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	<title>Blogging Fingers &#187; Creative Blogging</title>
	<link>http://bloggingfingers.com</link>
	<description>Blogging ideas, tips, creativity and money making strategies for blogs</description>
	<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:16:12 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>More to Google than Search</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/more-to-google-than-search/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/more-to-google-than-search/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:22:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How To Use Google As More Than Just a Search Engine
Everybody is googling, but few explore Googles’ full range of services and applications. Some are even wary of all things Google. Despite the founders’ stated aim of making information sharing easier and more efficient, the giant has been criticised for enterprises that some perceive as [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "More to Google than Search", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/more-to-google-than-search/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1>How To Use Google As More Than Just a Search Engine</h1>
<p>Everybody is googling, but few explore Googles’ full range of services and applications. Some are even wary of all things Google. Despite the founders’ stated aim of making information sharing easier and more efficient, the giant has been criticised for enterprises that some perceive as threats to privacy. Whether or not you care about Google potentially gathering anonymous information about your computer usage or having custody of your files, it would be dumb to write it off.</p>
<p><strong>Google Searching</strong></p>
<p>We all know how to google, though perhaps not the most efficient ways. Quick tips are: include character operators when you enter your query. One of the most useful is the minus sign.  If you want to learn about tomatoes but don’t want your search results cluttered with tomato recipes, type in ‘tomato – recipe’. Also useful is the synonym operator (~). If you’re looking up wool carpets, type ‘wool ~carpet’ and it will also search for rug, mat and other equivalent words. To speed up simple searches, personalise your searches by specifying your requirements – for example, English only. And did you know you can do calculations by typing the sum into the query box? There’s a lot more to searching than meets the eye.</p>
<p>A useful feature for scholars and researchers is searching news, books and academic papers, rather than websites, at Google News, Google Books and Google Scholar. On a more frivolous note, Google Checkout allows you to centralise your online shopping, collating all your purchasing information from multiple sellers and letting you buy using only one account and password. The specialized search options and added services could fill a book. The point is that its worth digging a little deeper to see how you can optimize searching for your purposes.</p>
<p><strong>Google Maps</strong></p>
<p>You can do more than just look up places with Google maps. You can plan routes with Google Transit or even make your own personalized map. Google Earth allows you to travel from your armchair – prior to travel, or just for fun. You can even leave Earth and take a tour of Mars!</p>
<p><strong>Google Communications</strong></p>
<p>Google’s email programme (googlemail or Gmail) is a well-known application. You can also start your own discussion group with Google Groups and you can use Google to send text messages (SMS) to get search results sent to your phone. Gmail can be linked to a calendar-cum-organiser, amongst other features. A handy gadget for your email is a downloadable ‘notifier’ that sits on your desktop and lets you know when a new message arrives. A well-established Google feature for online diaries and business promotion alike is the self-explanatory Blogger service.</p>
<p><strong>Google Documents and storage</strong></p>
<p>Cloud computing is a new development: instead of buying software you access it online and store your documents on the provider’s servers. Great  backup for when your hard drive dies. Applications available include word-processing and spreadsheets, a picture/graphics editor (Picasa) and tools for creating webpages (Page Creator). The plus of creating online documents is that you can share them online instead of producing them, emailing and then awaiting feedback.</p>
<p>These are just some of the features that you can access nowadays. There’s much more, of which Google’s Adsense deserves quick mention – either for people wanting to advertise or for bloggers and website owners wanting to earn by displaying ads on their pages. Don’t forget the feeds, finance information, weather forecasts and the myriad other options available. Wherever you turn, Google seems to have something cooking. No wonder there are concerns that they’re taking over the world – so proceed with eagerness tempered by careful assessment.</p>
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		<title>Dropshipping Secrets of Online Marketing: Buy low, Sell high</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/dropshipping-secrets-of-online-marketing-buy-low-sell-high/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/dropshipping-secrets-of-online-marketing-buy-low-sell-high/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:26:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Dropshipping: The Shortcut to Starting Your Business
Selling products online is one of the hottest business models right now. Everyone is discovering the benefits of shopping online, from grandmothers to preteens. Savvy entrepreneurs are picking up on this trend quickly and creating businesses to cater to every demographic. The smartest entrepreneurs are taking advantage of dropshipping [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Dropshipping Secrets of Online Marketing: Buy low, Sell high", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/dropshipping-secrets-of-online-marketing-buy-low-sell-high/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1>Dropshipping: The Shortcut to Starting Your Business</h1>
<p>Selling products online is one of the hottest business models right now. Everyone is discovering the benefits of shopping online, from grandmothers to preteens. Savvy entrepreneurs are picking up on this trend quickly and creating businesses to cater to every demographic. The smartest entrepreneurs are taking advantage of dropshipping to help them build their business and save money at the same time.</p>
<p><strong>Problems with selling online<br />
</strong>After your market analysis and business plan, you have to pick your products. You’ll soon begin to realize what challenges are created.</p>
<ol>
<li>“What about storage? I don’t have space in my house to store a ton of inventory.”</li>
<li>“Wholesalers might not sell to me if I don’t have a retail outlet or warehouse… and what about minimum order amounts?”</li>
<li>“The shipping costs are going to be outrageous. I’ll have to pay to have stock shipped to me, and then pay to ship them to the customers.”</li>
<li>“Fulfilling orders is going to take a long time… finding products, packaging them (oh, there’s an extra expense), shipping them out individually, and making sure they get there fine.”</li>
<li>“What if the products never even sell in the first place?!”</li>
</ol>
<p>Dropshipping solves all these problems and more at the same time.</p>
<p><strong>How dropshipping works<br />
</strong>Whenever a customer orders, you contact the distributor who dropships for you. You pay wholesale price for the goods, and the dropshipper will include your invoice and shipping label when they ship the products, just like it came from you directly!</p>
<p>Using dropshipping will eliminate the costs of purchasing inventory upfront and holding it until you sell, particularly if it never sells! You will pay some costs such as storage space and accounting fees, but the dropshipper will handle day-to-day operations that would take up valuable time and money if you did it yourself.</p>
<p>Also, if you took care of obtaining, storing, and managing inventory, shipping, and other aspects of order fulfillment yourself, you’d be paying whether or not you sell anything. With dropshipping, you’ll only pay if you do make a sale.</p>
<p><strong>Problems with dropshipping<br />
</strong>Some problems do crop up when you use a dropshipper, but you can avoid them if you’re careful.</p>
<p>A few dropshippers claim to be selling at wholesale prices, but they actually charge closer to retail prices. Look into the average wholesale price for an item before agreeing to pay a dropshipper for it, or you could end up really cutting into your profit margin.</p>
<p>Another problem is that margins aren’t very good in some markets, such as consumer electronics, so you probably shouldn’t get into those areas unless you have previous experience and a solid budget. Research your area thoroughly before committing, including the expected profit margins and experience necessary to succeed in it.</p>
<p>Overall, dropshipping is a perfect solution to reducing inventory and overhead costs associated with selling products online. It also helps you save time so you can do what’s important, like attracting customers and researching new niches to sell to.</p>
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		<title>Making money online with freelance writing</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/making-money-online-with-freelance-writing/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/making-money-online-with-freelance-writing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:23:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Ways to Make Money Online by Freelance Writing
Internet has helped revolutionize businesses in every way. Freelance writers have more opportunities today to earn great amounts of money writing online. Freelancers can get in touch with clients from anywhere in the globe for their writing projects. Here we will see how freelance writers can exploit the [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Making money online with freelance writing", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/making-money-online-with-freelance-writing/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1>Ways to Make Money Online by Freelance Writing</h1>
<p>Internet has helped revolutionize businesses in every way. Freelance writers have more opportunities today to earn great amounts of money writing online. Freelancers can get in touch with clients from anywhere in the globe for their writing projects. Here we will see how freelance writers can exploit the Internet revolution.</p>
<p><em>Part I: Freelance Writing Online</em></p>
<p>A number of freelance writing sites help writers build an online portfolio, and grow their writing business slowly. Here are some ways writers can earn good income online.</p>
<p><strong>1. Constant-Content.com</strong></p>
<p>Constant Content (CC) is perhaps the leader in marketing freelance content to thousands of websites out there. The  writers can submit content on various topics here and set their price of choice. When an article is sold, the author gets 65 per cent of the sale price.</p>
<p>Customers can request for particular content to the whole writer community or to specific writers as private requests. Already, some of the top members in Constant Content earn thousands of dollars writing. Getting private requests is important for all authors, since it will help them earn more.</p>
<p>Constant Content gives you an online portfolio, which shows all your content and sales history. This portfolio will help get rise in payment for your articles or even land a permanent writing job. Also, the writing standard of CC is very high, as it filters out content with incorrect grammar or punctuation.</p>
<p><strong>2. Associated Content</strong></p>
<p>Associated Content is a very popular content provider out there. Two types of payments are available here: upfront payment and performance payments. Upfront payment is available only in the US, and is usually less than 10 dollars. This is made on publication of the article. Performance payment is according to the number of pageviews an article gets. It is about 1.5 dollars per thousand pageviews.</p>
<p>Though the payment is low, AC offers greater reach to its authors. Associated Content gets almost 7 million visitors, who view almost 40 million pages every month. Hence, you are sure to get a great reach through AC.</p>
<p><strong>3. Helium</strong></p>
<p>Helium is another high quality freelancing site. Helium is a popular content provider in various topics. Even news media look for content within Helium writing marketplace. Helium also provides partnership programs, freelancing opportunities, and writing contests. If you are lucky enough, writing contests may fetch you a lot of money and exposure.</p>
<p>Helium’s freelance writing marketplace has lots of freelancing jobs for writers out there. Since Helium is popular, the competition can be tough, but the pay rate is higher than other freelance sites.</p>
<p><strong>4. Contribute to Professional Publications</strong></p>
<p>Quite a few professional publications can take your articles for publication. They include newspapers and online and print magazines. Although you can make quite a lot of money by publishing with them, the exposure matters the most. A print media publication can provide you enormous exposure.</p>
<p>However, most of these publications require that you query them with your article idea. Don’t send your article without solicitation; otherwise, it may end up in slush pile. Query the editors first, and follow up professionally if you don’t get a reply in a reasonable amount of time.</p>
<p><strong>5. Freelancing Websites</strong></p>
<p>There are quite a few freelance writing sites in which clients post writing projects. Writers can bid on these projects. Writers with greater proficiency and experience can win their bids easily. Since this is a worldwide marketplace, the competition can be great. Here are some freelancing websites:</p>
<p>Elance.com<br />
Academia-research.com<br />
Bizreef.com<br />
Scriptlance.com<br />
Guru.com</p>
<p><strong>6. Sponsored Review Blogging</strong></p>
<p>If you have a popular, professional blog, you can write reviews of various products in it to get paid. These reviews require you to link out to the reviewed product website. Each review can fetch you about 10 or 20 dollars. Here are the sites that offer review jobs:</p>
<p>PayPerPost.com<br />
SponsoredReviews.com<br />
Smorty.com<br />
ReviewMe.com<br />
BuyBlogReviews.com<br />
Blogsvertise.com<br />
Matched.co.uk</p>
<p><strong>7. Begin a Blog and Promote It</strong></p>
<p>You can have a higher chance of landing a professional writing job by starting a blog and promoting it well. You can advertise your writing portfolio in this blog and offer to write for money. Clients checking out your blog can see and estimate your writing standards before hiring you. And your competition in this case will be very low. Do good search engine optimization on your blogs to get more exposure and thus more jobs.</p>
<p><strong>8. Search for Jobs</strong></p>
<p>You can find freelance writing jobs without associating with a freelancing website or starting a blog. You can search for jobs. The largest classifieds ad network in the world, Craiglist.org can help you find a lot of freelancing jobs. Search within Craiglist and you will land many writing jobs that pay well.</p>
<p>However, writing random jobs like this will not help build a good writing portfolio. Most of these jobs are short term for one article or article packages. Long-term jobs are the best for professional freelancers.</p>
<p><strong>9. Blogging on Blog Networks</strong></p>
<p>A number of blog networks offer blogging jobs for writers out there. Most of these networks don’t offer jobs to newbies. You should have good experience in your field to land such a job. Also, the money you can earn from these networks is enormous.</p>
<p>Another advantage of blog networks is that they hire SEO professionals to promote their blogs. So, you only need to write content, and promotion will be taken care of by the company. Also, every blog in the network are interlinked, which makes sure that even the new blogs on the network will get high traffic and money.</p>
<p>However, as mentioned earlier, the expertise in the topic chosen is very important to land a job here. An inexperienced person is obviously not in demand here. Here are some blog networks:</p>
<p>About.com: About.com, owned by News Corporation, is one of the largest content networks out there. According to Alexa, its traffic rank is 81. Writers on About.com are called guides. A guide not only gets about 800 dollars a month, but also gets huge promotion. With your popularity, your earnings will also increase. Top guides in About.com earn in tune of thousands of dollars a month.</p>
<p>Suite101: This is a blog network, which has blogs related to various topics. You can apply to be a blogger there on any of the topics. Chosen writers are paid handsomely for their articles.</p>
<p>451Press: This is another blog network like Suite101. The popularity and pay rate are a little less.</p>
<p>B5Media: This is a blog network started by professional blogger, Darren Rowse. With over 300 blogs now, B5Media is growing.</p>
<p>Today.com: Only US residents can apply to be part of this blog network.</p>
<p><strong>10. Ad Revenue Sharing Networks</strong></p>
<p>There are several companies, which share advertisement revenues with its writers. All you need do in these sites is submit your content and your advertisement IDs (affiliate IDs). Well-written content will drive huge amounts of traffic to your articles. This traffic will earn a lot of money, which will be shared with you. Hubpages and Squidoo are examples of ad share networks.</p>
<p>Well-written articles, called Hubs or Squidoo Lenses, earn lots of pageviews and money for the writers.</p>
<p><strong>11. Publishing and Selling E-books</strong></p>
<p>If you are an experienced person in your field, you can publish an e-book and sell it to make profit. There are a number of publication sites, which help you publish your content online. ClickBank is an online retailer, which helps you promote and sell your digital products including your e-books at a minor fee besides the affiliate commissions. If your e-book is valuable, you will get several sales, earning you great amount of money.</p>
<p>Besides Clickbank, you can publish with on-demand self-publishing companies like Lulu.com.</p>
<p><em>Part II: Building an Online Freelancing Portfolio</em></p>
<p>A successful online freelancing career requires an online portfolio. Though everything you do online is tracked and archived, you should do the tracking yourself with the help of a blog, website, or social networking profile.</p>
<p>All freelancing sites have your profile with your article samples, number of sales, client feedback, etc. This helps greatly in building your career. Here are some tips:</p>
<p><strong>1. Start a chronological blog</strong></p>
<p>In order to track various steps of your progress, start a blog or journal, and post your career developments.</p>
<p><strong>2. Social networking</strong></p>
<p>For all Internet enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, social networking is unavoidable. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc., are so popular that you are sure to make a lot of professional connections through them.</p>
<p><strong>3. Stick to one freelancing site</strong></p>
<p>There are some advantages to sticking with one freelancing site than spreading your career in a number of them. If you have your full profile in one place, it will be easy to show it off to your clients. Also, when you don’t have any work on the primary site, it is good to work on projects from the other sites.</p>
<p><strong>4. Contribute to the community</strong></p>
<p>There are a number of communities just for freelance writers. They include social network groups, forums, etc. Contribute well to all these communities in order to be known far and wide as a trusted freelance content provider.</p>
<p><strong>5. Watch out for scammers</strong></p>
<p>Through some forums like the DigitalPoint forums, some people request articles and don’t pay money after the writer has uploaded the content. You should be aware of such scammers, and request an escrow service before sending your content.</p>
<p><em>Conclusion</em></p>
<p>Professional freelancing depends on your writing prowess. If you have good writing skills, you can effectively kill your competition. Also, early in your career, build an online profile to show off your work and ability. This way, you can get many clients.</p>
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		<title>What is Helium.com?</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/what-is-heliumcom/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/what-is-heliumcom/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:49:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Freelance Writing Online: Helium.com
For the anyone new to the world of online freelancing or content writing, there are a bewildering array of websites offering to host your writing and give you financial rewards for doing so.  It seems that every social networking site bulges with adverts offering money for your writing.  To make an informed [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "What is Helium.com?", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/what-is-heliumcom/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Freelance Writing Online: Helium.com</strong></p>
<p>For the anyone new to the world of online freelancing or content writing, there are a bewildering array of websites offering to host your writing and give you financial rewards for doing so.  It seems that every social networking site bulges with adverts offering money for your writing.  To make an informed choice of where to place your writing, you first need to know about the sites available.  The focus of this article is the website Helium.com.</p>
<p><em>An Overview<br />
</em>Helium.com is a well established online copy site advertising itself as a &#8220;knowledge co-operative&#8221;, its motto being, &#8220;Learn what you need, share what you know&#8221;.  What this basically means in real terms is that it is a free to join site, where almost anyone who measures up to the rather relaxed quality standards may post their articles on an almost endless variety of topics.  Many articles by different writers on the same topic are accepted, the philosophy being that the more points of view available the better.</p>
<p>What this lofty ideal equates to in reality is a wealth of poorly written articles, heavy on opinion (however outspoken) and low on research and quality.  How much an article earns depends on how well it is rated by other members, often arbitrarily.  Articles once posted cannot be removed or sold exclusively elsewhere, and each earns less than a cent per viewing. </p>
<p>For writers seeking adequate remuneration for individual articles, instead of a very slowly growing pile of pennies, there are far better sites available.  For first time writers seeking somewhere to practice their skills, Helium is a friendly and uncritical place to see your writing published.</p>
<p><em>Detailed Analysis</em><br />
<strong>Rating<br />
</strong>Rating is the biggest single differentiator between Helium and other pay per page view content websites.  When an article is accepted, and is in a competitive title (containing two or more other articles), it is then rated against a series of other articles by the members.  This takes the form of two rival articles displayed next to each other, with a scale at the bottom to indicate which the viewer prefers.  Depending on how well an article is rated, it will either climb to the top of the list, becoming the most viewed and potentially increasing its earnings, or disappear into obscurity.</p>
<p>Rating would seem to be a fair way to assess the quality of an article, but because Helium requires members to have a &#8216;Rating Star&#8217; (gained by having rated a certain amount of articles in the last ninety days) in order to receive payment for their articles, it is actually an exercise in futility.  It is evident that while some members do genuinely take the time to read both articles, compare them, and rate them fairly, most simply read a line or two and pick an arbitrary rating, or rate them on which expresses an opinion similar to their own.  This is clearly visible when a well written article is rated below one full of grammatical and spelling errors, something that happens lamentably often.</p>
<p><strong>Content<br />
</strong>Content on Helium is divided into three main categories.  These are Marketplace, Writing Contests, and Zones. </p>
<p>Marketplace content is generated by external Helium &#8220;Partners&#8221;, who offer a topic they wish content written for, and pay for the best articles submitted.  Like the rest of Helium, it is the users who vote for the best articles, making the most popular articles the most visible at the top of the list of submissions.  However, unlike the rest of Helium, it is not the users who have the final say in the content ultimately selected.  While the more popular content is the most visible and has the best chance of being chosen, it is the Partners who decide which article to purchase.</p>
<p>Writing Contests are an entertaining and challenging feature of Helium, offering prizes of around $60 for first, $40 for second, and $30 for third place.  A topic and a series of article titles are given by Helium on a bi-weekly basis.  Members then write to these, being given (or deducted) a certain amount of points per article, depending on how well rated they are.  The winners are those with the most cumulative points.  Several contests may be running at any given time.</p>
<p>Zones form the largest section of Helium, and consist of broad areas of interest, with sub-categories in each.  Members can submit articles to start new titles in the categories, or add an article to an existing title.  For writing to an empty title Helium is advertising, members may receive a small upfront reward of $1.</p>
<p><strong>Payment</strong><br />
One of the defining aspects of Helium is that, for the Zone category articles, it is a pay per page view website, where each time an article is viewed the corresponding advertising generates a financial reward.  This reward is calculated by a complex equation involving the type of article, its ranking, the member&#8217;s writing stars, the advertising on the article page and other factors.  However, what this equates to in real terms is that each viewing of an article generates somewhere in the region of less than a cent.  It is worth noting that members only earn on their articles if they have a current &#8216;Rating Star&#8217;, as mentioned above.</p>
<p>Payment is restricted to a minimum of $25, which can be requested as often as it is earned.  Payment is made through Paypal, and thus writers wishing payment must sign up for this service and be willing to pay a small percentage of their earnings in a service charge per transaction.</p>
<p>For the casual hobby writer or budding freelance writer, this small financial incentive may be an added bonus to the chance to hone their writing skills.  For anyone looking to make an income, or second income, or even receive a payment each month, the only way to make any real money from the site is to either write for the Marketplace, or to a lesser extent the Contests, or have several hundred well rated articles on the site.  In order to keep individual articles well rated and near the top of their title it is necessary to update them every few weeks.  This means that while perpetually earning a few cents on each article may sound like an easy and carefree choice, in reality a lot of hard work is required firstly to get several hundred articles on the site, and secondly to keep them updated and well ranked.</p>
<p><strong>Rights<br />
</strong>Helium.com has one very important issue when it comes to article rights.  Namely that, while articles may be posted elsewhere under a non-exclusive agreement, there is no option to remove an article from Helium.  This means that once an article has been posted, Helium has the right to keep it online indefinitely and the users cannot remove it.  The only exception is the Marketplace, where full rights are transferred to the buyer on purchase.</p>
<p>While this inability to remove content is not a problem for casual writers, or those just starting on their writing career, it can become a problem later on. </p>
<p>Posting an article on Helium excludes ever selling it exclusively elsewhere, which means that an article which could have fetched a decent price on a different site, once posted on Helium, will only ever earn pennies.  For anyone who can write with any degree of professionalism this is a distinctly non-advantageous situation to be in.</p>
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		<title>Blog Better With The Right Music</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/blog-better-with-the-right-music/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/blog-better-with-the-right-music/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:51:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Numerous studies have shown that all music effects the human brain and that different genres produce different effects.  A huge part of blogging comes from the part of the brain that deals with imagination - creativity.  Self-improvement blogs have so much focus on physical and mental training activities you can do to stimulate [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Blog Better With The Right Music", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/blog-better-with-the-right-music/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfly/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/music.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="music" height="250" width="130" /></a><a href="http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/nsfall05/LabpacketArticles/HowMusicaffectsConcentrat.html">Numerous studies</a> have shown that all music effects the human brain and that different genres produce different effects.  A huge part of blogging comes from the part of the brain that deals with imagination - creativity.  Self-improvement blogs have so much focus on physical and mental training activities you can do to stimulate the brain, yet to my surprise there is so little speak of music, which when you can just &#8220;plug-in&#8221; and have your perspective changed.</p>
<p>Music has a effect much more significant than most other self-improvement tips, if you don&#8217;t believe that try blogging while listening some heavy metal - your brain wont work!  Finding the right music can create the opposite effect of that and directly &#8220;zap&#8221; the parts of your brain you are trying to access to produce  activity.</p>
<h3>How Music Alters Concentration</h3>
<p>This is a personal theory, but it is backed up by science.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeygottawa/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/brain.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="brain" /></a><br />
I find that music which has an obvious and distinct beat to it demands too much attention (e.g.  most rock, rap and dance).  It takes the attention of the mind and the body.  I think of it as <strong>melody is for the mind, beat is for the body</strong>.  That is backed up by science which finds classical music with a less obvious best (notably Mozart) to be good for concentration.</p>
<p>It also helps explain why older people tend to listen to less up-beat music.  Very generally rock, rap and dance are what younger people listen to and classical is for the older.  Of course many people enjoy both, but generally that is true.  This links into dancing being linked to sex because the older you get the less sex-drive you have and so the desire to listen to up-beat music, which is for the body, declines.  Generally with age (not that I have much experience of that!) life becomes less physical.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>The melody needs to be more defined than the beat for only the concentration center of the brain to be stimulated.  If you are finding yourself stuck with bloggers block, music may well be the cure.</p>
<p>A further step to experiment with is listening to the same music at the same time each day just before starting work to try and associate that music with work.  You can try and see if it helps you slip into &#8220;work mode&#8221;.</p>
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		<title>7 Real Reasons Blogging Is Fantastic</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/7-real-reasons-blogging-is-fantastic/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/7-real-reasons-blogging-is-fantastic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:40:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[We all blog for different combinations of reasons, but one thing all bloggers have in common is we are all volunteers because it takes time before any financial rewards are gained.  That makes blogging a matter of inspiration.  I&#8217;ve read and written &#8220;why do you blog&#8221; posts before but it always seems like [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "7 Real Reasons Blogging Is Fantastic", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/7-real-reasons-blogging-is-fantastic/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We all blog for different combinations of reasons, but one thing all bloggers have in common is we are all volunteers because it takes time before any financial rewards are gained.  That makes blogging a matter of inspiration.  I&#8217;ve read and written &#8220;why do you blog&#8221; posts before but it always seems like those posts barely scratch the surface of why most people actually blog.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/burningimage/2376276631/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sky_inspire.jpg" class="centered" alt="sky_inspire" width="450" height="275" /></a></p>
<p>Everyone needs help getting inspired from time to time, so here is my best shot at it.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Blogging keeps your brain sharp.</strong>  Blogging uses so many different skills you will find it keeps your brain on the ball.  I&#8217;m sure that all the reading and creativity involved in both marketing and writing means bloggers have bigger than average <strike>egos</strike> brains.</li>
<li><strong>Blogging time is alone time and some alone time is good for you.</strong>  Keeping some sort of journal is often recommended by psychotherapists because it is a therapeutic activity where you have time to remember who you are and not get carried away with whatever is happening in the outside world.  I consider it a very healthy hobby/job in that sense.</li>
<li><strong>The uniqueness of blogging for a living.</strong>  Blogging is not something anyone I know in person does and has become part of my identity.</li>
<li><strong>The idea of going through life never having been employed</strong> or having a boss is very attractive.</li>
<li><strong>Blogging produces something tangible that you can be proud of.</strong>  School never did that for me.  There was nothing special about getting an &#8220;A grade&#8221;.  A zillion other people had them.  A great blog is unique and much more special than a grade someone else gave you on a piece  paper.</li>
<li><strong>Blogging is a gateway to the best profession - entrepreneurship!</strong>  What could be better than starting something from scratch and turning it into a wonderful money-making cash cow?</li>
<li><strong>Blogging gives you a dream.</strong>  Forgive me for sounding like a cheesy 1980s American film but everyone needs a dream to chase or an ultimate ambition of sorts.  The Internet is like the wild-west at the moment where anyone can &#8220;make-it-big&#8221;, which is a strong motivator for innovation.</li>
</ol>
<p>Those are 7 reasons why blogging is fantastic and they all inspire me to blog.  They are also why I think anyone who can should <a href="http://www.businessbloggingguide.com" title="Business Blogging Guide" target="_blank">start a blog</a>.  I look forward to reading your own in the comments.</p>
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		<title>Traffic Sources Explained In Detail</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/traffic-sources-explained-in-detail/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/traffic-sources-explained-in-detail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:33:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/traffic-sources-explained-in-detail/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
It is commonly thought that search engine traffic is very high quality and easy to monetize.  This is because the searchers are looking for something specific, as I outlined in this article about types of blog content.  But does that mean it means your blog is more valuable if most of your visitors [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Traffic Sources Explained In Detail", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/traffic-sources-explained-in-detail/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/poagao/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/traffic.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="traffic.jpg" /></a><br />
It is commonly thought that search engine traffic is very high quality and easy to monetize.  This is because the searchers are looking for something specific, as I outlined in this article about <a href="http://bloggingfingers.com/blog-money/what-is-the-most-profitable-type-of-blog-content-part-1/">types of blog content</a>.  But does that mean it means your blog is more valuable if most of your visitors come from search engines or is a more diverse mix of traffic better?  Search engine traffic generally is one of the most stable types of traffic and so at first glance a single stable source is surely better than multiple sources of varying quality, because more money will be made from the site with a higher percentage of quality traffic.  Unfortunately it is not that simple.</p>
<h3>From A Buyers Point Of View</h3>
<p>Lets say you are looking to invest and buy a blog that receives 1000 unique visitors per month, which is a pretty small amount.</p>
<p><strong>Option 1</strong><br />
90% of those 1000 visitors find their way to the site via the search engines and are not repeat visitors.</p>
<p><strong>Option 2</strong><br />
30% of the traffic is from search engines, 50% are from referring sites and 20% are repeat visitors.</p>
<p>These traffic differences tell you a massive amount about the quality of the site and how much time it will take to maintain.  Humans are the best judge of content quality (quality meaning useful/informative/entertaining) which means it is likely the second site which has a community of repeat visitors is of higher quality.  A site with a community also has potential for faster growth, be it virally from the visitors spreading the word or from the them providing links to it.  However, a community takes resources to manage and with humans being the best judge, if you mess up and fail to keep providing content that 20% may shrink rapidly to 0% and that&#8217;s not because the other traffic sources increased!</p>
<p>With option 1 what comes to mind is a more &#8220;passive income site&#8221;, which in some cases is an MFA (made-for-adsense) site.  The site sits in the search engines and the owner occasionally adds content to it at too slower rate for a community to build up, but saves resources by adding content less regularly.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_gin/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/traffic_sources.jpg" class="centered" alt="traffic_sources.jpg" width="400" height="285" /></a></p>
<h3>Which Set Of Traffic Sources Is Worth The Most?</h3>
<p><strong>Positives For High Search Traffic:</strong><br />
Some of these are direct advantages, others are indirect.</p>
<ul>
<li>Traffic is highly targeted and as a result highly monetizable</li>
<li>Needs less fresh content than a site with a community</li>
<li>Search engines take longer to react than people, even if when they do act it can be very sudden.  If the traffic has been stable for 3 months there is little reason to believe it is about to be lowered.</li>
</ul>
<p>The big disadvantage for a site with lots of high quality search engine traffic and little other traffic is that if the site is penalized by the search engines the traffic is massively reduced.  There is no diversity.</p>
<p><strong>Positives For Mixed Traffic Sources</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Overall traffic is more stable.  The traffic is more likely to decrease a small amount but less likely to be completely reduced.</li>
<li>Is a sign of a site that is kept up-to-date.  Often on a dead Website or blog all the traffic sources dry up apart from some of the search traffic.</li>
<li>Quicker to grow traffic.  Search engine traffic takes time to accumulate, if a site is receiving a sizable percentage of traffic from referring sites that percentage is more likely to be able to increase more quickly.</li>
<li>Community could create content themselves with the right model</li>
</ul>
<p>The big disadvantage for having a mix of traffic sources which vary in quality is that the traffic is not as well targeted and so not as profitable.  This isn&#8217;t because of the mix of traffic, but because there are few other traffic sources that match up to the profitability of search traffic.</p>
<h3>Size Matters</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystalflickr/"><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/size_matters.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="size_matters.jpg" /></a><br />
To take it to the next level, the budget and overall plan of a buyer makes a big difference.  If I were buying a site with just 1000 visitors per month, its purpose in the owners <a href="http://www.onlinechristianbusinessopps.com" title="Find Your Christian Online Business Opportunity" target="_blank">web business</a> would be to be part of a passive income network, where the low cost of maintenance would be a big factor which puts the high search trafficked site in the lead.  Having a large number of small sites in a passive income network negates the riskiness of having most of the traffic coming from just one source.</p>
<p>However, for a larger site with perhaps 10,000 monthly unique visitors per month (at the very least) I would be looking for a very high quality site with a community.  Not only for the money but if I was going to spend large amounts of my time working on that site it would need to be enjoyable and community sites are much more fun!  Also on a larger site it is much easier to take advantage of the viral aspect, because there may already be enough evangelistic repeat visitors to spread the sites popularity across the net with little paid promotion.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>This is somewhat theoretical, but for a small site where the plan is to have lots of them then sites with high search engine traffic are a good choice.  For a larger site repeat visitors and referring sites is a positive attribute.<br />
<em><br />
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		<title>5 Zombie-licious Ways To Make Use Of A Dead Blog</title>
		<link>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/5-ways-zombie-licious-ways-to-make-use-of-a-dead-blog/</link>
		<comments>http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/5-ways-zombie-licious-ways-to-make-use-of-a-dead-blog/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:25:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Creative Blogging]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This has to be one the most commonly shared experiences in the blogosphere.
You start a blog, publish lots of posts for a few weeks (or maybe a couple of months) but you find yourself not earning as much as you would like and ideas for blog posts are starting to become harder to find.  [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "5 Zombie-licious Ways To Make Use Of A Dead Blog", url: "http://bloggingfingers.com/creative-blogging/5-ways-zombie-licious-ways-to-make-use-of-a-dead-blog/" });</script>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This has to be one the most commonly shared experiences in the blogosphere.</p>
<p>You start a blog, publish lots of posts for a few weeks (or maybe a couple of months) but you find yourself not earning as much as you would like and ideas for blog posts are starting to become harder to find.  You end up reducing your posting frequency  down to just once or twice per week and then you stop posting altogether.  The blog is dead and you are frustrated at having wasted all that time and only earning a few Adsense dollars.</p>
<p>If that has happened to you all is not lost!</p>
<p>Your &#8220;dead&#8221; blog has value and can still be resurrected to help you make money online!</p>
<h3>5 Ways To Make Use Of A Dead Blog</h3>
<p><img src="http://bloggingfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dead.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="dead" height="150" width="220" /><br />
<strong>1.  Write sponsored posts</strong> from sites such as PayPerPost.  PayPerPost (and other sites like it) have such massive inaccuracies in their blog ranking systems that they chances are your so called &#8220;dead&#8221; blog still has a high enough ranking to earn the same amount per post as it did when it was still alive.  I say use that to your advantage!</p>
<p><strong>2.  Plug your current blogs and new blogs that you launch.</strong>  When I launch a new blog a problem is that it can take a long time to get indexed in the search engines.  Knocking together a quick post about your new blog will have it indexed the next time your old blog is crawled.  An advantage of owning a dead make money online blog is that blogging about a new blog fits the niche!</p>
<p><strong>3.  Add your new blogs to your dead blogs blogroll</strong>.  Simple but effective.  Do this in moderation and at your own risk.  Blogroll (sitewide sidebar links) are more dangerous because you are linking from every single page on your blog, which can put the site you are linking to in danger of penalization because 100s of links suddenly appearing is somewhat suspicious.</p>
<p><strong>4.  Use it as a link trading epicenter.</strong>  3 way (or 4 way or more) link trades are a way to help disguise the deliberate trading of links and your dead blog can be used as a way to gain links for your new blogs.</p>
<p><strong>5.  Leave a &#8220;current projects&#8221; post.</strong>  This is simply a post left as the last post on the blog listing your current blogs and projects.  Rather than writing a new post when you launch a new blog you just edit this one to include the new blog.</p>
<p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong><br />
To some humans, search engines and zealots, bringing a blog back from the dead to perform these wicked deeds is offensive and should be done so at your own risk.</p>
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