When I first heard about blogging, it was branded as your space on the web. People accepted it with both hands and started blogging. Blogs became a craze and having a blog was considered to be a status symbol (true guys, I have seen it for myself how one of my friend got more attention from my teachers just because he boasted of a blog that was actually written by his father).

That was 7-8 years ago. Slowly, some smart internet users found a new way to get attention through their blog. They thought of making money in a very obvious way- make money by teaching people how to make money. WordPress made its way and soon became the best option for those who wanted a blog with their own domain.

And today, every one of us knows what is blogging, how to start and what can you achieve. Things have changed drastically and teens in the age group are the ones most attracted to this. But still, somewhere in the people’s mind, a thought resides that bloggers are not normal people. Making money and living your life just with it is impossible.

Here are 5 misconceptions that I have come across among people in my journey of blogging.

1. You can’t make money with blogging- The most common one. I do not want to talk about others but in my own home, I have found it very difficult to convince my parents that I can actually make money with blogging. They have always looked at me in suspicion when I say that I just won a contest. People here in India are still to believe that with right strategy, you can ACTUALLY make money with a blog.
2. Blogging is free- For those who have heard of it somewhere, they do not know that serious blogging these days cost a little amount for domain and hosting. Many are unaware of the WordPress and Joomla and do not know that having something like www.tusharagarwal.com as own web address is possible.
3. Blogging is time pass- Blogging is not considered to be a fruitful activity till date. People have this misconception that it is a time pass activity for free people.
4. Blog is an online diary- Come on, we have moved after that, haven’t we? Blog is not just an online diary. In fact, I find very few people these days that actually use blog for writing their diary.
5. Bloggers are mad- This one is related to me an extent. I was laughed over this by my friends when I told them that I have become a blogger. And they found it funnier when I said that through blogging, I can earn some money. I do not know how many of you have experienced this but in India, people never take bloggers seriously and they are written off before they actually do something.

Having said that, my motive through this post is not to tell about these misconceptions. You probably know this and might have experienced yourself. What I truly want to do is that to remove these misconceptions from general public’s mind. I want to tell them that above points hold no value is today’s world. Bloggers like Darren Rowse and Harsh Agarwal are few for whom the major source of income is their blog.

Let’s vow to make people aware of what blogging is and what it can do to change their life.

Hubpages is web2.0 website which shares adsense revenue, kontera revenue, amazon and ebay revenue with writers. So professional writers and noobs writes on hubs to earn some money.

Present Stats Of HubPages

1. Page Rank: 6.
2. Number of pages indexed on Google: 37 Million.
3. Alexa rank: 194.
4. Age: April 24, 2001.

Why People Write On Hubpages

1) To earn money online: Peoples writes hubs because they want to earn money. They can earn easy money from adsense, amazon and ebay. Some time i don’t understand why some peoples earn loads of money from amazon/ebay but not from adsense. And people who earn load of money from adsense don’t earn good money from amazon/ebay. The possible reason, Suppose i am buyer and searching to buy some cool curtains for my childs room but when i visit two hubs. First hub which has adsense enabled but don’t have related ads. So, this hub will earn less. And when i visit other hub which will show some cool curtains for my child room. I will probably think and buy. So, vice versa.

To earn money from hubpges,

1. You should have related ads for adsense for you article.
2. For earning from amazon, you should sell products.
3. You should have load of traffic. Getting traffic on hubpages is depends on the hubbers. Some gets traffic easily and some not.
4. If you have tons of useless traffic you can enable Kontera. But see most people don’t use Kontera. Still people who has tons hubs they use them.

2) To get links from hubpages: Large number of peoples wants to get some do follow links from hubs, this is just because of huge authority and trust from Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.  If you get some powerful links from these websites you can improve search engine ranking dramatically for your articles/websites. So, i can say this website is also a spammers paradise. Large number of people is using hubpages to get links. So, hubspages implemented one rule. You will get dofollow link only when your profile has scrore of 75. Which is not easy task for most of the peoples. For getting links from this site peoples write 500 words to 2000 words or even hire people to write for them. Finally it is real and worthy deal.

3) To pass time on hubpages: Hubpages has very popular forum. People pass time hours and debate for many things. Some times these debates go dirty and peoples keep fighting on useless things. Still you can find many interesting threads in this forums and you can meet new peoples and writers of different thoughts.

4) To get online recognition: Hubpages has follower and following. It is standard for some people. Suppose you are expert in writing about relationships. So, you will write some article to show your expertise on some topic. This will help you to gain some recognition and people with similar interest will follow you. Some time hubbers who got successful in earning large sums of money and able to get large traffic will show that. Hey peoples here i am, i  earned $1000 this month from amazon or i got 15k traffic per day from my hubs.

Benefits of using hubpages

• Hubpages article will instantly rank high on search engines.
• If you write article for which don’t have much of competition. It will instantly rank in top 10 or 20.
• If you write articles for competitive niche also. It will rank on top by some promotion and unique content.

Hi BloggersPassion readers. This my first post after 10 days and I am extremely sorry for the delays that keep creeping in my blogging schedule. The reason behind this discontinuity is that to make my career sure, I am giving lot of Bank PO exams and interviews and last weekend, I had two of them. So, to concentrate more on those two, I have to give blogging a miss for which I am really sorry.

Coming to the blogging, here I present you the BloggersPassion monthly report for August 2010. To be honest, it’s nothing that I can cheer about. The traffic is almost same and due to no blogging in last 10 days, it has gone down further. Below is my analytics account screenshot.

One thing that is bothering me the most is my decreasing bounce rate. Since the day I have migrated to this theme, the bounce rate has gone higher. Although I love this theme a lot, I can understand that it is something to do with this falling bounce rate. I NEED SUGGESTIONS GUYS!!

Coming to achievements and other tit bits, the major thing that we have completed till date is 1000 comments. Yes, BloggersPassion has reached 1000 comments in 96 posts. So, by the end of this month, we will also cross the 100 posts milestone.

The top commentator award is once again taken by Technolic. Congrats buddy.

My other ramblings are what I have already told you. I thought that I will be able to concentrate on my career along with this blog so that none of them suffers. But this is not happening and I have to neglect my blog. I am trying my best to make new things happen here but the contest I had in mind for the blog is being delayed because I want to be the best. I will tell you more about it when I will be ready with the final format and prizes.

Lastly, thanks a lot for dropping by and giving me your valuable comments and suggestions every time I needed it. I work with BloggersPassion with one line in mind- my blog BloggersPassion is FOR the readers, OF the readers and BY the readers.

For a blogger reading this blog post, I think there is no need of introducing Darren Rowse to you. He is one of the first pro-blogger the web ever seen. It’s been 8 years that he is blogging full time and every new or old blogger in the blogosphere respects him.

From time to time, Darren keeps coming up with new and innovative ideas to help his readers become a better blogger. The forums, the communities all point to this fact. The latest in this list is his e-book- 31 Days to Be a Better Blogger and after going through it, I must say it is a must read.

I was lucky enough to get this book as a free gift by my blog buddy Jijo from Mextena and thought that I will read this book in exact 31 days as Darren said. But once I started, I could not restrain myself from reading it in one sitting.

Here are 3 reasons why you should read this book at least once.

1. Simple yet effective- Yes, the book is as simple as you like it. In terms of language, techniques and methodology, it scores in every area. What you will be going to read is already known to you but he has explained in such a lucid manner that you will sure want to go through it again and again.

2. Old wine in new bottle- Darren has very nicely explained how you have to do the basic things to get the most out of it. You know how to write a post but how you should write for good number of comments. You know you have to promote the post but he has put in plain words how it should be done to get maximum benefit. And these are just are two examples.

3. Few basics that you were unaware of- If you think you are blogging without any misses; think again. Darren’s book will force you to think once again that you are not applying all the basics of blogging which will do wonder to your blog.

Darren has started from the very basics of the blogging to help you become a better blogger. Although I read it at one go, I would still recommend you to read day by day. This way you will get the maximum benefit from this well written e-book. The techniques are simple yet very effective and you will see the change in your blog and blogging once you start applying them. In this e-book, you get everything.

- why writing sales pitch is important

- how to write a post and promote it

- analyzing top blog in your niche

- interlinking of old posts

- finding a blog buddy

- how to comment on other blogs

- how to improve old posts so that they attract more traffic

- the best posts that attract traffic

- which statistics to see your blog’s numbers

The list is quite long but I promise that you will love reading every page of it. This 94 page e-book has everything that you want to read in one book. Moreover, at the end of every day, the book encourages you to discuss the pros and cons in his blogging community. This will help you learn how the bloggers around the world are using the same technique in different ways.

Again, this book is a must read. Even if you are blogging from quite some time, it will be a bonus if you go through it one again. Darren has priced it very cheap and you sure will see your money worth at the end of 30 days.

Click here to get 31 Days to Be a Better Blogger.

Bounce rate for me, has always been one of the most realistic metric to measure a blog’s success because it is very apt in the scenario of so many metrics and numerous blogs coming up each day. You sure want to know how many visitors of your blog left without seeing another page.

In one of my previous post, I mentioned that BloggersPassion is one of those blogs that enjoy a pretty low bounce rate i.e. 6%. Although, this figure has now gone up to 12% but it is still among the lowest in the blogging community. There are numerous articles written in the blogosphere how to reduce the bounce rate which itself tells that how important this metric is considered by the bloggers. These methods are – good navigation theme, related posts at the end of the post, interlinking of article and including Popular and Random posts in the sidebar.

But a rising blog on the web gave a very new and unheard method of reducing bounce rate. It is – hide your post publishing date if you do not write very regularly otherwise people will not take you seriously and may not visit your more than one page. My question here is – is this the right way?

Every blogger writes for their readers. Your blog can never become popular until and unless you readers like the content and promote them. Your readers are the most important thing for you and should be the top priority for you, no matter whatever is your blog niche. They are the ones who will subscribe to your feed, follow you on twitter and write about you on their blog/profile. And to cheat them by hiding the post publishing dates is not the right way to treat them.

Some bloggers may disagree that there is not any harm in it and it is such a big thing which should be made issue of. I say that yes, there is no big issue about it but you need to be true, be honest to those on whom your blog heavily relies. Nobody will come to know that you are cheating but I believe in one thing- I can cheat and be successful for some months but for a life long blog, you need to become honest now.

First of all, a very very happy INDEPENDENCE DAY to Indians all around the world. Today we complete 63 years of independence and now we are one of the fastest growing countries of the world. Let’s vow today to make it the best and a huge success so that the world could take us as an example.

A blog’s success and failure are pretty much measured by a metric other than money and traffic- comments. A good number of comments tell a new visitor that a healthy discussion is going on this blog and people are actually reading the content. And comments always encourage the blogger to write more and more good content. Comments are sure a nice way to get an overview about a blog’s popularity. But the question here is- should you judge a blog by its comment count? Let me explain you what happened.

I was going through a blog which was new for me and it was my first visit (as always, I won’t name it). The first thing I usually do when I see a new blog is to check their About page to know about the guy behind the blog and Advertise page to have a general idea about the stats of the blog. The blog stats told it was a PR2 blog with Alexa rank around 70,000. Then I returned back to homepage to check out the posts. And something struck my mind.

None of the posts on the homepage had more than 8 comments. There were around 7 posts but none with more than 8 comments. I was surprised because I personally believe that if you have good traffic, you ought to have good comments. Quite logical!! But here I could not see this relation. Why?

Here is a big question raised over Alexa’s authenticity. I do not say that Alexa is just some s**t and the rankings are not accurate but I will still like to raise a question here. Does Alexa rank the blogs just on the number of visits a blog gets irrespective of whether the traffic is not quality traffic or the blog is just aimed to get visitors in any possible way. I can sends ton of traffic to my blog using keywords related to po*n and gambling but they won’t get me even a single comment and Alexa will keep ranking me up and up.

Still, I have always relied over Alexa to get an overview of a blog and 90 times out of 100, they have been right. But being such a big name in the blogosphere with literally thousands of blogger relying on them for the idea of their world rank, Alexa needs to redefine its ranking criteria. They need to get remaining 10 also pin point accurate. They need to include some more parameters like comments, average time on site and other stuff which will make their ranking system fairer and will give every blog a chance, not just big blogs.

Being a new blogger myself, I knew how important Alexa rank is for new bloggers when they start blogging. It is the only thing they look at. And now it’s time for the brand Alexa to look over the needs for every blogger.

And for every blogger, do not get discouraged if your Alexa rank is not as you expected. There are many things beyond Alexa that can help you inspire and succeed.

All the bloggers out there in the blogosphere in this niche have probably heard of MMOSocialNetwork. It is kind of network like Digg where your posts are promoted by the members if they like them, the posts make their way to the front page.

I discovered MMOSocialNetwork through a post at Blogussion. I have heard of it before but really got to know it nicely in that post and I immediately checked it and realized what I was missing. It was something new and my few experiences with it told me that it is MUCH, I repeat, MUCH better than Digg. Let’s look why….

Niche specific network                                                                                                                   Undoubtedly, the best reason why you should choose MMOSocialNetwork over Digg. All the articles and links posted here are about what you are looking for. The blogging tips make money articles, social media guides, web design tutorials- you will probably find what you are looking for.

Nothing hifi, simple to use                                                                                                             This network is so simple that you won’t take a minute to start using it. To register, you have to send them request and they will manually approve your submission which tells this network is serious about its members. And then just click on SUBMIT NEW LINK, a bit of description and go on. Traffic will come to you if your content is worth.

A great place to find new blogs and articles                                                                                 Since last one week, I have had no trouble finding new blogs in my niche. MMOSocialNetwork has been a great source of new blogs and I have increased my comments and traffic.

Yes, it does send traffic                                                                                                                  This should have been the first point in this post but I left it for LAST, BUT NOT THE LEAST. In my initial days of blogging, I used DIGG heavily to promote my blog but never got enough visitors to convince that Digg actually is great. But one week of MMOSocialNetwork and 6 link submissions (this will be the 7^th) has fetched me around 12 visitors. Some will still say that this is not awesome but it is the start and the kind of articles I write, I believe MMOSocialNetwork will surely prove to be master trick for me.

I highly recommend you to join this network if you had not till date. For the already joined bloggers, please share your sweet and bitter experiences with us.

This is a guest post by Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson is the Alliance Manager at Logoinn, a custom logo design company. He writes about the effect of design on marketing and brand identity and helps small businesses find design solutions for effective marketing. To write a guest post, click here.

Your business Logo Design is also known as a Brand Identity Design and it helps you either build or destroy the credibility of your business.

Yes, if you create your identity professionally, you will be perceived as a professional. If you don’t create your business identity in a professional manner, you will simply ruin your credibility.

So, how can you figure out if your logo design is actually helping you or not?

Here are a few powerful tips that will allow you to judge how powerful your corporate identity is:

Is Your Logo Design Relevant to Your Business?

Your logo design represents your business. If your logo is not relevant to your business model, then you won’t be able to portray the correct image of your business. Thus, you won’t be able to give correct identification to your business. What do you want your market to think when they see your logo? Your logo design should visually represent your answer to this question.

Without a relevant logo design, you won’t be able to attract your target market. After all, if they can’t judge your business after looking at your logo, why will they bother visiting your website? So, ensure that you create a relevant logo design to create your corporate identity professionally.

Have You Created a Complex Logo Design?

Remember, complexity is never an indication of professionalism. Thus, it’s a big mistake and a completely false notion that if you want to look professional, then you must create a complex logo. Let me ask: How complex is the logo of Target? It’s simple, attractive and memorable and this is how you should create your logo as well.

Simplicity rocks in the world of logo design. Some other examples of simple yet powerful and memorable logos are: Toyota, Honda, HP, Dell, Nike and so on. So, work on making your logo simple and memorable, instead of complex and hard to remember.

Have You Chosen Colors Wisely?

It is recommended that you use maximum 2 colors. Using more than 2 colors is not advisable in this small piece of brand identity design. Also, use them wisely and ensure that your logo looks good in black and white as well.

Using too many colors or irrelevant colors will reduce the effectiveness of your logo design and your aim to create a strong brand identity will fail miserably. You need to keep your logo clean and attractive.

Are You Using an Attractive Tag Line?

If you are using a tag line in your logo, then it must entice your visitors to learn more about your business and products. When it comes to creating a tag line, it is highly advisable that you do not rush. It may take some time before you come up with an attention grabbing copy.

Conclusion:

So, folks, to make your corporate identity strong and give your business a professional look, you must create a top-notch logo design. It must be relevant to your particular industry and should be able to grab the attention of your market.

If you think that your logo is missing any of the vital elements discussed above, then it’s about time you revamp your brand identity design.

Ask any blogger one thing that he want for his blog and you will get only one answer in unison- TRAFFIC. And it’s quite obvious because all the other you get or expect to get from your blog is possible only through traffic.

You want money- you need traffic.

You want comments- you need traffic.

You want relationships- you need traffic.

So, traffic is the keyword whenever you think of blogging, serious blogging. But it is easier said than done. Traffic building is the toughest part of blogging for me (believe me, it is still the same) and today, I want to share with you 5 SUPER ways to get SUPER TRAFFIC to your blog in just one week. Yes, just one week can get you traffic as never before.

1. Commenting- No doubt, the ultimate and the easiest way to build traffic. It takes the least time and is very efficient. All you need is the habit of reading articles fully and then comment that is relevant to the content. And it serves more than just one purpose. Commenting helps you find-

- New blogs in the niche

- Make relations

- Initiate discussions

2. Guest Posting- Again, a very good method that will bring relations with traffic. Guest posting leaves your link for eternity on top part of a blog and will get you stronger relations than guest post. Moreover, if the blog admin likes your writing, you can also become a part of their blog by becoming an editor.

3. Forums- It is one of my favourite promotion methods since I started blogging, although I could not do this much because of time constraints. With big forums like Digipoint and WarriorForum, you can rest be assured to get regular traffic if you are regular there.

4. Blog Directories and Social Networks- Blog directories are not very active regular traffic senders but it is still nice if you join few good directories. Moreover, the networks like BlogEngage and MMOSocialNetwork are worth joining because of their niche specific visitors and you can get good traffic.

5. Stumble Upon-I have started using SU actively only after the post by Jijo where he has written an awesome tutorial how to use SU effectively for great traffic. And in less than one week, I have received 100 stumbles to my blog.

A blogger can never neglect traffic even if his blog is 5 years old. The quest for traffic will never die in blogosphere and its up to you how much you can make of it.

Wikipedia define RISK as

“Risk concerns the deviation of one or more results of one or more future events from their expected value. Technically, the value of those results may be positive or negative. However, general usage tends to focus only on potential harm that may arise from a future event, which may accrue either from incurring a cost (“downside risk“) or by failing to attain some benefit (“upside risk“)”.

Too technical, lets make it simple. When you take risk, it is assumed that the activity with which risk is concerned may bring loss to you.

We all tend to shake a bit whenever there is a mention of the word risk in any area of our life. Be it personal life or social life, business or sports, risk are always associated with something unfruitful. They make us think negative even when there is no need of thinking negative.

In a blogger’s life too, risks are inevitable. Like business and a game, you sometimes have to take decisions which are much of an intuition call rather that something based on charts and facts. But you can’t avoid it and you should not avoid it. And the best part about taking risks in blogging that there is more probability of succeeding than failing.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS IN BLOGGING?

Blogging risks could be identified in 3 categories-

1. Content Risks- Sometimes, you write some content about a topic which was never discussed before by any blogger and you think that everyone needs to know it and after publishing, you get mixed reactions. I have written few articles of these types and I must say that more of them have been success.
2. Design Risks- Change is the only permanent thing and every blogger likes to see a change in his blog’s design after every few months. But in his quest of changing designs, he might select a wrong theme with bad navigation and readers will disapprove it.
3. Promotion Risks- Bloggers, in their bid to monetize their blog, sometimes adopt a new method which their reader dislikes. So, you ought to hear them and make the necessary changes.

WHY YOU NEED TO TAKE RISKS?

Blogging is a tough business for sure. But with innovation by your side, you can get past others and make a name for yourself in this highly crowded blogosphere. And the innovation requires you to be bit risky sometimes. Write something that have not been written before, design something that has been unseen and do the new. Some strategies will backfire and some will benefit. Take calculated risks, try to estimate what benefit you get if you pass and what will be the magnitude of damage if you fail and remember to learn from your failed risks.

Bloggers are sure a risky breed of humans. Or who would have imagined quitting a day job and earning their only income through the blog. If this is not an example of a big risk, then I need big examples.