The Search for Content

Yesterday I spent a good bit of time searching the web and looking for content, both for this blog and my chocolate blog. I found some very interesting blogs on internet business that I subscribed to. I hope that further reading of these blogs will help educate me on the techniques of successful and profitable blogging.

I actually struggled a little with discouragement as I saw how many other sites are out there and how far ahead of me they are. It seems like I have a long way to go.

I found a competitor to Google AdSense called AdBrite. I tried to sign up, but every time I finished the application form and clicked submit, the server would time out. Frustrating! I'll go back and try it again...maybe today.

I'm still looking for some affiliate programs that would fit with this blog about my blogging business. I haven't given it much effort yet, but maybe I'll find something today. I also plan to read up on search engine optimization and attempt to get my blogs in the coveted top 10.

I decided to write my own review of a chocolate from Japan that I bought in Thailand. I currently live in Thailand but am moving back to the States in a couple months. I have loved it here, but one of the major draw backs for me is the lack of good chocolate!

I've noticed that there are a lot of get rich quick schemes out there on the internet. If you buy the guru's special report for $39.99 and follow his perfected system you will instantly with little effort become an internet millionaire. I see these sites and immediately my scam radar begins to beep furious warnings. I have better things to spend my money on...and I figure I can probably find all the information I need for free on the internet if I just take the effort to dig. There is no such thing as easy money. All rewards come from hard and wise work.

Adding AdSense

I just got finished doing some AdSense work on the blog. Instead of using Blogger's design help in the template elements I decided to go with code design at the AdSense site. This seemed to work better.

I am now running into a problem of saving and sorting all the scripts and passwords I'm accumulating. Right now I have a few encrypted Word files where I save all of my passwords, affiliate info and now HTML scripts. I can see this getting out of hand soon, so I think I may
put them in Excel and attempt to group and sort them. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My 1st Week Blogging

I have been blogging now for 6 days. I've learned a lot about the blogging world. Mostly what I've learned is how much I don't know.

I decided to blog on something I love and would love to learn more about. Chocolate. My goal is to provide content that my readers will enjoy and that will allow me to capitalize on my affiliate programs. I started out by coming up with a nice name (thanks to the wife for that) that was available. BTW - isn't it frustrating how so many names are taken and then not used. If people are going to take a good blogging name, they should use or free it up for others...unless they can sell it. Is that possible? hmmmm.... I also decided to buy the domain name of my site since it was available...I went to GoDaddy.com for this. I'm currently pointing all traffic to that domain to my chocolate blog, but maybe if things work out, I'll expand the blog into something more than a simple blog.

Anyway, once I had my name secured I began looking for content. My first post was about great chocolate recipe a friend gave me that I perfected. But after that, I perused the www for ideas. I'm not sure if the best approach should be writing all original content or a combo of original and garnered.

While looking for content, I found and signed up for affiliate programs. This process took a lot more time than I imagined. I am still waiting to hear back from some of the sites I contacted, but I have signed up with and been approved by about 10 companies.

Once I posted my first couple entries, I began playing with the layout and experimenting with the affiliate banners and buttons. I also signed up for AdSense. This was an easy decision.

One site that has surprised me is Amazon. They now sell much more than books! I like their products and banners. I'm focusing on their books first as well as a couple chocolate making products. For the chocolate, I'm going to the providers.

So far I have made $2.91 from my AdSense and nothing from my affiliates. The $2.91 no doubt came from my family as I shared with them what I was doing. I need to get visitors. I signed up with Google Analytics to help research my traffic, but have had virtually no traffic. So now I am exploring ways to get on the radar.

One thing I did last night that I hope will help get me on the radar is visit all the chocolate blogs I could and leave a comment. Then I posted a link to the best ones on my blog. We'll see if this helps any. I also went to a site, I can't remember which now, that registered my domain with the search engines. It was free so I figured it couldn't hurt.

Now I am toying with the idea of trying to start a new blog a week. I'm not sure if that is even possible...maybe until I get about 10 blogs going. Hopefully one or two will do well. I am changing careers and while I'm in between figure I might as well try some blogging!