comment on articles you’re interested in and share ideas and thoughts with others and meet new people. Heck, blogging allows a whole new world to come about that with a regular website would never be possible. And the best is that you can certainly have a blog on your website also.

Hard Work

What a lot of people don’t realize is that this job is hard work. Not easy. It’s simple once you understand some thing and I’m not by any means claiming I know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t for the most part but I’m doing it because it’s worth it to me and because I want to make a full time living with my online efforts (my blog(s)) in the future by helping other people with what I have to offer.

It is probably harder work than most people realize unfortunately. I say it’s unfortunate because for anyone new to blogging who goes in thinking it’s going to be a bed of roses and quick cash, you’re in for a RUDE awakening. I’m not trying to discourage you, just help you understand that blogging is not easy in the long run. And that’s what it takes: A long run.

Time

Speaking of long run is time. Blogging takes a lot of time to develop into something spectacular enough to make money or even to build credibility. Honestly, and I’ve been here before, what makes people think that blogging is a quick and easy way to make money is beyond me. Sure there’s AdSense or affiliate marketing and such but even that takes a lot of effort on your part. Above all, experiment and that takes time.

However… With that time you’re going to take to “try” and make money I would suggest building a lot of credibility with your readers and build up a good loyal community of people who get to know each other, and you, and respect one another and like coming back to see what you have to offer. Use your time wisely.

Money

Aahhh… The magical word! Without money where would we be? I say this because it takes money to do just about anything in this world so quitting your day job to become a full time blogger is probably a wonderful idea, once you actually are making consistent money from your blog first. Money will follow only if you have something to offer at a price higher than free. You have to have something of value to give your readers that in return will make them want to pay for it because they find it valuable enough in their lives to exchange that with you.

How do you sell something or make money blogging? Watch and listen to other bloggers who know what they’re doing. Learn it the best way you know how. Apply what you’ve learned and keep doing things until you actually make money.

Or…

Create something of value. Build up a good list of people to read your blog and build relationships with those people. Sell it to them.

Which option do I recommend? Why not both? They’re almost basically the same thing. Just get out there and think of something you want to do and actually do it. No excuses. Just do it. If you mess up then learn and keep going.

What does everyone think?

We all lie. I’ve lied and I know you have too. Everyone says they aren’t going to but end up lying anyway due to the fact that sometimes that’s all they’d like to do so they don’t have to take responsibility for their actions. The problem with this is that if you don’t take responsibility with your actions how then can you take the credit for your rewards?

With Your Blog

There’s thousands upon thousands of blogs online these days that all have something to talk about. Hell, off the blog topic, on Twitter alone you can find out pretty much anything you’re looking for if you’re following the right people. So there’s obviously ways of getting information across the world easily but you already knew that.

Back to your blog though. If you lie on your blog and you don’t take responsibility for it then how on earth can you say you did good when things turn out well for you? You need to fess up and just admit you messed up and explain your action plan for doing better the next time. Millions of people can see your blog and if you mess up, sure they’re going to know but at least they’ll know it when you fess up and admit you’re just as human as they are.

With Your Life

If you go around lying to everyone just because you would rather have things easy you’re only going to hurt yourself in the end. One lie adds to another and before you know it you’re in deep doo doo. Stop in your tracks and just admit you messed up. This is even more important than blogging because this could be to your boss (unless you’re a pro blogger and actually have money coming in) or to your friends or family or anyone who is important to you. Don’t lie, it’s not worth it.

With Your Money

I can’t go into how important it is NOT to lie with your money in one paragraph so I’ll do the best I can here. All I can say is don’t. You may be wondering how on earth you can lie with your money? Simple. Overspend or use a credit card and not a debit card or cash. Cash is the safest by all means but at least with a debit card you’re not AS bad about spending.

With cash, when you’re done, you’re done. There’s no more and that means there’s literally no more you can spend. With a debit card it depends on either your bank or the place of purchase. I’ve gone deep into the whole in my checking account for just over spending by a few dollars. Worth it, hell no! With a credit card I’m sure it’s much worse and the interest just doesn’t do you any favors. I can’t talk from personal experience on this one though… I’ve never owned a credit card and never plan to for as long as I can help it. Why? Do you really have to ask that question?

So, is it true… Do lies really make big messes with any and/or every area of your life or can you get by with lying for a long time? What’s the point of lying anyway and lastly if you lie about something and NOT fess up to it do you actually get to take credit when you DO tell the truth and things work out or not?

As my readers know (and for those of you who don’t, now you will) my posts are scheduled in advance and the title of this one is just a bit misleading, but not by much. At the time of this writing the day and date is Wednesday, March 17^th 2010. We’ve basically completely moved into our new apartment and my girlfriend is due to give birth any day now. In fact, we thought it was going to happen last night but it didn’t. We’ll see…

Out With The Old…

The apartments we were living in were shitty. There’s just no other way to put it positively because all I could say is we could do better, and now we are. We lived in a rut and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out. It was a mess and filthy and things had only gotten worse as we’d lived there. Some of it our fault and a lot of it not our fault.

We had a lot of stuff to move and I had to let go of some good (back when I’d bought them) piece of furnature that roommates (and friends) had been rough with and destroyed. Yes the furnature is still useable but nowhere near what it was when I’d first bought it.

Last but not least on the old is the fact that somehow, some way, disgustingly enough we had gotten cockroatches at the old place and that is NO place to have new born baby come into the world around. That was the last straw for us. Period!

…In With The New

Aaawww, the new! Wonderful and yet not so much at first. Probably not why you would think though. It was a change and that wasn’t mainly the reason it bothered me just a bit. It was because of the area I wasn’t used to and was a bit fearful (dunno why exactly, stupid eh?) of and yet the apartments are spectacular. The area isn’t bad but I’ve been so sheltered my entire life that I get so used to one way of doing things and then when something changes all hell breaks loose. Well, not now!

This place is nice and I’m getting used to it as a new chapter in my life. The only bad part about the move was the fact that the first night we stayed here I had a real bad stomach ache out of no where and it lasted for just several days. It was bad. No throwing up but it hurt like hell nontheless. I got through it and I believe I actually ended up swetting it out!

Also, we were blessed to have Seth Bass help us a lot with moving. In fact, he went ahead and set up our crib for us and did up our room and made everything just work very well. He even took apart my computer desk and put it back together better than it had been before. He knows how to work hard and is someone dependable who’s going to be there when you need him.

Changes

All of this has been quite a few changes for me and especially since my relationship with the girl I’m with has been one hell of a rocky one, but what relationship isn’t? We’re getting through things one day at a time and I’m not going to be looking for a job as we’re going to be needing money right away and I’ll still put what effort I can into this blog as our baby comes into the world.

I do have every intention of making money with either this blog (somehow) or another blog so that I can be free from having to get up and go to work. I’ve never liked doing that, I’ll be honest. I also am reading CashFlow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert T. Kiyosaki in order to gain some information on investing and becoming financially free instead of having to depend on job security and all that.

What all this has to do with each other? It’s change, that’s what.

A New Life

Finally a new life and new things on the way. I need to now sit down and get organized once and for all. I need to get my life straightened out even more and get out my notebook and start writing down actual goals for my life (have never done that, ever). I need to figure out how much debt I have and pay that off, start saving up for a cushion, reading more books, learn to become the best parent I can be, the best boyfriend (and soon, just maybe, husband) I can be and above all take complete control of my life.

That sounds like one hell of a plan to me.

What does everyone think?

I was just over at Site Sketch 101 reading about how to blog as a newbie which is a guest post from Jen Smith about some things that are important when writing and maintaining a good blog. She hit a lot of good key points and something came to mind while reading what she had to write: passion. Do you have it and how do you know if you do?

Love To Write

I write about what’s going on in my life or at least that’s what I started writing when I first started my blog. I won’t go into detail there… Some of it wasn’t pretty and I’d rather not remember or go back to those times… Extremely hurtful.

I like to write though. I like writing about what I learn and sharing it with other people who are also interested in what I write about. I don’t have a niche and that’s fine with me. I talk about blogging and success and whatever is on my mind at the time. I do know the importance of finding a niche and talking about that in order to really create something great with my blog. Bottom line though, I love to write in general and it’s what keeps me going.

Content Flows In Like Waves

I do have writer’s blog sometimes but life experiences and just feeling calm once in a while and taking things slowly helps content flow in easily. Sometimes I even have so much info flowing into my brain that I feel like I couldn’t type it fast enough let alone write it on paper. Who can honestly type slower than writing things down anyway?

When content keeps flowing in and one of those days just happens to be great where you can think of a bazillion things to write about, figure something out and get those ideas out some how. They’ll help for later on.

There’s Never Enough Time

Even with great ideas coming in sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s enough time in the day to get all those out and some ideas are then lost. They may return but you won’t know unless you had some way to remember what that idea was that you previously lost. Use your time wisely and try to get everything you can down if it’s important enough. There’s no time like the now.

Money… What’s That?

When you’re passionate about it you just won’t care if you make money or not. Sure it’d be nice to make money with what you love writing and doing but you won’t get burned out and get frustrated as much (or at all) if you truly love what you’re talking about or doing. Money will come when things are ready and for now you just love to write.

Butterflies And Maybe A Dollar

When you write, sometimes you may get butterflies because of how great something you wrote turned out. It’s a wonderful feeling I think every blogger has at some point or another. It’s enough to make you want to make money because you feel you could easily do it for the rest of your life but if you never make money you just don’t mind either.

Forever…?

Things change and you may not be a blogger for the rest of your life. You may never live off your blog or you may be able to by tomorrow, depending on how far along your blog is. Either way, are you crazy enough about your content to do what you’re doing for as long as you can dream and imagine doing this?

What are you passionate about that you could just do and keep learning more about in order to get out there and share your love for your topic with the world?

This happens to me from time to time as I read great blog posts by people who I visit on a regular basis. I just got the idea from this post from Karen over at ameaningfulexistence.com when she said, “The money isn’t important, it’s what you can do with the money that is important, namely to have freedom.”

That’s exactly what this blog post is all about: the fact that no one actually wants money at all… They really want what they can DO with the money that they get. At least, that’s what I personally “want” money for.

If you don’t agree with me that’s fine but I’m not entirely sure why you wouldn’t. We all want to have more money so we can do do more in our life and be more… Or do we?

The Million, Billion And Beyond

Can I see myself as a millionaire? Not entirely but that’s because I don’t have a vision of it or have it written down on paper and have no plan of action on how I would go about obtaining that much money in my life. I just might become one but at this state I have no idea if I will or not. The question still remains, however, what I would choose to do with the money once I got it.

Buy a nice brand new luxuries home?

Invest it to make even more money?

Save it for a rainy day… Seriously?!

Give half away and be crazy generous?

The amount of things you could do with even a million dollars is more than I could probably even write a book about. In fact, if someone did write a book about a million things you could do with a million dollars they could probably just about make that much money with the book itself. That’s actually a good idea now that I think about it…

The bottom line here and the reason this post doesn’t have to be so long (probably a good thing as long posts aren’t so popularly looked up, but who cares, right?) is that we don’t just all want money but we want to have enough to be able to do something different than what amount of money we currently have is letting us do.

Some of us would rather not do certain things and aren’t too worried about making a ton of money, and that’s fine. But if you’re in the crowd who really wants a lot more money and you have no clue or plan on what you’re going to do with it or at least not taking some form of thought about finding out what exactly you could be doing with it, it’s basically a waste of your time.

Be the person who has a plan. Be the person who wants so much money to do certain things for them. Don’t be the person who just wants more and more money. And don’t be the person who says they never have enough money. Money is simply endless and never ends at the same time. You will always have money and always want more… Just have a reason for wanting more and be smart about it.

What is your reason for wanting more money? This could be even one hundred dollars more to pay off debt you might have or pay off your car for the very last time after paying on it for years now.

Everyone has a reason (hopefully! ). What’s yours?

This post is a big deal to me. In fact, this post is so important and it is so true and I will admit that I got my inspiration from a couple of places I would like to mention here.

I was reading Rob Sutton’s Secret to Success – One Step Process and it was just about what I thought it would be. Why is this good? Because it goes to show that my mind is on the right track and I am thinking the right things.

My other source came from a very familiar site which is over at TheInfoPreneur.net. It was actually a guest post there that brought about this thought though. Check out If You’re A Consistent Blogger, You’re Dead.

Now on to my post.

You have heard about taking action and if you haven’t then I’m not sure where you’ve been and I’m also not sure I want to be where you’ve been hiding. Action is huge. The right kind of action is even bigger than huge. And it’s not complicated. Taking action is better than taking no action at all and taking the right action comes from learning from mistakes we make and correcting those mistakes for the next time around.

See? Simple.

The finest things in life really are just simple and the reason they’re over looked. We are the ones who make things so damn complicated that we scare ourselves into thinking that we can’t do anything about anything.

Fear

Everyone gets scared but the best part about this is that usually what you fear the most will help you get past what you need to in order to get you one step ahead in life. You need to use fear as a motivator to get past all the fluff and all the feel good crap.

Feeling good is not crap but if it’s not helping you get through tough times or helping you get to the next level of your life then it’s not doing you any favors. Use fear to get you there. THEN feel good. The further you get, the better the feeling good part will get. Don’t believe me? That’s fine but you’ll never know until you give this a shot.

Comfort

We know we all want this. In order to get this you have to go through a bit of fear every now and again and the reason is because it is what makes you better and gets you through life. Everyone fears and those who take action and plunge through it are the ones who get comfort at the end of the road or success. Both comfort and success are very different though used here are very much the same thing.

Use comfort as a means of getting through the fear and where you exactly want to be. Example: You are terrified for whatever reason of getting this new job because you are so used to working where you currently are at for so long. This would be fear obviously. You really want more money and have a written down plan for what you’re going to do. You are excited and can just see a clear picture of what is going to happen once you land the job. It’s not the job itself that is such a great opportunity but what you are going to be able to do and have planned by getting the job that is such a great thing. This would definitely be comfort.

So the next time you’re worried about something, ask yourself just how happy you are with your current results. Then, think of what you could do even more of if you took the step into your fear and what could come out of it. Use that one thing, the step, to drive you towards what you could do if you succeeded.

Last but not least I want to just touch on failure.

If you take that step and have a great idea all planned out and maybe even written down (great!) and end up not getting through that step. I can now think of two things that are going to happen.

1. You are going to be upset for not getting through the step of fear and get down on yourself. This isn’t bad because you can just go back and look at what went wrong and go for it again, using a different method if you’re really serious about getting through it.
2. You are terrified that you’re going to have to go through it again and you may just need an extra shove in the right direction and made a revised plan just in case something goes wrong again. This is the part where you need to learn to have a plan B. In fact, and this is a quote from my favorite author, the only time you don’t need a plan B is when you already have one.

So there you have it.

This didn’t go into great detail about taking action but I hit things how I thought necessary. But what exactly do you do to get yourself through rough times and back into being comfortable after achieving great accomplishment with yourself? Key word, yourself. Do things for yourself yet serve others well.

So I’m asking a couple questions here:

What steps do you take to get yourself through the times of tragedy and back to being comfortable?

How do you keep yourself going?

Do you always have a plan B?

If you do end up “failing” do you just give up or how do you get yourself back on the right path and go after it again and how do you know when you’ve learned from your mistakes?

Please leave a comment below. Thank you.

My girlfriend and I both have been customers of Verizon Wireless here in Iowa where we live and we both like the service quite a lot. She had a prepaid phone when we first started dating a few years ago and her family had Verizon. I came from US Cellular which I still miss a bit but over all Verizon isn’t too bad.

A few weeks ago my girlfriend’s cell phone broke in half after flipping it open. This was a manufacturers defect but because of how long she’d had the phone they wouldn’t do anything about fixing it. I not only went to a service center but also called the company several times and explained the situation in hope that there was something they could do to take care of this for us. Nothing.

They recommended we just buy a new phone but we have no money for that. They said we could file some kind of thing with insurance but we’re already paying six dollars a month, per phone, for insurance – and we have to pay around forty dollars to have this fixed?! Hell no!

Take Action

I called and called and called the company until I finally got someone who would listen to our situation and actually wanted to help us out with our problem. She said there were phones that have discounts and because my line had an annual upgrade they could send us a free phone to replace the one that broke. Then when her line is ready for an upgrade I could get a new phone if I wanted to.

Great! Finally someone who actually gives a damn about their customers. Personally I have not had the best luck with Verizon Wireless but there are a few times when they DO do something worth your while. Am I complaining about the company? Not necessarily. Every company has its policies but when it conflicts with the customer’s best interest I have a hard time liking that.

I do admit that I haven’t had much trouble with Verizon since getting the phone I currently have (the same phone that broke for my girlfriend – the one I’m linking to is actually the newer model from the one I still have) which is the LG VX8360 and had nothing BUT trouble with the Razr phone. I just don’t recommend the Razr but now our roommate has it and is doing just fine.

Conclusion

This isn’t a very long update but after speaking with the customer representative over the phone and her helping me like she did I gave her my blog address and said I would post an update before the end of January about the great service they’d done for my girlfriend and myself.

We haven’t got the new phone yet but it should be here by morning. Let’s hope so!

What do you expect and look forward to when purchasing a new cell phone or just buying something at a store and they say they can’t do something because it’s policy even though you know you’re not the only customer who’s suffering because of their “policy”?