Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Table of Contents From The Author.................................................................................................... 3 Don’t Blog Alone. ................................................................................................... 6 What is a blog? ...................................................................................................... 7 It Starts with your passion ..................................................................................... 8 Choose An In-depth Topic. ..................................................................................... 9 Know your Audience. ........................................................................................... 10 Map Out Your Marketing Strategies. ................................................................... 11 Build Your WordPress Blog. ................................................................................. 11 Install WordPress Plugins ..................................................................................... 13 Publish Content on Your Blog. ............................................................................. 15 Submit Your Blog to Search Engines..................................................................... 15 Marketing Your Blog. ........................................................................................... 18 How do I write quality Content? .......................................................................... 19 Write What People want to read. ........................................................................ 20 Articles Headline. ................................................................................................. 21 Types Of Articles Headlines.................................................................................. 23 Types of Articles................................................................................................... 25 Crafting and Structuring Your Post. ...................................................................... 28 Build Your Communication Channels. .................................................................. 31 Blog Commenting And How To Use It? ................................................................ 33 Benefits of Regular Blog Commenting.................................................................. 33 Join online Bloggers Communities. ...................................................................... 35 Guest Post on Authority Blogs. ............................................................................ 36 Interview Popular Bloggers. ................................................................................. 38 How to Grow “massive” blog traffic. .................................................................... 39 Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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It Start With Your Audience. ................................................................................ 40 Peer Groups ......................................................................................................... 41 Build your email list. ............................................................................................ 43 Traffic Level, Monetizing Strategies And Money. ................................................. 44 Monetizing Your Blog Later. ................................................................................. 45 Downside to Early Monetization. ......................................................................... 46 How To Monetize A Blog. ..................................................................................... 47 How Do I Make BIG Money Online? ..................................................................... 49 Higher Ranking in Google. .................................................................................... 52 Getting Keywords phrase. .................................................................................... 64 On-Page SEO for Your Content. ............................................................................ 67 Pinging your Post. ................................................................................................ 70 Solving PayPal Issue. ............................................................................................ 70 Congratulation!.................................................................................................... 72
From The Author.
http://www.cybernaira.com Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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I have lost count on numbers of times I heard the “Gurus” saying a blog is an easy path to making money online. No….. I think they miss one great point there. Without the proper orientation and the mindset of a successful entrepreneur, you will never move your blog to a level where you can quit your day job and become a full-time internet businessman. One major reason many bloggers have failed to make money with their blog(s). For you to financially depend full-time on your blog(s), be ready to make an investment of both time and money – Time and Money. Moving your blog to a point where you can call it a business it’s not an easy task……you have to work your way up to it. I urge you to approach your blogging career more of a business than just a hobby. It doesn’t have to be something you work too hard on to achieve…… but you just have to work smarter, consistently and with the right attitude, fortitude, mental approach and the right mindset of a successful businessman – you’re on your way to build a profitable blogging career. I see many young Nigerians beginner’s bloggers struggling to get their voice heard among the millions of blogs on the internet. It is not easy my fellow Nigerians. We have to work three times harder than most of our counter-parts living in developed countries like the Europeans, Americans, Indians and the rest. When taken into consideration ready-made available resources at their fingertips; compared to what is available to us here and the environments we lived in – many limitations here and there. I have been around on the net since 2009, trying my hands on different internet business models – Paid to read, Paid to click, Online Survey, HYIP, Make money programs - before settling down with this crazy thing called “blogging.”
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And seeing what I have achieved within the space of my time blogging - I decided to share my personal experience and achievements with you and the rest of the world as a blogger living in Nigeria. Therefore, what you’re given here are the results of five years of hands on internet marketing and two years of blogging. So I believe the advices you get here are unique and one that will certainly add more values to the quality of your internet business. Well, you did not purchase this information to read about me; I believe you did so to discover how you’ll become a successful blogger in Nigeria living fulltime off your internet business. So, let’s get down…….. To your Blogging Success.
A.Shamsudeen
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Don’t Blog Alone. When I started blogging, I was so excited and wanted to prove to everyone I could do it. I was determined to build a blog no one else has ever built. Since I wanted to do something different from what everyone else were doing, I decided to figure out everything on my own. I worked very hard day and night, yes,……..I mean day and night. Sometimes, I didn’t get sleep for two days. I kept reading lots of books I found having the word “Blogging” on its cover - visiting forums, bloggers communities etc. I used Google a lot. While I was doing all these to get closer to my goals, I failed to realize one powerful weapon to greater achievements – mastermind group. Don’t try to blog alone, you will never and I repeat; you will never build a successful blogging career by going solo on your blogging activities. You’ll need the services of other bloggers in your field to help you grow and provide you with some of those things you will need to achieve success in blogging. Relying on free tools/services will not see your blog grow in time, be prepared to purchase premium services/products when necessary. Like I said earlier, you’ll need to spend time, money and energy in building that blog of your dream. Don’t try it all on your own to fix everything that got broken - appreciating other people’s talent is the way forward in professional blogging.
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If you can’t write quality content, that’s not a problem. Find someone else who can and agree on terms, give the person his/her dues and claim the content – It’s as simple as that. I learned this lesson the hard way, and until I agreed with this simple rule, my blogging career was crawling like a snail. Down this book, I talked in length and in details why building friendship and establishing useful connections are vital to the success of your blogging career. You’ll discover why your peer groups are so important to you more than your blog itself.
What is a blog? Depending on where you’re coming from and who you are; everyone has his/her own definition of what a blog is. You might have heard that a blog is an online diary, a journal or a place where you keep your personal stories. Since we’re making use of our blog as means/tools to go about our internet marketing business activities …..I’ll like to define a blog in this manner: “A blog is an online office space, a company, a shop or an apartment you operate to meet and attend to your customers.” Just like an offline office, company, shop, store, houses your goods and services so also a blog does to your online business. It’s as simple as that.
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It Starts with your passion This is very crucial and important to anyone who wants to start a profitable business on the internet using blog(s) as tools. Not just to Nigerians alone is this very first step to start a blog important but to anyone willing to join the blogosphere. Look deep within yourself and be honest. What is that thing you believe you’re deeply passionate about? Something you enjoy doing even if no one pays you a kobo for doing it. Something you enjoy writing about freely. As a starter, I will suggest you start with something you can easily write about without too many or extensive research. This will ensure you continue to blog when you start facing the nitty-gritty in professional blogging. There are more than 1 million and 1 thing to learn when it comes to blogging. Absolutely, nothing is wrong in starting a blog based on the income potentials alone. All you need is the experience, ability, technicality and marketing strategies to manage the niche effectively. In fact, I wrote a post in the past on why you shouldn’t start a blog based on your passion alone. You should look at the income potential side of it as well. If it seems your passion is not marketable, then you might consider something else similar to your passion with a better promising income potential. After all, why do you purchase this book and wanted to start a blog? To discover how you can start making money from building a blog and managing it. If I am correct, then it is important you consider not just your passion but look at the income potential side of it as well. “If I would be honest with you; starting a blog based on the income potential alone is a risky game that in real sense can only be managed effectively by a Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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professional blogger - someone who already knows the in and out of how blogging works.” As a newbie blogger, the best advice I would give is to start with something you’re really passionate about. Another better way to determine what you’re going to blog about is your profession - your offline skills, expertise and knowledge. If you’re a doctor in the real world - start a blog around health related issues. This makes it easier to come up with what to write. Your credibility and authority in this field will be spotted quickly because you’re writing from experience and not by what you read on other authority blogs in your industry. Same goes for other professions like web designer, lawyers, engineer, teachers, farmers, hairstylists, therapist, traders, carpenters, architect, journalist etc.
Choose An In-depth Topic. After going with your passion, it is very crucial also that your blog topic is not too wide that you don’t have a targeted audience and not too narrow that your audience feels bored with same topic all the time. The best way to go about this is to find a niche that has a wider related topics surrounding it but with closely same type of audience. For instance, if you’re starting a blog around health related issues, instead of creating a blog generally on health, you can narrow it down a bit by focusing on diabetes patients, weight loss or cancer and things like that. This way, your audience recognizes you and you know your audience from day one.
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But going further to narrow it down more by focusing on one type of diabetes patients may lower your chances of expanding your audience and may have negative effect on your income potentials. But it all depends on how competent you’re in understanding your industry in and out, and how effective you can easily come up with articles idea without saying same thing all the time.
Know your Audience. If you’re well through with what your passion is, and you’re strongly convinced on what you want to start blogging about, then….. knowing your targeted audience shouldn’t be that difficult. This stage is very crucial to the overall success of your blogging career. The main factor to making money online is by finding a group of people who are genuinely interested in a topic. Think about how you can leverage on their interest, problems and concerns. See how you can be of help to them. Knowing your audience will go a long way at helping you in marketing your blog and what type of content you’ll be publishing on your blog regularly. This will make it much quicker and easier for your targeted audience to locate you. The next big thing to do is to find where to get them in large crowd. Locate where they gather most and often, join their community and interact with them. This will give you an added advantage to know more about their problems, concerns and how ready are they willing to find solution to their growing problems. It gives more clarity to the process of optimizing your blog and content for search engine visibility. This I will discuss in later chapters.
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Map Out Your Marketing Strategies. This is a very big mistake most bloggers make while starting out with their blog the first time. It is very crucial and important for you to map out how you intend to drive traffic to your blog both in the short and long distance. If you’re starting a small business blog, this aspect is very crucial and you discuss it well with others who are in that niche already; or you get the services of professionals who can handle such project. Determine how much you are ready to spend on advertising. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
What other methods of advertising are you ready to go with? How do you intend to run your social media campaign? Are you running pay-per-click ad programs? Are you going for banner ads or text links? Which ads network will be affordable and convenient based on your current budget? 6. Will you be marketing through content creation? All these you’ll need to put into consideration before going ahead to start a blog. If you’re starting a content based blog – it’s okay to go ahead. It’s easy to learn along how blogging works with content based blog than an e-commerce based blog. With an e-commerce based blog - from the word go - you’re in for the profits and each kobo you spend on your blog is expected to yield return.
Build Your WordPress Blog.
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This is where your practical aspect of blogging starts. But to save you a whole lot of time, go for self-hosted WordPress blog. I won’t go into deep practical aspect of building a blog here, why? To be honest with you, it won’t do you any good learning how to build a blog by reading it. If you want to develop the skills of building blogs, the best advice I can give in the regards is to find someone you know is capable and learn from that person one-on-one; building blogs is all about practical. WordPress is the industry self-acclaimed number one blogging platform. It makes blogging more convenient and fun both for beginner’s bloggers and professionals. Of course there are other blogging platforms, like blogger owned by Google which comes pretty handy and a very quick easy way to start blogging in minutes. The good part of blogger platform is that you can start blogging in minutes without having to spend a kobo on hosting and domain names. Blogger is completely free. One disadvantage of blogger platform is that you can wake up one morning and find out that your blog has been deleted from blogger server without any prior notice as to why or what TOS you’ve gone against. If you’re serious about building a business with your blog, I urge you to start with the self-hosted WordPress blog. Go here to get your hosting and domain name registered. It will cost you some money, but it’s worth starting this way and most especially, since you’re blogging to make money. The link above will take you to the home page of Whogohost web hosting and domain name registrar. Same web hosting company that host and registered my blog. After getting your domain name and hosting in place, I will advise you get the service of a professional web designer. You can do it yourself, but to save time
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and lots of headache, trials and errors - get the services of a professional web designer. If you need a one-on-one tutorial on how to set-up a fully functional WordPress blog right from your cPanel, feel free to call my direct mobile numbers (08126276427 or 08137252269). Your overall blog layout and design should flow along with your blog topics. There are several WordPress themes specifically made for certain niche. Think about how you want your visitors to engage with your content or services before opt-in for a particular theme. StudioPress by CopyBlogger is a leading WordPress themes developer. You will sure find a theme that suits your needs by browsing through their website. Of course there are free WordPress themes available for anyone to use. You can start with it, especially if you’re on a tight budget or want to do it yourself. Based on my experience with free WordPress themes, they’re good to start with but not a better idea if you’re planning to go places with your blog. Most of them are not well SEO optimized, lack responsive design and sometimes don’t get regular support from their developer. Besides, you’re not the only one with same theme for your blog design. But like I said in one of my posts, blogging is a journey, so it is good to start with free tools to learn “how to blog” and as soon as you get hold of it, move on to premium services and tools. You’ll find lots of free themes by browsing through WordPress.org.
Install WordPress Plugins Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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This section assumes you’re building your blog on your own. If you’ve sought for professionals to build your blog, then move on to next section. You have no business reading this part. Once you’ve installed your wordpress blog installation software through the control panel that your hosting company has provided you with, you’ll be welcomed with a default wordpress theme. I would advise you changed this immediately so your blog doesn’t look like everyone else’ blog. Find a free theme that suits your needs from wordpress.org or get a premium theme from studiopress. Next is to install the necessary plugins to add more functionalities and beauty to your blog and really take control of it. Depending on your needs and blog functionalities, there are lots of plug-ins available at your fingertips for immediate download and activation either through your admin dashboard or by visiting wordpress.org. Based on years of experience; here are a couple of important plug-ins any blog should install when getting started. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Google XML sitemap. WordPress SEO by Yoast. W3 Total Cache. Broken Link Checker. WP to Drop box. Akismet – Pre - installed. Jetpack – Pre - installed. Login Lock Down. Smush.it
One important advice I will give here is that you should be careful what plugin you install on your blog. Only install what you really need and leave alone what you want. Numbers of plug-ins on your blog isn’t an issue – compatibility is what you should care about. Some plug-ins are not compatible with each other and this may break your blog within seconds. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Read the developer instructions and detailed guidelines before installing a plug-in, this will save you a lot from damaging your blog.
Publish Content on Your Blog. When you’re done with the blog design, installation and activating necessary plug-ins; it’s time to write and publish your first post. This is where your blogging really starts. Blogging is all about writing. Don’t worry if it happens that your writing style looks ugly. Everyone fails the first time. Writing your blog won’t be an easy task at the beginning of your blogging career. It takes lots of daily practice and constant effort to get the grip on it. Continue to write every day - and with time, consistency, constant practice, focus and determination……you will master the art of writing articles blog readers wants to read. More on how to write quality blog post down the book. I will cover a great deal of it in details……Keep reading.
Submit Your Blog to Search Engines. I just have to tell you about this; but in reality, Google will find your blog even if you don’t submit it and crawlers will index your pages when it’s time for that. But as a brand new blog, you’ll need to submit your blog URL to all major search engines on the net including Google. Click on the link to submit your blog url. Next, submit your blog to blog directories below. I have done a good job here making sure that most of these websites are free to submit your blog to. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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This will give you an added advantage to build better backlinks profile since many blogs on this list are of high Google page rank and help drive free targeted traffic when you start publishing quality content on your blog. Follow detailed guidelines when submitting your blog to these directories, each one on the list has its own rules and steps to take when you submit your blog for inclusion into their data base.
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http://alltop.com/ http://blogdirectory.ckalari.com/ http://blogville.us/ http://directory.blogaz.net/ http://fuelmyblog.com/ http://globeofblogs.com/ http://www.blloggs.com/ http://www.blog-collector.com/ http://www.blog-directory.org/ http://www.blogarama.com/ http://www.blogdir.co.uk/ http://www.blogdire.com/ http://www.blogdirectory.ws/ http://www.blogflux.com/ http://www.blogfolders.com/ http://www.bloggapedia.com/ http://www.blogginglist.com/ http://www.bloglisting.net/ http://www.blogs-collection.com/ http://blogscanada.ca/ http://www.blogtoplist.com/ http://www.britblog.com/ http://www.conseillemoi.net/proposer_site.php http://www.ezedir.com/
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http://www.feedplex.com/add-url.php http://www.blogflux.com/ http://www.blogcatalog.com/ http://globeofblogs.com/ http://www.ontoplist.com/ http://technorati.com/ http://www.bloghints.com/ http://www.bloggingfusion.com/ http://www.spillbean.com/ http://www.blogdigger.com/index.html http://www.blogarama.com/
Marketing Your Blog. I told you earlier in this report to map out your marketing strategies before going ahead to create your blog. If you’ve done so, then let’s go ahead with blog marketing implementations. There are absolutely two things you’ll need to market your blog effectively on the internet: Quality content and effective communication channels. Yes, those are the two most important ingredients you’ll need to market your blog on the internet.
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“Quality content” is what makes a blog the heaven for targeted audience and effective “communication channels” are what drive targeted traffic back to your quality content. When I was a beginner blogger, I heard this advice many times and before I reveal it here, I would advise you don’t follow it; “Build it and they will come”. That was the best advice I was given until I came to realize that no one would ever come to you unless you go all out and “SHOUT” at them before they’ll come. This is why you’ll need to establish good solid relationship with other bloggers who will help promote your content to their audience. If you follow my advice in the “From the Author” section of this book; you’ll notice I made mention that you’ll need to approach your internet marketing more like a businessman than just a blogger or a hobby. This is why it is so important for you to master the art of crafting a perfect post and know how to become a better internet marketer. But do not worry, every aspect of writing a perfect blog post would be covered in this book. I know you’d wanted to ask the following question………
How do I write quality Content? To be honest with you - there are no any proven right or wrong ways or steps to write quality content. It all depends on mother luck. This explains why some articles you wrote for the sake of updating your blog went viral and the ones you poured your heart into went unnoticed.
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Nevertheless, based on certain events and experiences with many blog posts that have went viral on the net; they’ll have some unique looks, styles and certain things in common. Based on this, I would say writing an epic blog post should contain the following concept and one you can try out on your blog.
Write What People want to read. Yes, your first task towards writing an epic blog post is to discover what exactly do people wants to read. After all, is all about them not you. If you’re just writing an article without knowing exactly what people are really interested in knowing or finding solution to, then your content will fall into nobody’s hand, because no one is interested in what you’re saying. Therefore your first task is making use of Google keyword planner or other methods to determine what people are really searching for. This involves visiting places like Amazon stores, eBay, click bank, forums, online communities, social media sites, etc. I prefer using Google keyword planner, that’s what I use always. This will allow you to discover what people are really searching for based on geographical location, worldwide, popularity, trending and keyword values in the market. Go through Amazon stores and check out their best-selling categories to see what people are buying currently - if it’s on Amazon best-selling list, then it probably a hot-cake at the moment. Visit your regular forums, online communities, social media places and listen to members’ discussions, their concerns, problems and worries. If an argument is constantly coming up, that gives a sign that many people are actually interested in that topic.
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By now, you should have many ideas on what and what topics to make up your blog post. Let me give you a pointer here: I was doing keyword research using Google keyword planner when I stumbled upon this keyword, “Blogging in Nigeria”, I wrote a blog post around it and to be honest with you – it has been my top post that drive organic traffic so far. Then I realize how many people out there are willing to know how to build a successful blog in Nigeria. That blog post lead to this very book you’re reading. This illustration alone has covered everything you need to know about building a successful blog that makes you decent money. So, your first task is to discover what people are really searching for.
Articles Headline. Good, so you now have many blog post ideas. It’s time to work on those keyboards and start typing. But, before you go ahead and write your post – there is one important aspect of it to master. The headline This is where you should spend considerable amount of time in perfecting your post. Once your headlines are great and convince the reader to click through, the body of your copy exists. So, how do you write articles headline that grabs a reader’s attention and compel him/her to read the body? Human beings are known to easily move to that which is emotional or they find interesting to their desire. Therefore, in order to quickly win the attention of your prospect it will be wise to write emotionally charged articles titles.
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Such article title may tend to play on the fear, frustrations, and happiness of the reader. Which one you use will depend on what type of article and the reason for which you’re writing it. Other article headlines aim at addressing the reader’s wants, desires or needs. It is used to target readers’ desire to achieve or get something. While some articles headlines carry announcement value, the writer aims at making an announcement with it. Like the release of new product(s), service(s) or whatever. Example: “WordPress Themes – Yoast Release Three Themes” That headline is aimed at making an announcement of a newly created product, while the writer also makes sure it ranks for the focus keyword – Yoast WordPress Themes. There are five main elements that make a great article headline stand out and it does not necessarily mean you should use all five in your title. In fact, a good article headline should give clearly what the information is about. I mean, it should stay on a topic and not joining issues together. Depending on the type of information and your motive of writing, you’ll need to do one of the following with your article headline.
Curiosity. Benefits. Credibility. Interest. Announcement.
When crafting your articles headlines, see how you can infuse any of these elements into your articles titles to trigger the attention of the prospective reader. What I mean here is; your title should either get the reader “Curious” to want to know more or it says the “Benefits” the user stands to gain by reading your content.
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Furthermore, depending on the information you’re presenting, your article title should show an element of “Credibility” on the subject matter to convince the reader that the content he/she is reading is backed by an expert advice. Let me give a clear example here: “New wordpress plugin to turn your site into money making Machine” And “Pippin Williamson Reveals - Money making WP plugin turn your site into an ATM Machine” Which out of the above two titles do you think is more real and convincing? The latter of course – it is backed by an expert credibility and proves to be straight from someone who knows what he is doing. Pippin Williamson is a known WordPress plug-ins developer with lots of credibility and authority in that field; so upon seeing that headline – your prospect is half way sold. Well, with that said, here are a couple of articles headlines templates you can experiment with to see which one really fits in your next blog post.
Types Of Articles Headlines News Headline – This is no brainer and something we see every day in our magazines, dailies, TV, radio etc. They present the news just as it is. Examples – Italian Airline Crashes at San Francisco. Six Win as WordPress end guest blogging contest. WordPress Themes – Yoast release Three Themes. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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How to Headline – This one is great and has been proven most times to work well, especially if the writer has genuine experience in what he writes about. In fact, I encourage you to use this one when you’re sure you know what you’re writing about really well. You’ve experienced it and use it. Examples – How to write compelling articles. How to rank #1 in Google search engine. How to satisfy a woman in bed. Question Asking Headline – This is commonly used to get people’s attention and spark up debates on a blog. It’s good to use when you really don’t have much to say or write about; exactly what happened when I published my shortest post ever on my blog. Examples – Short post vs long post which is better for SEO? Do you commit these web design mistakes? Who else wants to make $1000 online working 2 hours weekly? Direct headline – A no brainer also, but better used in telling prospect to do something instantly. Examples – Oder now and Get 5% off Go-daddy hosting. Get my money-making secret Guide. Download our 30 page SEO book now. Command headline – Just as the name says; it is used to command a prospect to take certain action immediately. This type of headline is not commonly used for articles headlines. Marketers use it for download buttons, subscriber forms etc. Examples – Click on the link now. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Subscribe to our newsletter. Buy Now. Benefits Headline – This is very good and one that is commonly used to sell a product or services. It tells the prospect the benefits he stands to gain by purchasing or subscribing to a program. Examples – Make $1000 in two days working five minutes daily. Loss 30 pounds in less than two-weeks with weight loss pro. Rank your websites number 1 with Google ranker 2.0. Testimonial Headline – This happens as a result of previous users who had positive experience with your product(s). You use this one to tell others that your product(s) or service(s) are actually working as promised. It is also used when you’ve experienced something and want to share it with others. Examples – How I rank #1 In Google. How 20 yr old deaf and dump made $647,694 in 30 days. How I lost 67 pounds in two weeks and how you too can.
Types of Articles This is where you’ll need to be patient and work smart, harder and consistently. This doesn’t happen over-night, but it will surely do if you continue practicing every day. Based on what I give above and some articles pattern that had gone viral on the net and became a corner stone for their respective authors; here are types of articles you can experiment with in your next blog post. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Argument Articles- In this type of post, all you do is find something which is generally believed to be the rule in the industry; something most people accept without evaluating its real benefits and see how you can write against it. You could write confidently against a claim someone else has made over something. This helps get you noticed easily and drive new visitors. But be careful in doing this, if proper care is not taken it might have a negative effect on you. If you’re not sure of what your views are, or your evidence are not strong enough to back up your claim, better to go with the crowd and accept it the way it is while you’re in search of how you think it is supposed to be done. Like I said earlier, it must be something you’re confidently sure you have a claim or good reason to share your personal view or thought. If you take a look at my guest post published on Bizsuccessguide.com, you’ll see this strategy at work. It is a common belief in the blogosphere that blog commenting could eventually lead to massive blog traffic. I wrote an article on why I go against such belief; and to my favor my argument did win many friends and created few foes.
Theory Articles – Another way to create something worthwhile is to present a theory in your industry. Write about something you’ve done and have full practical technical know-how about. It doesn’t have to be something most authors have shed light on. Each day the world changes and technology advances. You can present a theory on how you get some old stuffs done in a new way or version. People who are interested in your style or pattern will surely check you out. Many people will want to know the new discovery you’ve just got. It helps make a blog post go viral in no time.
How to Articles – This is a winner all the time if done properly and well executed. You could see them all over the internet.
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How to stay fit and healthy. How to write a perfect post in 30 minutes. How to get your ex-back and so on. Think about your niche and write about something that seems difficult or what more people want to find solution to. But make sure you can defend your claims in your how to articles otherwise you won’t like the comments that would follow. I know this, and am talking from experience. A guest post was published on a certain blog that opened with a crappy advice. The comments that followed were not funny at all. The host blogger had to delete the post before things went out of hand. So make sure you know what you’re saying and can put your name to it.
The List Articles – You can’t just do without a list articles, they go viral almost the same way like the how to articles. If properly planned and executed; a list articles can immediately drive crazy amount of targeted traffic instantly. If you’re looking for an example of this strategy at work, check out Samuel Gilbert of viralwriter’s post on “45 experts shared their monetization strategies”. This post was a combination of two strategies at work. First, it was a list post – 45 experts. And second, it was an interview post. That post went viral within hours of hitting the publish button and ranked top for its focus keyword – monetization strategies. 10 top ways to drive free targeted traffic. 45 experts shared the monetization strategies. 100 Best blog posts of 2013. Well, that’s a brief look into what type of articles you can experiment with on your blog to see which one you can comfortably write about.
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Crafting and Structuring Your Post. Now that you’ve mastered the art of writing a never-to-ignore articles headline, your next task is to present the content in a way it would be inviting and interesting to the reader’s eye. In fact, writing magnetic headline for your post is just half the battle, the other half is in making your content interesting, engaging, educating and entertaining to the readers - so they will always come back for more. How do you achieve this? Never mind, that’s one of the reasons you bought this book. If you probably know how to do it, I guess you won’t read up to this stage. In a moment, am going to reveal the exact formula I use on my blog to get readers engaged and entertained with my content that they always come back for more. The secret to this is to write or structure your post in the way readers wants to read it not the way “you” want to write it. If you fail to accept this fact, then, you’ll always be speaking to an empty gallery no matter how quality your information is or convincing your headline is. Throughout this book, I have revealed this strategy in every chapter, paragraph, sentence or phrases. Did you get it? Well, if you have not, here is it. Before I go on, I like this statement from a good friend of mine. He says, “A copy is like a woman skirt; short enough to look interesting and long enough to cover the whole subject”
#1.Make it Short and easy to read – This applies to your sentence and paragraphs. Make them short and easy to read. A very good way to achieve this is to stick to one point per paragraph.
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#2.Stop Using BIG Grammar – Although your reader might have a dictionary in his house, he might be a lecturer in a university, but the moment you’re making him crack his brain before understanding your words, you lose him for good. Use simple words and stop making him think before understanding your point. Besides, your content should help him do the thinking and deliver to him already simplified information.
#3.Short Paragraph – There is nothing annoying like reading a long wall of block of text. Break up long paragraph into short ones and make it catchy to the eye. Reading takes more effort on the part of the reader and it’s best to keep it at most 5 lines per paragraph. Straying at long walls of text could easily tire the eyes.
#4.Use List and Sub-headings – This has been proven to work best on the web. Look at this section of the book. There are couples of reasons you’ll want to read and skip to where you like most: 1. You could quickly decide which area to read instantly upon seeing this section. 2. You understand that under the sub-heading, there are list of points. 3. It makes you feel the writer had done some homework before writing his post. 4. It gives beauty to your copy and makes it easily digest.
#5.Don’t Use Fancy font – This is not only bad for reading but also not a good practice. Using fancy font could easily turn some readers off instantly upon seeing your content and makes it hard for the eyes to read through.
#6 Remove Redundant Phrases – Stop repeating same word all the time in your sentence and it goes for points you’ve made clear in your paragraph. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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For instance - “Blogging tips to help you make money online blogging”. There is no need repeating the word - “Blogging”- at the end of that phrase. It is better this way - “Blogging tips to help you make money online”. I hope you get the idea in it?
#7.Occasional One Sentence Paragraph – If you’re looking for an example of what a one sentence paragraph is, look no further. Did you see what I did above and below? That and this are one sentence paragraphs. But don’t go overboard with this one; use only when necessary and relevant.
#8.Make It Narrow Columns – It has been proven that wide columns area of text get the eyes tired quickly and retired from reading further. Make your text easy to read by making your content area not more than 65 to 70 characters long in width. This gives beauty to your content structures and the readers find it more appealing to the eyes.
#9.Use Images – This is no brainer, but if you haven’t started using it, then the best time to do that is now. Use images where necessary especially to illustrate something or give an example. It gives more beauty and draw attention towards your post.
#10.Focus On One Idea – Good quality information will focus on solving one problem. Instead of writing about multiple ideas in one post consider writing a series of post if necessary to give room for other ideas you might want to touch. This would make it easier for both human visitors and search engines crawlers to understand the basis of your content. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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#11.Show Credibility and Authority – There is nothing more convincing in writing when readers believe the advice he is giving is from an expert in the field. You achieve this in multiple ways: First: use industry terminology in your writing to describe words. Second: write with convincing authority by using the two most important words in writing and that is “You” and “I”. Don’t be afraid to refer to the reader as “you” and to yourself as “I”; If you observe closely throughout this book, “I” always refer to “you” yes, you the reader of this book as “you” and to myself as “I”. Stop using “we” and “us” except you’re truly sure your blog is run by staffs, editorial team and you’re referring to the whole crew in your statement. When you’re giving advice to your readers, don’t say “I think”. Rather give your advice with clear conviction that your advice is the best solution to his problem. This is how you claim authority in your field. Well, I have to stop here on this section and move on to another important aspect in blogging your way to build a profitable blog.
Build Your Communication Channels. There is something I want you to understand about blog marketing and that is: you get what you pay for. Just as “SMALL” fire will produce smaller amount of heat; big fire will generate “BIGGER” amount of heat. That’s what blog marketing is all about.
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Things that are easier to do will result in small traffic. While things that are difficult to achieve will result into massive blog traffic channels. The end result to every traffic tactics and strategies depends on how much time, energy and resources you put into making it work. A major reason you see most bloggers achieving same result. Most people depend on traffic tactics like blog commenting, forum posting, articles submission, press release for blog traffic. These are small traffic channels and a very good way for beginner’s bloggers to kick start their blog marketing campaign. Nevertheless, as a beginner blogger you’re going to get started with those methods till you have access to big traffic funnels that lead to building a popular profitable blog. Therefore, I will break this section into two parts. The first part will talk about those traffic tactics you can start implementing to boost your blog traffic now. While the other part will talk in details how you can leverage on the already established small traffic channel you’ve created to drive big streams of traffic. I like to call blog marketing “communication channel” due to fact that it is the communication channel you’ve established through different medium that eventually leads to steady flow of blog traffic. I hope at this stage you’ve mastered the art of writing quality content because if you don’t have something of high quality on your blog for your visitors to engage with, your overall efforts you put into blog marketing would become completely waste of time, resources and energy. Building effective communication channel, driving traffic and building backlinks are all tied to one strategy or common task. Therefore this section will talk about most of what you’ll need to achieve all the three above at a go. I will start with some simple stuffs you can start doing immediately to kick start your blog marketing, building effective communication channel while you also build your backlinks profile in the process before moving on to some complex tasks that need a bit planning and perfection.
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Blog Commenting And How To Use It? I will have to talk in length about using blog commenting for traffic building, establishing networks and building backlinks so you don’t get things mixed up here. Blog commenting is the interaction that happens between an author of a post and the blog readers. A box is placed at the very end of the post for readers to leave their thoughts, opinions, and views on post they’ve read. It is a great way to improve blog interaction and one major difference between the traditional websites and what we now call “blogs”.
Benefits of Regular Blog Commenting. Without missing words here; there are lots of benefits you stand to gain just by leaving valuable insightful comments on relevant niche blogs:
You drive free targeted traffic back to your blog. You build your backlinks profile in the process. You establish relationship with other webmasters. You learn new ideas and meet new people. Guest post opportunity. You build your profile as a problogger.
Among all these benefits, there is only one I want you to focus on each time you’re leaving comments on other blogs. “Establishing relationship with other webmasters.” Yes, that’s the one I want you to focus on and try to achieve most each time you’re leaving comments on other blogs.
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Driving massive blog traffic comes from two important factors: Links and existing connections. By leaving valuable comments on popular blogs, first you’re leaving your foot print on that blog and secondly, you should focus on building good solid relationship with the blogger behind the blog. This is how you build a profitable popular blog. The links you’re leaving on those blogs you’re commenting on will trickle in occasional blog traffic. Nothing spectacular or significant in amount of traffic it generates - at least for most bloggers. Don’t focus on driving traffic with your blog commenting. The amount of traffic and consistency is not encouraging, rather focus on building connections, establishing relationship and networking with it. There are some exceptional cases where valuable blog commenting has really brought in massive blog traffic but the chances are just 2 out of 100. Like Harleena of Aha!Now - she is the queen of regular valuable blog commenting. The better part of this strategy is that, when you focus on leaving valuable comments on blogs to build relationship, the traffic you want will naturally flow in your direction without you forcing it. Other blog readers will start checking you out through your insightful comments you’ve left on the post.
Don’t leave spam comments just because you want backlinks, it doesn’t work that way. Most bloggers moderate comments before it get approved. After leaving comments on post, make sure you endeavor to share the post itself on Twitter, Facebook and Google plus. Do this for post you find interesting and worthy enough to be shared. This is a very good strategy to get on the radar of other bloggers, and hopefully they would do the same for your blog post too. This is how to make your post go viral in time. This strategy might even gain you some social followers on twitter and Facebook page likes.
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If you write something good enough, something you’re really proud of, go out and leave comments on blogs relevant to your blog topic, share their blog post and if you’re lucky the blogger pay you a return visit, he might as well share your post to his social media followers. This is how you grow your blog as a beginner, until you have good enough financial budget to spend on your blog; you’ll have to work your way to the top in a baby step manner.
Join online Bloggers Communities. Join communities of like-minded people and establish good friendships with other bloggers. It helps in learning quickly and a very good marketing channel for exposing your blog and marketing it. There is nothing like learning from others, their mistakes, success stories, comments and so on. Join relevant groups and share thought and experiences with each other’s. Personally, I have gained lots of experiences from a group of bloggers called BloggersLab on Facebook. There are lots of benefits to gain in these places and many of them are on the internet. Find the one relevant to your niche and be active there. Try make friends, build relationship, networking and connections in these places which you’ll need most in building a profitable popular blog. One very good way you’ll constantly need to promote your post is by joining as many relevant Facebook groups as possible. Join as many as you can and each post you publish on your blog, share it manually in all these Facebook groups. I’ll advise you to post manually - there are reasons behind this. Some Facebook group don’t allow posting on the wall of the group. They have separate thread open for self-promotion and related issues. When you start spamming with your links on the wall of the group, you get kicked out and banned. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Auto poster applications like hoot-suite and the likes will automatically post to many groups all at once but will only do that to the group’s wall. Besides, your status updates appears robotic when you post with auto posters. Other communities of bloggers you can join include but not limited to:
Bizsugar. Blogengage – Paid membership. Blogkube. Tiberr. Inbound. DoSplash. Klinnk. Kingged. Blogcatalog.
Guest Post on Authority Blogs. This is where your valuable blog commenting should help and makes it easier for you to land guest post on other blogs. Most of the blogs I have guest post on where the result of relationship I have managed to established with the blogger behind them through valuable blog commenting that have expand into building good lasting relationship.
Before you start thinking of submitting guest post, make sure you’re confident of your writing ability and you’ve tested well enough your creativity on your blog and readers reactions and comments are encouraging. I said this based on personal experience, otherwise, you’ll have most of your guest post rejected and this may lead to frustration or thinking guest post don’t work.
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A successful guest post campaign will bring in the three important factors you need to market your blog i.e. You will build backlinks in the process. You’re marketing your blog in the process to another readers’ community. You’re building upon an already established relationship while creating another with other bloggers who are friends of your host blogger. Your links in the body of the article will continue to drive traffic back to your blog. If you want to get the best out of your guest articles, then do a bit more than just leaving your post on any blog you find accepting guest post. Before you start a guest post campaign, know exactly what you want from it. Is it: 1. Backlinks? 2. Traffic? 3. Email subscribers? 4. Exposure? 5. Relationship? 6. Connections or whatever? If you want to drive free targeted traffic with your guest post, then look for authority blogs with the kind of audience you want and have your article published on their blog. Knowing what you want from your guest post campaign will make it much easier in determining what type of content to deliver as your guest article. Here is a list of Nigerian bloggers with high Authority blogs you can start reading, leave valuable comments on post they publish and you’ve read, understood and could contribute meaningful thought to. This way you can get closer to them and get on their radar.
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These blogs moderate every comment before it goes live. So make sure you leave remarkable comment and not something like “nice post”, “great tips”, “well-done” etc. Read and understand the author’s view before posting your comment and if you don’t have something good to say, better just pass by and visit some other time. In no particular order:
Ogbongeblog owned by JideOgunsanya. Bizsuccessguide owned by Efoghor Joseph. Doncaprio owned by Doncaprio. Onenijablog owned by Babanature. Allbloggingcoach owned by Andrew Osaolu. Oscarmini owned by Oscar Frank
Interview Popular Bloggers. This is one of the easiest methods of driving free targeted traffic and marketing your blog. There is a simple logic to why interviewing popular bloggers works well for blog marketing and traffic building. You’re tapping into some existing traffic funnel to build your own traffic foundation and marketing your blog to a larger crowd you could not possibly reach. So, if you can find a popular blogger to interview on your blog, it will not only drive free targeted traffic to your website, but also lays the foundation to a good lasting relationship. Though as beginner blogger, it will be difficult to find some influential bloggers to interview on your blog, but keep this in mind; and if you’ve been using your blog commenting strategy well enough to build relationship with other bloggers
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and you stay long enough on working at it…..sooner than you think, the opportunity will surely present itself. There are other small traffic channels like forum discussion, blog carnival, press release, articles submission to article directories etc. But in my opinion all these will bring in small occasional quality traffic but not really something you should depend on for massive traffic. But this does not mean you shouldn’t use them, or careless about their importance. Use them; massive blog traffic comes from combinations of referral links, direct and organic traffic.
How to Grow “massive” blog traffic. Bear in mind that this section is not about your regular “Top 20 ways to drive massive traffic”, 30 Surefire ways to drive maximum blog traffic” or “6 never to fail traffic building system” and just about anything like that. There are quite a dozen of them on the net, with a quick Google search you’ll sure find them everywhere. I know you will, I too, contribute to those pages in Google search. What you’re about to read here is a clear system for guiding you through a proven formula, strategies, attitude and mental approach towards building a traffic channel that leads to popular profitable blog. This won’t happen overnight, it takes lots of daily works, patience and constant effort to achieve this. And the truth must be told - not all bloggers would achieve this. All the above strategies I discussed are great ways to drive traffic but on average they will bring in small amount of it, or in some exceptional cases, instant rush Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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but something that might not last long – i.e. Guest post and Interviewing Popular bloggers. To get “massive” blog traffic, like I said, it depends on mother luck and the caucus you belong to. This explains the reason I told you that effective communication channels are what you need to build a popular blog.
It Start With Your Audience. You start with your audience. Your audiences are your best marketing channel. These are people who are genuinely interested in your content and always come back for more. Why are your audiences your best marketing channel? Imagine you published a post on your blog and at the time, all you have is just 10 regular readers who frequently visit your blog to read your post. These ten people love what you write and just three out of ten decide to share your post to their followers either on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumble Upon, Delicious etc. Each one out of these three loyal readers has an average of 2,000 followers. What this means is that your content is now been viewed by a total of 6,000 people. Wow! With little effort on your part, your content is now in the hands of 6,000 followers. Let’s take it a bit further: Out of these 6,000 external followers, just 5 decided to check on what their friends had share with them. So they follow the link down to your blog post and find it as interesting as their friends had thought. So they too decide to hit the sharing buttons after reading your post, and guess what? Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Each one out of these 5 people has an average of 2,500 followers on twitter, 2,000 Facebook friends and in 500 circles of Google+. What does this mean? Gradually, your content is going viral and your blog is now becoming a portal for targeted audience. This greatly explains why you must produce good quality content always. Your readers will play a bigger role in building your blog, that’s why you will need to appreciate the small traffic channel you’ve created and maintain it. In fact, building upon the small traffic channel is the key to massive blog traffic. All you need to constantly be doing is to work on your small communication channel steady and hopefully one day, a popular blog will link to you or future you in their newsletter. If this happens, then you’ve just hit a gold rush. Never stop at working your way up, guest post regularly on different blogs. This allows you to show case your blog and creativity to different communities and who knows - an authority blogger might pick your article and feature you on his blog.
Peer Groups. Next, you’ll need the help of your peer groups a lot in building “massive” blog traffic and not just traffic, but also building a popular successful blog. This is why I told you earlier on that building friendship, establishing connections and networking are the back bone of successful blogs. When you have good friends in high places, it gets easier to get what you want. Let’s go off blogging topics and come back home to our dear Nigerian politics. Why do you think some of our dear politicians are so successful in getting appointments, contract awards, senatorial seats, executive positions and even presidential seat?
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The answer to all these questions is tied around one important factor to greater achievements…..belong to the right caucus and you’ll always get what you want. Connections are what bring most of our dear politicians to where they are today. We have many worthy people who are more deserving of political positions but without being in the right party - you and I know they will never get there. Same thing happens in the blogosphere, that’s why you’ll always see Probloggers linking to each other more often and eventually creating more popular blogs than an average blogger. I believe at this stage you should understand what I’m trying to impact into your mind about driving massive blog traffic that is targeted and rewarding. Your friends will help you a lot in achieving massive blog traffic. Picture this scenario; you wrote a blog post about “writing the perfect headline” and it happens that one of your blogger friends owns a popular blog on copywriting. The next big thing you’ll need to attract more readers to your post is to ask your blogger friend to link to your article from within his post or feature you as a guest author on his blog. This way you have the opportunity to talk to his audience or link directly to your post. You get backlinks in the process, drive free targeted traffic and expose your blog to another blog reader. It gets easier when you have people around you. What I shared here with you now is a goldmine if you understand the value of friendship, networking, endorsement and powerful connections. Landing guest articles on some big authority blogs become easier when you have good people around you who know top shot you don’t even have met before. There are other means to get targeted traffic but you’ll have to pay for it like buying paid traffic from traffic service site like hit tail, entire wed, add more traffic, etc. or by featuring on the home page of popular bloggers communities like blog catalog, Just re-tweet, Do Splash etc. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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But as a beginner blogger, you’ll want to discover how you can continually drive traffic on your own without having to pay for it all the time; especially when you’re just starting out and finding what works and what doesn’t. And a major reason you don’t have to be lazy and start doing what I consider a must do task for any internet marketer who is willing to do business online and that leads us to……
Build your email list. Before we go into details here; be warned that this is not a one-time task or something you take for granted. This is the back bone of making money online. Without effective email subscribers - making money online will be difficult. I urge you to start from day one to place an opt-in subscriber’s form on your website to collect prospect details. Lots of benefits await you when you have a good healthy list of subscribers.
Promoting affiliate product s and services. Selling your own products and services. Making announcement of newly created product(s) to your list. Driving targeted traffic on demand. Making money online with the list – Solo ads. Getting feedback on your services.
The benefits are only limited by your own imagination. There are many good auto-responder services you can start with but most of them cost money to use. In the beginning of your blogging career and especially since you’re not making any kobo yet, I would advise you start with the free available auto-responder services.
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My favorite is list wire. List wire is completely free and all you need to get started is to open an account with them which can be done in 2 or 3 minutes. List wire is completely free. Another good option is called mail-chimp. Try any of these two out and compare which one better suit your wants. Mail-chimp will allow you up to 2,000 subscribers’ base before asking you to register for a premium account. But the down side of mail-chimp is that as a free member, you won’t be able to make use of their auto-responder services which allow you to send out pre-written message at a set date and time. But if you’re on good financial budget - Aweber, Getresponse, Prompt-support are premium auto responder services you can try out. They all work well and handle your marketing effectively. If you can afford the budget, I would advise you try out Getresponse email marketing service. Getresponse would allow you a FREE trial of their service for good one month without you paying a dime for it. There are lots of reasons and advantages you gain by using their services which others might not match. Try out getresponse and you’ll be glad you did.
Traffic Level, Monetizing Strategies And Money. There are lots of debates going around in the blogosphere on how early should a newly created blog monetize based on traffic level. I believe you need no traffic level to start monetizing your blog from day1, unless you’re not planning to monetize in the future, then you can wait to see something happen before testing out with blog monetizing.
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If you’re aiming to make money from your blog, then the right time to do that is now regardless of whatever traffic level you’re generating to your blog at the moment. Let your visitors know that your blog aim at making money for you right from their first visit. There are downsides to not monetizing from day1 if you aim at making money from your blog later. When your readers have accustomed your blog with text only and later you start placing banner and image ads everywhere; this may turn off some visitors and eventually you lose your loyal readers. Your blog may lose its over-all look and style and this will eventually give “you” the blogger, another hectic work to do, possibly you will settle for another blog theme entirely. So, if you desire to keep your blog image and style for a long-term, start with everything in mind from day1.
Monetizing Your Blog Later. Monetizing your blog later on will give you an advantage of focusing on the more core aspect of blogging, “content“. You can take your time at this stage to perfect your writing skill and build steady stream of traffic flow. While I was starting out as a “newbie”, I made so many errors and did lots of funny things with my blog like changing theme 5 times within a week, writing horrible content that looked like bricks of wall. I didn’t even know which affiliate program worth the try or which is not. All these while, I was figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I won’t say monetizing later is better, but I would conclude that it’s better to focus more on learning how to blog during your early days of blogging than looking for ways to make money from your blog. But like I said, it has its own downside too, especially if you’re planning to monetize in the future.
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Downside to Early Monetization. Mostly, the negative effects of early monetizing of blog comes down to two important things - you either get frustrated or quit half way or you will never become a better blogger. Wait, don’t start throwing stones at me, I know there are tens or hundreds of thousands blogs out there that built their blog upon affiliate program, self-product or ads placement at the very start of their blog. It may interest you to know that these are already established bloggers who have tested their weight and strength out with previous blogs and know their onions. For beginner blogger, it would have a negative impact on him. Making money from blog is one of the easiest and the hardest things I have ever come across. Easiest, if you have been there and know how……hardest if you’re just stepping into the game and still testing the sea to see how deep it is. So, it is better for a new blogger who is determined to build a successful blog overtime to keep away from blog monetizing from day #1 and focus on how to build a successful business using blogs as tools from scratch. There are more than a million tips and tutorials in blogging, though with no absolute or concrete rule, but there are certain rules of thumbs to abide with and follow strictly, if you desire to build a successful blog. I have seen two months old blogger complaining of low or no income on his blog; this doesn’t have to be like that. Learn the tricks and tips in blogging and at least master what you do and the money will flow easily than you imagine.
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How To Monetize A Blog. Now that we’ve talked at length about the ups and downs of early monetization; let’s see how you can properly monetize a blog for decent money. If you run a quick search on the term “how to make money from blogging” definitely you’ll be bombard with thousands of pages with almost similar advices like what we have below:
Contextual Advertising. This is a process or methods of advertising in which ads are served on your blog based on your content type or keywords. The ads network providers serve as the middle men between “you” referred to as publisher, and the advertiser. Mostly, you get paid based on fixed amount per click on ads being displayed on your blog by the ads network providers, not the advertisers directly. You have no business or whatsoever with the advertisers in this type of ads program. You register on any of these ads network providers and get the code to place on your blog, after that, ads will start showing on your blog. Depending on their policy or system of operation, it may take up to hours before you start seeing ads displayed on your blog. Programs that fall into this category are: Google AdSense Programme. Info Links. Bidvertiser. Adbrite. Ad dynamo. Clicks ads. Kanoodle. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Chitika etc.
2. Affiliate Programs. A real legitimate business if you ask me. Many internet marketers live on the back of this internet business model and lots of them have found life worth living from it. Affiliate program is perhaps one of the very best ways to go when it comes to blog monetization. You don’t need to own the product and don’t have to worry over customer services - all you need to do is recommend a product to your readers and if they buy through your affiliate code - you get paid. Promoting your affiliate links get easier if you have built and have a healthy email list of subscribers. That is, if you’re following my advice on traffic building. I believe by now you should at least have a decent amount of subscribers. Examples of good affiliate network programs: SFI – Strong future International Amazon associates. Web hosting affiliate programs. Shareasale. Linkshare. Commission Junction. Click Bank.
3. Direct Advert Placement.
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With this you’ll need to build your readership and traffic level of your blog to something more reasonable and significant before contacting advertiser directly and leaving out the middle men such as Google. Direct ads placement on your blog could bring a huge income for you enough to start another business in the real world if approached with the right attitude and patience. But, it takes greater efforts on your part before you can approach advertiser to place ads on your blog. There must be a good reason for advertiser to do business with you. And quality massive blog targeted traffic is one of those reasons. What you’ve just read above are things you can implement or put on your blog that may eventually make you money if your strategies and tactics are thoroughly planned and well executed. If you didn’t get my points right, here is it again in a more ABC tone – no matter how many Google ads you plaster on your blog or best sought after affiliate products you promote, if you don’t have the right strategies and tactics to make good money in place, you might just be wasting your time running those programs on your blog. And the good news is – I have given you almost all that you need to make legitimate income from those programs on your blog. But wait, if after you purchased this book and the best advice I give you on how you can start making decent money from your blog is to put AdSense ads, affiliate programs, get direct advert placement, Chitika, PPC on your blog….. then I believe you’ve been duped. You already know most of them and a reason you’ve been asking this question on Google a lot……….
How Do I Make BIG Money Online? Answer - *Sell Something* Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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It’s as simple as that. This is how you make “BIG” money from your blogs and no matter what you do online or how hard you try to make money - if you fail to understand this simple but honest truth about making money online…… then you might find yourself frustrated and always moving from one money making program to another. I don’t know how to explain it better than this very book you’re reading now. This book you bought is a good example of my advice. I wanted to make money online – a good decent money not chicken change. I looked within and thought of what services I could offer in exchange for the money I wanted and if there is a market for it – demand. With the help of keyword research I could figure out what problem people are facing that needs a solution. I discovered many Nigerians are searching for “how to run/start a successful blog in Nigeria” – I guess you might have stumbled upon my article if you have run a search on that keyword phrase in Google. Based on the skills, experiences, knowledge and technical know-how I have acquired in professional blogging over time; I knew am qualified to provide solution to this problem young aspiring bloggers from Nigeria are facing in starting their blogs. This gave birth to this very book you’re reading. If what you want is to start making a living online, then you either sell product(s) or offer your service(s) in exchange for the money you want. Look at the top websites on the internet that makes bulk of the money:
Amazon. Facebook. Google. Yahoo. EBay. Click bank. Alexa. Ejunkie. Forbes.
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Microsoft. NairaBet. Apple. And the list goes on.
All these websites have something in common, they all have something of value to offer, and they provide solutions to the problems people are facing both in the real world and online. Whatever you’re skillful in doing, web design, coding, Graphics design, counseling, drawing, singing, writing, software development, health treatment, real estate consultant, business management, IT professional etc. Create a blog topic around that thing, publish quality information on your blog regularly, create awareness so more eyeballs can see your creativity and recognize you as an expert in that field. When this happens - leverage on the existing trust and credibility you’ve gained through quality advices you give on your blog and then, offer your services at an affordable price or create and sell product(s) that solve problem(s) people are facing in your industry. It does not necessarily have to be in this manner. From day 1 you can set-up a business blog that sells to the public product(s) and service(s) and make good money from it. Remember the last time you heard a top blogger makes some astonishing crazy amount of money from blogging? Definitely, it’s from the sales of a product or services he creates and sells. I hope this is clear enough for you to understand? If you still need help on this, you can reach me directly on 08126276427 or 08137252269.
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Higher Ranking in Google. No science here; bear in mind that every advice you’re given here is meant to put your blog and content on the right track of search engine visibility and not a guarantee to get your post on the first page of Google. *Note – If you run a Google search on how to rank higher in Google – you will come across many advices, many of which won’t do you any good but can only make you confused and not necessarily what you want. Here I tried to present to you main things you need to focus on, those things that have direct measurable result and impact on your website ranking in any giving search engines. Therefore, all the things I would reveal here are the steps, works and strategies I undertake to achieve my claims of making it with several posts of my blog on the first pages of search engines including Google. It is not a push button system neither is it a formula, program or one-time action - but it’s as a result of many factors, strategies, tactics, hard work, consistencies and dedications done correctly put together overtime that result into great search visibility. There are many factors that lead to better search visibility or ranking in any search engine and depending only on on-site SEO will and may never take you to higher ranking. Great search visibility starts with building your blog. Some experts will tell you it starts with a good domain name such as keyword rich domain name. But in my opinion, that is a theory of the year 2005 and not working like that anymore. Having a keyword rich domain name does not in any way affect your ranking in search result pages. It all depends on the overall quality of your blog and the worthiness of it in the eyes of Google. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Enough of intro, let’s get to work and start with the basic.
Blog Description Meta Tag. Your first steps toward search visibility and higher ranking starts with having in place a good blog (Your home Page) description meta tag that in one simple sentence explain what your blog topics is all about. This helps tell both human visitors and search engine spiders what your blog topics is all about. And you have to do this in one simple short descriptive sentence. To create a blog description Meta tag; go to your admin dashboard, hover your mouse on Setting, it will reveal hidden menus - from there click on General, in the Site Title and Tagline field - input your site title and short description of what your blog topic is all about. Bam! You’re on your first step towards search visibility.
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If you’ve done this correctly, you should see your tag when you hover your mouse to the top of your browser tab when your blog is being viewed like the one below.
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Make sure that your primary keywords that are closely relevant to your blog topics are part of your blog description meta tag. For instance – check out my blog description meta tag: Blogging tips to help you make money online. I blog about blogging tips and tutorials, and a bit of make money online stuffs. Hence, my blog description meta tag say blogging tips to help you make money online. This help first time visitors and search engines crawlers to quickly at a glance understand what my blog topics are all about. So, they know and aware of what type of information to expect from reading my blog. And this help your pages to be properly index in their best categories. But don’t go overboard here tring to stuff everything up with keywords, remember – your’e creating your business for human and not search engines. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Permalink Structure. Next, is to improve the permalink structure of your content URL. This will not only help crawlers to better understand your documents structures but also help human visitors to quickly understand if they’re reading the right information. WordPress has made this easier for you to achieve by going to setting in your admin dashboard, click on Permalink and chose custom, then input your preferred link structure. To create a permalink structures for your blog follow the instructions in the image below:
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The custom structure field will be left blank for you to input whatever you desire. I like to go with: /%year%/%postname%/, this will give you something like this: www.yoursitename.com/yearof post/post-name/ Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Install Google XML Site Map Plugin. Next, install Google XML sitemap plugin for WordPress blog. I believe this is no brainer and if you’ve followed through from the beginning of this book you should have installed it by now. This plugin will allow search engines crawlers to discover all pages on your blog and properly index them in the right order. One important note here is to always check for broken links on your blog and fix them in time. There is a plugin for that too; it is called broken link checker plugin. It’s free to install and that’s just one of the beauty of blogging with WordPress platform.
Yoast SEO Plugin. Install WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. This plugin is what most bloggers considered best in this regard. You’ll need to fill in some parameters. But don’t worry - Yoast has taken care of that too. Go here to learn how to set-up the plugin. There are lots of things to learn while you visit that page, follow the instructions and advices Yoast gives on his blog religiously. You’ll sure learn more than setting up the plugin.
Make Your Blog Crawlable. Search engines crawlers should be able to get through your website from one single static link. This means from the home page, all other pages on your blog should be reachable. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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To achieve this, make sure you’re linking each page together. Especially when writing your articles, link relevant post topics together within the body of the content – this is called internal linking. If a page on your blog cannot be accessed from other pages, Google and other search engines crawlers may assume that page does not exist on your blog and thereby, can’t index it in their massive data base. If a page(s) is not indexed, how do you expect it to get ranked?
Off-Page SEO. Off-page SEO is just another phrase or word for link building – Links pointing towards your blog. You will need this most to achieve higher ranking in search engines. If you’ve followed my advice in the “Blog Marketing” section of this book building natural looking back-links that point towards your blog won’t be that difficult. In fact, I have given a great deal on how you should go about off-page optimization for your blog throughout this book. But for the purpose of this section….here is it again: Guest Post on other blogs and have at least one relevant anchor text pointing back to a post on your blog – not your home page. Leave valuable comments on commentluv plug-in enabled blog. Write quality content that is worth linking to. Share your post on social media places. Submit your blog to blog directories. Have your blog URL placed in forums as your signature. Don’t buy links. Don’t beg for links. Don’t involve in link exchange programs. Don’t use software to get links. Don’t involve in black hat SEO – Google animals will caught you.
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Next but not the least is offer quality content always. Every other known recommendation in the industry to great search visibility will become completely useless if you can’t publish quality articles on your blog. That’s why I give a great deal on how to write better quality content above. No matter what SEO expert you employ or keyword research you do, all will take you nowhere if readers can’t find useful information on your blog. I understand that I have said nothing to intrigue you to believe my claims and that’s why I have gone a bit further to discuss below how to do some keyword research and posts optimization.
Getting Keywords phrase. You’ll want to create a blog post that stands the chance of ranking high in search result pages. A major reason you’ll need to pay attention to this section carefully. Not always will you discover a popular term(s) either in social places, communities, magazines, e-commerce stores, etc. This is why you’ll need much time to do some keyword research and find what is popular in your industry and write your articles around such terms or phrases. This will/may increase your chances of driving free organic traffic to your blog. And what more, this traffic are more targeted than any other. To do that; here are the steps to follow: First, get a list of keyword phrases/words your targeted audience would likely use as their search query when searching for terms relevant to your blog topics. Here you’ll need to brainstorm a lot, start thinking on those words or terms relevant to your industry or blog topics. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Using keyword planner will give you a better understanding into what people are really searching for in your industry at a given time, location and what the popularity is like. Remember, the first step towards writing articles that get read is to write what people want to read and not what you feel like writing. In the case of my articles that got rank #1 in Google, this how I do it. First, I brainstorm on a list of relevant keywords my targeted audience is likely to find my content with:
Blog. Successful Blog. Nigerian blogger. Blogging Nigeria. Start a Blog Blog in Nigeria
The first keyword phrase target generic audience, not really targeting a specific group of people. With such keyword, anyone could type it in as search query. What exactly do they want to know about “Blog“? The second is a bit targeted at a person who wants to find out “Successful blog“. But we can still narrow it down a bit and make it long tail keywords. Which means we try to figure out exactly what words combined together users’ type into search engines. Now that I have a list of keywords ideas, it is time to use Google keyword tools, now called keyword planner. It is free and will always be. I suggest you always use it before writing your post – forget about the write for human that is thrown around the blogosphere, always do keyword research before writing your post. What I want is targeted keyword phrases with high global monthly search volume. You probably don’t want to waste your time to rank number 1 in Google search engine for a keyword that has no value or high in demand.
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Make sure your final keyword phrase has most of what it takes to give return on your time and efforts. Like I said earlier, there is no point in ranking number 1 for a keyword no one is searching for. Your targeted keyword should:
Be relevant to your blog topics. Has a high global monthly search. Your keyword should be valuable in the market. Others should be competing for it also – If no marketers target your keyword that is a red flag.
The main key ingredient to rank number 1 in Google search engine is to target long tail keyword. When you write an article with your main targeted keyword as “Blog”, the major problem with such keyword like this is; millions of webpages have it in their keyword phrase. So, the better you narrow down your audience, the better your chances to hit the first page of SERP. In that case, it would be better to phrase your focus keyword with other words users are likely to combine together to make a search term. Like “How to build a successful blog”. Instead of just the phrase “Successful Blog”; we now have a more meaningful keyword phrase that is targeted at a specific group of audience. Exactly what I did when I wrote this article that got rank number 1 in Google search engine and this one too. I did not just target the keyword phrase “affiliate marketing” and “blogging in Nigeria” respectively, but I manage to narrow my audience down to a more specific group of people. That’s the key factor to online marketing. Find a small group of targeted audience who are desperately in need of a solution to their problem - find and sell to them the solution.
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On-Page SEO for Your Content. I follow and abide to one golden rule when writing my content for search engine visibility. First, I write my content for human and then, think about how to optimize it to drive organic traffic. Bear in mind that the era of keyword stuffing has gone, keyword density is no longer an important part to higher ranking of web pages. As a matter of fact, the overall density of your keyword shouldn’t be more than 5%. But there are things you can do to help your chances of ranking on the first pages of search result. Let’s assume you want to rank for the exact target keyword -”make money online”. It is easier to write your title like this – How a 20 yr old school dropout make money online. This won’t increase your chances of ranking for that keyword. The best way to write such title is to make your targeted keyword which in this case is “make money online” appear near the start of the title: “Make money online – How a 20-year-old school dropout did it“. This will help you rank better and get indexed properly. Another important rule to follow here is; within the first paragraph of your post, make sure your focus keyword appear once, and in the last paragraph. These spiders need to quickly understand what the content on a page is about and the better way to do that is to say it quickly in your copy. The page URL is an important place to include your focus keyword. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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The images you use in your post should also have their own Alt tag and description tag. This is so important at the moment because search spiders can’t understand or read images. Install Flickr pic-a-picture plugin and this will make your task on getting images for your blog post less worrisome and adding ALT meta tag and description tag are made easy to understand. We’ve talked in length on how important your content headline is to the success of your internet marketing. So, no need to spell it out here again. But bear in mind that all things being equal, your headline stands above all strategies in your copy. Yoast WordPress SEO plugin will make it easy for you to optimize your content for on-page SEO. Follow the tutorial and detailed guideline outlined by Yoast. When done with writing your post, scroll down to see if all parameters in the Yoast plugin turned green; if not, see where you have gone wrong and fix it. If done correctly, all fields should turn green with the content section indicating how many times your keyword appear in the post like the one in the image below.
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Many other remote factors contribute to higher ranking in any given search engine. Like domain age, links quality, sites speed, quality of content, frequency in posting, etc. Create quality content that people will always link to, something worthwhile. In the eyes of Google, any content that gets linked to from different authority blog is a vote of confidence for that page. This creates a good-looking natural backlinks for that page. And it gets shared a lot on the net. Everything you’ve read so far would be completely useless if your website is not worthy of linking to. In fact, if there is only one factor that guarantees higher ranking in search engines, that factor is quality content. Building back-link becomes easier when you create valuable content people are naturally linking to. When you start achieving this, every other thing you need to move to the top spot of any search engines falls into place without much stress on your part.
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Pinging your Post. Next, when you’re done writing your post and hit the publish button, it’s important that you notify search engines crawlers that your webpages have been updated. How do you do this? Head over to pingomatic and send ping to internet crawlers. The more often you update your blog, the more these spiders take you serious. Though, if you didn’t send ping to search engines crawlers, they will still come but at their convenient time. Make sure there are enough meat and potatoes to give these spiders when they arrive at you blog. They eat no food, but quality content.
Solving PayPal Issue. The issue of making and receiving payment online has been one of the major setbacks for Nigerian internet marketers. Many times you’ll find something affordable to buy online or want to offer your services in exchange for cash but can’t go ahead with the transaction due to PayPal limitation in our country. Although, many smart internet marketers have found their way to bypass this limitation imposed on us by PayPal, it’s still a risky game. As in most cases, they end up burning their own fingers losing any money they have in their PayPal account in the process. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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The good news is, many African online payment processor companies have come up to work extra harder to see an end to this frustrations African internet marketers are going through. One of which is OnlineNaira.com owned by Kayode Adesiyan. Online Naira is one of the new generation online payment processors from Nigeria. They’ve been around for quite a few years and have been going stronger year after year. Based on my experience with their services – Online Naira is an ideal recommendation to help you receive and make payment to any PayPal account worldwide as far as online money exchange is concerned. Online Naira is safe, faster, and more secure way to go about your PayPal transaction without any fear of losing your money to fraudulent individuals or any organization. All you need is to register on their website and subscribe to their PES service which is a monthly subscription program. You will be allocated with a dedicated email address that is unique for you alone. They have their charges on each PayPal transaction you make, which in my opinion is affordable and reasonable. African merchants who want to sell products or services on their website can now use Online Naira payment processor to receive money from any PayPal account holder on the internet. Collecting your money earned from ads program like Chitika, Ad dynamo, Fiverr and other well-known established websites is done without any question. All-in-all, Online Naira is my favorite for now when it comes to making and receiving PayPal payment online. I advise you to try them out today, but only do so when you have read and understood their terms and conditions for using the site. *Disclaimer* - Am not in any way soliciting for Online Naira neither am I an employee, staff, member, worker of Online Naira. I chose to recommend Online Naira solely based on personal experience with their services. Beginner’s Guide To Successful Blogging Career In Nigeria @http://www.cybernaira.com
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Individual experiences may differ and have different stories to tell. Do your due diligent findings before registering on their site. But if you’re sure they are as good as I proclaim, then register through my affiliate links in this book. That’s another way to show appreciation for all you and I have gained through the production of this book. Thank You. We have to move toward the end of this journey………..
Congratulation! We’ve both come to the concluding section of this wonderful report and I hope I have given something of value here and you’ve also gained something. My wish is that the information contained in this book would add better value to the quality of your internet marketing. I congratulate you if you’ve taken the pain to read up to this spot. Many people will buy this book and I bet will never read past some few pages before dropping it and start doing same thing they have been doing without any progress or success in sight. I urge you to start taking action on what you’ve read so far; Success is for the action takers not action listeners. Oh! Before I forgot, if you’ve not signed up to my newsletter so you can start receiving fresh blog updates immediately they go live on my blog, do so now through the links in the footer of this report. You have nothing to worry about. I wish you good luck.
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