The first step is to determine your keywords and keyword phrases and then sort by popularity. With a very young blog, like this one, you may not have the logs and reports to analyse keywords from hits. I’ve downloaded a copy of Good Keywords to help me understand what my site is saying to search engines. This will give me a good start in really looking at the way I use (if I do) keywords currently. A snapshot today shows:

Looking at the Keyword Table in Good Keywords I can see that there is plenty of work to do. My next task is now look at refining and combining keyword phrases for maximum impact.

In the meantime I have also read about a couple of Wordpress plugins that are available. I’ll report on my progress with SEO plugins in another post once I’ve had a further look.

Exploring blogging income opportunites

Google Adsense

The first program I signed up for, on Day 4 of this experiment, Google Adsense seemed to be the de facto standard for making money with blogging. Within a couple of hours I had received a welcome email from Google and started selecting the options for ad sets that I thought might work the best.

Over the last week or so I have played around with the layout and ad size and type and think that I now have something that looks pretty good. I’ll probably leave it as is for a couple of weeks at least so that I can build up some stats over time on how they are performing.

On Day 18, I finally installed the Adsense Deluxe Wordpress plugin and it definitely makes life easier. This is one of my favourite plugins and is great for including all sorts of scripts into posts and templates.

Sign up for Google Adsense

Amazon Associates

In one of my first posts, the Top 10 Running Quotes, I really wanted to provide more information with each quote rather than just a name. I signed up on Day 7 and have since added links to books on Amazon where I have mentioned a book or where I recommend a book for further reading.

Join Amazon Associates

Text Link Ads

As there is a limit to three Google Adsense ad blocks on a page, I also signed up for Text Link Ads at the same time as an alternative. On Day 4 I received an email thanking me for becoming a member and after activation I received another email congratulating me on becoming a publisher. It wasn’t until Day 15 that I submitted my home page to publish ads.

A day or so later I received an email with the title “Your inventory was declined”. There were a couple of reasons listed but basically they all boiled down to not having enough traffic yet. I guess it’s a matter of waiting a month or two and then trying again. In the meantime, I have decided to advertise Text Link Ads as part of their affiliates program with one ad on the home page.

It’s interesting to note that a search on Google for ‘text link ads’ does not bring up their site.

Sign up for Text Link Ads

Sponsored Reviews

I like the idea of writing sponsored reviews and applied as a Publisher on Day 19. I was about to submit my blog address when I thought I had better read the fine print. Well, it seems that they don’t take too kindly to blogs under three months old so I guess this is one for later too.

Azoogle Ads

On Day 9 of the experiment, I signed up for Azoogle Ads and my application was approved on Day 12. Azoogle asked for a completed copy of the US tax form W-8BEN. I have researched this a little and while some bloggers say that it is not necessary (as I am based in Australia) and other bloggers don’t think there is any harm in completing the form. I must admit the form is still sitting on my desk. Completed – but not yet posted.

Sign up for Azoogle Ads

There are a couple more that I’m starting to read up on. For any other new bloggers, what have you found worked best for you in those first few months of blog infancy? I look forward to your comments.

Blogging is hard work!

“Content is king”, “Write at least one quality, original article every day” – well, it’s easier said than done. Blogging takes commitment and hard work. Last week everything was very new and the timing of starting the experiment fitted in well with my other commitments. Now, as reality sets in, I realise that blogging takes time and effort. And it has to be a consistent effort. Readers don’t know how many articles are still marked draft nor do they know all the ideas that are still in my head. It’s certainly not the quick, easy buck that some people make out. However, I still think that the rewards will more than justify the effort so I’m definitely not ready to give up yet!

Realistic Goals?

When planning this experiment, I thought it would be important to have measurable goals that would need to be met in order to call the experiment a success. It’s still very early days but over this week I have had this nagging feeling that these goals may not be achievable. However, I am trying to put this to the back of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand.

You can take a look at my blog’s current stats to compare progress against the experiment’s goals.

There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet

You can lose minutes, hours, even days, on the Internet! One minute I just hop onto Google to look up something quickly and the next thing I know, I’ve followed a couple of links, and it’s two hours later. I can also lose myself in the new world (to me) of Wordpress Plugins, SEO theories and social networking sites. My new mantra is now ‘don’t let the tools rule’! There’s plenty of time for me to optimise my blog after I’ve reached some kind of ‘critical mass’ of quality articles.

In Summary

I think that while progress has been slow, it has still been progress. There have been a number of ‘technical’ tasks to do in setting up the blog’s framework and I think I can now say that I’m now over the hump and can focus on writing content. While this week has been a little bit sobering, I’m still confident and excited about this experiment.

So, no time to rest. In my research I had read both opinions – there are some blog authors say that you should wait until your site has picked up a reasonable volume of regular traffic before monetizing your blog and then there are other blog authors that started generating an income almost from day one. On Day3 of the experiment Google approved the blog to host Adsense advertising and this has been mildly successful to date. But it’s important not to put all your eggs in one basket and so I have also looked at the Amazon Affiliate program, Azoogleads and Text Link Ads.

My experience with Text Link Ads (TLA) so far …

Day 4 (18/01/2008)

Signed up for Text Link Ads on their site (http://www.text-link-ads.com/) . Received a nice email welcoming me to membership with Text Link Ads and a link to activate my membership. After activation I then received another email “Congratulations on becoming a publisher! Please make sure you have submitted a site for us to put ads on.”

Day 14 (28/01/2008)

I had been focussing on Wordpress Plugins and the amazing world of stats that I didn’t submit my site to Text Link Ads until today. After declining a ’special offer’ I chose to be a standard publisher and place an ad block on my home page only. I still wanted to learn more first and thought I would start small. Well, the irony of that statement! The following email came through: “Your inventory was declined

Hello kdays.com,

We are sorry but the inventory you have suggested http://www.kdays.com has been declined at this time. The main reasons inventory is declined is:

Site rejected due to limited link popularity.
-The website does not have enough link popularity.
-The website does not have enough traffic.
-The website is currently selling text link ads.

*Please note that our algorithm that accepts or rejects inventory submissions can make mistakes and if you feel the above criteria does not accurately describe your website, please reply to this email asking for further review by our editorial staff.”

Well I know I’m not already selling text link ads so it’s obvious I’m not yet popular enough for text link ads! I’m too small to even start small! I think I’ll have to give it another month or so before submitting kdays.com again.

Both Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics have started to show some data but there still seems to be something else that needs to ‘click’ before I can really see what these tools can provide. May be in another 24 hours …

Blogging is certainly a time consuming business.  With everything else that has to be done when starting out it’s hard to focus on writing articles too.  Content is the most important part of a blog.  Today’s article is a short definition post What is VO² max?.