Blog From Your Desktop

This site covers how to start a blog, build traffic and make money blogging. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I am not a patient person. Perhaps you’ve picked that up by now? I’m particularly impatient first thing in the morning, which is when I […]

Blog Maintenance And Pursuit of PageRank

There was a time, way back when, that I had no idea what PageRank meant. Much like my days of chastity, effortlessly slim thighs and an all-night bladder, I can barely recall that time.
Fact is, if you’re Blogging For The Money, PageRank matters. Yes, in theory PR represents Google’s opinion of your site — as […]

WordPress Made Easy

Although I’m not a site designer, I do tend to tinker with my templates on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I also mess up my templates on a regular basis, too. Same goes for my entire WordPress install, although I have far fewer problems with that these days thanks to Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book WordPress for […]

Google To Offer Paid Reviews?

Those of us spanked by Google during the great PR slash of October 2007 found ourselves wondering why the big G targeted small “Mom and Pop” bloggers, rather than taking on the paid review companies more directly.
It turns out there may be a reason: there’s talk that Google may soon be offering paid reviews via […]

BFTM’s New Look

I feel pretty, oh so pretty…
I almost forgot to ask: what do you think of the new design?

Should I Go Full Monty?

Even prior to BFTM’s nifty, new site design (thanks to my beloved pals at Apothegm), I’d been posting only entry excerpts on the front page of this site.
As this Morning’s Must Read explains, there’s a good argument in favor of excerpts: avoiding search engine penalties for duplicate content. (There are plenty of other boring […]

Your Blog Focus: Are You Playing “Ostrich”?

As we’ll discuss later this week, a focused blog is essential to making money with companies like LinkWorth and getting bids accepted at places like Sponsored Reviews.
So let’s say you followed my tips on how to focus your blog to improve traffic and profit and you still don’t know what your blog’s focus is. […]

I’m Infected

Not my computer: me. With the flu, to be precise, which is why I’ve been away from the computer for three days now. Fortunately, I seem to be getting back into the swing of things even if my head feels foggy and my body feels like someone repeatedly ran over it with a Mack truck.
Blogging […]

How To Deal With Scrapers

It’s happened to the best of us: you labor over an entry, fill it with informative links and post it and then… someone steals your content.
It sucks, and no matter how many times you report it to the scraper’s ISP or to Google or whomever, it never seems to stop.
Stop stressing, my friends. […]

Focus Your Blog To Improve Traffic And Profit

“What do you blog about?
Having a succinct, specific answer when someone asks what your blog’s about is the first step toward improving your traffic and, ultimately, to increased blogging income. As we’ve discussed before, people read blogs for two reasons: to get information and to be entertained.
Blog advertisers know this, which is why […]

Sometimes It’s Rude To Expect Honesty

Since launching this site I’ve been asked by several dozen people to visit their site and give my honest feedback about how it looks, what areas need improvement and how they can attract more readers (and, as a result, higher-paying writing opportunities). That’s flattering. It really is.
After all, I obviously launched this site with the […]

Make A Free Favicon For Your Blog

At any given point in the day my browser shows a sea of tabs all competing for prime real estate on my laptop monitor. My bookmarks are equally cluttered despite my intention to someday tidy them up. Between these two little habits of mine it’s easy to lose track of a website, unless they have […]

Know Your Readers To Retain Them

Why do your readers visit your blog? Is it for your content? Or have search engine queries led most there by accident, their visits never lasting more than a few seconds?
There are advantages to knowing why readers read your blog as Wayne Liew explains in this morning’s must read.

From PR0 to PR3 Overnight

I’m almost hesitant to mention this since I never know when to trust whether a G-bar update has really “taken” (much like George’s post-workout shower in Seinfeld).
After waiting three days now, I figured it might be time to point out something: I went from a post-October 2007 Google-slap PR of 0 (Zero) to PR3 […]

Treat Your Blog As A Business

I received the following email today from a fellow blogger (who asked not to be named) in response to my entry on how to write paid reviews worth reading.

Kate, I get the part about more information in reviews and all but if they’re only paying $7 how am I supposed to pay my bills AND […]

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