Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Copyright © 2013-2016 Bob Lotich
All rights reserved
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ISBN-13: 978-0-9898945-0-0

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Table of Contents
1
...
9
GETTING LAID OFF
...
FOUR STEPS TO GET STARTED
BLOGGING IN 10 MINUTES!
...
FIND A DOMAIN NAME
...
GET A DOMAIN NAME AND WEB HOSTING
PACKAGE
...
INSTALL WORDPRESS (WITH A LITTLE HELP)
...
LOGIN TO WORDPRESS
...
BLOGGING BASICS
...
16
IS IT EASY TO START A BLOG?
...
17
GETTING A BLOGGING PLATFORM
...
HOW TO SET UP A SELF-HOSTED
BLOG
...
21
PICK A HOST FOR YOUR BLOG
...
22
SUMMING IT ALL UP
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GET A CUSTOMIZABLE THEME
...
HOW I MAKE MONEY WITH MY BLOG

...
27
CPM AD NETWORKS
...
29
DIRECT AD SALES
...
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE
MONEY FROM A BLOG?
...
31

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8
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33
BLOG COMMENTING
...
34
JOIN DIRECTORIES
...
35
LINKING TO OTHER BLOGS
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36
9
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37
SEO
...
TITLE TAGS
...
ANCHOR TEXT
...
KEYWORD RESEARCH
...
GET LINKS
...
HOW I INCREASED ADSENSE
EARNINGS $1500 IN LESS THAN THREE
MONTHS
...
ADD A PRIVACY POLICY
...
PUT ADS WHERE PEOPLE’S EYEBALLS GO
...
SECTION TARGETING
...
QUICK ADSENSE PLUGIN
...
CHANGE THE COLORS
...
WRITE ARTICLES PEOPLE ARE SEARCHING FOR

...
ADD A GOOGLE SEARCH BAR
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LINK GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO ADSENSE
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TEST, RETEST AND TEST AGAIN
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SEVEN TOOLS THAT HAVE HELPED
MAKE IT ALL POSSIBLE
...
50
12
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51
DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB
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52

5

AVOID TIME-WASTERS
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52
READY FOR MORE?
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54
NOTES
...
I suspect most people
won’t stick with it long enough to make a full-time
income, but even making an extra few hundred
dollars a month isn’t too bad either
...
I am a very to-the-point
type of guy, and I much prefer the meat and
potatoes over a bunch of fluff
...

If you’re around the blogging world, even a bit,
you’ll quickly realize there are a lot of bloggers
who make money by talking about how to make
money online
...

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to learn from
unproven bloggers, but I felt more comfortable
proving to myself I could do it before teaching
others
...

If you find the book helpful, or if you see ways I
can improve the book, or even if you hate it and

7

want a refund, please let me know
...

I will only be hosting these workshops for a
limited time, so if you are interested be sure to
pop over to get registered
...
com/join to get
registered for free
...
How it all started for me
In early 2007 I was talking to a friend of mine
about the idea of building websites full of free
information to help people
...

My first idea was to post a Proverb each day and
comment on it
...
I didn’t know what a blog was, but I thought,
“Oh, OK, sure
...
I’m very interested in
helping people with their money, so blogging
seemed like a great way to reach people all over
the world
...
com
(formerly ChristianPF
...
At this
point I thought about making money from the site
but had no idea how and honestly didn’t really
think it was possible to make a living at it
...

I should also mention that from June 2007 to
June 2008 I spent about four to six hours each
weekend writing articles and averaged about four
new articles each week
...
So in total I probably
spent about 10 hours each week working on the
site
...
I was told the company no
longer needed my department, so they handed me
a severance check, and I was on my way
...

After much prayer and discussion with my wife I
decided against looking for another “day job” and
to work full time on building the blog
...
I figured
I’d give it a shot for a few months, and if it didn’t
work out, I’d find another 9-5
...

I’m still a little bit in awe and can’t believe I’m
actually paying the bills from my blog! But I thank
God every day that I get to do what I love and get
paid to do it
...

Regardless of what your personal long-term
blogging goals are, keep on reading, and I’ll try to
help you take the next steps towards reaching
them!

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2
...
com/startup
Trust me, you will be glad you did
...
(For more detail
finish reading the book!) These recommendations
are the things I would do if I had to do it all over
again today
...
Find a domain name
●

●

Go to Domize
...

If possible, aim for a domain name that
has at least some of the keywords you want
people to find in the search engines
...
Get a domain name and web
hosting package
●

●
●

●

There are thousands of webhosts out there,
but Hostgator
...
Head over to
Hostgator
...

Then make sure you register the domain
you found in the first step
...


Now follow the remaining steps to
complete your purchase
...
Install WordPress (with a little
help)
●
●

●

Jump on the phone or use the chat box
with Hostgator
...

Whoever you’re talking to will hold your
hand and walk you through the process (if
not, please email me)
...


4
...
yourdomain
...

Now that you’re logged in to WordPress,
you can begin making changes to your site
and/or publish your first post
...


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The course will walk you through every single
detail of setting up your WordPress blog and a
whole lot more!
You can get your bonus here:
EfficientBlogging
...


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3
...
There
are whole books written on this subject, so I won’t
to try to cover everything here
...


What is a blog?
A blog is short for Web log
...
The original idea behind it
was to be an online journal or diary that was
updated daily (or as frequently as the writer
chose)
...
As the blog writer,
depending on which platform you use, you can
just type your entry, press submit, and it shows up
on your blog for the world to see
...

Starting a blog is one of the easiest ways out there
to start a website
...


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Is it easy to start a blog?
It’s very easy
...
There are more than 20
million blogs in existence, so starting a blog can’t
be that difficult
...
If you’re just trying out this whole
blogging thing, try using one of the free services to
get a basic feel for blogging and get your feet wet
...
Anyone
who is really trying to make money with a blog
will probably find more success with a self-hosted
blog
...
You need to
pay for nothing more than a domain name (about
$10/yr) and webhosting (as cheap as a few bucks
a month)
...
The
first two options are the easiest but are also
limited on features
...
But if you’re really
serious about trying to make good money from
your blog, try self-hosting your blog (which we
talk about in the next section)
...
com – Blogger is very good and easy to
set up, and Google owns it
...
blogspot
...
” (In some people’s opinion this is
a little less professional
...

WordPress
...
wordpress
...
” The big
downside with these sites is that they don’t allow
you to place ads on your blog
...
org – Wait, what’s the difference
between wordpress
...
org? To
put it simply, WordPress
...

WordPress
...
If you get to the point where you’re serious
about blogging and really want to make some
money with it, you need to self-host your blog
...
How to set up a selfhosted blog
If you plan to use one of the first two free options
from the previous section, you can skip this
section
...
org is the best way to go
...
It does
require a little more work up front and does have
small costs associated with it: buying a domain
name (about $10/year) and hosting your blog (<
$10/month)
...
e
...
com)
...
com rather than
yourblog
...
com, which is what you get if
you use Blogger
...


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Pick a domain name
You should start by purchasing a domain name
...
com is a great tool to help you find
available domain names
...
com
rather than a
...
us or anything else for that
matter
...

A
...

Once you choose it, you need to find somewhere
to purchase it
...
com and have bought the remaining
ones from my hosting companies
...
Also,
it’s often easier just to buy the domain from the
hosting company you sign up with since it will
almost always simplify the process
...
There are also a million
webhosting companies out there
...
Try going with a bigger

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company that has a longer track record and is
more established
...
I have
hosted my websites with Dreamhost from the
beginning, mostly because I knew a lot of people
using them, and I got a hosting package for about
$7 a month
...
com over Dreamhost
...
This is NOT very
common for the cheaper webhosting companies
...


Hosting companies I’ve used
HostGator
...
96/m)
I started hosting with Hostgator after becoming
increasingly frustrated with MediaTemple
...
I’m so
impressed with its customer service that I now
host all my sites through Hostgator (except my
biggest one)
...
com (As low as $6
...
It’s cheap and has a
great phone support
...

Dreamhost
...
95/m)
As I mentioned earlier, I started with Dreamhost
and was happy with it for the price, but I always
longed for phone support, and the company
doesn’t really offer it
...
Just
enter “Christianblog” as the promo code
...
net (As low as $20/m)
I hosted my main site (SeedTime
...
I
don’t recommend them
...
com (As low as $29/m)
I now host my main site with WP Engine
...
Also, all of the
support staff is very well trained in WordPress,
which is rarely the case at other hosts
...
And for bloggers who want a rock-solid
hosting company and can afford a little more, try
WP Engine
...
Get a customizable
theme
After I took the step to self-host my blog, the next
step that greatly helped me increase earnings was
to choose a highly customizable theme
...

For all my blogs I use either the Thesis theme or
the Genesis theme
...

Thesis is really good, but it has gotten more and
more complex in recent months, so I normally just
recommend the Genesis theme for most bloggers
...
It is SEO
optimized very well, has a lot of bells and whistles
and a ton of support
...

If you’re a programmer, you really don’t need to
buy a theme because you can make all the
customizations yourself to any basic theme
...

But even still, if you have a specific vision of what
you want your blog to look like and aren’t willing
to compromise on that, you will probably need the
help of a programmer/designer to help you
...
com is a great place to find one
...
How I make money
with my blog
When I go to family functions or social events, I
often get a blank stare when I explain what I do
for a living
...
In this section I will lay it out, and I
hope it will help bring some clarity
...
The most successful one is Google’s
Adsense program
...
Google’s responsibility is
to read the article I write and find ads that are
relevant and display them next to the article
...
Also, many of the
extremely relevant ads that Adsense provides can
be quite beneficial and helpful to the readers
...
So, if I read that article and decided
I did want to open an IRA, the ads provide options
the article did not
...
I’ll explain more
about how to optimize the ads in the following
sections
...
At
the beginning these networks don’t produce much
income, but as the traffic grows, CPM networks
seem to work well in conjunction with Adsense
...
com
AdClickMedia
...
com
Adify
...
com
Casalemedia
...


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Affiliate product sales
Let’s say you sell lawn mowers, and I refer
someone to your store who’s interested in buying
a mower
...

This is essentially what an affiliate sale is
...

There are a million options to get started with
affiliate ads on the Internet now
...
amazon
...
com
CJ
...
com
E-Junkie
...
com

There are many others, but these are a few of the
more popular ones available
...
I give my honest opinions
about products regardless of how it affects affiliate
sales
...
Because Cash Crate has such a generous
referral program, I know some people make lots
of money from it, but I just don’t feel comfortable
recommending it since I had a bad experience
using it
...
These are what I love
because I can help readers by pointing them to
good resources and tools that helped me and get
paid in the process
...


Direct ad sales
I also sell ad space directly to advertisers
...
I know that in
certain niche markets direct ad sales can work out
very well, but thus far it hasn’t been a big money
maker on my blogs
...
com
...


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7
...
It takes time and hard
work
...

But for more than a year I worked at it about 10
hours a week
...
when I started
...
I’m
going explain most of the things I didn’t know the
first year that I did to help create that upward
trend in the following chart
...

While the first year didn’t yield much income, it
was crucial for the second year
...

There are some tips in this book I wish I knew at
the beginning, and I think they’ll make things go a
lot more quickly for you, but there’s no getting
around it’s going to take time to get there
...

The two keys are consistency and a
willingness to learn
...


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8
...
Sadly,
people will not find your blog (in the beginning
anyway) unless you do a little legwork
...
The first thing to do is write a few
great articles about your topic and feature them in
your sidebar
...


Blog commenting
One of the absolute best ways for new blogs to get
traffic is just to comment on other blogs
...
The blogging community is generally
very social, and those who are active often reap
the rewards
...


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Guest posting
I think this is one of the best ways to start getting
some traffic and building an audience
...
I
don’t know of any other method that could bring
traffic as quickly
...
I’ve seen people grow their blogs
very quickly by posting some of their best articles
on other sites
...
If it’s already published,
then the blog that’s allowing you to guest post
won’t get any search engine traffic for that article
...
We’ll get to that in a minute
...
Get to know
the bloggers, connect with them via email or other
social media, and get to know them
...


Join directories
If I were starting a blog today, one of the first
things I would do is Google “whatever topic I want

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to blog about” + “directory” This should return a
list of web directories about your topic
...
The key is that the directory will check
out your site and make sure it’s legit before
approving you
...
You may not get a lot of traffic, but
getting in a few good directories is still an
excellent step forward
...
Yahoo
...
org
DMOZ
...
com
JoeAnt
...
com
Familyfriendlysites
...
Google “your topic” and “forums,” and you’re
sure to find a few
...
People can see that
from a mile away
...
If you seek to give and be a benefit

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before seeking your own rewards, you’ll be much
better off
...

Bloggers are no different
...
I
formed some positive relationships just from this
...


Create small topical pages
Squidoo
...
com, Hubpages
...
You can do it
very quickly, and the pages often rank well in the
search engines
...
As if
that weren’t good enough, many of them allow
you to earn money from your articles as well
...
SEO tips for blogs
It takes a while to get a decent amount of traffic
from the search engines
...
They like more
established sites that have a lot of people linking
to them, proving they’re reputable
...

As your blog begins to grow by having more pages
and more links, the search engines begin to send
you more and more traffic
...


SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a
science/art (depending on who you ask) that
focuses on getting your website or blog to the top
of the search engine listings
...
There are far more
thorough books about it (for instance,

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SEOBook
...

Just like most of the things you’ll learn while
blogging, you don’t need to be an expert at it –
just having a working knowledge will provide
great results
...
Google wants to display
the most relevant websites
...

If you can keep this in mind, it helps when you’re
trying to optimize your blog
...
Just focus on making it very clear what your
site is all about and writing worthwhile content
for your reader, and the rest will take care of itself
...
These are some of
the most important pieces of SEO that
every beginner should know
...


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1
...
The title tag of your website is what
shows up in the top of the browser window
...


In the above picture you can see that the title tag
is “How To Make A Budget” You WILL want to
make sure that your title tags contain the
keywords that you want to rank high enough in
the search engines
...
Something better
would be “Rock climbing 101 | the best rock
climbing techniques
...
Anchor text
Anchor text – the text that people use when
linking
...

“Great search engine” is the anchor text
...

Google pays attention to what words are in the
anchor text
...
But,
for those times that you can, use variations of your
keywords when possible
...


3
...
I often use
Aaron Wall’s keyword tool and run some keyword
ideas through it to get estimates of how many
people are searching for them
...
Get links
You already know the importance of links coming
into your blog
...
Other than the great
benefit they play in improving your search
rankings, they also send visitors to your site
...
If you get a link from a blog that
gets a lot of visitors, you could see a huge traffic
spike
...
Maybe not
a bunch, but as you get more links, you will see
more visitors
...
If you can consistently do
that, many other things will fall into place
...
And get excited each time you
add a brick because it’s slowly growing into the
structure, and that brick is most likely going to
remain there for years to come
...
How I increased
Adsense earnings $1500
in less than three months
This section is going to be a little bit beyond the
basics, but these details can dramatically improve
earnings from Adsense
...

In my case I increased earnings more than $1500
in a short amount of time
...
Every blog has a different audience and
different articles and most likely a different layout
...
Knowing
that, testing and trying new things is critical to
find the winners!

1
...
I never realized
that it’s a “requirement” for Adsense publishers,
but when I added a link in my footer to my Privacy
Policy, there was a noticeable increase in earnings
...
In a perfect world you
want your lawyer to draft your privacy policy, but
you’re welcome to use mine for inspiration to
make your life a bit easier (use at your own risk)
...
com/privacy-policy/

2
...
While I
want/need to make money to pay my bills, I still
want to make my blogs as user-friendly as
possible
...

As I mentioned before, you need to experiment
with it
...
Once I
changed the location of my ads, my earnings
tripled overnight
...
I had
no idea that just moving an ad a couple of inches
would have such a dramatic effect
...
Section targeting
This was another tweak I made that showed a
noticeable difference in earnings
...
Google is pretty good at figuring this out if
you don’t do this, but if you have a lot of stuff
going on in your sidebars and footer sections, it’s
probably worth experimenting with
...
You only need to use this tag

to tell Google to start, and this tag

to tell it to stop
...


4
...
There are lots of criteria that you can
select to really customize your ad placements
...
I’ve blogged
for more than six years and have had Adsense on
more than 10 blogs, and I can tell you that almost
without fail the most profitable spot to put an
Adsense ad is directly below the article title on
your blog post
...

So if you’ve never tried that location, go ahead
and try it –you can thank me later
...
Change the colors
When Adsense first came out, people said to make
the colors as loud and ugly as possible to draw
attention to them
...
Of the
two methods I think that blending works a little
better and definitely looks a lot better!
I have a slight variation that works even better for
me
...
I used to have
many of my Adsense ads match that, but I saw a
nice increase when I changed the ad titles to the
old standard Link Blue (aka #0000FF)
...
It
stands out a little bit more but doesn’t look bad
either
...
Write articles people are
searching for
This might seem unrelated, but it’s very important
...
For some reason a lot of bloggers just
don’t give much respect to search engine readers
and don’t really try to reach out to them other
than trying to “convert” them to a regular reader
...
Rather
than getting frustrated that so many search engine
visitors don’t come back, I started to embrace it
...
I
started doing keyword research to see what people
were looking for in the search engines
...


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7
...
Google is the master of
search, so you can bet that its search capability on
your site is better than the default WordPress
search tool
...

When the search results (from the websites you
choose) are displayed, they have the standard
Google ads present, just like normal Google
search results
...
Link Google Analytics to
Adsense
A while back, Google Analytics started to allow the
option to integrate your Adsense data
...
It provides webmasters with
a wealth of information about earnings
...
If you use Adsense, don’t pass this one up
...
Test, retest and test again
When running Adsense tests, I typically let them
run for a month in order to make sure they’re very
thorough
...

Then, when the test is complete, I compare CPM
and eCPM (effective cost per thousand) rates to
see what performed better
...
Either way, if you
want to make more money with Adsense,
experimenting and testing is a must!

48

11
...

1
...
com/analytics) –
This is a wonderful (and free) statistics tool
that will help you keep track of your visitors
and analyze a lot of data about them
...

2
...
com/webmasters/tools) – This will
help you see how Google views your blog
...

I had some issues that were really hurting my
search rankings, but I found out about them
and fixed them and voila! All better
...
MailChimp Email Marketing Service
(mailchimp
...
Mailchimp makes it easy because
the site offers this for free (up to 2000
subscribers) while no one else does this for
free
...
SEObook Keyword Tool
(tools
...
com/keyword-tools) – I use

49

this to get a ballpark estimate of how many
people are searching for particular keyword
phrases
...
Hittail
...
If you have
a blog that’s established, it might be worth
paying $10 a month for it
...

6
...
xchng – The best free stock
photography site I have found
...
BigStock
...
They have lots
of images you can get for just about a buck
...
com to check out
some of my blogging courses to help you start
rocking it with your blog!
Scribe SEO tool for WordPress –I tried it
out and decided not to continue to use it
because I thought it was priced a little too high
for what I got from it
...
If the price comes
down, I might recommend it a bit more
...
Warnings for those
starting out
Don’t quit your day job
Even if you know a lot about making money with a
blog (just by reading this book, you have a
tremendous advantage over me when I started),
it’s going to take a while
...

The beautiful thing is that I can now say it works if
you’re diligent and open to learning from your
mistakes
...
My situation is a unique
one, and I don’t recommend doing what I did
...
If I
hadn’t, I would probably still work at a job I didn’t
like!

51

Learn everything you can
One of the advantages I have is that I love to learn
and don’t stop when I make a mistake
...
You’re going to do things wrong, but you
just have to keep going and keep learning
...
If you do, you can find an answer to
just about every problem you encounter on the
Web
...
Focus on what yields results and stay
disciplined to stick with that
...


Have fun
While I wrote this book as a guide to help those
who want to make money with a blog, I
understand that many people don’t really care

52

about that
...
So, whether you want to be a full-time
blogger or just communicate with friends – have
fun!

Ready for more?
If you enjoy this book, for a limited time I am
hosting a free 60-minute online workshop where I
share the 3 biggest secrets that helped me turn my
blog into a full-time living
...

Just visit EfficientBlogging
...


53

Thanks for reading!
I appreciate your feedback; it will help me
continue to tweak and improve the book– so
thank you in advance!
I wish you all the best on your blogging journey!
Sincerely,
Bob

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Notes

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