make money online diary blog

I'm Still Here

2010-11-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

Wow! It has been a trying couple of weeks. I am not an IT person but, I wish I was. We have repeatedly had trouble with posting on both http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ and http://bertsboobtubeblog.com/. While it has been extremely frustrating, Bert has been a trooper and just kept writing his way through it. He has been able to make a workable situation out of a problem that was threatening to shut us down before we even really got started. I only tell you this to sort of explain where I've been lately.

Now on to another traffic driving tip. We have signed for all the gadgets that people can use to track and follow us. Facebook, RSS and my sons' personal favorite, Twitter. I don't really understand some of these. I mean Facebook is pretty self explanatory and, as I've outlined in a previous artlicle, has led to some good traffic tresults for both of our blogs. I think I understand the basics behind Twitter. But, whether I understand or not is irrelevant. We are up to almost 100 Twitter followers and we are generating multiple visits a day from this.
So, check out the sites and follow us on Twitter. If you're a blogger, let us know and we'll follow you on Twitter as well.

Craigslist

2010-10-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

What is the subject of your blog? As you can see, I have http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ that covers movie news, reviews and opinions. I also have http://bertsboobtubeblog.com/ that tackles television news, reviews and opinions. My son provides the content for both sites, often posting two to four times a day per site. It is my job to find readers for his blogs.
So far we have e-mailed all of our family and friends that we could find e-mail addresses for. We have set up a Facebook page (Feel free to send us a friend request. Look for Berts Blogs). Now, I have taken out Craigslist ads advertising each site.
Please understand that the number one thing driving visitors to either of these sites is the quality and the quantity of my sons posts. But, all of the above mentioned things that we are doing does send a few visitors each day to each site. I must admit, however, that Facebook has sent us the most traffic of any of these.
So, what are you doing to drive traffic?

Submit Your URL to Search Engines

2010-10-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you have a blog set up, and you are writing every day, you want people to come and read it, right? One of the the first things you are going to want to do is submit your site address to search engines. You can tell all of your friends and family (which I hope you have done) about your new venture but, that will not be enough to drive the volume of traffic needed if you ever want to make any money from your blog. You need strangers to be able to find you as well. Search will hopefully help find you some more readers. Submit your url to the following:

http://www.google.com/addurl/
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

It will take some time for you to get noticed by the search engines, but eventually you will start to see some visitors showing up at your site because of something they typed into a search engine.

I'm Not an IT Expert

2010-10-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

We had a mini crises a couple of days ago. My son had gone to see Jackass 3D and was anxious to get home and make a posting to http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ . He is pretty particular about how he wants his site to look. After all, what's the point in writing several times a day if the site is not pleasing to look at or you can't find your way around to the information you may be looking for? I think he has done a great job. The site looks great. The catagories in the sidebar are easy to figure out. So, all in all, the site has a nice crisp and professional look to it.
On Tuesday he posted his review to the above mentioned movie and something happened. We are still not sure what happened but, but articles were bleeding in to the sidebar, the catagories were pushed to the bottom of the page. All in all, it was not very pleasing to the eye. We had advertised the fact that there was new post up, a post reviewing the number 1 movie of the week no less. And when you went to the site, only half of the post was visible. And visits went up and up and up.
We were a little embarassed and panicked over the whole sitiuation. What do we do? How do we fix this? I had no clue. My son is a little more computer savvy than I am but, he was stumped as well. It's not like we are a big company with an 'IT' department or anything. We're just a couple of guys having fun with a blog or two. At least we didn't think we had an 'IT' department but, it turns out that we did. After a bit of time on the phone with our hosting company, HostGator, we were back in business. The level of 24/7 technical support that they offer is outstanding. We would have been dead in the water without them. Thank-you Hostgator!
I know you probably came here today to find out what I am doing to drive traffic. If you don't have some good, inexpensive tech support and your site goes down, your daily visitors will go down with it.

Facebook

2010-10-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

Are you on Facebook? We have received more external link visitors from Facebook than any where else this month. I started it by posting a link to http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ to my Facebook status. Now, I don't know if you would call me anti-social or what, but I only have about 95 friends. The day I posted the link in my status, we got 5 visitors to the blog. My son thought that was pretty good so he posted it to his status. We got 5 more visits from that. Then, he created a Facebook page called Berts Blogs http://facebook.com/bertsblogs . In the first week he has almost 200 friends of the page and this has turned out to be a nice, steady source of traffic. The last time I checked, we had around 50 visits this month clicking over from Facebook.

Lesson: Advertise your site on Facebook.

Post Every Day!

2010-10-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

I have done a few different things to get the word out about my blogs, but so far it does appear that the best thing that I am doing is trying to post on each site at least once and often times more, every day. For http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/, it is harder to post every day because I don't always have time to take in a movie. When I started the site, I only wanted it to be movie reviews. The challenge that I am facing is going to see four or five movies a week, so I have amended the purpose of the site to include any relevant movie or celebrity news. This has allowed me to post two to three times a day.
With http://bertsboobtubeblog.com/, I have been able to give a little jump start to site traffic using this knowledge. I think I am finding an audience. Posting once or twice a day, every day, has lead to about 7 more visits a day than the box office blog was getting in its first week or two.

Lesson: Post AT LEAST once or twice or a day.

I'm Back!

2010-10-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome (back) to my blog. As you can probably tell, I got a little side tracked. Let me give you a little recap.
A while back, December 2008 to be exact, I started two blogs. One was a site called "backwardfuture" and the other was called http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/. I was writing backward future and my son, who lives in Hollywood due to his love of movies, was writing http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ . In addition to writing backwardfuture, I was also responsible for marketing the sites. I found all sorts of information available on how to drive more traffic to my blogs. I started this site in the hopes of maybe being the guinea pig for other would be online entrepeneurs. I would sort through the volumes of ideas available online regarding increasing site traffic, put into practice what I thought to be some of the better ideas, and post my progress (or lack there of) on this site.
And then life happened. I was unemployed when I started this venture. In the spring of 2009, I took a job in radio as a media buyer. I am working close to 50 hours a week but have finally settled into a routine that will allow me a bit of time to invest into blogging. My son didn't think things were growing fast enough and lost interest. But, it was actually him who reignited my interest in blogging. (Thanks Bert!)
And so here we are. When I bought the domain names in December 2008, I bought "backwardfuture" for a year and http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ for two years. I don't know why I did it that way but, in my defense, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Needless to say, the "backwardfuture" name was gone but we still owned Bertsboxofficeblog. After a call to Hostgator, who I have used since day one for hosting, we were back in business. http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ went live again on September 27, 2010! Every bit of content since its inception is still there. And on October 9, 2010 we added to the family by creating http://bertsboobtubeblog.com/ .
The goal is to reach 10,000 visits a day for each blog and I intend to use this blog as a diary for how we are doing with that goal and what we are doing to achieve it. I invite you to follow along. Maybe we can all learn a few things along the way.

Learning As I Go

2009-02-03T12:09:00.000-08:00

I have been experimenting the last few days and the one thing I am finding out is not to take shortcuts. With http://bertsboxofficeblog.com, I have been posting pretty regularlyand I've noticed a nice steady growth in daily traffic. Nothing spectacular, but keeping right up with my 10% increase in visits per week. I haven't been able to get to as many movies as I have wanted, but when I don't have a move to write about, I'll post box office numbers or a list of my favorite movies in a given category. My goal is to have something fresh up everyday, something that is hopefully interesting enough so that people want to come back tomorrow to see what's new.
With http://backwardfuture.com, I wrote everyday last week but then I figured out how to use a new toy. I am not very technically smart about computers so, when I figure out how to do something new, I tend to overdo it. Videos are all over the internet and I finally figured out to copy videos to my site. I did that for 3 days in a row and my visits per day went down everyday. So, I think I learned a lesson. The people that were coming to my site seem to be more interested in my take on things than on a regurgitated video. Today I made a fresh post and took down two of the videos and the numbers are slowly rising. Like I said, I'm learning as I go.

Keep on Posting

2009-01-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

I have posted on http://backwardfuture.com and http://bertsboxofficeblog.com everyday this week. I may have posted on one site or the other everyday for a week but, this is the first time that I have posted on both sites everyday for a week. And every single day visits were better than the corresponding day for last week. Maybe my goals are not very realistic but, I figured any business, whether its a blog or a real actual physical location, that could grow at the rate of 10% a week would eventually have to be successful. And, for the month of January, I have surpassed 10% growth in visitors per week per site. Now, what Iam trying to figure out is, is that growth going to be sustainable, easier to achieve or harder to achieve as these two blogs become a little better known. Now, if you have a blog, go to blogcatalog. Just click the button on the right column of this site and it will take you there. This one directory is sending me a fair amount of traffic. Look me up, my screen name is rlrw2. Add me as a friend and I will return the favor.

How Did This Come About ?

2009-01-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you but, I spend a lot of time online each and every day reading. Most of what I read has to do with becoming a successful blogger. I have worked in television advertising for years. I have always wanted to work for myself and with tv being so expensive and watching newspapers cutting back on staff or folding altogether, the internet just seemed like the right place for me to turn. So, one day, sitting in front of the computer I typed 'make money online' into yahoo search. Needless to say, I started reading and within a month of typing that phrase into a search engine, I had a blog. And then another. And then another. And I still read and read and read about this topic everyday. My two favorites are http://thekeywordacademy.com/ and http://momscashblog.com/.
I have only had my own blog(s) for just over a month. I made my first post on http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ on December 18. My first post on http://backwardfuture.com was on January 5th and I started this site only last week. My ultimate goal is to be able to do this full time and work from home. Why do you want to blog?

Getting the Word Out

2009-01-26T09:26:00.000-08:00

I had been feeling a bit under the weather for the last few days. My last post here was Thursday when I talked about how important posting regulalrly was. My last post on http://backwardfuture.com was also on Thusday. I did make an Oscar nomination post on http://bertsboxofficeblog.com on Friday and, wouldn't you know, the boxoffice blog numbers were considerably better than the sites that I didn't post on. Yesterday, I was feeling a bit better and made a post on the backward future and the numbers came right back and then some. The lesson here would seem to be post, post, post, write, write, write.
But, anyway, I wanted to tell you some of the things that I have done to get the word out about the backward future site. If you remember, last week I mentioned that I had done a lot of social marketing for my box office blog that I didn't do for the backward future.
I have done these things for both sites. I registered with Technorati, MyBlogLog, and Blogcatalog. They have all brought me some traffic. I have added the URL for both sites to Google search (http://www.google.com/addurl/), Yahoo search (http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html) and MSN (http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx) and I have had visitors from all 3 search engines to each site.
Today, I posted to all three (including this one) sites.
I have some other things that I am going to do today that I will report on tomorrow.

1-21-09 Late Post

2009-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the late post. It's been a crazy day. I did put up a fresh post on both http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ and http://backwardfuture.com/ . Note to self, visits to the site are up when I post regularly

Make Money Online Diary: In the VERY Beginning

2009-01-21T07:14:00.000-08:00

Good Morning,

After I made my 'In the Beginning" post yesterday, it occurred to me that this was really only relevant if you either have or are thinking of getting a blog. I am really a computer dummy. I did not have a clue how to set up a blog once I decided that I wanted one (or more). To actually do the nuts and bolts of setting up a blog from scratch, I was clueless. I came across this article, and even an idiot like me was able to follow along and get a blog up and working, http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/02/25/starting-a-blog-in-5263-words/ . I have never met these people either online or in person. I don't know them and they don't know me. I only point that out because I want you to know I have nothing to gain, either financial or otherwise if you follow this step by step guide. Once you go through that article, you may better understand where I am in the process of getting this internet business off the ground.

Make Money Online Diary: In the Beginning

2009-01-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

Hello, and thanks for following along. I started this Blog as a way for me to track my daily activities as I try to grow my two blogs. This way you can follow along and I will be able to go back and review my posts and track what is and is not working. This would probably be a good time to point out that I have taken completely different strategies in promoting each blog.
Today I want to talk about http://bertsboxofficeblog.com/ . For this site, I have worked on what I later to be found out to be called 'social marketing'. I scraped together about 150 e-mail addresses between my saved e-mail addresses and my sisters. I sent out an e-mail to all of them explaining my new business venture and inviting them to visit the site. Probably half of those people went to the site and some of them have become fans and visit on a regular basis.
Next, I had all of my kids write a little blurb on their Facebook and Myspace pages promoting the site and including a link from their home pages. Right now, Facebook is first followed by Myspace as far as visits for 'Links from external page'. I also talk to everybody that I come into contact with and include a link in my signature to the site in all new e-mail correspondence.
I have not done ANY social marketing for http://backwardfuture.com/ . Currently, the box office blog is bringing roughly 10% more visits than my other site.. My next post will go over the non social marketing things that I have done for both sites.
I almost forgot, I put up new posts on each site.

Welcome

2009-01-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to Make Money Online Diary Blog. I am starting this blog for a couple of reasons. I have started two other blogs in the last month or so. I want to use this site as a diary or journal of my daily activities as I work to make a success of the first two blogs, something that I can look back over as I experiment with different things. The other reason that I am starting this blog, is simple. There are a lot of sites currently out there that will show you step by step how to make money but, I haven't really seen a site that let's you follow along and experience the trials and tribulations, successes and failures following somebody while they attempt to learn a new business. The two blogs that I started last month are my first ventures into making money on line. They are primitive but they are mine. I hope you'll follow along. If you want to visit the sites and watch as they evolve, go to http://bertsboxofficeblog.com or my other site at http://backwardfuture.com .