Free $75 Google AdWords Coupon for Advertising

Get a $75 Free Google AdWords Trial:

If you want to start advertising online but don't want to spend any money just yet, you can get a $75 free trial with Google's AdWords system.

Click on the link for the free Google AdWords $75.00 trial:  https://services.google.com/fb/forms/adwordscoupon/

Benefits of Google Adwords:

• Targeted to Local Visitors: You are able to advertise in your area, region, or to the entire online world.
• Pay only for results: You will only pay for clicks on your ad and when someone comes to your site.
• Take Control: You get to set your own daily budget and you even can change, pause or resume your ads anytime, now that's total control. 

Google has a short video you can watch to learn more and they will have help for you if you decide to sign up for the free advertising trial.

April's 1,000 Comment Challenge

1,000 Comment Challenge

Are you up to the challenge?  Can you make 1,000 comments on blogs or websites in just one month?  That means you will need to leave an average of 33 comments everyday.  If you think you are up for the monthly comment challenge then start making those comments.

Why bother leaving comments on other peoples blogs you ask?  Because, if you leave a comment you may get back much more than you gave.

Perks of Leaving Comments:

• If you leave a comment you might get a comment back on your blog.  
• If you leave a comment you might get a "do follow" backlink.
• If you leave a comment you might get other readers from that blog to visit your site.
• Free blog traffic.

Now this is not assured for every comment that you leave.  Just say that you only get a 10% return on your 1,000 comments, that would be 100, which could be broken down between the three perks of comments above.  Did I mention that this is a free traffic generation idea?  That means one more way for you to get free blog traffic and possibly make some blogging friends in the process.

*Of course I would like you to start off the challenge by leaving a comment on this blog post.  Look up toward the top of this blog post for the comments link to click on and then leave a comment.  Let me know that you are going to take the 1,000 Comment Challenge for the month and your blogs name.*

Utilize LinkWithin for More Free Traffic

Looking for more free traffic ideas?

Last week I blogged about how to Keep Your Blog Posts Archives Alive with the help of LinkWithin you can do just that.  LinkWithin is a free service that will go at the bottom of every post and show other blog post teasers from previous articles.  By showing related articles at the bottom of your posts your readers will continue reading more of your posts on topics that they are interested.

When your readers notice the other related articles that you have written they will tend to stay on your blog longer and your bounce rate will go down.  So by having this option down there at the bottom of your posts you are doing yourself and your visitors a favor.

Once LinkWithin crawls your blog they will start showing the articles related to each post.  You will see the words - "You might also like:" near the bottom.  The blog posts that appear are chosen by the title, tags, and content that is included in them. 

If you are looking for a free way to improve traffic on your blog and keep your readers engaged you might consider trying the free LinkWithin.  You can learn more at Linkwithin.com.

My Blog's 1 Month Birthday

Happy Bloggy Birthday:

Most bloggers won't celebrate a one month blogaversary, but you don't see that stopping me.  I am proud of the blog that I have accomplished this far and am hopeful for the one year birthday of my blog.  I just want to toot my own horn a little bit and show you what some hard work and dedication to getting more free blog traffic can do.

What I have accomplished with my blog in one month:
~ Over 216 unique visitors.  (free traffic my friends)
~ Eight Blog Readers through RSS or Email
~ Twitter followers = 69
~ Indexed in Google
~ Traffic Rank in US: 296,959 - better than some older blogs.
~ Technorati: Authority 130
~ Yahoo BackLinks: 178

Not a bad job for just one month, but that is just my 2 cents.  I am impressed with the amount of free backlinks coming in from Yahoo, it must have been the articles that I have posted.  Things are looking up and now I have some results to compare to next months findings.  For the most part everything should continue to go up, at least that is what I am trying to accomplish here anyway.

Free Blog Traffic - 31 Day Challenge - Week 2

Take the Free Blog Traffic Challenge with me:

If your blog needs more free traffic you can follow along with the 31 Day Challenge to increase traffic to your beloved blog.

To view the beginning week of My Free Blog Traffic Challenge click here.

Free Blog Traffic Challenge - Week 2:
1. Answer Questions at Mahalo for backlinks
2. Article to GoArticles
3. Hubpage Article
4. Press Release
5. Answer Questions at Blurt It for links
6. Get my blog Reviewed
7. 43 Things.com link

Another busy week here to get more free traffic to my blog.  I am also still blogging each and every day then pinging and doing 100 Entrecard drops daily.  Anyways, one week down and three to go for my free blog traffic challenge.  My free blog traffic has increased daily mostly from Entrecard but I am also getting some organic search traffic also.

I am not sure where to get my blog reviewed for free.  So I will be on the look out for a free blog reviewer.  If any one knows where I can find one please leave it in the comments, up above this post with my tags, and I will owe you one!

Free Blog Traffic Challenge - Week One FollowUp

Seven days ago I decided to try everything I know of to get more traffic to my blog.  Of course being a new blog I want to get some free traffic and I am willing to put in the work to get all of these backlinks.

Here is my report on how this past week has gone:
Free Blog Traffic Challenge - Week 1:
1. Sign up at Entrecard.com
2. Article to GoArticles
3. Squidoo Lens
4. Article to Ezine Articles
5. Blog Carnivals
6. Bookmark on Digg, Delicious, and Onlywire.com
7. Make 20 comments to like blogs

I think signing up for Entrecard (Free) was the best thing I could have done.  I am seeing a steady rise in traffic and most of it is coming from Entrecard users.  I have gotten some comments and feel like I am getting to know some of the bloggers in this community.  I am dropping 100 out of 300 cards, my bounce rate is up but I think at this beginning stage it is worth it.

The articles and squidoo lens are out there but as of yet have not produced anything for me yet.  Only one view from a GoArticles submission, hopefully this goes up because I don't think the time it took me to write the article and submit is worth only one click.

It is too soon to tell if the social bookmarking did anything, but it usually will not unless it gets on the popular list. 

I made 20 comments on other blogs and it was way more difficult than I thought it would be.  I have made a few comments here and there on some blogs that I like and that was easy.  But reading 20 blog posts so I could leave an intelligent comment that was related to the post proved a long somewhat boring process.  On a positive note I found a new blogger that I like and will go back to read.  This was not a task that I enjoyed and wish that I would not need to repeat it, but I probably will because it is good for business.

Tomorrow I will post next weeks challenging items in the hopes that it will bring more free blog traffic, you can follow along if you want more blog visitors.

Is Your Blog in the Right Niche?

Are you blogging about the right niche for you?

Many people jump into blogging and make the mistake of not picking a niche.  What is a niche anyway?  A niche is a narrow part of something bigger.  For example you like to garden, a gardening niche would be green house gardening or flower pot gardening.  If your blog is too general you will likely not meet your blog visitors needs and they will find what they are looking for elsewhere.

There are many niches that you can write a blog about but some of them are not right for everyone.  Think about your hobbies and what you like to do or talk about and work from there.  If you would like some niche suggestions here is a blog post I wrote last month: 101 Niches to Blog About

Many other bloggers suggest that the make money niche in blogging is not the right niche for everyone.  For one, there are blogs telling you how to make money everywhere you look.  Make money blogs are probably 10 to 1 verses other blog niches.  So competition in this category is fierce and raging.

You also don't want to pick a blog niche that is too narrow.  If you wanted to blog about the missing socks from the dryer you might not be able to make much money from this because there are not enough searches going on about this topic.  So you don't want to narrow down a general niche topic too far so that no one even cares.

Why you need to pick the right niche ~ Niche Writing Will:

•   Show your expertise in your Niche area.

•   Drive targeted traffic to your Niche Blog or Niche Articles.

•   Bring Specialized clients to you.

•   Enable you to sell more products related to your niche.

•   Make you more money.

If you still don't know what the right niche is for you and you want some help to become a Niche Blogging Authority then you might like to read Niche Blogging Profits by Codrut Turcanu.

Want Lots of Free Blog Traffic? Use Entrecard

Free Blog Traffic with Entrecard

You may notice the little widget in my sidebar that has a little bar that says Get One or Drop.  Well this is one way you can get a bunch of free blog traffic.  I just signed up with them yesterday as part of my 31 Day's of Free Blog Traffic Challenge.  

 

This is my Entrecard "card" one that I will use to advertise on other sites.  I know it needs some work but I thought it wasn't too awful for just throwing something up there.  I made a new advert card - the one on the right.  I think it is better in some ways and also harder to read?  It will have to do for now.

So I "dropped" in on 100 blogs last night and then another 100 blogs today.  I will say that it is very time consuming to do all one-hundred, but I will continue this rate for the full 31 days to see what kind of results I can get.  From these blog views I have gotten 24 visitors that I had also visited, and I expect this to continue to rise every day.  I have also gotten one comment and suggestion.  So far I am impressed and hooked, but we will see how it all turns out.

I was not sure about signing up for this Entrecard at first or not, I thought it might be considered black hat.  It may be somewhere in the gray area, because this is not targeted traffic and ultimately that is what you want coming to your blog.  When you start a new blog as I have you are some what desperate for any blog visitors so you are willing to go out there and try some interesting things. 

I have read a bit about Entrecard on some other blog's and here is what I have learned (not sure if any of it is true or not).  John Chow used to use Entrecard, so if it was good enough for him then it is good enough for me.  Google and the other search engines may lower my page rank because of the high bounce rate or the blog traffic from Entrecard visitors.  Many of the site visitors will just click on the "drop box" then immediately leave.

Well right now I am not concerned about my page rank because I don't even have one yet.  The problem of having some of the free blog traffic just clicking in and then right back out, well maybe a few will leave comments.  I might even get a small percentage of  loyal readers out of  the whole thing.

If your blog needs to get some free traffic you might consider trying out Entrecard.  You may not like the widget that must be displayed but once your blog gets approved I think you can move it down lower on the page, which may help your blog visitors see more of your blog and stick around to read something.

An Additional 5 Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog

An Additional 5 Free Blog Traffic Tips

There are many Free ways to get more blog traffic and see your blog visitor numbers go up daily.  So if your blog traffic is lacking or has plateaued you might want to give the 5 Blog Traffic Tips below a try to increase your blog traffic.

An Additional 5 Free Traffic Tips:

1. Make a Squidoo Lens - you can easily set up a squidoo lens and give tips similar to your blog.  Then you can give a link to your blog and even use a little widget to find your blog and automatically post the last 3 blog posts to your Squidoo Lens.

2. Write a Guest Post - and get your well written guest blog published on a great blog that you actually follow or enjoy reading and that is related to your blog niche.

3. Make a Video - Make a video and upload it to YouTube.  Have the video show how to do something that is valuable and that your blog readers and others will like.  You get a link to your blog and you can also embed your blog link into the video.

4. Sign up for MyBlogLog.com - It is a community where you can connect to other blog owners.  You can make blog friends and find blogs to read and comment on (this is how I got my first blog comment).  If a blogger has the widget you get to see your avatar when you visit their blog.  I like seeing my little palm tree on a blog that I am reading.

5. Create Link Bait - What is link bait?  Link Bait is a way of getting massive amounts of backlinks in a short time from something you have done that goes viral, or makes a really big splash in the blogosphere.  Something that will catch lots of peoples attention and get traffic to blogs.  Something such as a huge list like: 101 Niches to Blog About for Making Money  or news and maybe a freebie that everyone will want.

If you liked these 5 Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog and you want to increase traffic to your blog you may also like these blog posts:

5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

5 More Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Another 5 Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog = 15 Tips

Your Favorite Free Traffic Links - Poll

Favorite Free Traffic Links

Please Take a few seconds to take the Poll.


Just a little curious to see what type of free traffic methods others are using to get visitors to their blogs. Thanks for voting!

Using Twitter to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Twitter for More Blog Traffic 

If you have not signed up for Twitter and you have a blog you are missing out on potential traffic and new blog readers.  Twitter can be a powerful blogging tool for blog traffic.

To get more followers on Twitter you can do a search on your blog's keywords, mine are make money online and make money blogging so I search for those.  Then you can see who else is tweeting your key words, they may be your competition.  Here is what you can do though, see who their followers are and go follow them.  Chances are, they are interested in your key word topic or blogging niche and will follow you back.  By doing this you gain two things, more followers and potential blog readers.

When you make a new blog post you also post a tweet about the blog post with a link.  That way your followers will see your blog post title and they can click through to your blog.  You might just get some loyal blog readers in this manner, and it's easy to do.

If you are not utilizing Twitter for your blog traffic you may want to reconsider and sign up today.  You may have noticed that my blog has a widget to show my most recent tweets on my blog.  I have also used FeedBurner to automatically post my blog title with a link on Twitter.

One last note about Twitter:  Twitter can be a personal thing but if you have a blog that is not about your personal life, then you don't need to post personal stuff.  If you have a money making blog you will not want to post about the weather or what you ate for lunch.  If you have just found a great deal for bloggers you could always tweet about that. 

You can follow me on Twitter here:  BloggingFortune

How to Make Money With Your Blog

There are only 2 things you need to do to make money blogging.  When you start a new blog those two things need to be done on a daily basis.  New bloggers or struggling bloggers will need to make a commitment to check these two items off each and every day.

OK, do you want to know what the 2 really important things are that bloggers must do?  You may be disappointed to learn that you already know the answer to the blogging keys to success. 

How to Make Money Blogging:

1. Make useful posts that help your readers.
2. Drive traffic to your blog.

Told ya that you already knew them.  These  items need to be part of your daily blogging routine.  Because if you have no helpful content people will leave.  If you don't have traffic they can't find your blog.

It seems so simple and in reality it is, but the traffic is extremely important and can be hard to attain.  That is why you have to work on getting visitors daily at first.  Later when your blog has taken off the traffic will come on its own.  For now though you must do some work.  So click on over to my post  5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog and get busy getting your blog traffic.

Another 5 Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog = 15 Tips

Another 5 Free Blog Traffic Tips

5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

5 More Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

And now: Another 5 Free Traffic Tips to drive targeted traffic to your blog to help you make more money from your visitors.   OK the title is a little different but I thought maybe it would get you to click on this blog post about free traffic ideas.  It worked right, you are here reading this.

So if you have already read the other previous 5 Ways and the other 5 More Ways for Free Blog Traffic Generation Ideas then you need more free blog traffic ideas.  Again the key to these ideas is to actually do them and if at all possible do them over and over again.  If you like you can set up a checklist of your traffic steps and do them all daily or weekly.  You will need to continue to get traffic to your site until you are popular enough that the traffic comes on its own.

Another 5 Free Traffic Tips:

1. Offline Promotion - Tell all your friends, email them the blog link, call all of your aunts and uncles and let them know about your blog.  Make up business cards with your blog's URL.

2. Blog Post Frequency - Minimum posting should be 3 times a week, once a day is better.

3. Answer Questions - Post your blog link on answers that you leave on questions sites like Yahoo Answers and Blurtit.  Make sure the questions and answers are related to your blog.

4. Press Release - Write up a press release about your blog and submit it to a distribution service.

5. Trackbacks - If you don't understand this there is a great description here: How Trackback Works.

If you have implemented the 15 ways to get free traffic then you should see some visitors trickling onto your blog.  You need to make sure that you continue to do these free traffic generating ideas to keep getting new blog readers. 

Each time you implement one of the ideas you should see a serge in traffic but then it may dip back down again.  Keep on putting your link out there and eventually you won't have to rely on these methods, but this is where you need to begin. 

Go Get That Traffic!

Top 10 Ways to Get People to Stay on Your Money Making Blog Longer

Top 10 Ways to Get People to Stay on Your Blog

If you have set up your blog with some posts and widgets and you are attempting to make money online with your blog you want them to stick around as long as possible or at least until you have convinced them to buy something.

You have blog traffic so you know people are coming to your site, but you have a high bounce rate - they don't stick around for long.  So the real question is, How to get visitors to stay on your blog?  There are several different tactics that you can use to get people to get stuck on your site or to have a sticky site.  Follow along with the top ten ways below.

Top 10 Ways to Keep 'Em Around the Blog:

1. Content is King - Give them good blog content and they will stick around to soak it up.
2. They enjoy your sense of humor, so laugh it up.
3. You're Lucky and they just happen to like your personality.
4. They can identify with what you are trying to accomplish.
5. Blog about something controversial.
6. Your blog is inviting and easy to navigate.
7. You don't try to sell them something every 5 seconds.
8. They think you are successful and they want to be successful just like you.
9. Ask questions or take a poll.
10. They like Top 10 Lists. 

Okay, now that you know, what will you do?  Are you going to run on over to your blog and implement these ideas?  Or will you say that is nice and just let all of the traffic come and stay on My Blogging Fortune's blog?  HuH?

Now is the time to take what you have learned and put it into practice.  I have done at least half of these top ten items, maybe more if I have any personality or sense of humor at all.   So hop to it and go make some money with your blog and keep those visitors on your blog longer.

Day 10 of My Blogging Challenge - Update

I have accomplished so much in just a week and a half for this blog.  I have looked back towards my past failures and successes and realized that when I set goals I reach them. I once wanted to be an eBay Powerseller and I reached that goal.  There have been other goals that I have set for myself and I have reached them.

I now realize why my previous attempt at becoming an affiliate marketer failed.  I did not know how to write for the Internet or how to write in a niche with targeted SEO.  Now after a year of freelance writing I understand this process much better.

You can learn from my mistakes and you can figure all of this out - the information is out there and hopefully most of it will be on my blog.

My Blogging Challenge News - Day 10

•  Indexed in Google!

•  Google Adsense Money - Only some spare change but boy was I excited!  I did a little dance because some angel came to my blog.  I know that one click does not make me rich or even indicate the success of my blog, but it made me feel vindicated and gave me incentive to keep on keeping on. 

• I am one-fourth of the way to my 100th blog post goal.  Using the double posting each day to reach this goal faster and to fill my blog out with useful content.

• Working on a free giveaway with email sign up - this is the point where I have failed before, I now know that to get where I want to go and to reach my money making goals - this step is all important to reaching those goals.

My blog is still considered a baby a newborn really.  This blog even though it is in infancy it is doing well, I think.  Indexed and already has made a tiny profit!

Do I Need My Own Website to Make Money Blogging?

Do you need your own website to make money online with a blog? 

Many people who stop by to read my blog may wonder why I am using blogger's blogspot to host my money making blog.  There are a few simple reasons I use the Google Blogger blogspot for the blog My Blogging Fortune and we will get to those later.

You may have read other blogs that are on a .com domain and thought that maybe you need to get your own domain name.  Well you are certainly welcome to and you may get indexed in the search engines faster than many blogs and you might get more traffic because you look more professional.  But getting your own domain is not necessary.  There are several big names who are making big money who simply use blogs by Blogspot or Wordpress. 

Why even use Blogger as my money making blogs provider?  Many of the - How to make money with a blog writers will tell you that you have to use Wordpress to have a successful money making blog.  Well I tell you that is not so.  You can use a Blogger blog and make just as much money if not more.

Why I recommend Blogger Blogspot Blogs:

• So easy a Caveman could do it.  Blogger is seriously easy!  

• It is free to set up a blog; free need I say more?

• Blogger is run by Google so Google Adsense is right there available for the blog, you just need to sign up under the monetize tab and you can have Google ads making you money in no time.

•  Now they also have Amazon Affiliates so you can set that up and recommend stuff from Amazon and get a percentage of those sales.

• You will get some of Blogspot or Blogger traffic for free just for being on their network.

If your blog gets too many readers and needs more bandwidth don't worry you can always switch it to a .com.  The blogger system has it set up so you can easily change over and you get your domain through GoDaddy for only $10  and the Blogpot domain will forward all of your readers to your new domain name.  Seamless and simple.

So you can see that you don't actually need your own website to make money blogging!

Note:  Make sure you back everything up somewhere.  Blogger could decide that you violated something in their Terms of Service or the agreement you have with them.  Then they can shut your site down - then inform you and you don't want to lose everything.  Get into the habit of saving either daily or weekly.

Day 7 - My Blogging Fortune Challenge

Day 7 of my money making blog challenge.

Well it has been one full week since I have started my blog.  I have learned so much in just one week about making money online.  I already new somethings from a few years ago but the Internet is always changing and I was not keeping up.  Now that I am a little more up to speed my blog will certainly have much better results than if I tried using tactics that worked 5 years ago.

What did I do on Day 7 to Make Money with my Blog?

• Put up a privacy policy - was supposed to have this before, oops. 
• Made 1 anchor text link with my key words.
• Re-wrote one of my blog posts and will publish the article at GoArticles. 

 Again not much was done today but the potential outcome of the article and it's back-links is exciting.   I know that in order to make money online with my blog I am going to have to get more links all over the Internet.

The best free way to accomplish getting back links is to publish articles and have a link that points to your article.  Many website owners are looking for content and they don't have the time or the skill to write a properly SEO article related to their keywords so they will use others articles.

That is where your article comes in handy because those webmasters who want content will come looking and they will find yours.  Then when they post the article on their site or blog you get a link from their site to your blog.  Instant backlink and Google likes these, so what ever they like we also like and want more of them.  The more articles the better.

What I have accomplished with my money making blog in one week:

• I have some great links all over the web, about 20 links and more will follow.
• Wrote and published 2 articles that will give me backlinks to my blog.
• Pinged my blog
• Submitted blog to blogging directory and search engines.
• Made a money making blog business plan and goals.
• Submitted blog at 2 Blog Carnival magazines.

 Here is what has not happened yet:  I have not made any money yet, and I say yet because I know that it will come with time.  Only a handful of visitors, but I know that will grow too.  Still not indexed in the major search engines - Yet!

If I keep working on getting backlinks and more traffic to my site I know that my blog will make money and I will be one of the top 10% of people making money online.  If you want to be in the top 10% of people who make money online bookmark my blog and check back often to see what new ideas I am up to at My Blogging Fortune that you can use on your blog to make money. 



My new challenge is to continue to post twice daily.  I believe the people who say content is king and I intend to help out my readers and provide them with informative content they can use to make money online with a blog.

Day 6 - My Blogging Fortune Challenge

It's Day 6 and I have been trying to do all I can to get more traffic to my blog.  Been doing research on how to get free traffic to my site.  I have also learned about many interesting free traffic ideas that I want to try in the future.

 

What did I do on Day 6 to Make Money with my Blog?

• Wrote an article for Ezine Articles
• Submitted a post to 2 Blog Carnival Publishing Magazines 

 Just found out what a Blog Carnival is when I jumped on the opportunity to get more traffic to my blog.  I am not sure what the results will be, but I am expecting great results. 

Day 5 - My Blogging Fortune Challenge

Day 5 of my Blogging Fortune Challenge - Weekend Slow Down


It's Day 5 and we have the weekend, Valentine's Day and a migraine.  So not much work got accomplished on the blog today.

But here is what did happen:
Still frustrated with Technorati because it has been three whole days (I'm Impatient) they have found my blog and it is under review.  I don't want to ping my blog again because I have their code in one post and I don't want that showing up anywhere else.   I just want it added to their blog directory so I can get some more blog traffic which = more money!


What did I do on Day 5 to Make Money with my Blog?

•  Placed  4  New Links to my Blog around the Internet 
• Started an article to put up on Ezine Articles 

That was it, but at least I did something.  I would have liked to had one more link to make it 5 links a day because my blog needs the link love.  

Turn Your Blog into a Profit Machine

As I was doing more research to get tons of traffic to my  blog so I can make more money I came upon this site where they were offering a free chapter of their ebook. 

The ebook is Blog Dynamite

They claim that you can start a profitable blog within six days and to  Transform Your Blog Into An Explosive Profit Machine.  Well who doesn't want to make money from their blog in just 6 days?

So I signed up to read a free chapter of the Blog Dynamite sent to my email in the form of a PDF.  It was pretty standard sign up and I had to confirm the email to get the ebook chapter sent to me.

The first module or chapter of Blog Dynamite was only a few pages long, but they can't give everything away for free now can they.  If you have never blogged before then you will want to sign up to get this first chapter of the digital book for free.  There is some valuable info that you might want to read about.

The First Chapter of Blog Dynamite is useful:
I have been blogging for a while now and I know more than the average newbie.  But, just in this first chapter I was reminded of something I need to change on my blog to make it more user friendly.  That first chapter also reminded me of a topic that I need to post about to get more traffic to my blog.  If you don't know it yet - the more blog traffic you can get the more money making opportunities you have.

If you are interested in getting a free chapter of the book Blog Dynamite just click here: Blog Dynamite free chapter.