As a network blogger, I know just how hard it is to get a blog up and running up to the point where it actually makes some money. Along the way to that money blogging state, there are going to be alot of hurdles mostly mental blocks and problems that you have to deal with, here are my experiences and some solutions.

Frustration

Getting a blog to finally make money has to be the hardest part in blogging, the frustration that comes along with it is really extreme because the work that you are putting in, you want top dollar for it and the common advertiser will not pay that, most people look for the responsiveness towards the niche before buying ads on the blog. This has alot to do with your RSS readers and traffic to not the blog’s homepage but the inner posts.

This kind of frustration of feeling helpless infront of advertisers usually leads to bloggers selling quality links to underground scum link buyers that buy up in context links for 6 years at a really really small price and in return they get something worth alot more because every blog on the net that is being targeted for links is quality, if it wasn’t then linkbuyers won’t contact you in the first place.

It’s always to get a 2nd opinion from a friend or a constant reader so that you would know if theres something that you are doing wrong. The most important things to remember in this state are:

1. Never sell out to underground link buyers.
2. Make sure your price is reasonable according to the market rate
3. Never to panic in that state
4. Know when to raise the price and when to go down in order to have a long term customer.
5. Read more

Another week, another batch of themes, the first two are retrieved from our news section

Seasons Wordpress Theme

This theme is really light and heavy on the 2.0 look, great color combo.
demo - download

Blue Stripes Wordpress Theme

Blue Stripes Wordpress Theme is a 2 column theme, left side bar, widgetized and adsense ready theme.
demo - download

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Keeping income on your blog coming in constantly can be a stressful task, there are three things that advertisers are looking for in a blog to buy ad space.

Content Quality and Relevancy

Keeping content quality up can be hard because of several writer blocks and personal matters that keep popping up at the wrong time so it’s better to write as many articles as you can at once and save them in your blog for future use. This helps you keep your post/day rate up in case you hit any writer blocks.

Mostly it’s the content that sells your ads, the more informative and well written your articles are the more ads you’ll end up selling. Having other bloggers on your blog as well might be a bad sign for advertisers because they are buying ad space so that they can beenfit from your (the owner)’s articles, not other bloggers. Try to refrain from having alot of people blog there really soon.

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Every once in a while i like to spread some link love either links to good articles or resources, the most popular link love method is resources, such as wordpress themes, linking to these themes or compiling collections of themes with links would not only get you extra traffic through trackbacks but also alot of new potential readers as well and more serps come naturally with every post you make so it’s a win win situation.

Every niche has free resources, to be an authority in any niche you need to cover all aspects of that niche such as free and paid resources, breaking news, etc..

Usually link love is like a post with links to other articles with a short description of that article, although this is quite a nice way to get some trackback links but i don’t think it gives you the full effect of the trackback, compiling a list of articles will always perform way less then a list of free resources.

Giving out link love is good for a blog not only because it makes you an authority figure but also it gives your readers a fresh twist on the content, like mentioning another source of news and attention then yourself, basically.

There isn’t really much to post about lately but this one thing that i added a few days ago, its the news section , It’s where i allow for you guys to share your free wordpress themes so that i can include them in my wp theme posts, not only that but i also welcome any blogging tip and any other news that might be interesting and fresh, for that everyone that provides a source will be mentioned in the post and credited for the tip.

Other then that, I plan to finish a new design for blueverse soon, the things I have learned while blogging and wanted changed on the blog, all of those noted changes will take place in the new design. Blogging is all about learning and improving your blog, doesn’t matter if it’s content, links or design. In this case, I learned that the current design was lacking alot of authority that i seek in a template, therefore the new design

First of all I’m sorry for not responding to any mails you guys might have sent me!

A few weeks ago i stopped getting emails from my readers through the contact form, i thought its because i was not doing as well as i was before, i tried to use the contact form myself and found out that the server had a function disabled, which was enabled around 15 mins before this post and I’ve tested it as well.

So, once again I’m sorry about the inconvinience, and a note about this month’s blog income report, it will be much less then last month’s since none of my advertisers could’ve contacted me, the listings at other sites about advertising all linked to my contact form (which wasn’t working). so, yeah i guess, live and learn

Make sure your contact form is working by using it once or twice every once in a while.

If you want to make money blogging then you already know that more then 70% of your revenue is from private ads, sponsored reviews and links and doing this manually can be a chore! The oiopublisher system makes money blogging so much easier with their state of the art blog ad system that takes control of all the sales on your blog(s).I’ve been using OIO since day1, It’s been really easy to sell and manage ads and the owner over at the main site offers 24/7 support and constant updates, I’ve had a few things added myself such as the ad server add on, this lets you show the ads anywhere on the web! and with the built in tracker system this plugin is my main way to sell ads and make money through all of my blogs, one system is controlling 4-5 blogs at the moment without any flaws :D.

Some of the features of this plugin are:

Ad slots

The ad slot system is really flexible it allows you to make zones with different sizes and number of ads in rows/columns to be displayed on the blog, if there are no ads there then it shows an advertise here link like you can see on the left on this blog. Every zone has its own code by which it can be displayed, you can place these codes in your template in order to display them.Every ad is given its own payment per a specified time of days and after it they expire automatically! Thanks to a new feature added to the new version, now you can style your ads, different paddings and much more options.

Inline Ads

Want ads within your post? The OIO plugin allows automatic inclusion in every post and allows you to control how many posts per page should have the ad! You can choose either to have ads on your post in the blog or maybe add ads to your rss feed!

Sponsored Reviews

You can easily sell reviews on your blog by giving your customers a form in which they specify what they want, if they want it written by you or themselves, if they choose themself then it provides them with the space in which they can paste the html code or just use the editor to type something up. They can also choose different authors on your blog to write the review as well.

Ad server

This is the thing that i asked them to add to the, it allows you to use the ads from zones that you choose from your blog on other sites and yes the tracker works fine on it as well!

Tracker

As a webmaster you would definitely need reports on your ads, the in built tracker helps you track every single ad on your blog with a weekly clicks and impressions report, a screenshot of the report is below.

Links

Selling links is even easier now with OIO, they help you sell links on different zones, and every link stops displaying when its time runs out

Custom Orders

Wanna sell a product? Well now its easier, this is an online form that allows you to sell downloadable goods, the customer pays you and gets an instant download, kinda like ejunkie but no middlemen

The plugin right now costs under $20 since its new, grab it before they raise the price. Buy oio here.

If you’re not into buying oio then you can get the lite version here for free.

Another collection of free wordpress themes released by 20th Apr 2008.

YG Simpleton

Simple Power

LouisBrooks

Excel

RC2

Blog It 750

Envy Blogging is the term i use to define when a blogger creates content similar to an already established and popular blog online in hopes of attaining the same traffic over a short period of time. At first it’s pretty harmless and well intentioned, like giving out their own opinion on the matter and leaving trackbacks to get the traffic to come towards them, as soon as that starts working for them, it gets hard trying to keep up with the ferquence of the content coming their way, the work tht they have to put into content now is much harder and before they know it they are copying quotes and important paragraphs from those blogs onto their own and making it their own content and at some point even this becomes harder, letting your content creating abilities fade away is the worst thing a blogger can ever hope for, the moment you actually don’t have anything to say or don’t have the will to write more is when a blogger becomes a spammer, this is where harmless opinions turn into spam, yep, this is how spam blogs are created. The ones that use your feed to copy your own content leaving the original blog a trackback.

Alot of bloggers can find spam links in their wp dashboard everyday that come from blogs that have copied their content without any permission.

Although i think blog envy can make really good bloggers over time if they keep at it and try to develop their own skills more but the most conversions that I have seen are for the worst.

photo credit: Thuy Pham

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Coming up with new ideas to blog is always hard, I know what I am talking about when i say writer’s block is the worst thing that can happen to a blogger. I came up with this idea when i had nothing else to blog about and nothing I did to remove the blog was working, when you have nothing to blog about its better to focus on monetization of the blog, If you are already with an Affiliate network, then you should browse their inventory to find something relevant to your blog’s niche, look through the site, then write a review about it on your blog filled with your affiliate links!

This way not only will you get more:

1. Serps
2. Content
3. Indexed Pages
4. Traffic
5. Money
6. Readers

…but you’ll also get another income stream from your blog, having affiliate ads are okay but reviewing a product often if not always makes a sale. I know that I’ve bought 80% of the things I read about in my feed reader. Its about the trust and authority that you have established with your readers that will get you tons of conversions through affiliates.