This has to be a popular question for anyone who is successful at blogging. How did you start? If you asked me what blogging was a few years ago I would have no idea that it was even a word.

How I Started Blogging

It was a dark and stormy night. No, I’m kidding thats a little too dramatic.

Actually I wasn’t working and I knew someone who made money online. He suggested starting a blog. Pick a niche and write. So thats what I did. Figured out blogspot and started writing about Fantasy Football.

It’s not the best story, but it has opened up great opportunities. Being a blogger has allowed me to build a little income and enjoy doing it.

What I like most is that if I feel that blogging isn’t for me then I could always sell, blogs and websites hold a great value.

Making money blogging has taken a little longer than I expected. I’ve been doing it a year+ now and I’m not in the place I hoped I would be. I’ve learned a lot, at least 23 things, so I can’t imagine quiting now.

Whats your story?

How did you start blogging? Why? Who motivated you to blog? Or maybe, someone has motivated you to keep blogging.

People seem to be very interested when I tell them I blog and make money online. When I explained blogging I mention the Technorati system. The more blogs link to you, the better you are ranked. We are currently ranked in the top 5,000, but why not higher? Here are 8 reasons you should link to our blog.

1. We have great open and cheap advertising rates. Not buying any links for yourself, let your readers know where they can get some great promotion.

2. Our top posts offer some great ideas and concepts that you could easily include into a post of your own. We put together a best of 2007 list that would be a great start.

3. The Top 20 Contest Blogs list was just updated and is a great resource to any blogger who is looking to run or participate in contests.

4. A great thing you can do for your own blog rankings is link to established quality domains (in your own niche too). Our domain is over a year old and it could help you helping us!

5. Getting writers block for todays post? Write up a quick review about us! What post could be better?

6. If those 5 reasons aren’t enough for you, how about some incentive? Link to us and make sure we know and I’ll even pay you 50 entrecard credits, that’s as good as money right?

7. Entrecard isn’t your thing? I love social media and would be happy to shoot you a few votes on any article of yours.

8. Not into social media or entrecard? How about more rss subscribers? I’d be happy to add you to my reader.

Maybe I got a little carried away at the end, but you get the idea. We have the quality, the readers, and the support to take it to the next level.

So why haven’t you blogged about us?

Katy from I’m Blogging That wrote an interesting post about Ted Murphy of PPP/Izea. The covered several aspects of PPP and Ted Murphy, which inspired me to write this post. Ted Murphy is one of the only ones who has been able to evolve sponsored posting to what it is today. Several services have failed at what PPP has accomplished.

With that said, PPP has failed to find a solution for their bloggers who have suffered a Google PR slap. I wrote that RealRank Won’t Work with Google PR. Guess what? It hasn’t. The PayPerPost Forum is filled with unhappy bloggers. They have a reason to be. Some went from making $1,000 per month, to nothing.

PayPerPost Solution? Recruit new bloggers.

On February 14th, that will go down in PPP history (exaggerating much?), PPP changed their TOS dramatically. For new blogs to be accepted they only require 10 posts and to be 30 days old. The previous rule was 20 posts and 90 days old. With such a dramatic change I was surprised to find that the blogpost had no comments. You can find the discussion at the PPP forum.

As a PPP blogger, I had to wait several times for my blogs to be approved. This allowed me to have more content without ANY sponsored posts until I was accepted. I thought that was both good for my blog, PPP, and the advertisers.

Now, PPP can be filled with even more splogs and lower quality blogs, if it wasn’t already. Instead of helping bloggers who have been loyal, they are basically sending a loud message by trying to get new bloggers.

What do you think about PPP and this move? I don’t think it’s out of desperation, but a move needed for them, not bloggers.

Bloggers who blog about blogging have been told throughout the blogosphere that it isn’t a real niche. That it’s pointless, as well as not profitable. Or so I’ve read…

It Won’t Die

Blogs about blogging are a useful resource for all bloggers no matter what niche they blog in. As long as there is blogging there will be blogs about it. It’s very similar to the make money online niche. As long as there are people who want to make money online there will be blogs about it.

Not Profitable?

Some bloggers have said that blogs about blogging aren’t profitable. With the low cost of maintaining a blog, it’s hard for them not to be profitable. If you break down the cost of hosting and a domain it’s under 10$. For this blog, it runs to be about 6.58$ per month. 6$ per month for hosting, .58 cents per month for the domain (7$ divided by 12 months).

I wouldn’t say that it’s been easy or I’m making a ton of money on this blog, you can see January’s earning report, but I am definitely making a profit. If you can offer good content that people want to read and really be honest, you can easily make that few bucks a month spent on the blog.

Pointless?

Blogging has grown exponentially over the years. Huge numbers of blogs are created daily. New bloggers are born everyday. Who’s going to teach them our ways? Someone has to. That’s why we have the uber bloggers that we do. They offered the content people wanted and needed. Not only did they help bloggers grow, bloggers made them grow. You can earn quick money on a “fad” niche like Webkinz or Hannah Montana, but that only lasts so long.

What is your opinion on blogs about blogging?

Finding advertising that works for you and your blog is important. If you don’t like it, it’s hard to justify using it other than the money. Kontera is a perfect way to put advertising on any blog or website. Advertising in-text doesn’t put up any images or widget to slow down your site.

Kontera hasn’t been the biggest a money earner here, but you have to figure that the niche isn’t as profitable. Obviously, different keywords and terms do better than others. I’ve actually had more success with Kontera on my freebie blog. I plan on adding it to several more to see the difference between them all.

What I have been the most impressed with is the Kontera staff and support. I’ve written to several directly, the response time has been great. They set-up everything for you and basically walk you through any troubles you may have.

Kontera Video Contest

Kontera announced on their blog, they are looking to find out experiences their publishers and advertisers have had by using their service. To enter record a short video about the benefits and your overall experience with Kontera. I can’t tell you my idea, but I plan to enter and post the video on our blog. Make sure to keep a lookout for it.

By making the video, you could win 500$! Second wins 250$ and third wins 100$. They are looking for the best video, so be creative and if you can, funny!

To be eligible you must be a publisher or advertiser with Kontera so make sure to register.

The contest ends March 1st, so you don’t have time to waste getting started. For the full details on the contest, refer to the Kontera Blog.

What would you do if you won 500$?

The folks at Automattic (guys behind Wordpress) released a very cool new theme recently which takes Wordpress to a whole new level.

The Prologue theme turns your blog into a Twitteresque site - with much of the same feel, layout and functionality. Some people are even suggesting this could be a Twitter killer.

I don’t believe this will have any effect on Twitter, but this theme opens the door to many an opportunity. It wasn’t long before I started dreaming of the possibilities and after a couple of hours of work - RankScale.com

RankScale is a place for online marketers and bloggers to plug tools, sites, blogs, and other resources they come across. The site is nothing special - but it does demonstrate just how powerful Wordpress is and what can be achieved.

I have got plans to do some quite a bit of custom coding work on RankScale which will greatly improve the experience - but let me know what you think of the concept. (plus you always sign up and grab some free link love!)

I’m sure many a similar site will be built using the great new Prologue theme and I can’t wait to see what other developers come up with. My quick project was just a cosmetic job (fiddled with design etc..) but amazing things could be built using Prologue + plugins + clever coding!

Find me and all my articles at my new blog - Marketvice.com

Blogging Zoom has definitely evolved into it’s own mini social media site. Many bloggers I know use it or have in the past. Getting to the front page is easy, everyone can always use a few extra visitors per day. However, has that gone to their heads?

Blogging Zoom Copy and Paste

Blogging Zooms submission process for new articles has always been a bit annoying. To submit every post you must write 350 characters of text. To get an idea how much that is, it would be almost two times bigger than the first paragraph of this article.

When I submit to social media websites I usually do so 2-5 at a time. That would be stumbleupon, sphinn, mixx, (sometimes digg), and blogging zoom. With submissions and writing my next article, I don’t have time to write 350 characters uniquely for blogging zoom.

The result, Blog about your Blog has been officially been banned by Dictator Vic. I’ve taken a lot of crap just for my submissions at Blogging Zoom. Our latest submission received two comments from Vic scolding me for “copy and pasting”. I noticed my article was the only one receiving attention for “violating the rules”. Then I was told to quite whining by a very nice user. After I told them to stfu, BAYB was banned.

Ooopps…

Double Content and Banning

I only have to assume that Blogging Zoom wasn’t ranking as well for terms or being penalized. Not only is their search system terrible, but they don’t show often in google either. I find it hard to believe it’s “for the blogger”. If it is for the blogger, how would you be helping them by banning them from Blogging Zoom. Sounds like someone is on a power trip.

By duplicating a few sentences of a post, I have never felt any penalties. By making it 350 characters long I suppose it could be a penalty due to it being so long. Blogging Zoom isn’t looking out for their bloggers, it sounds like they are looking out more so for themselves. It’s funny how this rule isn’t in place for any other social media site…

“Two main reasons why we do not allow copy paste. First reason is for the benefit of both Blogging Zoom and you as the blogger. Every time you copy and paste your content in a submission let it be here at Blogging Zoom or any other social voting site you are giving yourself and Blogging Zoom a duplicate content filter penalty with Google.

We ask you to please follow this rules. Not only are you hurting yourself with the copy paste but also fellow bloggers that do follow the rules but are also penalized with a site wide duplicate content penalty.”

After issuing the “no copy and paste” policy I know several of my own contacts have stopped using the service. Honestly for me I have a lot less of a desire to publish articles. Either the comments are rude and nasty, or I’m not writing my description long enough…

Comparison to Digg

I love that Blogging Zoom has compared themselves to digg.

“Blogging Zoom is heading toward one day being a much stronger site then Digg and any other social site. If you need proof of this look at our Alexa vs Digg we are month ahead in traffic for the same time of Digg. If you want to be a Power Zoomer and grow with Blogging Zoom please help the community.”

It’s nice to have a nice high goal set, but being bigger than digg? Get real. First off as a blogger, Vic you know Alexa is worthless. Secondly you guys are no where near digg. Possibly in volume of rude users. How are you helping the community by banning members who aren’t commenting on every post being an idiot?

I’m not one to be negative towards anyone, but like he’s done to many others, Vic (and Blogging Zoom), has just rubbed me the wrong way.

Can Blogging Zoom ever be the next Digg?

The following article was written by Ryan from Blogging4Everyone dot Com.

Page Rank should be made a thing of the past. I am a blogger, who blogs for the pure fact that my blogs are fun for me to maintain. I NEVER feel obligated to blog on a day where I am sick, too busy, etc, as long as it doesn’t keep happening day after day.

I have had Page Rank on numerous blogs sucked away by Google. Sure, I deserved it. I admit I did PayPerPost on my blogs and I didn’t make it nofollow. However, PayPerPost slapped me back in the face with a wet noodle when they told me I had to have X page rank to take an opportunity.

Great news however from PayPerPost. Ted Murphy, IZEA’s president(PPP’s parent company) has announced that Page Rank has been eliminated from their new product, Social Spark. Blogs with bigger communities and more traffic will benefit under Social Spark, according to Murphy. Ted Murphy also disclosed that they are kicking Page Rank out of the current PayPerPost system after their new product, Social Spark is live.

Alright, so maybe that is just one reason to get rid of Page Rank. Here are some more;

• Bloggers shouldn’t feel tied to a mythical number
• Bloggers shouldn’t have to be pressured to conform
• Blogging should be your choices, and your choices alone.

The list goes on and on. However, the point remains, Google has the money. Will you let them continue to tie you down with Page Rank or will you base your blog on something better. Your community, traffic and I thank you!