Earn Money Online: There is no Short Cut

It is fascinating to see that there are so many blogs and websites to help people with earning money. So much content is produced in this field that I never feel the need of buying an ebook or get enrolled in a course or pay anyone anything for learning how to earn money online. I have read extensively about this field in the last 2 and half years simply because I want to become a top Blogger. A top Blogger means a highly successful Blogger who earns a lot of money through online. The main secret is writing about a topic that has good prospects for advertisements and traffic.

So, you don’t need to become a genius to realize that with same number of traffic, a car blog will earn money than an entertainment blog or a politics blog. We all know that topics related to business and finance, technology, cars bring more money than most topics in blogging. So, if we just open a blog say about car or mobile phone and then write some entries or outsource the content production work to a third world country bloggers and then we should be able to earn a lot of money. Well, ask any problogger and they will say that it is not easy. You may wonder that why it is not easy. Blogging is easy. Anyone can type and write some entries. Google is there to give you money with Adsense. You can open a blog at Blogspot at free of charge even. I have done it. I have opened some blogs in Blogspot and I did not to spend even one dollar for setting up the blogs.

The catch is that when something is easy then there is a lot of competition. You want to write abut car and earn money. Yes, thousands of people want to do the same thing. Suppose, there is a new model of Toyota car in the market. You write about it and then you will find that many blogs have covered it too. So, you are in cut throat competition. There is no guarantee that your entry will hit the first page of Google. In fact, everyone wants to be in the first page of Google search.

If you want your blog to shine and get a lot of visitors every day then you will need to work very hard. You need to write good content. You need to promote them actively and aggressively. You need to make sure that some other bloggers give link to your entries. You have to know about your competitors in your blog topic. You need to subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds so that you know about the latest developments about your field. All these things are hard work and they need time. Really, I feel to laugh at everyone who claims that they will teach you to how to become rich by blogging one hour every day. There is really no short cut in earning money. Think of real life. Is there any short cut to earn money? I guess not unless you are doing something illegal or unethical. The same goes to blogging too. In fact, most of the hours of a day goes by reading about my blog topics rather than writing about the topics. I need to read to know more and always get updated about what is happening. Let us go back to the example of Toyota car. If you do not read then how you can know what model will come when?

I admit that some people are genius and they can do anything faster than average people. Well, their number is few and that is why they are called as genius. If you are a genius then normal human rules don’t apply for you. You can become a university professor at the age of 20. You can create a new software in a week. Yes, you can do all these things at a very short time. However, most people are average and they need time and effort to build something- even in earning money online.

How Life Changes in Blogging and Blog Networks

In the last few days, we have seen several reports and discussions about blog networks. It seems that many blog networks are facing a tough time to make enough revenues to sustain themselves. In fact, the recent slowdown in US economy is having its negative impact on everything including blog network business. I was surprised to see that top networks like Weblog Inc (Under AOL) and Gawker Media have decreased the amount of money they pay to their bloggers. Then, the sad news came that Know More Media was going to stop its operation from today (1 August 2008).

I used to write for them and I was one of the most successful bloggers for the network. Many of you may face similar condition in future. The best thing to do is to take blogging seriously. Fortunately, I had back up plans even from 2 years ago and I have started working on a new blog called SouthAsiaFair.

The lesson I learnt from the latest setback is that you have to take blogging very seriously if you want survive here.

What is a Blog? Why not a Website?

When I tell others that I am a Blogger and I write on some blogs then often, I get the question: what is a blog? What is the difference between a website and a blog? Yes, these two are very common questions. Then, I also hear this question that a blog is like a diary of a person or like journal or log. So, how I earn my livelihood from blogging? I have heard these questions a lot.

Frankly, I do not see too many differences between a blog and a website. I have some experience of designing and maintaining websites before I started blogging. The best part of a blog is that almost everything is automated. You do not need to give that amount of time for designing and maintaining. In fact, when I had my own website, I had to give a lot of time for just designing, maintaining and updating it. That is why, I love to write on blogs instead of websites. When it comes to website design, I am very poor and that is perhaps why, I love Blogger/Blogspot of Google. I can write my entry and then upload it within a few minutes. Sometimes, I can upload my entry in less than one minute.

A blog is easy to set up and the best part is that you can do it without spending one dollar. I do two kinds of blogging. I blog for Know More Media- one of the top blogs in Internet today. Then, I have my own personal blogs (including this one- Top Blogging) and all of my personal blogs are in Blogger/Blogspot. So, I don’t need to spend a cent for maintaining my personal blogs. If I had gone for a website for myself then it would need money. You may argue that there are some free hosting services but they are not really free in the end. They are advertisement supported.

The best thing with Blogs is that you can easily add new features. For example, earlier today, I added sitemter in this blog and it took just one minute for me. All the pages get linked to the homepage automatically. I know that most of you are already aware of these things. Still, I wrote about this matter because I know from my own experience that there are many many people who still do not know about blogging and also about the advantages that a blog has over a website.

Welcome to Top Blogging

Hello, a warm welcome to all of the readers of this blog. I opened an account in Blogger with this name and domain in March 2007. That time, I had little knowledge about blogging and I got frustrated after a few weeks. Well, I was too busy too with my other blogs. I have been professionally blogging since March 22, 2006. By the way, March 22 is my birthday too. So, it is 26 months of pro-blogging career for me. I have seen ups and downs in this career. It took exactly 1 year for me to get some decent success in blogging. Then, I did not have to look behind and I am moving quite smoothly these days.

It is not that I have seen amazing success in blogging. However, I am very happy with what I have got in blogging so far. More than everything, I am happy to be in a career that I really enjoy and is never boring. Yes, I never felt that blogging is boring. Of course, I felt many times that it is a very tough and challenging job but never got bored.

I am very busy with my other blogs and I always read a lot about blogging, earning money online, search engine optimization, advertisements etc etc. I love to read a lot and that is perhaps why, I can give less time for writing.

Anyway, I like to write about different things related about blogging in this blog. I know that I cannot give a lot of time for it. Still, if you come here then you will find some useful information about blogging.